Stop this Scandalous Talk about Parliamentary Collaboration between NPP and NDC – Part 3

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The massive hemorrhage of parliamentary seats on the part of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) does not necessarily imply that those who virulently voted against the Akufo-Addo Administration – the President himself was decently indemnified – were necessarily in favor of the sinister return of the Presidential Candidate of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. John “Akonfem-SADA” Dramani Mahama, who collapsed more Ghanaian business enterprises than any other postcolonial Ghanaian leader in our country’s 63-year-old contemporary existence; and he did this only in the four-and-half-year period from late July of 2012 to January 7, 2017. At any rate, it bears further observing that the clearly implacably disgruntled voters who expressed their utter disappointment with the generally dismal conduct of many of the leaders of the New Patriotic Party were, in reality, saying that they almost could care less whether by the eve of the December 2020 General Election, the country were to handed over to a gang of orangutans or chimpanzees.

Which is why one cannot but express withering contempt over the rather ludicrous idea that, somehow, Ghanaians had fallen so madly in love with the man who so thoroughly ran the entire economy of their beloved country aground that they wanted Candidate John “Akonfem-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama to resume occupancy of Jubilee House or the Presidency and begin the all too mundane and morally and civically benighted process of “correcting his past mistakes.” No such expectation could be more insulting to the intelligence of the Ghanaian voter. Once again, it was the abject lack of viable communication skills on the part of the New Patriotic Party’s Communications Team that ensured that their more tactical and strategic counterparts of the National Democratic Congress would make hay out of the generous sunshine that was the Banking Crisis which, alone, had it been deftly and effectively handled, ought to have thoroughly and effectively and definitively shut down the entire electioneering campaign machinery of both Candidate Mahama and that of the National Democratic Congress, at large, much sooner than the former did.

Instead, the NDC’s agenda-setting communications team decided to stage manage how the Banking Crisis was both perceived by the general public and publicly discussed by tactically focusing the subject of discussion on the number of banking staff and professionals who had lost their jobs, as well as the even much larger number of bank depositors who might have lost their money or savings. Consequently, we even had President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo forced to defensively discuss the question of precisely how many affected bank depositors and/or customers had been reimbursed which, by the way, as very significant as it was, readily paled in importance when compared with the long-term health of both the country’s Banking Industry and the nation’s macroeconomy at large and, even more significantly, the unique and central role played in all this by key operatives of the Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress.

So, for example, one was more likely to hear the President glibly and smugly note that approximately 90-percent of depositors of the collapsed banks had been fully reimbursed, almost as if the other 10-percent who had yet to receive their money back were a mere marginal statistic that could numerically or practically not make any seismic dent in the December 7, 2020 polls. Yes, based on the publicly disclosed reimbursement record by the Finance Minister and, in effect, the Akufo-Addo Administration at large, one had every reason to believe and be hopeful that each and every one of these victims of poor banking policies and the gross mismanagement of taxpayer and private funds would eventually be fully reimbursed or be reasonably well compensated, as dictated on a case-by-case basis. But, of course, it also went without saying that time was fast running out on the government, if Nana Akufo-Addo was to effectively avoid not being seriously haunted by this clearly unfinished business on polling day.

But, needless to say, the much bigger part of the fallout from the Banking Crisis was the palpably and apparently woeful inability of the Akufo-Addo Administration to bring the most-guilty culprits to book or promptly to account. It was in this critical realm of accountability and the prompt and radical application of law-enforcement and judicial justice that stood a great chance of causing the most damage to the Akufo-Addo government. On these latter fronts, there clearly appeared to be a virtual stasis or absolutely no hopeful signs indicating that, indeed, any humongous wrongdoing of apocalyptic proportions had occurred in the banking sector that required prompt rectification and/or strict and swift application of the law and the judicial system.

For example, as recently or late as the eve of the December 2020 General Election, no impressive and/or remarkable number of bankers, owners of the collapsed banking institutions and the top-management officials of these institutions had been arrested or were being arrested and prosecuted left and right, as a government that had been touting the radical fight against official corruption since its inception was expected to do, or ought to have been doing, in order to send an unmistakable signal to the general public and the Ghanaian citizenry at large, that the nonchalant and lackadaisical approach to the corruption fight by the previous Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime was decidedly well behind Ghanaians, and that henceforth, it was no longer going to be business as usual, while our national economy precipitously spiraled down the creek, as it were.

So, in the palpable absence of the fact of any wrongdoing having been done, the general Ghanaian public was left with the bizarre impression that all the highfalutin talk of the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress’ having thoroughly bankrupted our banking system was sheer canard or hogwash. It also did not help matters that operatives of the Finance Ministry were not forthcoming on the PDS deal, in which all the available evidence actually indicated that, indeed, the government had made the soundest and most appropriate judgment call, vis-à-vis the long-term prospects of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), by promptly and roundly rejecting the relatively diddly sum of $ 20 Million (USD) Millennium Development Account (MDA) grant, which appeared to be more geared towards making the business venture of one of America’s former colonial subjects prosperous at the damnable long-term expense and detriment of Ghana.

I have already reasonably extensively discussed the most accessible and salient details of the PDS deal in several previous columns, so do not find it necessary or even much useful to rehash the same herein. Suffice it to note, however, that the downright selfish and negative rants by the entrepreneurially narcissistic Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, the bulwark and vanguard operative of the New Patriotic Party, actually made the controversy surrounding the PDS deal seem far worse than the National Democratic Congress’ propagandists could have made the same.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

December 28, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]