Saturday 7 June 2014

Let Us Celebrate The Quincy Sintim-Aboagyes of Ghana

In any other nation, successful entrepreneurs like Mr. Quincy Sintim-Aboagye, the CEO of Saltpond Offshore Production Company Limited (SOPCL), would be celebrated.

 Yet,  he is constantly being hounded and pilloried in Ghana - despite the fact that against great odds he has kept the offshore oil wells off the coast of Saltpond in production for so many years now.

Japan and South Korea became successful nations, even though their economies were devastated by wars fought on their territories, precisely because they nurtured and championed a select group of local entrepreneurs. 

The Quincy Sintim-Aboagyes in our midst create jobs, provide valuable skills for young Ghanaians, and, as role models, inspire others to follow in their footsteps. Their businesses contribute to Ghana's GDP - and above all they create wealth that remains in Ghana.

 Unlike so many foreign oil companies (and multinationals in other sectors of the economy), Quincy Sintim-Aboagye's oil company has not set up subsidiary companies for the sole purpose of engaging in activities that enable it successfully rip Ghana off - through incestous offshore trading relationships whose hallmark is the over-invoicing and under-invoicing of  transactions: designed to enable them siphon money out of our national economy.

On the contrary, SOPCL is a good corporate citizen of Ghana, which  meets all its tax obligations  - and Quincy Sintim-Aboagye is a patriotic Ghanaian who chose to invest in Ghana, rather than remain in the USA: and live out the rest of his life there  in considerable  comfort.

It is the ingenuity of such dynamic and  innovative entrepreneurs, whose activities at the micro-level,  transform nations,  and turn them into prosperous societies. At the micro-level, 100,000 of such entrepreneurs employing100 workers each, will resolve Ghana's youth unemployment problem.

If an entrepreneurial culture is to take seed in Ghana and thrive, it will be the example of such brilliant entrepreneurs that will make it happen.

 Rather than constantly denigrating their businesses, let us celebrate the Quincy Sintim-Aboagyes in our midst. The very future of our nation depends on them. A word to the wise...






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