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A-Plus Has To Be Expelled From NPP

Feature Article A-Plus Has To Be Expelled From NPP
SEP 30, 2017 LISTEN

He is known for his good investigative skills and may be the real Father of Investigative Journalism in Ghana. But there were already enough details out there for any critical thinker to have drawn the obvious conclusion that Hiplife musician Mr. Kwame Obeng Asare was selfishly and greedily protecting his own private business interests, when he virulently accused the two Deputy Presidential Chiefs-of-Staff, Messrs. Abu Jinapor and Asenso-Boakye, of being hopelessly mired neck-deep in corrupt conduct at the Flagstaff House (See “Kwaku Baako Drops Hint of Issues A-Plus Cited at Korle-Bu” MyJoyOnline.com / Modernghana.com 9/30/17).

What is important to bear in mind here is the imperative need for President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo and his staff at the Presidency, including Vice-President MahamuduBawumia, of course, to think harder than they appear to be doing at the moment, when it comes to selecting and posting managerial aides for the CEOs of the various corporate entities over which they are statutorily empowered to staff. Now, I don’t what sort of aide Mr. ObengAsare was named to the Chief Executive Officer of the country’s flagship health center, the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. But it must be obvious to the executive operatives of the Flagstaff house, by now, that the appointee under discussion here has a diddly little to absolutely no aptitude, whatsoever, for the job.

Already, we have been told that A-Plus, as Mr. ObengAsare is popularly known, has been awarded a lucrative contract with BOST, the Bulk-Oil Storage and Transportation Company, the retail subsidiary of the Ghana National Petroleum Coporation (GNPC). And that is where matters ought to have ended vis-à-vis the rewarding of this young man who, admittedly, used his remarkable artistic skills and talent to facilitate the smooth-sailing of the Akufo-Addo 2016 Presidential-Election Campaign. Feeding the evidently insatiable appetite of A-Plus clearly appears to be what has given rise to the present administrative hiccups for President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo.

Needless to say, we have worked too hard and come too far to allow the petty-minded tendencies and raw greed of this young man to derail the best of our intentions and efforts. I do not intend to lengthily or extensively discuss the question of whether, indeed, Messrs. Jinapor and Asenso-Boakye acted wrongfully or “corruptly” when the two gentlemen decided to give contractual preference to the locally owned and operated Unibank in the lucrative business of revenue collection at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, over the foreign-owned Stanbic Bank, which had evidently been initially awarded this contract.

What is significant here is not the practically legitimate fact of whether Unibank substantially contributed to both Nana Akufo-Addo’s 2016 Presidential Election Campaign and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as a whole, but the fact of which institutional revenue collector was apt to put more money into the public till or treasury than his/her own pocket. For money is what the Akufo-Addo Administration cannot be accused of having enough to fully roll out its people-oriented development agenda. If Stanbic Bank was relatively more fiscally responsible and the more publicly profitable of the two banks, then, of course, it ought not to have mattered which corporate entity had financially contributed substantially towards the Akufo-Addo presidential campaign.

In the end, the corporate contributor may be aptly envisaged to be hell-bent on rapaciously reaping where it may only have sown “chicken feed,” as it were. He may have admirably issued an apology to President Akufo-Addo for bringing the image and reputation of both the Presidency and the party into abject disrepute and public ridicule, but it is quite clear that Mr. ObengAsare wants to eat his “Ofam” and have it too. Which is why he well appears to be playing a bait-and-switch game with both police investigators and some party stalwarts. In the end, the prohibitive cost of Mr. ObengAsare’s game may necessitate his summary expulsion from the New Patriotic Party, if his morbid and seemingly pathological tendencies are not to compromise the progressive national development agenda of the Akufo-Addo government.

A-Plus was fully aware of the appropriate channels by which to seek redress for his grievance against Messrs. Jinapor and Asenso-Boakye, and yet decided to take it to his Facebook page, which only complicated matters and tactically played into the hands of Nana Akufo-Addo’s prime political foes and detractors of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). A-Plus needs to seriously consider whether he wants to remain a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party or the Asiedu-Nketia-led National Democratic Congress. He has no other choice.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

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