RPD opposes sale of Ghana Telecom

…says it is unreasonable, unnecessary, fraudulent

THE REFORMED Patriotic Democrats (RPD) has disagreed with the sale agreement of 70% of Ghana Telecom (GT), the nations only hope in Telecommunications, television transmissions, national security and the fibre optic backbone to a foreign investor, Vodafone.

The party says the proposed sale of the GT is unnecessary, unreasonable, fraudulent, ridiculous and an absolute surrender of national sovereignty, he therefore urged the government and Vodafone to keep off GT. It called on all Ghanaians to oppose this sale. “GT cannot be sold. Every Ghanaian must oppose this sale”, it stated.

The RPD has emphasised that the sale of GT will spell doom for Ghana because this is going to incapacitate the Ghana Telecom University, which is the only government Institute training our children and adults alike, in the field of ICT, Telecom and related subjects.

In a statement issued in Kumasi over the week end, the party’s General Secretary, Mr. Francis Kyei, said it is absolutely unreasonable and very expensive for any nation to surrender her sovereignty at any instance for the younger generation to suffer the consequences of the irresponsibility of their selfish predecessors.

The RPD said the decision to sell off GT in such a manner clearly spells out the incompetence, recklessness and lack of vision of the leadership of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and urged them to bow their heads in shame and pray to God for forgiveness, for disappointing Ghanaians.

“It is unfortunate when people think the irresponsibility of government must necessitate the sale of a national asset as a solution, rather than firing incompetent government appointees from office”, it stated, and queried “Is it not shameful to dissipate the assets of the state instead of creating more or even maintaining the little?

The RPD wondered if the NPP could not learn from the priceless examples of Dr. Nkrumah, Dr. J. B. Danquah, John Mensah-Sarbbah and Prof. Busia, all of blessed memory, as a result of which fifty years down the line our nation has not achieved much, though no Government has significantly added anything to what they (our predecessors) left behind.

Mr. Kyei noted that GT has suffered the worst calamity since it’s inception under the administration of NPP and the last straw that seems to have broken the camel’s back is the attempt to sell off 70% to Vodafone. He explained the vehement objection to the sale of GT and the circumstances under which three Ministers of state, including the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Communication and the Minister of Information, as well as the CEO allegedly signed the deal in July 2008, which agreement took retrospective effect from May this year.

According to the RPD General Secretary, the sale of GT has moved way beyond politicking to the extent of protecting and preserving national property, for which reason most civil societies, pressure groups and most stakeholders are voicing out their indignation at the sale, yet the so called listening government intends to carry on, no matter what.

“If they did not intend any fraudulent act, would they have included any indemnity clause in the likely event of causing financial loss to the state”, Kyei stated, and further questioned “how citizens can imagine their government setting aside money to pay as much as US$40 million to a foreign company to lay off about 2,000 workers of GT after take over, when we are all crying of high incidence of crime in our society”.

Kyei disclosed that the US $900 million that has been projected as a bonus deal with GT is not as we see it at all, because that money has strings attached to it. “It is associated with a ridiculous mathematical formula determined “to the satisfaction of the purchaser” (Vodafone), as it has been stated in all the sections in the agreement”.

The formula (A-B+C) where ‘A’ represents the $900million, ‘B’ represents the debt owed by GT and ‘C’ the unknown figure, which has the tendency of being negative to be determined by Vodafone to their satisfaction, represents capital value of GT before take over. He went ahead to explain the formula Hypothetically (A-B+C) to mean $900m- $450m+(-$100m)= $ 350m.

The RPD further noted that GT’s landline services are going to be gradually grounded as Vodafone deem it unprofitable and eventually after two years Vodafone will sell the shares to Ghanaians at a fee “satisfactory to the purchaser” (Vodafone), after they have repatriated 70% of profit accrued to their homeland and questioned the social commitment of government always talking about making profits.

It also enquired what effort was made when for two years GT was making loses and where the amount representing losses came from.

The RPD has consequently condemned the haste in which the three Ministers signed the agreement in which they confidently stated their portfolio clearly against their names and signatures while Vodafone members only scribbled without even their names.

“This tells you the haste in which our Ministers and other cronies could sacrifice our integrity for their selfish deals”, RPD Pointed out.

According to the RPD research directorate the MP’s have been promised whooping sums of money if they assist the deal to sail through so they can run their lavish campaigns.

Meanwhile, the RPD has proposed a simple alternative that instead of selling 70% to Vodafone for resale to Ghanaians after two years, Government can still retain 30% and offload a properly valued 40% of GT shares to a strategic investor and float 30% on stock exchange for citizens.

This, according to the RPD, would in effect Ghana own 60% and the investors 40%, thus making Ghana to own majority shares.