Don’t Repeat NDC’s Mistakes -MP

…APPIAH OFORI CHARGES ON GOV’T AGAINST ADB SALE

Hon. P.C. Appiah Ofori Member of Parliament for Asikuma/ Odoben/ Brakwa has expressed abhorrence against his government’s decision to sell-off 48 percent of its share holdings in the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB). “Any attempt by the government to sell any share of Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) to a foreign bank would defeat its own Poverty Reduction Programme (PRP),” he said.

He therefore told the government not to repeat the very grievous mistakes that the NDC government made when it sold off Social Security Bank (SSB) to foreigners, when the bank had no liquidity problems.

He however suggested the need for the government to rather absolve the 48 percent of the Bank of Ghana holdings in ADB, if the government really believed that the resurrection and the revival of the nation’s economy depends mostly on Agriculture, since the bank has a key role to play in that direction.

“Why the sale of ADB,” he asked, adding, “when I heard of the intended sale of the ADB, I became enigmatic and nearly lost respect for my own government for trying to engineer that”.

Speaking to THE SUN in an exclusive interview at the Parliament house on Thursday afternoon, the outspoken NPP MP said, under the government’s own laudable Ghana Poverty Reduction Programme (which started in 2003) which is still on-going, the revival of the economy of Ghana depends hugely on Agriculture.

“As a result it would be a suicidal for the government to turn round to sell a bank that was established to empower and support agricultural growth”, he said. He continued that under the PRP, “ we have three thematic areas that are devoted to increasing productivity, with agriculture as the pivot”.

“The forefathers of this nation also dreamt that agriculture is the mainstay of the nation’s economy, that is why the establishment of the ADB was to ensure the survival of agriculture,” he told THE SUN.

The MP stated that the aspiration or dream of the forefathers was replicated in PRP, which the present government also recognizes,” and so if there is an institution to support agriculture why should the government off-load part of it”, he asked forcefully?

PC Appiah Ofori thinks it is a contradiction of inexplicable proportions? “In Nigeria what the government does when it come to privatization of State Enterprise (SE) is, instead of making outright sale to the private firms it washes off its hands and gives such SE the mandate to ran its affairs without doling out funds from the Consolidated Funds to support it, “ he stated assertively.

According to him, all this while the state would be expecting the said enterprise to pay dividends to it to serve as a challenge to the management. As a result, instead of the sale of the ADB government must rather buy the BOG shares and own it 100 percent, before giving it to the management to ran it and pay dividends because, posterity will never forgive us (NPP) if the government sells ADB to foreigners,” Hon Appiah Ofori told THE SUN.

“If BOG is uncomfortable with its share holding in ADB what stops it from pulling out? After all the money it used for the purchase of the 48 percent shares does not belong to them. Rather, it came from the state and it is absolutely nonsense for us to allow ADB to be sold to foreigners,” he declared. “If we also sit down unconcerned for the mistake that was perpetrated by the NDC government when it sold SSB to foreigners to be repeated, then posterity will never forgive us,” he charged.

Reacting to the concerns of the public, Hon. Kwadwo Baah-Weridu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning told THE SUN that the destiny of the ADB was in the hands of the management of the bank. According to the Minister, when the Stanbic Bank approached government the Ministry directed them to the management of the ADB for discussion.

He said the decision to sell or not, was in the domain of the management and nobody can force them to sell part of the shares of the Bank against their will.