Accra-Tema Motorway Project Must Proceed as Contractually Signed

It is all about extortion by pretense to legitimacy. You see, they had 8 long years at the helm of the people’s business, as it were, but did a diddly little palpable on the ground. So, it is rather laughable for the so-called Spokesman on Transport of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Kwame Agbodza, to shamelessly liken the $ 570 Million (USD) Accra-Tema Motorway reconstruction and expansion contract signed between the Akufo-Addo Administration and a South Africa-based Portuguese company to the Mahama-authored boondoggle that was AMERI Deal or, properly speaking, the AMERI SCAM (See “NDC Caucus wants $ 570 Million Accra-Tema Motorway Contract Terminated” Modernghana.com 1/13/21).

If, for starters, the aforementioned deal was legitimately inked or initialed with the approval of Ghana’s 7^th Parliament, then there is absolutely no way, no how, for Jubilee House to allow itself to be bullied by a reckless posse of kleptocratic politicians into turning this most critical infrastructural project into another Mahama-authored scam like AMERI Deal which, interestingly, the National Democratic Congress’ Looting Brigade has been desperately trying to disown. Mr. Boakye-Agyarko’s rather lame-brained attempt to double scam the Ghanaian taxpayer by further worsening the terms of the AMERI SCAM, notwithstanding, the inescapable fact still remains that the largest contractual energy scandal, with the possible exception of the Alex Mould-initialed natural gas contractual deal with the government of Equatorial Guinea, which had to be significantly renegotiated down by the Akufo-Administration, is still the bona fide and veritable baby of the National Democratic Congress’ Looting Brigade.

It is admittedly unfortunate that the fired former Akufo-Addo Energy Minister was tempted into thinking and believing that it was perfectly the right thing to do by way of “equalizing” the thievish criminality of his National Democratic Congress predecessors by equally thievishly “democratizing” the wanton and unconscionable exploitation of Ghanaian taxpayers by some primarily self-serving bipartisan politicians. We must, however, also quickly point out the incontrovertible fact that there are still a quite remarkable number of patriotic and honest politicians from both major parties in the country. The latter crop of statesmen and stateswomen, especially on the New Patriotic Party’s side, just need to be afforded greater powers, influence and visibility by President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

It is also quite clear that the National Democratic Congress’ operatives invested heavily in both the rigging of the 2020 General Election and the bribing of understandably disaffected voters and failed and disgruntled New Patriotic Party parliamentary candidates, so that they could significantly increase their strength in the House, in precisely the way they have presently succeeded in doing, so that these NDC Looting Brigadiers could systematically and effectively sabotage the progressive and visionary national development agenda of the Akufo-Addo Administration, so as to enable them have a fighting chance in the 2024 General Election.

The NDC political machine operatives may, naturally, have conveniently forgotten about the Mahama-authored Mega-Scam that became known as the STX Building Construction Scandal, in which over $ 1 Billion (USD) was to be awarded to a South Korean-based company with little globally recognizable established business track record to build low- and middle-income estate houses, with absolutely no local content or the involvement of Ghanaian architects and building contractors. I am very certain that the tough-talking and self-righteously pontifical Mr. Agbodza was a National Assembly of Representatives (NAR) Member, when the then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama so unwisely, smugly and criminally decided to take the entire country for a ride. Ghana would, reportedly, end up losing some $ 400 Million (USD) in the aborted contract, if memory serves yours truly accurately.

Incidentally, even as I write, it is exactly 48 years to the day when the then-Col. Ignatius (Kwasi) Kutu Acheampong-led junta of the National Redemption Council (NRC), subsequently to be renamed the Supreme Military Council (SMC-I), overthrew the Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia-led democratically elected government of the Progress Party (PP), with retired Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo as Ghana’s Ceremonial President. What I want to significantly note here is that the widespread allegation of the incidence of wanton corruption brought against Gen. Acheampong and the key players of his junta and all, the Asante-Atwima-Trabuom native – later to be thoroughly stripped of all his titles and most of his wealth and properties – constructed the Dansoman Housing Estate, the largest of its kind in West Africa at the time, with 100-percent local content of architects and construction workers from the Ghana Government-owned State Construction Corporation (SCC).

There was absolutely no expatriate or “foreign content” in the detailed planning and construction of the Dansoman Housing Estates, as well as Housing Estates in the capitals of all the Nine (9) regions that existed in the country at the time. And for all his toils, love of our country and its citizens and inhabitants and his great achievements, the highlights of which a Ghanaian of northern descent meticulously listed in a newspaper column on one of our media websites not very long ago, including the seminal construction of the Tamale Government Hospital, “Mr.” I. K. Acheampong, together with 7 of his junta associates, would be summarily executed by firing squad by the late Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and the Founding Fathers of the present-day National Democratic Congress, at the time leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and, subsequently, the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC).

The NDC has absolutely no enviable record of massive industrial and infrastructural development in the country. So, it is incontrovertibly clear that the Akufo-Addo Administration is unquestionably the only Fourth-Republican Government, together with the erstwhile President John Agyekum-Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party, in which the now-President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo served as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, and later Foreign Minister and Minister of ECOWAS Integration, that is capable of contracting and seeing to the successful and complete construction of the $ 570 Million (USD) Accra-Tema Motorway Expansion and Redesigning Project so as to make a safer and more efficient use of the same. Mr. Agbodza and his NDC robber-baron associates’ feint or pretentious interest in the inclusion of “local content” in the project as it is presently constituted, rather belatedly, is just another fraudulent ruse to shamelessly award themselves some contractual boondoggles so as to enable these European Airbus-SE Payola Guzzlers to line up their wallets and pockets and those of their cronies, all in the spurious name of “Local Heroism.” Jubilee House must not back down under any circumstances, whatsoever.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

January 13, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]