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Ghana: Nana Addo will protect our resources
- Posted by: Staff Writer just now in General 0 Comments
- –Akufo-Addo
- The bane of Ghana’s development has over the years been mismanagement and corruption, in addition to the absence of decisive and effective leadership. The mismanagement and corruption usually come in the form of wanton dissipation of the nation’s scarce resources. The situation has been worst under the current government headed by Law Professor John Evans Attah Mills.
  Typical example is the naked loot of the national coffers under the guise of judgment debt payments, recklessly supervised by President Mills, the man who is supposed to be incorruptible.
  The virtue of incorruptibility, just like any other virtue, is good, but the naked truth is that every virtue becomes useless if the person who supposedly embodies it does not have the ability to instil that virtue into people around him.
  Simply put, and in relation to President Mills, the virtues of decency and civility become useless if you are surrounded by mouth-mouthed functionaries, including a spokesperson who can describe critics of your administration as people with stinking teeth. It also does not make any sense to keep describing the President as an incorruptible person if he can supervise the unprecedented “gargantuan” loot of the national kitty as it is taking place in the country now.
  Of what use is the so-called incorruptibility of President Mills if he looks on unconcerned for “criminally-minded” people whose recklessness has cost the nation a whopping over GHC51m to walk free?
  It is clear President Mills is telling the good people of Ghana that “As for me St. Mills, I know between me and my God, I have not been stealing the nation’s money. Those who are doing so under my sleeping eyes should know they will one day account to their Creator and not me, nor the good people of Ghana.”
  Evidence clearly shows that President Mills has been the luckiest president ever to be in charge of the affairs of the nation in terms of the quantum of resource availability.
  We totally agree with Asare Otchere-Darko, Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, when he says President Mills has been the luckiest president since the First Republic. No other president in our Republic’s history, for instance, had oil revenues to work with. Last year, total exports shot up by 60.6% to $12.7 billion, with new help from crude oil and renewed help from favourable gold and cocoa prices. Gold fetched $4.9 billion, cocoa beans $2 billion and oil, $2.7 billion over the same period.
  For the eight years of his administration, President Kufuor received a total of GH¢2.975 billion in foreign loans. By the end of last year, President Mills had received GH¢4.06 billion from loans in three years, as captured in the national budget. This was out of some $12 billion of foreign loans contracted.
  When it comes to grants and revenues, President Kufuor in eight years received a total amount of GH¢24.29 billion. In just three years, the tax professor, on the other hand, has received, GH¢28.25 billion.
  
  For his eight years, President Kufuor’s total expenditure was GH¢31.24 billion. And, there is a lot to show for that level of expenditure. In his first three years, President Mills’ total expenditure stood at GH¢35.11 billion – this figure includes the GH¢642 million paid in so-called judgment debts. On top of that, recent figures released by the Bank of Ghana indicate that in January 2012 alone, President Mills spent GH¢1.4 billion, with total revenue and grants of GH¢649.3 million for that month.
  
  With this quantum of resources made available to President Mills, Nana Akufo-Addo is justified when he keeps asking the question, “Na sika no wo he ne?”, to wit what has President Mills done with all the resources that has been at his disposal?
  
  It is clear that the nation’s resources are not secure in the hands of President Mills. He has created the opportunity which has made the business of money making very attractive and juicy in his government.
  And this is the time for the good people of Ghana to rise up to be counted among the patriots and citizen vigilantes to help secure the nation’s resources.
  But the greatest insurance and assurance we have is that our scarce resources will be secure in the hands of Nana Akufo-Addo, Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party.
  His assurance that he will only work with people who would be committed to working to enrich the lives of the masses, other than people who would want to seek their personal enrichment at the expense of the ordinary Ghanaian, is very heart-warning. “My message to any of you, or anybody for that matter who wishes to serve in an Akufo-Addo government is this: if you want to make money, then forget it. We don’t need you and we don’t want you...If you want to make money, I am all for making legitimate money. But, if you want to make money then, please, don’t come into politics. If you want to make money then the private sector is your place. Stay there and keep away from politics.”
  It is on record that there has never been any shred of evidence of corruption against Nana Akof-Addo throughout his over 35 years of active public life. The man is simply incorruptible.
  Yes, one may say President Mills too is incorruptible. But, there is a difference between the two. And the difference is that while President Mills, whose directives carry not weight, looks on unconcerned and allows the loot of the national kitty to flourish, Nana Addo will exert the required amount of influence on his appointees and make sure they act in consonance with his avowed plan to fight the cancer of corruption.
  Ghana certainly needs Nana Addo at this time in our national development, where we have very little in terms of development to show for the gargantuan resources made available to the government. Nana Addo will protect our scarce resources. Let’s therefore give him the chance to lead us when we go to the polls on December 7 to elect our next president.
Tags:Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, John Evans Attah Mills
Source:thestatesman