The Real Name of Ghana’s “Looting Brigade” Is the National Democratic Congress

Justice Jones Victor Mawulorm Dotse, of the Supreme Court of Ghana, famously cast matters in searing, poignant and indisputable perspective when he described the criminal and nation-wrecking invention of the pathological regime of Judgment Debt as a deliberate kleptocratic racket established by the Mahama Posse solely aimed at “creating, looting and sharing.” So it is rather comical to hear some of the key operatives of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) virulently accuse operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) of attempting to use the scam-wracked Power Distribution Services (PDS) subcontractor of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to illegally amass wealth at the expense of the hardworking Ghanaian taxpayer (See “PDS Retail License Remains Suspended – Pius Hadzide” CitiNews.com / Modernghana.com 8/10/19).

On the preceding count, Ghanaians need to be reminded of the fact that it was the John Dramani Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress that first introduced the Philippines-based company called PDS or Power Distribution Services into the country. The ostensible rationale for introducing PDS was to ensure the efficient retailing of energy supply in the country, so as to ensure that wanton wastage in the energy distribution sector was drastically reduced. Unfortunately, in recent months, through careful scrutiny, operatives of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party have discovered to their utter horror that there are some crucial aspects of the PDS’s contractual agreement with the ECG that leaves much to be desired. The power distributor’s operating license has thus been suspended for one month, as recently announced by President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, while the government ensures that the value-for-money aspect of the ECG-PDS contract has been strictly and meticulously abided by.

Obviously, the decision to scrutinize the details of the original ECG-PDS contract does not sit well with a palpably jittery National Democratic Congress’ leadership, which is why politicians like Mr. John Jinapor, the former Mahama-appointed Deputy Power Minister, are already jumping the gun by vacuously crying foul, even long before investigations into the alleged forgery of contractual documents by PDS operatives have been concluded and the relevant and most logical conclusions reached by an independent panel of investigators and a comprehensive report submitted to the President (See “Gov’t Trying to Trick Us with New ECG, PDS Modalities – Jinapor” CitiNewsRoom.com / Modernghana.com 8/10/19).

If anybody is deeply engaged in the ungodly game of robbing the Ghanaian taxpayer of his/her fair share of the proverbial national cake, it is definitely former President Mahama, the man who attempted to cannibalize the long earmarked official residence of the Vice-President of Ghana in the wake of the latter’s doing a diddly little to absolutely nothing to advance the progressive course and strategic cause of the country’s development, and thus the epic, apocalyptic and unprecedentedly massive defeat of the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress in the 2016 general election. And now, the former lieutenant of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills is desperately hard at it again, this time around trying vigorously to criminally and shamelessly hoodwink Ghanaians into affording him another clearly undeserved chance to fleece our national coffers a la the Woyome Mega-Heist.

We must also significantly point out that in the wake of him losing the 2016 Presidential Election, then President Mahama had obscenely and criminally attempted to cede exclusive mining rights of all the bauxite-laden mountain ranges in the country, including Atiwa and Nyinahin, to his “gold-digging” younger brother, namely, Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, of Engineers and Planners global infamy. Indeed, about my only concern with the new indisputably savvy arrangement between the ECG and the latter’s PDS subcontractor which, by the way, we are told, is geared towards ensuring the uninterrupted power supply in the country, while government contractual experts iron out any pernicious kinks that may have been deliberately worked into the original NDC-authored ECG-PDS deal, is the formidable risk of having a guilty-as-sin PDS wriggling itself back into the proverbial status-quo-ante.

Put in simple English, it is incumbent upon the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party to strictly ensure that PDS does not get back to business as usual, with only the mild or lame metaphorical slap on the back of its wrists. We also see the all-too-predictable fingerprints of a Dubai-minted type of AMERI Scam here as well. And this is all the more reason why Nana Akufo-Addo needs to pay more sedulous attention this time around, if his “Ghana Beyond Aid” economic self-reliance campaign is not to be stuck, like all the others before the latter, on the proverbial drawing board.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
August 10, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]