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Opinions of Tuesday, 14 July 2009

Columnist: MP

Is Rawlings Jealous Of Kufour?

There is this rumour which has more or less taking centre stage in our Ghanaian society. This rumour, I must say, has with time evolved into a legendary status all of its own. Thanks of course to the media. Some say that our former ex president Jerry John Rawlings is fiercely jealous of our ex president John Agyekum Kufour. Thanks to the success of the latter's perceived accomplishments. As a matter of fact, the countless foreign invitations extended towards the ex president after his successful eight years stewardship of this country by leaders and institutions have not helped eradicate this rumour. But rather have helped inflame it.

Really, one would expect that Rawlings after ruling Ghana for some twenty odd years, first under the P/NDC military regime which he later baptized into a social democratic party called the NDC, he would be showered with accolades and awards by the gate keepers of democracy for trading his military uniform for a tailored democratic suit and stabilizing the country, but no. I guess to them, Rawlings would always be an anti-capitalist socialist, who never really believed in the illusion of democracy as a just political system of government nor its exploitative capitalist economic system. The two most contributing factors which must have led to Rawlings being less favoured to kufour in terms of international recognition and the likes, could be Rawlings's don't- fuck -with -me attitude towards the West. And also for exposing them for the real hypocrites that they are.

In comparison to Rawlings's achievements, what exactly did Kufour's administration do to endear him so much to the West? Well, the answer is pretty simple, Kufour made them money and mind you not a little bit. And a favour like that never goes unnoticed, if you know what I mean. We all know how Ghana Telecom went to Vodafone because of debts owed by GT. See 50/50 would have meant a partnership deal, but with Vodafone's acquisition of 70% stake in Ghana Telecom, this deal has more or less reduced the country's shares to a mere 30%. Which means that if 50/50 is partnership, then 70/30 could be considered an employment, right? And guess who is employing who? By the way, considering the amount of money which came into the nation's treasury during Kufour's presidency, this acquisition shouldn't have been necessary at all. Because these debts could have been paid off, but no.

It seems that Kufour's administration had money for all sorts of trivial things like German manufactured cars and bling bling. But not enough money available to take these hawkers from our streets and give them real jobs, so they could stop terrorizing the country at night in the form of armed robbery.
People let's not forget how the Indian government gave the nation a $60million grant to build a presidential palace. But under the term that, instead of our very own government employing a Ghanaian contractor, an architect and labour force for this particular construction project, it would serve Ghana best, if that was not the case at all. Now you could ask, why on earth was this unrealistic and stupid proposition accepted by Kufour's administration? Well I know, but do you know?
And who would've expected ex president kufour, an Oxford University BA degree holder in Economics, philosophy and politics, who was subsequently confirmed in accordance with the Oxford traditions with the Masters degree by the University, to know so little about the adequate management of an economy? Because really, one would expect that Kuffour with all his degrees in this and that would have known by now, that you don't resuscitate or even embetter a weak economy by spending an amount of $1.2 billion to knock off a few zeroes from a currency? It just don't work that way. So why did he do it, did he just knock off those zeroes for the sake of knocking them off or what? Or did Dr Buwumiah, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in his infinite wisdom, advised him that it would be sheer genius to spend that amount of money re-denominating the currency as opposed to investing it in the economy?
Surely, Rawlings with his presumed o-level education would even seen the futility of this undertaking, had it been proposed to him as the head of state and prevented it at all cost. Therefore for some to claim that Rawlings might be jealous of kufour's accomplishments is utter ridiculous and dispeccable. John Agyekum kufour is and was a bonafide failure, who failed the whole country with his failed policies. And this is the whole truth.