profligate Jet-plane for a modest Atta-Mills

A At times I wonder if what I see and hear is what the good people of this nation also see and hear. I am having this dilemma simply because building a nation, is a kind of business that we, as a people, need to take very seriously if we desire to be where the South Koeas,Singapores,Malaysias and so on, have been able to reach today. I have been compelled not to use the examples of America, United Kingdom, Canada and so on, for the simple reason that Ghana, at the time of independence, was for ahead of South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore in the areas of GDP and well-trained human resource.

What has been the guiding principle of these afore-mentioned nations is their genuine pursuit of decency, truth, integrity and hard work. The leadership of these nations made the afore-mentioned qualities, their guiding principle and made sure their citizenry to, also, follow suit. These leaders did not ascend the throne of their countries on the back of demonizing all their pre-decessors for their nation’s economic woes. They did not tie to the stakes and shot their pre-decessors for securing paltry bank loans.

Now, a leader like Mahathir Mohammed(the former prime minister of Malaysia),assumed the reigns of his country, just about the same time Rawlings became the leader of Ghana, after engaging in that treasonable act of overthrowing a constitutional elected government through the force of arms. Mahathir Mohammed was elected by his people to lead them so even if he had failed to improve the lives of his people through pragmatic leadership, it, somehow, would have been the collective responsibility of the nation.

But, in our case here in Ghana, we had gone to queue in the sun to elect a president, in the person of Dr.Hilla Liman, but, a self acclaimed ‘Messiah’, by the name Rawlings, who was under the illusion that ruling a great nation as Ghana was all about walking about in tattered military-overalls, mounting military vehicles to shout himself hoarse and spotting unkept moustache and beard, was all that it takes to rule a great nation as Ghana.

The record of Mahathir’s 20-yr rule and that of Rawlings is there for all to see. When Mahathir was bent on building a better nation where his people can live and be happy, Rawlings was pre-occupied with teaching his children how to pilot planes with state-fueled jets. When educational infrastructural development was going on in Malaysia so that Malaysians can have access to better education, Rawlings was busily looking out for friends who specialize in sponsoring the education of other people’s children abroad.

Rawlings was doing this at a time he had decreed that all school pupils in Ghana must wear the same attaire.In effect, Rawlings desired for his children, all the good things the world can offer but turned round to deny others these same goodies, by hiding under the cloak of socialism and abhorrence to profligate expenditure.

At the end of it all, Mahathir Mohammed left Malaysia at the brink of a first world status while Rawlings left Ghana with a HIPC status. The only people who had the benefit of improving their lot under the 20-yr Rawlings rule, in the words of Rawlings himself, are these same greedy bastards who have totally eclipsed Atta-Mills, today.

Rawlings exited power in January 2001 and Kufuor who succeed him never had peace throughout his 8-yr rule. Kufuor, having come up with novelties as NYEP, NHIS, MMT, LEAP and so no, was accused, by the NDC, of masterminding a suffering of the citizenry, of which the severity has never been experience in our nation’s history. This malicious lies by the NDC got to its pinnacle during the 2008 electioneering campaign. Now, the 2008 campaign period saw the emergence of numerous new vocabularies in the spoken English language on our Ghanaian communication landscape. The good old professor came up with the phrase ‘profligate expenditure’. This profligate expenditure mantra was used to demonize every development project that was embarked upon by the Kufuor administration. The then candidate Atta-Mills and his so-called new NDC continuously shouted from the roof-tops that they are social democrats who were highly allergic to presidential jets and all other good things of life. However, the people of this nation have been fed with nothing but plain lies and utter hypocrisy, since the NDC took office. For instance, Samuel Okudzato Ablakwa and his now defunct CJA cohorts, with the blessing of Atta Mills, in opposition, promised Ghanaians jobs, but today, even their very NDC foot-soldiers are up in arms against them for the numerous hopeless promises made to them when they needed their votes. We were promised a drastic reduction in fuel prices but we have been hit with a dramatic fuel price increase, and even that, the good people of this country have had to suffer the hustle and mortification of queuing at filling stations to buy fuel in ‘tots’. The peoples’ assembly concept by the Kufuor administration, where the president availed himself for questioning by the citizenry, was frowned upon by candidate Atta-Mills and his cohorts.Yet,a pseudo town hall meeting was organized in Tamale by the NDC,and Atta Mills decided to cocoon himself in Accra with no explanation as to why he could not master the courage to be there to face the ordinary Ghanaian, on whom, he and his followers have perpetuated such a massive fraud by way of useless and hopeless campaign promises.

Samuel Okudzato Ablakwa held a press conference in September’09, to tell us about what their visionless administration has ‘achieved’ since its inception. He said at the press conference that his government had approved the construction of two fishing harbours and 12 landing sites. This turned out to be a complete lie since the said project was not only spearheaded by the Kufuor administration, but the funding arrangements were, as well, facilitated by the defunct fisheries ministry led by Mrs. Gladys Asmah.

Mrs. Asmah actually produced documents to establish the fact that the NPP government commenced the funding process by initiating talks with the Chinese government and finally settled on the Italians who accepted the terms and advised the fisheries ministry to start piling rocks at the site.

Okudzeto Ablakwa said as part of NDC government’s interventions to tackle post harvest losses intends, to build six cold stores with a €7million loan facility from the Spanish government. On this, Mrs. Asmah revealed that the money for the construction of the said cold stores was a Spanish grant approved in parliament in 2005 and the contract was actually signed by her in 2006.

Again, Okudzeto Ablakwa, without giving credit to the Kufuor administration, said that to be able to patrol our marine domain effectively, two out of six patrol boats for the Ghana Navy are expected in December to augment their fleet. On this also, Mrs. Asmah revealed that it was rather her who went to Israel for these boats. She said two of these boats are coming from Britain and the other four are coming from Israel and China respectively.

After Mrs. Asmah had exposed these lies of Okudzato Ablakwa, numerous attempts were made to reach him for his reaction but he went and hid under his ‘mother’s bed’, with his tail between his legs, and refused to answer his phone. (The new crusading guide, pg 3, 17/9/9).

On the issue of NDC purchasing a presidential jet, Okudzeto Ablakwa said on Oman-fm that there was absolutely no truth in that story, according to the briefing he had had from the castle. Just a few minutes after he had lied through that nice dental formula of his, the chief of defense staff came to confirm the story.

And at long last, the NDC government has given approval to the purchase of the presidential jet that was described by the NDC, at the time, as an act of utter genocide against the suffering masses of our people. The question therefore is; is every Ghanaian, today, able to afford a decent accommodation, three square-meals a day, good health care, education, potable water and so on to justify the purchase of a presidential jet?

‘Massa’ Kwesi Pratt, indeed, painted a very sad picture of himself and a deep dent on his image as a ‘senior’ journalist, with his shameful verbal acrobatics on (23/4/10) edition of ‘Peace Fm’ morning show. Kwesi openly condemned the decision of Kufuor to purchase the presidential jet on the ground that the jet was custom-made and it has a massaging bed and other luxurious fittings and it takes a selfish and heartless person like Kufuor to order such a piece of equipment in the mist of ‘grinding poverty’.

Kwesi Pratt actually asked Ghanaians, on Radio Gold, to go and check on the internet and see for themselves, how sophisticated the jet is. At no point did Kwesi ever say he was against the purchase because he also opposed it under the Rawlings administration. Therefore, Kwesi’s pronouncement on (23/4/10) edition of Peace-Fm ‘kokrokoo’ programme was a complete lie and this gives credence to the fact that Kwesi Pratt is someone who is extremely inconsistent in his arguments, but, very much consistent with his shameless verbal acrobatics. The Jubilee house, described by Atta Mills as an impressive edifice, when he was taken on a tour of the place, was put up by the Kufuor administration with an amount of about $80million.But today, the NDC government, that professes to be allergic to profligate expenditure, is requesting for $50million to just clear weeds and mount a ‘security tent’ around the edifice, as was proclaimed by Samuel Okudzato Ablakwa.

The question is; what crime have the good people of this nation committed to deserve these ‘Kweku Ananse’ stories from the deceptive ‘asomdwee hene’ and his cabal of congenital ‘adufudze’ (lovers of freebies) liars?

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com