Paul O'Neill "whips" NPP into line

Do you know the real reason why US Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill was in the country some two weeks ago? You don’t? Well, The Ghana Palaver knows.

Ghana was not on the original list of Secretary O’Neill’s itinerary. Then around the time his African visit itinerary was being drawn up, the NPP government started its renegotiations with Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO). Instead of handling the renegotiations with the maturity, diplomacy and finesse that is associated with such delicate international dealings, as the NDC Negotiation Team used to do, the NPP government’s team, in a typical style, decided to open its ‘big mouth.’

The chairman of the NPP Negotiation Team, Mr B.J. da Rocha, former national chairman of the NPP, threatened ‘fire and brimstone,’ if VALCO did not give in to its demands. This was also the time of the Volta Lake dry-up. Orders were issued by the NPP government through the hapless Kan-Dapaah, the over-supervised Minister of Energy, for VALCO to shut down two of its potlines immediately, with threats of further shut-downs if VALCO as much as dared complain. Of course, VALCO went to court and won a reprieve that resulted in a negotiated compromise.

In all these, what the NPP government, in its naivety, had not contended with was Secretary O’Neill. O’Neill was, until his appointment as Treasury Secretary, the chief executive of the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA). Under his management, ALCOA bought over the US company, Reynolds Metals, which owns 10 per cent shares in VALCO, and thereby automatically became shareholders in VALCO.

When the US government heard of the ‘noises’ that the NPP government was making, which they interpreted to be misbehaviour on its part, it added Ghana to O’Neill’s itinerary, with a brief to ‘whip’ the NPP government into line. And whip it, he did. By the time Secretary O’Neill was leaving Ghana, the NPP government had capitulated. In less than one week after his departure, under the pretext of an inspection tour, the members of the Energy Commission visited the VALCO premises and plant and observed operations.

Whiles there, the commission members announced the reopening of the two potlines that had been shut down. B.J. da Rocha has also backed down from his stringent and tough talk. All is now set for fruitful, cooperative negotiations, without the confrontation and acrimony that an obviously na?ve government had started with.

It is only members of the Energy Commission who are left with eggs on their faces, not knowing that they had been used to save the NPP government from a potentially embarrassing situation, just as the executives of the Ghana Bar Association were used to save the government from embarrassment over the matter of the resignation of the former National Security Adviser, General Joshua Hamidu (rtd).