The Issue Of Ghana's Ports' Single Window Trade Facilitation Provider Needs A Quick And Fair Resolution That Benefits Ghana
By Kofi Thompson.
Many Ghanaians now see the connection between a thriving private sector and t ... read full comment
The Issue Of Ghana's Ports' Single Window Trade Facilitation Provider Needs A Quick And Fair Resolution That Benefits Ghana
By Kofi Thompson.
Many Ghanaians now see the connection between a thriving private sector and the availability of jobs for those willing to work and bootstrap their own personal successes in life.
Many discerning and patriotic Ghanaians also understand clearly that if we are to forge ahead as a people, we must end the nation-wrecking phenomenon, of remaining silent when members of newly-elected governments set out to deliberately cripple businesses perceived to have enjoyed unfair advantages, under predecessor regimes their administrations replace after post-elections regime-change.
The hounding today of the CEO of Engineers and Planners, Ibrahim Mahama , is a classic example of this abominable and unpardonable resort to egregious, business-destroying Kweku-Ananse-politricks, in the poliitcs of our country.
The strategy is to use a combination of fake news planted in the "rented-press," half-truths and plain lies spread on the airwaves of television and FM radio stations across the country, by the purveyors of yellow journalism in Ghana to destroy such targeted businesses. Pity.
Naturally, if we end sole-sourcing in the award of government contracts, it will lessen opportunities for the crony-capitalist pals of ruling parties to secure unfair advantages for their businesses, as a quid pro quo for financing powerful and influential politicians. Ditto fund political parties.
Even as we speak, it is said that there is a calculated effort now underxwway to try and take away West Blue Consulting's single window trade facilitation business at Ghana's ports - and hand it over to GCNet: which itself apparently enjoyed close links with the previous NPP regime of President Kufuor.
Needless to say, West Blue Consulting is also said to have secured its lucrative business as a result of direct links between its promoters, and elements in the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime.
Yet, a comparison of their websites shows that they are engaged in more or less the same business. The question then is: Can two relatively big Ghanaian IT companies - both rumoured to be beneficiaries of past political patronage - coexist in the same market?
And if not how can they be made to compete on a level playing field to win the right to provide what is a vital service desperately needed in a nation full of wiley and persistent tax dodgers in the import/export trade?
Above all, we need to end the phenomenon of governments selecting private-sector 'winners' as a clever means of financing ruling parties by stealth.
If West Blue Consulting had competed in an open tender and won the right to provide the single widow services it now provides, fairly, in the first place, the unedifying behind-the-scenes effort to ditch it in favour of GCNet said to be underway, wouldn't be occurring today, would it?
The media in Ghana must bear part of the blame for our ending up with a system in which the nation's wealth is increasingly being purloined by a greedy and super-ruthless vampire-elite - because many of them are complicit in the brutal gang rape of Mother Ghana.
No democracy can survive if it has such a byzantine system in place - which is why the Ghanaian media must always be alive to its responsibilities to society: by investigating and exposing wrongdoing wherever it occurs.
That is why as a matter of urgency, the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media ought to throw more light on the single window trade facilitation ecosystem for the ports in Ghana - and tell Ghanaians what in their view is a fair resolution of the dispute over the roles being played by GCNet and West Blue Consulting that will actually be beneficial for the nation in the longterm. We rest our case.
The Issue Of Ghana's Ports' Single Window Trade Facilitation Provider Needs A Quick And Fair Resolution That Benefits Ghana
By Kofi Thompson.
Many Ghanaians now see the connection between a thriving private sector and t ...
read full comment