Ofosu-Ampofo’s April Fools’ Prank

Local government and rural development minister, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo stirred the hornets’ nest yesterday (Sunday, April 1, 2012), when he demanded of Ghanaian voters to give President Atta Mills a second term mandate based on the ‘second term rule’.

According to the former Fanteakwa parliamentarian, Ghana could become a paradise by voting Atta Mills for a second time. He said there was a two term rule by which “Ghanaians have given every government that has been voted into power the maximum eight years to do all that the government thinks it can do”.

The now Tema West aspiring Member of Parliament also claimed on the Joy FM news item on which he was being interviewed that, “most of the achievements that President Kufuor made were in the last four years of his tenure”.

From scanning the internet and listening to various other media, it is clear that Mr Ofosu-Ampofo must be having sleepless nights since the news item was aired.

The minister is responsible for local government and rural development. If anybody, according to what commentators and foes of the government say, is to be taken very seriously as minister in the Mills-led government, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo comes among the top three.

It is clear that Mr Ofosu-Ampofo after having gone round the country and worked with the rural folks for the past three year or so is admitting albeit subtly that his government has performed below par relative to the one too many promises they made to the electorate.

The minister’s new constituency, Tema West adjoins one of the most deprived constituencies in the country, Ashaiman. He is not responsible for Ashaiman but the truth is that Ashaiman can be referred to as the electoral World Bank Annex of the NDC government, having a close relationship with the VR-style voting for the NDC.

The saddest thing about NDC is that they never make any deliberate effort to take development to those constituencies that vote for them en bloc.

The roads in Ashaiman are the dustiest ones I have seen in recent history. The Ashaiman township roads actually compare to the rough and sometimes treacherous Wa to Tumu road. Let’s get back to Ofosu-Ampofo’s Tema West Constituency. What happened to the Ashaiman under bridge that links to Adjei Kojo Sun City road? Mr Ofosu-Ampofo, what happened to the Sakumono to the Ashaiman link roads? When did you start the construction? What about the stalled Motorway street lighting project? The government is executing the street light project as though it is rocket science. Even if it is rocket science, Dr Ave Kludze of NASA can offer some free tips. What about the never-available water supply situation in the many sub-urban communities under Tema West?

But we have to understand Mr Ofosu-Ampofo. He is simply singing the tune of every failed politician – who doesn’t believe what he says and is therefore taken aback when the people believe what he says.

Mr Ofosu-Ampofo, the truth is now beginning to dawn on you. Or should I say the chickens have come home to roost? Elections are now staring you in the face.

Who created the two-term rule? Must it take eight years to complete the motorway lighting project? How much road toll has been collected by the human-controlled, electronic toll booths installed on the Motorway over the last three years? Must it take eight years to complete or bring a semblance of decent development to some of the communities you represent?

I have realized that some of the many road projects your government has initiated were all started in your third and fourth years. And should I say that your charge to Ghanaians to give you another term, based on your ‘two term rule’ is an admission that you are simply incompetent, or rather that you have been sleeping on the job as claimed by the ‘all die be die’ man?

Maybe, the answer to some of the questions I have raised will be that you have stabilized the Cedi and brought inflation down to a single digit. If it is, refer to my article titled, “Ghana’s Edible Statistics”, published on December 21, 2011. If the Cedi has been stabilized I am not too sure I should be paying 1.77 GHS to US$1 as quoted by my pay TV supplier from the interbank rate board. In the same vein I wouldn’t be paying 2.79GHS to 1GB£ as sent to me today by my ticketing agent for a BA flight. Whatever happened to the UD$1 million the government claimed to have pumped into the economy to help stabilize the Cedi? Do the falling Cedi and the ballooning prices of basic goods and commodities tell you anything?

As for your single digit inflation fad, we wait to see what the many suppliers credits and the zillion guarantees that are already waiting to balloon government expenditure will do to it should the electioneering projects peak. Maybe, the projects won’t take off because the witches in the ‘all die be die’ man’s home town, Kyebi will kill all the signatories to the China Development Bank’s UD$3.5 billion loan.

Sometime around the year 2000 when all the signs were written on the wall that the 19-year-old rule of the AFRC / (P) NDC was evidently coming to an end, a question was put to one of the show ‘boys’ in the NDC government today, Mr Ato Ahwoi as to what he thought about the chances of then candidate Kufuor. Mr Ahwoi simply exclaimed, “John Agyekum Kufuor will only become president over my dead body”. The rest of the story is history and that was why old boy J.H. Mensah who was obviously drunk in the euphoria of the NPP’s defeat of the NDC at the 2000 polls also said that, after jailing all the members of the NDC, there would be no one left to organize the NDC was simply an effusion of an African quasi-despot.

Why should the people of Ghana allow a government to sleep on the job for four years before giving them another four years to come back and waste their precious time and taxes? In any case, if four years is not enough, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo and other members of government who think like him should rather be advocating for a change in the constitution so that governments can have seven or eight year terms. That is if they think a country can only see meaningful development in eight years!

Our politicians must get serious from the very day they are voted into power. This mantra of we need more years to develop does not hold water, otherwise many countries such as Israel, Australia and many others who hold snap or mid-term polls when their governments are not performing according to expectations may never have developed. Sometimes, whole governments are changed in less than one year, in certain cases snap polls are even called within six month periods.

Oh, sorry, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo, I was just ‘told’ that Sunday was April Fools’ Day and your charge for the voters to give your government a second term was simply a prank. I therefore recommend that the government wakes up from the deep snooze as elections are just at the window.

Source: Kojo Owusu-Mbire

Email: owusumbire@gmail.com