No Turning Back the Clock of Ghana’s Development

There is absolutely no merit to the so-called concerns expressed by the leaders of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), over the potentially negative impact that the $ 10 billion deal struck between the Akufo-Addo Administration and the Chinese government is apt to have on our environment, in particular our waterbodies and forestry resources (See “Chinese $ 10 BN Could Create Over 100,000 Jobs – Osafo Maafo” MyJoyOnline.com / Modernghana.com 6/30/17). The NDC expressions of grave concern are absolutely without merit because it was that party’s own governments, spearheaded by Messrs. John Evans Atta-Mills, late, and John Dramani Mahama, that exacerbated the Galamsey, or illegal mining, problem of the wanton destruction of our waterbodies, lands and forestry resources that now has fallen to the Akufo-Addo Administration to deal with one very last time or see our country fast recede into an abject culture of barbarism.

We must also quickly underscore the fact that it was the government of the Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress that unconscionably, selfishly and myopically dismantled the legion state-owned factories that used to be grouped under the umbrella of the Ghana Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC). The lion’s share of these factories was created during the country’s First Republic under the tenure of the Nkrumah-led government of the Convention People’s Party (CPP). And so, clearly, it cannot be said with any modicum, or iota, of credibility that the Jerry John Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress has contributed any significantly towards the industrial development of the country. If anything at all, it is the key operatives of the state-owned real-estate property-grabbing National Democratic Congress who have perennially and systematically attempted to send Ghana back into the unenviable State-of-Nature, in Hobbesian parlance, to be certain.

Now, we must also emphasize the fact that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is not the first political party to have struck a development deal with the Beijing authorities, although it can scarcely be gainsaid that it was the Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party that struck, perhaps, the most significant development deal with Beijing, in the form of the Bui Dam Power Plant Project, in the recent past. President Akufo-Addo’s Compact with the Chinese government is both unprecedented and far-reaching. And it is primarily for this reason that the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress clearly appear to be on the verge of an epileptic fit and pants-wetting funk at the same time.

You see, the so-called concerns being expressed by the front-row players of the National Democratic Congress is more squarely based on the assessment of the grim fortunes of their party and whichever candidates they choose to field in the lead-up to the next general election, in December 2020, rather than any genuine concern that the Mahama Posse may be aptly deemed to have for the welfare and development of the country. The China Deal offers the country the most serious shot yet at the possibility of transforming Ghana into continental Africa’s industrial hub. But that it is not being spearheaded by one of their fellow ideological campers, is clearly what troubles the NDC’s parliamentary minority leaders.

As well, that Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, the Senior Minister, who accompanied Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia on the China Deal trip, and is an acclaimed successful businessman and a creative and savvy dealmaker, is also very worrisome to the NDC apparatchiks, notorious for their operational mantra of “Create, Loot and Share.” Mr. Osafo-Maafo has assessed the deal and come to the foresighted conclusion that the $ 10 billion bauxite exploitation compact with China is the most favorable and environmentally friendly way of creating at least 100,000 jobs for the indescribably deprived and abjectly neglected but able-bodied lower-class Ghanaian citizenry.

But, predictably, rather than show gratitude for the yeomanly and development-friendly agenda of Nana Akufo-Addo, the NDC’s apparatchiks have decided to mount a blistering nihilistic campaign of “Perpetual National Mark Time” against the same. Needless to say, here also, the Mahama Posse is bound to fail more than miserably. These nation-wreckers are headed for Camp Political Suicide in the foreseeable future.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
July 1, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]