Ghana’s Oil Mortgaged

Posted:Daily Guide |Friday, 04 June 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
There are indications that all is not well with the deal between the Government of Ghana and South Korean construction firm, STX, in relation to the financing of some 30,000 housing units under the Security Services Housing Project.

At a stakeholders’ forum put together by the Danquah Institute and Imani Ghana in Accra yesterday, speaker after speaker questioned the prudence of the deal.

Chief among the critics was Policy Analyst Kofi Bentil who questioned the rationale behind the agreement which will see 20 years of Ghana’s oil proceeds mortgaged.

He was optimistic the deal would have serious ramifications for the nation since, according to him, “Ghana does not have $4.5 billion to spend.”

More so, he said, “even if we borrow that money and spent it, we will be financially bankrupt”.

Mr Bentil cannot fathom why a clause in the agreement stipulates that Ghana’s oil revenue will be mortgaged for 20 years to defray the cost of the construction, stressing “that is unacceptable.”
Per the terms of the agreement, it is envisaged that each house will cost $60,000.

Kofi Bentil and his colleague, Franklin Cudjoe, Executive Director of Imani, believe the amount involved would serve the country better if the contract was awarded to local contractors.

Franklin Cudjoe thus stressed the need to get local players to drive the project.

Though it welcomes government’s decision to undertake this huge project to deal significantly with the gross housing deficit in Ghana, estimated at one million houses, Imani believes the deal raises serious questions.

“It seems to be more of an agenda for a better Korea than a better Ghana,” was how Mr. Cudjoe put it.

On his part, Sammy Amegayibor, who represented the Ghana Real Estate Developers' Association (GREDA), also lamented how government has refused to sit down with them to explore the option of getting the GREDA to undertake the project since, according to him, local contractors are more than capable.

On May 4, 2010, the Government of Ghana sought to push through several loan agreements under a certificate of urgency when Parliament was on recess.

One was a Suppliers Credit Financing Agreement between the Government of Ghana and STX Engineering and Construction Limited (subsidiary of the STX Group, Korea) for an amount of US$1,525,443,468.00 to construct 30,000 housing units for the security services - with 20,000 units for the Police Service (including 10,240 units), and the remaining 10,000 to be spread among the other security agencies, including the Military and the Prison Service.

Vice President John Dramani Mahama led a government delegation to South Korea to complete agreement formalities on the housing project and sign another MOU on an infrastructure establishment project with STX, targeting Ghana's oil.

However, Frank Tackie, the President of the Ghana Institute of Planners, who represented the Ghana Institute of Architects, the Ghana Institute of Engineers and the Ghana Institute of Surveyors, said alternative local building materials, local expertise and better value for money can be achieved if Government had focused on Ghanaian firms, materials and expertise rather than Korea.

Also at the forum, Robert Ahomka Lindsey, the former CEO of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), made the point that foreign direct investment is to supplement local initiatives rather than as substitute.

He charged local industry players to come together and offer a viable option to both Parliament and Government so that they have a practical alternative to look at.

Under the terms of the agreement, the government will have to pay an amount of $4.5 billion upfront before the construction will begin and an amount of $12.5 million as management fee.

Meanwhile, the President of the Republic of Korea (or South Korea), Lee Myung-bak, is scheduled to visit Ghana somewhere in July 2010, as part of an investment-promotion tour to selected African countries.

AMA Hidden ‘Goldmine’ Exposed

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 06 May 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
ACCRA CITY Mayor, Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, may be doing all it takes to sanitize the capital, but his ‘boys’ at the Holy Gardens at Kwame Nkrumah Circle are engrossed in massive extortion which stinks to high heavens.

The officials have been extorting money ranging from GH¢10.00 to GH¢300.00 from poor and innocent traders when they seize their items.

This follows extensive investigations by DAILY GUIDE into the activities and operations of these AMA officials and their taskforce.

DAILY GUIDE has in its possession an audio recording in which one of the senior officials said to be the AMA’s Operations Director at the Holy Gardens, was demanding GH¢30.00 from a trader before his seized items would be released to him.

The trader then asked for a reduction since according to him, he did not have that much because his wife had just given birth.

He then bargained with him for a reduction and eventually succeeded in striking a deal for GH¢20.00.

The AMA official is part of an extortion syndicate led by a certain Major, Paa, an Assemblyman, and a taskforce team, who have been extorting money from these traders whenever their goods are impounded.

They are however employing discriminatory tactics in the seizure of items from the traders.

In one of such instances, a known NDC stalwart was allowed to sell ‘waakye’ right on the foot bridge whilst others perceived to be NPP members, continued to be harassed and hounded without cause.

The taskforce team goes out to impound the goods and take them to the AMA offices at the Holy Gardens.

They then dump all the seized items including clothes, bags, shoes and showcases in which traders exhibit their goods, in cubicles and lock them up whilst mobile phones are kept in a drawer in the Operations Director’s office.

When the traders get there, they are directed to go and see either the official or the Major who makes these demands.

Three out of every five traders who spoke to DAILY GUIDE said they have had their goods seized by these AMA officials before, for supposedly selling at unauthorized places and when they go for their goods, the officials make unreasonable demands.

Those who are not able to meet the demands are tossed up and down and continuously asked to go and come until they are able to raise the money requested.

Though the AMA official had earlier denied extorting money from these traders, when DAILY GUIDE called on him on Thursday, he was seen demanding an amount of GH¢10.00 from one of such traders whose mobile phone had been seized and was asked to see him later.

Virtually every 30minutes, some members of the taskforce team brought in seized goods with their owners in tow.

In one of such instances, a trader who sells mobile phones was said to have heaped tons of curses on the women who went to seize their goods.

When he was brought to the office, the official verbally assaulted him for raining curses on the women, asking him whether he does not have sexual relations with women.

A young lady who had her flip-flops (slippers) seized, could not control her tears.

According to her, she was even going home when they seized the goods and therefore could not tell what offense she had committed.

Meanwhile, some of these AMA officials are alleged to be making sexual demands from these traders before their goods are released to them.

Nana Addo Hits Back

Posted: Daily Guide |Thursday, 29 April 2010

A KNEE-JERK reaction put out by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) propaganda machinery to smother some facts and figures stated by the 2008 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, about the economy of Ghana, has caught fire.

Days after Nana Addo launched his 2010 Presidential bid, at which he indicated that 39.5percent Ghanaians lived below the poverty line in 1999, a year before the NDC (1) lost power to the NPP, the NDC, through its propaganda machinery led by party Propaganda Secretary, Richard Quashigah, came out to deny Nana Addo’s claim, saying he was being insincere with the facts about the NDCs performance in office.

This, according to the NDC, was because the figures put out by the then Government Statistician, Dr. Kweku A. Twum-Baah, in the year 2000, gave the percentage of Ghanaians living below the poverty line as 28% based on the Ghana Living Standard Survey Three (GLSS 3).

When the party’s Propaganda Secretary was challenged with confirmation of the facts as presented by Nana Akufo-Addo on Citi FM’s Eye Witness News ,Tuesday evening, he could not defend the party’s position, except to beat a hasty retreat that he was going to ‘cross-check’ the very facts he used to accuse Nana Akufo-Addo of being insincere.

In a quick and swift rebuttal, Nana Addo has noted with emphasis that it would be extremely disingenuous on the part of the NDC as a party and a government, to misrepresent the statistics as reported by the then Acting Government Statistician.

A statement issued by Mustapha Hamid, head of Nana Addo’s communications team, indicated that “Dr Twum-Baah on Monday, October 30, 2000, launched ‘The Poverty Report’, which was published together with the fourth in the series of Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS4). What he stated correctly, without using the previous GLSS3 of 1992 as baseline, was that ‘the incidence of poverty at the upper line declined from 51.7 percent in 1991-1992, to 39.5 percent in 1998-1999’.”

In some apparent state of statistical discomfiture and confusion, the statement said Richard Quashigah explained that the GLSS3 report put the number of people in Ghana living under the poverty line at 28 percent.

Nana Addo therefore noted that “the NDC, which was in office at the time, could not have been ignorant of the fact that the third Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS3) referred to the period September 1991 – September 1992, and the report was published in March 1995, when Daasebre Dr Oti Boateng was Government Statistician and GLSS Project Co-ordinator.”

That report, as pointed by Nana Addo, the statement said, put the percentage number of Ghanaians living below the poverty line of $1 per day at 51.7 percent; stating that “the NDC should be content with taking credit for reducing the percentage from 51.7 percent to 39.5 percent in 1999 and stop making false claims of 28percent.”

“That 28 percent incidence of poverty claim for 1999, is typical of a party that is not ashamed of making propaganda claims out of important statistics, such as the previous claim of creating 1.6 million new phantom jobs since January 2009,” stated Nana Addo.

In this regard, Mustapha Hamid said the NDC statement should have rather accused Nana Addo of being too modest in trumpeting the unprecedented real increases that Ghanaian workers experienced in their purchasing power, under President J A Kufuor.

Instead, he noted that typical of their propaganda status, the NDC has issued a statement saying, “Besides it is mischievous and misleading on the part of Nana Addo to state that the number of Ghanaians currently living below the poverty line has increased by 500,000 persons, a figure he attributed to the World Bank.

This is untrue because the World Bank, which he sourced his information from, is yet to release any figures for 2009, more so for the year 2010.”

This, he said, was because, Nana Addo stated that “but, as a result of the economic policies adopted by President Mills and his government, the World Bank is now estimating that half a million more Ghanaians will fall below the poverty line by this year alone.”
He therefore noted that the statement by the NDC Propaganda Secretary, “Only goes to expose the weight of panic Nana Akufo-Addo is capable of sending across the nerve centre of the NDC.”