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From a dietician through a taxi driver to the opposition political activist with a wide-open eye on President Mills's almighty throne at the Osu Castle, oil is perpetually terrible news: Let us start with the dietician's galloping nightmare or rather the screaming medical news headline about oil that never, ever gets written:

The nation is swimming in oils high in saturated fats. We fry eggs, fry chicken, fry fish, fry yam, fry plantain, fry pastries, and believe it or not, we fry rice grain! Oil that has already been used in frying food is used again and again.

We are in big trouble Jomo! How do we explain in kitchen language easily comprehensible to housewives and 'chop bar' keepers, the life-threatening and complex physiochemical processes which take place in both the oil and the food being fried?

“Hello auntie Afua, the food in this 'chop bar' is delicious papapa, but the oil is too much." When you fry oils high in saturated fatty acids, hydro-peroxides and trans-fatty acids are formed.

They in turn form free radicals and other undesirable substances which cause cancer and other killer diseases.

(“Papa krachie, what are you trying to tell me..?”) It is a task best left to public health educators!

The other type of oil, on the other hand, is in scant supply or rather a fuel shortage appears imminent and petroleum consumers are doing a great deal of fretting with a little help from opposition political activists:

The former are worried that supplies could run out in the next few weeks, and consumers are compelled to run machines and automobiles on two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen.

The latter appear to be making grand capital of President Mills's running around in a fruitless search for crude for refining by our ailing national refinery in Tema.

The impression is being created that the Mills administration has its problem-fixing machines running furiously in reverse gear.

Mills, it appears, has made some desperate efforts to get some crude from Nigeria, Libya and Venezuela without success. Scheduled deliveries promised by the Government have not been forthcoming.

I tell you, Jomo, there is more to energy economics than political friendships, whatever that means.

The global market for oil is very competitive and I dare say at any given time, oil producers supply to buyers offering the highest prices.

Oil economics does not operate on a 'this is my buddy, so he gets some crude” basis, does it?

NDC scapegoat hunters went looking for a culprit and found one in former President Kufuor. Kufuor and former President Olusegun Obasanjo are buddies, they noted.

When Mills came to power, he abrogated a contract under which the Nigerian oil marketing company Sahara had previously supplied crude to Ghana.

“It is him alright…”, some NDC activists grumbled, pointing accusing fingers at former President Kufuor when a ship dispatched to Nigeria returned without a drop of the precious fluid.

There is a very powerful mafia with business interests in the Tema Oil Refinery. Mills has even a few party friends and brethren in the oil brotherhood.

He has received an accurate rundown on things and it is up to him to clean things up if he has a serious interest in a second term of office!

Amid accusations that he had something to do with Mills's oil problems, Kufuor was having problems of his own: Kufuor-friendly media had inflated a colourful balloon of great expectations that the former President was going to be the recipient of the third edition of the Mo Ibrahim Award for African Leadership Achievement. Kufuor's friends tipped him ahead of Obasanjo and Mbeki to win the award. Continued    Source: DAILY GRAPHIC - Daily Graphic

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