Thursday 22 December 2011

THE WOYOME AFFAIR: WHO IN THE KUFUOR CABINET OF 2005/2006 WILL EVENTUALLY BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR WILLFULLY CAUSING FINANCIAL LOSS TO GHANA?

It will not be far fetched, dear reader, to say that the whole of Ghana, literally awaits the denouement of the Woyome judgment-debt payment saga. Naturally, because of its impact on the nation, the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) propagandists see it as a golden opportunity to maul the Mills administration mortally - and have been quick to make political capital out of it, using the electronic media, mostly.

In so doing, the NPP is plumbing new depths of hypocrisy, as it is a fact that it was the arrogance and irresponsibility of Kufuor & Co., in the first place - in abrogating a legally binding contract - which has resulted in Ghanaian taxpayers losing such huge sums: through a judgment-debt payment to Alfred Agbesi Woyome and as a result of an arbitration award, paid out to Waterville BVI.

The capacity for self-delusion amongst members of our political class is breathtaking: Let the NPP continue to think that this is a perfect big-stick to beat the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime with.

What they seem to forget, is that President Mills is the most honest (and humblest!) individual to lead Ghana, thus far, since the overthrow of President Nkrumah, in February 1966. It is not as if he and his regime and are involved in some fraud with Woyome - to rip-off the Ghanaian nation-state and the people of Ghana. Far from it!

When those notorious dream-killers and illusion-shatterers-supreme, the infamous gang-of-brutal-facts, and their hard-nosed side-kicks, the plain-truth-posse, eventually ambush them, and reality finally hits them in the face, perhaps they will then realise just what a grave error of judgement, latching on to the Woyome judgement-debt saga, so quickly, was. Hmm, Ghana - eyeasem oo: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa!

To those discerning, independent-minded and patriotic individuals, who always put Mother Ghana first, and whose crucial swing-votes now determine the outcome of presidential elections in Ghana (thank goodness - as opposed to the teeming millions of "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types, many of whom put party and tribe before loyalty to Mother Ghana, and whose blinkered support for the NPP and NDC, is slowly destroying those two parties, alas), who may be wondering who to believe, in this most extraordinary of murky-affairs, let me simply say this: let them ponder why the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo, the Minister for Education, Youth and Sports at the material time now under scrutiny, cautioned his colleagues in the Kufuor administration - in a cabinet memo, dated 27th July 2005, about the implications of abrogating a legally-binding contract.

Furthermore, they must also ask themselves, why none of the NPP's handsomely-paid mercenary-apologists in the Ghanaian media, happens to be addressing the issue of why a foreign legal firm would take it upon itself, to write to threaten a government of Ghana with future legal action, if contracts duly awarded to their clients were illegally terminated - which is precisely what Colin Russell, lawyers for Waterville BVI/Vamed Engineering did, on August 27, 2005.

Now, whiles we may all be entitled to our opinions, facts, however, are sacrosanct - and there can only be one set of facts in this shabby affair. The question is: is it factual, that the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo and the legal firm, Collin Russel, did write to caution the NPP regime of President Kufuor about the implication of abrogating the Waterville BVI/Vamed Engineering contract, on the said two dates stated above: 27th July 2005 and August 27, 2005 - and if so, why?

Doubtless we will all soon know what bearing those letters have on the truth about who is really responsible for the hapless taxpayers of Ghana losing so much money, through the payment of a judgement-debt of such magnitude, to Woyome, and as a result of an arbitration award, paid out to Waterville BVI.

At that juncture, perhaps instead of focusing exclusively on Alfred Agbesi Woyome, we will all be wondering who exactly in the Kufuor regime at the time, will be charged, prosecuted and jailed, for wilfully causing financial loss to the Ghanaian nation-state.

I must confess, dear reader, that it is exactly that deeply-satisfying prospect, of finally seeing the swindlers and thieves in that profligate and perfidious regime, finally being charged, prosecuted and jailed, for the brutal and repeated gang-rape of Mother Ghana, which makes this whole affair so riveting for me. The chickens may finally be coming home to roost for Kufuor & Co., who always thought that somehow they led charmed lives - and were beyond the reach of the laws of Ghana.

Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.

POST SCRIPT: Let me point it out, dear reader, to each one of those ace-hypocrites, who fill most of the seats on the side of the Minority in Parliament - and all of whom knew exactly how dishonest and crooked Kufuor & Co. were - that as a matter of fact, the cause of the single biggest loss of money to the national treasury, since Ghana gained its independence, is not the relatively paltry sums a court ordered be paid to Woyome as judgement-debt, but are the billions of dollars of revenues that should rightly be coming the way of our nation and all its people, but are not, as a result of high-level sleight-of-hand manoeuvring, which gave a stake in oilfields off our nation's shores, to two well-connected Ghanaians, who did not even pay a pesewa upfront for same.

Does the US$350 million-plus, for example, which should have been paid into the national kitty, but was not, and went instead to that opaque "front" (to use a word from the erstwhile crook-in-chief's own lips, once upon a time, in a Freudian-slip, on national television!) for Kufuor & Co., the E. O. Group, when Tullow Oil acquired some of that nebulous entity's interest in the Jubilee oilfield, not too long ago, not make Woyome's GHc 52-plus millions, pale into insignificance, I ask, dear reader?

Did we hear a whimper from those ace-hypocrites from the Minority in Parliament - expressing disquiet that private individuals from our country should get away with such obscene sums, which rightly should have come to all Ghanaians: if Nkrumah's vision of a caring and sharing society guided our leaders and informed policy today, instead of the rip-off culture and ethos of private greed at public expense, which, alas, now underpin virtually everything our ruling elites do?

Kwame Nkrumah must be turning in his grave - that what he abhored most: that a powerful few with greedy ambitions, could succeed in hijacking Ghana's natural resources, at the expense of the rest of us, with complete impunity, is now the reality of our times. O, how one weeps for Mother Ghana - now dominated mostly by super-ruthless blackguards. Pity.

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