Rhetoric With Substance, If You Were To Ask Me

He has been called “an economist” and was, in fact, Governor of the Bank of Ghana once. He is also known to have taught the subject in both Ghanaian and Nigerian academies. But in terms of his professional impact on the ground, as it were, former Vice-President Kwesi BekoeAmissah-Arthur has not made any significant or credible impact on the country’s economic development. There is absolutelyno surprise here, whatsoever, because Mr. Amissah-Arthur was appointed Interim-Vice-President, in the wake of the mysterious passing of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills, to replenish the Fante-Quota among the ranks of the leadership of the then-ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). His only claim to any distinction, to-date, is the fact that Mr. Amissah-Arthur co-managed unarguably the most corrupt regime in the history of postcolonial Ghana.

He was also one of the architects and supervisors of the Judgment-Debt Policy Initiative that witnessed the withering scamming of the Ghanaian taxpayer to the tune of billions of dollars and cedis, in a scheme that could be aptly characterized as the most unenlightened and primitive, if not downright savage, policy regime of its kind anywhere around the globe. In the globally infamous Judgment-Debt Policy Initiative, we had cabinet or ministerial appointees, and other highly placed public officials, largely from the now-opposition National Democratic Congress, fronting for foreign corporate cabals to facilitate the summary abrogation of government-fangled contracts, for which these political and common criminals received kickbacks in the form of retainers by judicial default. It was scandalously akin to deliberately setting one’s own home, or residential community, alight and getting handsomely paid for such nihilistic effort.

What the foregoing simply means is that these local fronts of fraudulent contractual extortion deals would deliberately violate the trust of the Ghanaian citizen and taxpayer by entering into dubious contractual compacts, knowing fully well that the country did not stand to benefit from such deals, but only lose and lose royally, as it were. The result was that a newly elected or succeeding government, realizing the patent nuisance – actually exploitative nature – of such contracts, resorted to having such civically asinine contractual scams summarily revoked, more out of sheer, albeit justifiable, resentment or annoyance over such wickedly orchestrated mischief, without critically considering the dire consequences of the unilateral breaching of the legal technicalities involved in the signing of such patently criminal contractual agreements.

Until very recently, this was the near-exclusive bonanza preserve for the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress. The thorough stanching, or effective stoppage, of such developmentally regressive policy initiative is what President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo means when Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice talks about having ushered the country into a new era that will ensure that such unconscionable bleeding of the country’s resources for the benefit of a few local mischief-making front men and women is stopped and, instead, have such precious capital resources jealously guarded and used for the primary, if not exclusive, benefit of the Ghanaian taxpayer.

The rationale, or philosophy, behind this constructive new policy initiative, or progressive agenda, is that if the nation’s relatively abundant resources were wisely protected by our elected and democratically appointed leaders, there will not be any need for Ghanaians to build an economy that is pathologically dependent on foreign aid of the sort that merely amounts to evanescent or economically unsustainable periodic handouts. Mr. Amissah-Arthur clearly understands this progressive Akufo-Addo policy initiative but like the rest of the cynical lot among the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, he prefers to play dumb and ignorant (See “Amissah-Arthur Jabs Akufo-Addo; Says ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ Mere Rhetoric” Modernghana.com 3/8/18).

As a key collaborator in the Woyome Mega-Heist, as well as an avid partner of the blood-sucking SADA, SUBAH and GYEEDA rackets, the former Vice-President ought to know better than fleeringly presume to impugn the integrity and credibility of President Akufo-Addo. Needless to say, what we are dealing with here far transcends the facile demand for “timelines” and lexicographical, or dictionary, “definitions.”It is about fiscal discipline and managerial responsibility. If the former Vice-President sincerely thinks and believes that the proverbial average Ghanaian citizen is, somehow, too cognitively dense to appreciate this plain and simple fact of life, Mr. Amissah-Arthur must be comatose and ought not to be taken any more seriously that his presidential toy-crying former boss.

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