President Kufuor "stole" our ideas - Asaga

Even though minority spokesman on Finance, Moses Asaga, (MP) thinks the President?s Special Initiatives are laudable, he insists that president Kufuor cannot and should not take credit for them.

Mr. Asaga who was deputy minister in the erstwhile NDC government says the cassava and salt projects being undertaken by the Kufuor administration ?have never been the president?s own ideas?.

The commodities, especially salt, which he admits could become the third highest foreign exchange earner for Ghana, earning at least a billion dollars annually, were actually identified in 1998 and 99 and that all the groundwork for the take off of the project were done by the previous government, whilst former Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr. Duffuor did the feasibility studies and forcefully pushed forward the salt project.

Almost pleading recognition, Mr. Asaga maintained that although it is remarkable that the government of president Kufuor has taken up the projects and given them a more nationalistic approach, it is equally important to point out that it is one of the good legacies the NDC, which the current government continuously crucify for pursuing policies that are not in the interest of this nation, has left, adding ?it is not like the NDC did not recognize those commodities, the nation must be told the truth.?

Asaga told the Network Herald that the Salt project announced by the president was actually proposed to the NDC government by the then Tsatsu Tsikata-led Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). He was emphatic that, the government has not come up with any new commodity, apart from recently when it introduced the palm oil project. The government has however, in support of the president?s special initiatives, made available, an amount of ?14 billion to the local banks to be assessed by the business community as long-term loans.

Speaking on a wide range of issues, Asaga said, in spite of propaganda by the president and members of government that the Ghanaian economy is doing well since the NPP took over, the state of the economy is that of stagnation. To him, nothing has changed since the NDC was voted out, except a brief macro-economic stability, which is even gradually eroding. The economy is still dependent on external donors and about 70 to 80 per cent of government?s development budget is dependent on external aid. The economy still cannot withstand external shocks and Ghana still remains primary producer, he continued.

The importation of rice, which the NPP government criticised its predecessor, the NDC for and swore to reverse, is still on the high side. The country?s rice importation bill, which as at the time the NDC left office was hovering around a hundred million dollars a year, has not changed since the change in government. Asaga has some suggestions though. He said, the issue has more do to with behavioral change. The rice-eating pattern of Ghanaians has to change favourably towards the consumption of locally produced and government must make it expensive for Ghanaians to buy imported rice, else its efforts at reducing the importation bill will come to naught.

According to Asaga, Ghana has become a high point of doing business, making nonsense of the much-talked about ?Golden Age of Business.? ?You cannot talk of Golden Age of Business when utility prices are going up at astronomical rate and mining companies are closing down whilst small and medium scale enterprises have folded up?. To Asaga, not even the president?s about 48 trips outside Ghana to woo investors have yielded any results. ?All the president achieved was the fact that he held meetings with investors and introduced a country called Ghana to them, beyond that nothing has come out of his numerous trips abroad. ?You could be efficient in promotion but you may not necessarily be effective?, the minority spokesman said.

Mr. Asaga also MP for Nabdam accused the NPP government of double standards. He wonders why a government will travel outside and tell outsiders that, ?Ghana is a shining star in West Africa? (referring to publications in ?The Guardian? magazine) but comes back and its countrymen that its predecessor has done absolutely nothing. ?They tell foreigners the truth but tell different stories to the citizenry?.

The beautiful pictures of ports and habours, the Ghana Stock Exchange, the roads, the banks and other things published in the magazine and shown to investors outside to woo them, were not done during the two-year reign of the NPP government, Asaga told the Network Herald, adding, ?politicians must tell the truth especially about the economy.

To him, the investment climate is not right and so investors will find it as it were, difficult to invest here. He accused the government of unnecessary bureaucracy and red tapeism at the ports and airport. Asaga did not spare the press either; he said the media is mudding the already bad waters with the seeming romance with the NPP government, sending wrong signals to may be investors that the things could change unfavourably, if the Kufuor administration leaves office.

He praised his successor, Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo for telling Ghanaians that the economy is in hard times but wonders why the president is saying something that is a complete contradiction. To him, the NPP has not been able to live up to its own words and promises and so cannot claim to be a better.