Did President Mahama Ever Meet With The AMERI Group's Umar Farooq Zahoor - And If Yes, When And Where, Did They First Meet?

The controversy surrounding the AMERI Group's agreement with Ghana will not end as long as a number of key questions remain unanswered.

In dealing with those questions, the geniuses at the presidency whose knee-jerk reaction is to spin their way out of trouble, must not make the same mistake that President Nixon's aides made when the break-in at Washington's Watergate Hotel was first discovered and reported by the American media: elect to dissemble.

It could easily lead to the unravelling of the Mahama presidency.

This is a very serious matter, in which  a fraudster who is a fugitive from justice in Norway and Switzerland, appears to have  taken their regime and Ghana, for a gigantic ride.

Consequently, in dealing with questions to do with the AMERI Group's agreement with Ghana, they must be guided by the dictum:  "Honesty is always the best policy".

It would be a grave error of judgment on their part to seek refuge in the nonsensical face-saving denials by the AMERI Group's office in Ghana that their Umar Farooq Zahoor is not the Umar Farooq Zahoor being sought by Norwegian and Swiss police.

He is one and the same person - and the whole deal was cooked up by him. And Sheikh Ahmed bin Dalmook Al Maktoum is as much a victim of Umar Farooq Zahoor's as Ghana is. Umar Farooq Zahoor abused his friendship with the kindhearted UAE Prince Ahmed Al Maktoum - and used him for his own selfish ends.

To begin with one of the questions that President Mahama's administration must answer is: How did the AMERI Group end up obtaining a contract to supply 10 mobile gas turbine generating sets to Ghana?

If the whole point about free enterprise is that one risks one's capital so as to make profit, then why should Ghanaians tolerate an opaque deal, which guarantees fat profits for the AMERI Group for five years - but offloads all the risk involved in its venture to generate electricity for sale in Ghana, to electricity users, and, ultimately, to taxpayers here?

Is that not the socialisation of private risk, I ask - so why should any patriotic individual agree to allow Ghana to be saddled with such a free-market abomination: because public officials whose job it is to protect the national interest at all material times in such instances stopped thinking when they fell under Umar Farooq Zahoor's spell?

Would the AMERI Group dare take such a proposal to the British government of Prime Minister David Cameron - or to the government of any of the EU member states? Would they not be laughed out of town?

And would there not  be a flury of articles by right-wing columnists in neo-liberal-tilting newspapers there asking to have their heads examined by psychiatrists - for having the effrontery to propose such outrageous terms in their business model to supply electricity to UK and EU consumers?

Those who are ensconced in the first class carriages of the Mahama administration's gravy train, must not think that they can get away with this particular pure nonsense on bamboo stilts. If it was their own money would they give it away so freely?

Umar Farooq Zahoor's crookedness has everything to do with this scandal - and Ghanaians will not tolerate the attempt to rip Mother Ghana off yet again. Enough is enough.

The Mahama administration must tell the nation who approached who first: Did Ghanaian government ministers first approach the AMERI Group, and, if yes, when exactly did they meet with executives from the AMERI Group, and where?

And who were the executives from the AMERI Group who represented the company at that initial meeting? Was Umar Farooq Zahoor present at that initial meeting - and what executive position did he hold in the company at that time?

Did President Mahama ever meet with Umar Farooq Zahoor - and where and when did they first meet? Did they discuss Ghana's energy crisis - and who initiated that conversation?

Was the possibility of the company represented by Umar Farooq Zahoor supplying Ghana with a gas-fired power plant discussed at any stage by President Mahama with Umar Farooq Zahoor?

And when exactly did President Mahama first know about the AMERI Group being given a contract to supply Ghana with 10 General Electric TM2500+ mobile gas turbine generating sets, and who in his administration first appraised him of the full facts to do with that particular contract?

Finally, why, if the AMERI Group's Umar Farooq Zahoor did actually meet with President Mahama, did those in charge of national security, not conduct a background check on him, with both Norwegian and UAE security officials, before allowing him to meet with the President of the Republic of Ghana? Hmm, Ghana - enti yeawieye paa enia? Asem  ebeba debi ankasa.