Is the NDC ready for prime time?

NDC’s Selective Amnesia.

Do Ghanaians have a short memory? With the electioneering campaign on its last throes and with the impending run-off looming large on the horizon, the NDC is again telling Ghanaians to vote it into power. NDC was technically in power for twenty plus years. Its formative years were spent as a military dictatorship. The atrocities that occurred during its twenty year watch-imprisonment without trial, confiscation of assets without compensation, politically motivated killings and disappearances etc. are all etched in our collective memory. So we thought!!

The NDC should accept and acknowledge the fact that during its twenty year rule, Ghana was a termite-infested Potemkin village- a façade of so-called political stability concealing a core morass of economic decay. The NDC with its cadre of soi-disant revolutionaries and egalitarians mostly turned out to be ideological phonies and self-serving politicians with an eye for a quick buck. I see no difference between the PNDC and its so-called democratic offshoot, the NDC.

Ghana at the Sunset of 2nd Rawlings Administration

While the NPP believes in governmental minimalism that allows market forces to inflict its rigors in the marketplace when a correction is needed, the NDC is still crazy about big government. The debate is about the role of government in the economy. It’s about time the NDC learnt that government has no business doing business. When the NNP took over from the NDC in 2001 the economy was in shambles.

This is what the “Economist” wrote about Ghana on July 22, 2000 just before Mr. Rawlings and his NDC handed over power to the NPP in January 2001: “the cedi is in a free fall, which means that living standards and economic growth in Ghana, one of Africa's rare economic successes, are both threatened.

In January 2000, 3,530 cedis were needed to buy a dollar. Six months on, the rate has nearly doubled to 6,400. That is, if dollars can be got at all from the banks. Most people have to hunt for them on the black market, where the rate is now closer to 7,000. The re-emergence of a busy black market, ten years after foreign exchange was liberalized, is an indication of how bad things are. All sectors of the economy are suffering. Ghanaian industry is heavily dependent on imported machinery, so profit margins are being shaved. Prices of some consumer goods are now below the dollar cost of their purchase. Some merchants brazenly quote their wares in dollars, defying the central bank's 1998 ban on doing this. In June, members of the Union of Traders shut their shops for a week in protest against the cedi's depreciation. The real value of workers' pay falls weekly as consumer prices rise. "My monthly pay packet was Dollars 1,000 in 1999, it is now worth Dollars 515. I cannot save any money," complained a worker in one of the country's banks. And he is one of the best-paid workers in the country. Civil servants, such as teachers, earn less than Dollars 100 a month at current exchange rates. The government blames the country's misfortunes on "external shocks", a catch-phrase that encompasses the double anguish of falling prices for cocoa, one of Ghana's main exports, and the rising cost of imported oil.

Critics of the government make the all too obvious point that it has allowed the economy to remain over-dependent on primary commodities. Foreign aid is drying up. And corruption, too, plays its part. Last March, the World Bank withdrew a loan facility of Dollars 100m when a water-management contract was dubiously awarded. Britain may withdraw money for a similar project. Reserves have dropped dangerously low. The political and social consequences of the currency collapse have so far been mild: the traders' week-long strike has been the most disruptive event.

But things could get much worse: the prospect looms of workers' strikes, of foreign investors leaving the country, rising unemployment and falling national income. Already the painful 17-year economic adjustment program under IMF guidance has been derailed. Many skilled workers and professional people are trying to emigrate. The government has applied a few bandages to the currency hemorrhage. It has managed to stabilize the exchange rate by borrowing money from abroad and raising interest rates. To the anger of the IMF's representative, the finance minister also tried, unsuccessfully, to restrict the repatriation of foreign

exchange. The long-term answer has to be to reduce Ghana's dependency on gold and cocoa. This, in fact, has been the declared aim of the regime, led by Jerry Rawlings, ever since it took over in 1983. Next December, President Rawlings is at last due to step down. But the election that month means that political uncertainty is added to Ghana's other tribulations.”

Fellow Ghanaians, this is what Rawlings bequeathed to the NPP in 2001. Need I say more? Why on earth will Ghanaians want to send the NDC back to the Castle? Never Again, Never Again.

The NDC can never be trusted

During the first round of the election on December 8, while the votes were being tallied, the NDC issued a rather bizarre statement saying that it had won the elections. The statement from the Office of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, presidential candidate said it was aware of attempts by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to rig Election 2008 and warned of dire consequences. The statement signed by Koku Anyidoho, Head of Communications of the Mills Campaign, said: "We know we have won the elections and no amount of underhand acts by the NPP and its surrogates as well as paid agents shall we allow the mistake of 2004 to be repeated." What happened when all the votes were tallied? Not only did Nana Akuffo Addo garner more votes than Mr. Atta Mills, but there was no evidence of post election shenanigans on the part of the NPP. The NDC is a party of conspirators. It is a party borne out of the murderous adventure of a phalanx of misguided ideologues who took up arms to overthrow the legitimate constitutional government. We are still waiting for the Mea Culpa from the NDC for the atrocities unleashed on Ghanaians during the heady days of the PNDC rule. And they want to come back to power? They are at their game again issuing threats and threat of violence to win power. Ghanaians should exercise wise judgment and vote the Nana Akuffo Addo to power. Ghanaians are sick and tired of the unfounded allegations, treasonable diatribe and ethnic-bashing coming from the NDC propaganda machine. Mr. Atta Mills, rather denouncing the vituperative rhetoric of the likes of Rawlings, Aidoo and Nketia, is embracing it hook, line and sinker. After eight years as president, Rawlings is still unable to discipline his urge to bloviate. Rawlings’ actions post-presidency, provides the lightening rod for current political discourse in Ghana. Rawlings’ incessant use of demagoguery, tribal incitements and other cheap stratagems to stay in the limelight should be denounced by all freedom-loving Ghanaians.

Political Corruption

Political corruption is a global issue- it’s all around us but the African has shown an uncanny susceptibility to corrupt influences. From the head of state to the low-level civil servant, you’ll find bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft and embezzlement within the corridors of power. Even the highest form political corruption- kleptocracy, still holds sway in Africa. If you listen to the NDC propaganda machine, you would think that NPP was the poster boy of corrupt government in Africa.

The NDC was a nakedly corrupt outfit. During the era of NDC’s crony capitalism, it turned a noble program of privatization into a gargantuan scheme to reward its supporters with government contracts, grants, loans and other items of state-issued largesse. Who were the beneficiaries? They were party officials, supporters, their families and friends, who, notwithstanding their inability to perform or deliver still had their bread well buttered. Crony Capitalism in Ghana reached its apogee during the P(NDC) era. Just take a look at what they bequeathed to the NPP.

In an expose in 2005, the Statesman, revealed that at least $882 million of “government-guaranteed loans lent to institutions and companies, many of whom with close ties to the PNDC and NDC, are yet to be recovered by the State. With some dating as far back as 1987, several of the arrears are considered today as doubtful debts.”

The paper wrote at that time that “ at least another ¢328 billion of loan facilities to the private sector guaranteed by the Rawlings administration has been totally written off by the Kufuor administration as “non-recoverable loans” – bad debts.”

Does the NDC have selective and convenient amnesia when it comes to its own corruption and graft? Has the NDC forgotten about the $100 million loan facility that was contracted and was never sent to Parliament for approval?

Here is the drum roll of NDC cronyism according to the Statesman’s expose: 1) Frandesco & Partners, a construction company owned by one of the biggest bankrollers of the NDC at the time, Francis Doe, is among the biggest defaulters. Between 1992 and 1996, a total loan package of £27.2 million (¢430.6 billion) and DM17.1 million (equivalent to ¢184 billion), under the ECGD facility, were guaranteed by Government to five companies allegedly headed by or allied to Francis Doe. The companies were Frandesco & Partners (£4 million), Frandesco (West Africa) (£12.5 million), Fruit & Flavours (£2.8 million), Goi-Kposem Mining (£8.2 million). The DM17.1 million went to another allied company, Franmar JV.

2) £25.6 million (¢102.7 billion) of the ECGD facility advanced to 15 companies under the NDC, is still outstanding. 3) Kamara Ltd, owned by Baba Kamara, still owes Government about ¢19 billion from the ECGD facility.

4) Pentrexx Ltd, a company that the former NDC Chairman, Obed Asamoah, allegedly refused to prosecute over the construction of the Keta Sea Defense System, has an outstanding debt of about ¢18.4 billion owed to the State.

5) J Stanley Owusu & Company, a firm owned by a staunch NDC sympathiser at the time, still has to make loan repayment of £3.3 million (¢57 billion) to the State.

6) Apart from the £25.6 million, there is an additional ‘disputed’ balance of £80.6 million of the ECGD facility owed by 7 other companies, including Danielli Mabey, owned by the late Danny Ofori Atta of EGLE Party and a leading member of the Wahala demonstrations.

7) An additional ¢5.7 billion of a Japanese non-project type grant is still owed by beneficiary companies of the PNDC and NDC regimes of Jerry John Rawlings. Much of the Japanese grants given between 1987 and 1994 went to companies with very close links to Mr Rawlings or his administration. Typical of these are Mark Cofie Engineering, which received ¢8.4 million in 1989 value. Mr Rawlings had a well-known friendship with a daughter of the late Mark Cofie and indeed stayed in their house for a while in the past. The Tema-based Brenya Distribution, which still owes ¢59.6 million dating as far back as 1991 from the same Japanese grant facility, was owned by a leading member of the NDC.

The Statesman wrote; “In the case of Frandesco, a situation not unusual with several of the others, the company did not even make payments to cover the contractual 15% down payment of the total value of the funds borrowed. The 15% down payments, arrangement fees and other charges were also paid by the central bank and recovered from Government. Moreover, matured repayments relevant to the 85% were not made as scheduled by the five allied companies and had to be recovered from the Controller and Accountant-General’s account at the Bank of Ghana. This is because funds were not made ready in advance, as agreed, by the beneficiary companies to meet the maturing installments.”

Ironically, Frandesco sued the Government for breach of contract involving some construction works. Have we forgotten about the CP Construction’s illegal transfer of DM117 million into its Liechtenstein account?

It is axiomatic: Some people want public office in order to do something, others in order to be something. Rawlings was the latter sort. Which is why he never seriously considered dealing with Ghana’s most serious policy problems while in office, and why he was an unserious president. Now out of office, he uses these gimmicks to get the attention he fondly craves and he is waging a desperate battle to come back to power using Atta Mills as his proxy. Never Again, Never Again.

Mills & Mahama-Don’t get it.

The vice presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. John Mahama speaking at an energy forum organized for presidential aspirants by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) said: “ an NDC government will produce low cost electricity and meet the energy needs of industry” If you believe that , then I want to sell you the George Washington Monument in Washington DC.

Mr. Atta-Mills also revealed his lack of understanding of financial policies when he said in Koforidua that low interest rate means nothing to the ordinary man. Mr. Mills please note that when capital is cheap, businesses borrow to expand, when businesses expand, they hire more people. Do you get it Mr. Mills? So how are you going to create jobs? Please we don’t want to return to the era of big government- when the NDC bloated government budget with quasi-state institutions that did no productive work.

Ghana’s Destiny –The Survival of Democracy in Ghana The NPP has within eight years created the framework for the survival of democracy in Ghana. The press is now free and even the pro-NDC press can publish freely without the threat of the use of night soil as a weapon of mass intimidation. The NPP stands for democracy, the NDC believes in revolutions and violence. The NPP’s belief in democracy has allowed the NDC to thrive as a political party in spite of its incessant appeal to violence. Is there a middle ground between the NDC’s obsession with violence and an intelligent commitment to democracy in Ghana? Why will a party that professes a commitment to democracy and rule of law dissipate its time, money and energy to instigate violence in Ghana?

I still believe that the destiny of Ghana should be determined not through the barrel of a gun but through the sanctity of the ballot box. The NPP offers Ghana’s best hope for the survival of democracy. If democracy and the rule of law are to thrive in Ghana, then let us give the NPP another eight years.

This is Baffour Ennin, Washington, DC and I approve this message.