Conspiracy To Ruin Ghana

In Ghana for example, drinking mahogany bitters is regarded as an archaic and 'bushiatic' way of life because mahogany bitters is brewed in the African pot. Put a bottle of Black Label on the table, and you are regarded as an African of substance. These days, courtesy my very good friend, Dr. Acquaah, I can smell not just Black Label, but Double Black Label. Me too I am somebody, but note that all of them perform the same function ooo, except that if one takes the Black Label, one is very comfortable 'blowing the fuse' on a beautiful damsel, on the other hand one is likely to hide at the sight of a pretty lady if it is mahogany bitters. If you take mahogany bitters and you meet your in-law, you don't talk plenty ooo unless he or she also visits the Blue kiosk.

May be the call by President Mahama to all of us to patronise Made-In-Ghana goods should touch seriously on mahogany bitters as a substitute for Black Labels. President Mahama should take the lead by ensuring that 'from today to go' all visitors to the Jubilee House are toasted with palm wine (nsa fufuo) or pito instead of sparkling strawberry Champagne. During dinner, two or three tots of mahogany bitters or 'herbafrik' would be enough to raise anybody's appetite for tuo-zafii, konkonte and palm nut soup, fufu and ebunebunu with dry adwene and two pieces of snails to boot. These will not only save us foreign exchange to soar up our dying currency, but will also increase internal productivity in the production of those items stated above.

To attain the above are all dependent on the effectiveness and vision of leadership at any given point in time. Ghana, our beloved country, has gone through some good times and some very bad times in the almost 57 years of nationhood. Ghana's good time began immediately after independence, when the nation became the African Mecca which hosted so many people for good and for evil. Ghanaians were the toast of the world; however instead of toasting with palm wine and pito, we went overboard in some cases whiles we did very well in other cases.

Over time, we messed up our lives and became a mockery in the eyes of other nations in the West African sub-region. The Shining Black Star suddenly fell and lost its way along the journey towards development, self-fulfilment and glories. Resilient as we are, we girdled our loins, braced ourselves up and got back to the highways and started our leadership role. Sadly, over the last six years, the NDC governments of the late Prof. John Fiifi Mills and John Mahama have sent this beautiful nation back to the doldrums and darkness.

From day one of assumption of office in January 2009, every step of the government indicated that the nation was in for trouble in terms of the management of our resources.  A simple act of handing over from the outgoing government to the incoming government cost this nation a whooping amount of over GH¢130,000 (about US$100,000) which went into tea and snacks. In a particular year, when the then President had asked that no hampers were to be distributed during Christmas, an aide at the Information Ministry allegedly used an amount of GH¢160, 000 (also around US$100, 000) to purchase and distribute hampers to media houses—an allegation those media houses vehemently denied. The most harrowing act of nation wrecking was the payment of almost GH¢52million to Alfred Agbesi Woyome for no work done for this country. When this news broke, Ghanaians were shocked to the marrow, but NDC communicators, the Achina Brentuos, Otokunors, Okudzeto-Ablakwas, and Alex Segbefias, among others, at their propaganda best, defended the payments and accused the previous government for causing the debt in the first instance. In fact the then President was not worried about the dubious payment but those who caused the debt.

The Deputy Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Mr. Barton Oduro, who had a responsibility to defend the nation in times of litigation against the state, rather facilitated the payment of this money. When there was even clear evidence of wrong doing, Barton-Oduro came out to tell the nation that we had no case to pursue against the claims by Woyome and that Woyome deserved to be paid. Ghanaians should not forget that it was after the payment of the GH¢51.2million to Woyome that he spent over US$1.5 million to transport about a 1000 NDC foot soldiers to South Africa to watch the World Cup tournament in 2010.

Further revelations became public that huge sums of monies had been paid to foreign companies by the government for no jobs done for this country. In the case of the over £100 million to CP, a foreign construction firm in Ghana, for no work done, the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Mrs. Betty Mould-Idrisu, told Ghanaians that she did us a favour by negotiating down, our indebtedness to CP when indeed there was no such indebtedness. The Waterville, Isofoton payments and many more of such criminal conspiracies by people in government and their collaborators, were meant to run down the country.

Each government this nation has had—from Nkrumah to Kufuor—has been tainted with one form of corruption or the other. In many instances they were acts perpetuated by individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of the state. It is bad, but not once has any group of people who have been entrusted with our resources to manage them for our collective good, conspired in such nauseating, fearless and arrogant manner to collapse the economy of this country. The main motivation of the NDC to get into power, was the fact that the nation had struck oil in commercial quantities for the first time.

Late President Atta- Mills and Mahama watched, unconcerned, as appointees of their governments mismanaged the proceeds from our oil industry. By the time they realised, they had stolen more than the oil money could replenish. The NDC regime is lucky to have had oil monies, gold prices got to their highest ever, cocoa prices and volumes went up the highest in our history, but what we can do is to catalogue missed opportunities to improve our lives.

All the social interventions the Kufuor administration put in place have been destroyed. NYEP, turned into GYEEDA, is dead. Where are the yellow-shirted young people who were changed into blue shirted people? They have all been dismissed. The blue-overall Zoomlion staff can't be found on our streets anymore. The Health Insurance Sheme, School Feeding Programme, Free Maternal Health Care, free school ride on Metro Mass Transit buses, Tema Oil Refinery have all collapsed under the NDC government.

In their stead are the money shredding SUBAH, GYEEDA, SADA, FREE COMPUTERS, FREE ELECTION CARS, and FREE PADS of various sizes and colours.

In the face of the Supreme Court's exposure of the criminality of Woyome in the GH¢51.2million judgement debt case, is Barton Oduro still the 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament? I bet you, if he is not booted out of that office, I am going to organise an OCCUPY PARLIAMENT when they resume. Ghanaians deserve some respect. Two tots, Daavi.

 From Kwesi Biney