Mutawakilu Is a Screaming Joke

Adam Mutawakilu

Absolutely not! Ghanaians should not direct their anger and utter disappointment at the allegedly profligate monthly payment of some $ 28 Million by the present Akufo-Addo government to the gas-production and supply company called ENI, that was contracted by a grossly incompetent Mahama-led regime of the democratically ousted National Democratic Congress (NDC) – (See “Direct Your Woes at NPP for $28 M Monthly Payments to ENI Gas – Minority” Modernghana.com 1/5/19). We make the preceding submission because the key operatives of the Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress have a track-record of wasteful spending of taxpayer money. On the latter count, of course, the unmistakable reference is to the criminal culture of Judgment-Debt Decisions which was only recently, I hope, brought to a screeching and definitive halt by the Akufo-Addo-led Administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

But even before we delve any deeper into the blame-game of which of our two major political parties plunged our nation into such unnecessary waste, we need to seriously recall the fact that between the one-month period, from December 7, 2016, when the John Dramani Mahama government lost the last general election, and January 7, 2017, when then President-Elect Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo assumed the democratic reins of governance, the NDC has been widely alleged to have criminally signed more agreements with contractors, both foreign and local, than at anytime during its four-and-half-year tenure, when it was all-too-obvious that the Mahama regime was not going to be at the helm of the people’s affairs over the course of the next four years to follow through with the dictates of such scorched-earth agreements, agreements that were primarily struck not the least out of patriotism but with the mischievous gambit of effectively hobbling or considerably regressing the development policy agenda of the incoming government, and thus criminally and unconscionably stalling the entire development agenda of the nation.

In sum, for the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress, the utmost priority has always been about the retention of power at all costs, rather than the constitutionally inviolable development of the country. Indeed, it goes without saying that the thorough investigation of agreements signed by the Mahama regime in the period in question ought to be exclusively added to the terms of reference of Mr. Martin ABK Amidu, the Independent Special Public Prosecutor. And the fingered culprits must be promptly brought to book. We also need to underscore the fact that patriotic politicians do not engage in the sort of fraudulent double-salary drawing caper in which a considerable number of the Mahama cabinet appointees have been forensically sustainably established to have perpetrated against the wantonly exploited Ghanaian taxpayer.

The NDC’s Minority Spokesperson on Mines and Energy, Mr. Adams Mutawakilu, needs to be informed that no well-meaning government enters into capital-intensive agreements, such as the one involving the Italian gas-producing company called ENI, when the buyer is not already prepared or ready to fully utilize such taxpayer-funded facilities or amenities as provided for in the pact. But it equally does not give us much comfort, when all that the New Patriotic Party leaders can do about such acts of unpardonable criminality is to cause a reduction in the cost of such criminal profligacy by renegotiating such scams. I am, of course, fully aware of the fact that the nature and the established protocol of these international agreements do not flexibly allow for the unilateral, immediate and summary abrogation of the same. Still, at some point in the near future, if our entire nation is not to perish or go down the proverbial drain, a way would have to be found to opportunely dispose of such noetic or plain idiotic agreements.

We should also take full and sober cognizance of the fact that downwardly renegotiating a veritable contractual waste, such as the ENI’s pact with the Ghana Government, which is reportedly currently costing the nation some $ 28 Million (USD) a month – we are told that it was actually $ 40 Million (USD) per month until it was recently renegotiated – is no real fiscal savings for the leadership of any political party to brag about. At best, it only amounts to a diddly reduction in the abject stupidity of our leaders as a whole. Fortunately, we have been assured by the key operatives of the present government that more than 60-percent of ENI-supplied gas which is not presently being used but which, per our contractual agreement is, nevertheless, being fully paid for, shall be made available to the buyer as soon as the Ghana Government is ready and fully capable of utilizing the same at no additional cost. I hope we are being told the Honest-to-God Truth.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

January 8, 2019

E-mail: [email protected]