The news of the sacking of Boakye Agyarko, former Minister of Energy saddened my heart last Monday night. It was the least expected news to close the day with.
I was driving home around 7.30pm and listening leisurely to Nana Ansah Kwaw’s programme, “That’s my Opinion” on Joy FM. He interjected suddenly and enters Evans Mensah with breaking news - the sacking of Mr Agyarko by the President. He further read a statement signed by Eugene Arhin, Communications Director of the Presidency attesting to the news.
I got even more alarmed and confused and honestly, do not know how I drove to my gate when Mr Arhin came on to confirm the news. What happened? Was it the monster Ameri re-negotiated deal?
The airwaves were choked the week before with Ameri. Some think-tanks and individuals came out strongly to condemn the re-negotiated deal. There were clear signals to the government to tread cautiously but we heard repeatedly that it was the best deal for the nation.
In my simple woman’s mind, some of the arguments with convincing figures pointed to a bad re-negotiated deal. All I was hoping for were counter-arguments to explain why the 15-year re-negotiated deal was in the interest of Ghana when we had just a year and a half to go for the plant to be ours and at a much lesser cost.
With the Minister out, my immediate question is whether we have lost ever knowing the real reason why a deal which we all got to know in 2016 as not the best was now being re-negotiated? We definitely needed for the Ministry of Energy to enlighten us as shareholders of this Ghana Incorporated. Alas, it did not happen.
The outright dismissal of the Minister was least expected. Intelligent as he was for the job, I had observed him as one of the top few hard working Ministers. He may have come out too over-confident and indeed in communication, confidence is good but over-confidence could be seen as negative posturing. It is the stage where pride sets in and the danger of running ahead of yourself.
Unfortunately, Mr. Agyarko entered the scene with a controversy of alleged bribery during his parliamentary vetting. Though he was cleared, eyes have continued to follow him in that sensitive office as Minister of Energy. Admirably, he has been on his feet from day one working to put the energy sector in better shape than he came to meet.
Though some of us would miss him as a promising Minister, of course, the President knows what we do not know, hence his decision to dispense of his services. He is the master hirer and he has every right to dismiss without necessarily assigning reasons to anyone. No one can begrudge him.
For now, we are all left dancing around the issues and speculating. The belief though is that the Ameri re-negotiation deal was the remote cause. The information in the public domain pointed to possible corrupt deals.
Coincidentally, while the Ameri re-negotiation fire was raging last week and we were all wondering why anyone thought shareholders would readily accept Ameri with all the information that was publicly available, social media was awashed with a posting arising out of a first-class foreign passenger’s cries about the begging nature of Ghanaians who go around with cups in hand begging in the midst of rich resources.
This foreigner was assigned a first class seat next to a Ghanaian who was travelling with his wife but apparently the wife was seated apart. The Ghanaian consistently begged this foreigner to exchange seats with his wife so the wife could sit by him. He got worn out and angry because when he checked in online, that was the only seat left so he did not see why the man was persistently begging if he had the opportunity to pre-selected seats.
When another passenger later asked why he was that angry, he said that the consistent attitude of Ghanaians begging for everything in the midst of plenty drove him bananas. He was angry because he saw abject poverty in the country and instead of officials negotiating for the best of deals with foreign firms who come to do business here, all the officials do are shoddy negotiations thinking about how much they could get for themselves.
The foreigner who must have been going in and out of the country negotiating businesses on behalf of his company spilled some beans here.
He alleged that during negotiations, these officials beg for few amenities for their communities and then ask for their cut to be paid into their overseas bank accounts. They then scribble their overseas account details on pieces of papers for them.
Much as I am selective with social media information, this particular post was revealing and set me thinking with my imagination going far back many years. We have been shortchanged by our own for far too long.
How can a country blessed with riches running over continue to be in an obituary state for foreigners to continually come and draw our wealth to go and enrich their people just for a pittance? Indeed, they would pity and cry for us as we beg even for aircraft seats.
When the dust settles and Mr. Agyarko comes out as he is alleged to have said on his Facebook wall, we would all have a better picture as to why a re-negotiated Ameri was or was not going to be in Ghana’s interest.
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS