By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its predecessor regime of the so-called Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), held the reins of governance for twenty protracted years before ceding the democratic reins of governance to the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party (NPP); and so really, it is not clear what the Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) means, when Mr. Alex Mould asserts that the current challenges facing the nation were created by the Kufuor administration, which also happens to have been the best of its kind - having expanded the country's economy five-fold - in the Fourth Republic (See "Blame NPP for Energy Woes - NPA" Citifmonline/Ghanaweb.com 7/30/13).

I must also quickly add that during the two decades that Chairman Jerry John Rawlings held the reins of governance, absolutely no petroleum in minable commercial quantities were discovered, even though recently Mr. Sam Jonah quixotically attempted to credit Mr. Tsatsu "The Thief" Tsikata for facilitating the discovery and mining of petroleum off the country's sea-board. And so one begins to wonder whether Mr. Rawlings was so morally depraved as to cause the dismissal of the purported cash-cow of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

Actually, the nefarious genius of Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata lies in his collusive decision to siphon the Ghanaian people's wealth into the wallets of some foreigner friends. Talk of a neocolonialist mentality! I shall fully and frontally tackle Mr. Jonah's poppycock in a separate article wholly devoted to the subject in due course.

Indeed, no levelheaded Ghanaian would dispute the fact that the last days of the Kufuor administration were anything but very fiscally disciplined and progressive. Even so, the very notion that simply because his government left a debt of $54 million owed to the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BOST), Mr. Kufuor ought to be squarely faulted for the current energy crisis facing the country is sheer hogwash. What Mr. Mould ought to be doing presently, is to be publicly explaining the sort of energy policy, if any at all, put in place by the erstwhile Mills-Mahama government, and now the Mahama-Arthur government, to remedy the country's perennial energy crisis.

At any rate, it is on record, as well as being on the country's landscape for all to see, that Mr. Kufuor's one major and uncontestable attempt to drastically meliorate the country's energy crisis came in the form of the epic construction of the Bui Dam. Maybe Mr. Mould could creditably counter the preceding argument by citing at least one instance of any significant attempt by Mr. Rawlings and his two NDC predecessors to meliorate the country's energy crisis. Or is it just that Mr. Mould firmly believes that it is only an NPP government that ought to be squarely held accountable for the chronic energy crisis in the country? If so, and this clearly appears to be the thinking of the NPA-CEO, then there is good reason for Ghanaian voters to ensure that the NDC remains on the political sidelines for a long time to come.

In the opinion of Mr. Mould, it clearly appears that the Kufuor government mischievously played electioneering politics with the country's oil reserves, a patently criminal offence. The problem here, though, is that a government that can so facilely authorize the whopping payout of nearly half the debt allegedly owed the BOST group for absolutely no work done in the service and/or comfort of the people, clearly does not have the moral authority to blame its predecessor for criminally causing financial loss to the state. Of course, the direct reference here is to the Woyome Outrage.

Needless to say, subsidizing Ghanaian motorists and other energy users, as the Kufuor administration clearly appears to have done, at least in the opinion of Mr. Mould, could not have been exactly criminal, at least not in the same manner that Mr. Tsikata shamefully facilitated the wanton milking of the people by his Westerner friends and associates.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
July 30, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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