Once upon a time, Ghana had a head of state who advocated the need for Ghanaians to capture the commanding heights of the economy. That was the period of the junta that seized power from the Busia-led government of the Second Republic because the military leaders led by Kutu Acheampong felt unbridled liberalisation had driven the indigenous people out of business.
That advocacy by Kutu Acheampong was not mere rhetoric but took steps to operationalise the policy by establishing a body to oversee that agenda. We have been bombarded with a kind of cliché called “Local Content” ever since we discovered oil in 2007 and had the first oil pour in 2010 to empower our people to try to “resurrect” the Kutu Acheampong agenda of “capturing the commanding heights” of the oil industry.
Almost 13 years after the first commercial production of oil, we are struggling to define what we mean by local content. We seem not to be ready to empower local people to totally take over the productive base of our economy because of the politically polarised nature of our politics.
We are ready to go to any length to shoot down the indigenisation of the economy, especially when an “elephant” is suspected in the room. It does not matter if we continue to pay lip service to local content in so far as we do not empower our political opponents to be economically strong. So long as we commit to multi-party democracy, our people would continue to make choices based on their inclinations.
We do not anticipate a homogeneous society but a heterogeneous one that believes that there is unity in diversity.
Our attitudes kill the business initiatives of our entrepreneurial compatriots because such business people are politically exposed. It does not matter whether such people have the financial muscle to end our over dependence on foreign investment.
Sometime in the era of the PNDC that transmogrified into the NDC, the leaders then sold many of the state assets including hotels under the State Hotels Corporation, mostly to themselves or cronies. The apostles of probity and accountability are today raising issues with the purported sale of four hotels to the Rock City Hotel in Kwahu owned by Bryan Acheampong, the Minister of Agriculture.
When these issues come up, especially in our present political circumstances, we do not interrogate the matter with the interest of Ghana in view but the political gain in such a concern. In these matters, most of our people act like ostriches burying their heads in sand and refuse to care a hoot about the facts and data on the ground.
We call on fellow Ghanaians who have the means to take a trip to the hotels that have been designated for sale. Our appeal goes particularly to the people of Elmina, where one of the hotels, the Elmina Royal Beach Hotel is located. This hotel and the others owned by SSNIT are no longer fit for purpose. The concern of the TUC is rather intriguing because the TUC is represented on the SSNIT Board where the decision to sell or not to sell to Bryan Acheampong would be taken.
There is so much personal interest and hypocrisy in the conduct of our public affairs. Members of organised labour should be asking their representative on the SSNIT Board to explain the reason for the sale of the hotels and whether in Bryan Acheampong’s response to the competitive tender, the state and for that matter SSNIT has value for money.
The plot and conspiracy is thickening as just a few weeks ago, some groups of people started the negative propaganda that SSNIT was on the verge of collapse, to the extent that Dr. Daniel Seddoh who had opportunity to serve as Chief Executive of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority during the NDC era describing SSNIT as a “ponzi scheme”.
There are too many naysayers in the society today who belong to the NDC always wishing that nothing positive happens in the country to give them the opportunity to regain power.
NDC’s campaign tool or weapon this year is not about what it can do to advance the cause of the people but just in waiting to latch onto unfulfilled promises of the NPP government.
We are convinced that Okudzeto Ablakwa is engaged in this enterprise of seeking the intervention of CHRAJ in the sale of the hotels by SSNIT not for the public good but to appropriate personal and political gain.
Majority of the people know that the NDC has never forgiven Bryan Acheampong for his alleged involvement in the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence in 2019. They are not looking at the financial muscle that Bryan Acheampong has in managing arguably the biggest hotel in Africa.