“Let me be very frank, money has been one of the challenges; we just have to be frank, open and transparent with the people of Ghana and limit a bit of the politicking,” John Jinapor, Deputy Minister of Power, has said about the energy challenges facing the country.
It is instructive that the deputy minister is making what by all standards is confession of sorts: it is coming at the heels of countless diagnosis about our energy challenges, all of them shrouded in propaganda.
We have been enmeshed in propaganda for far too long; the true picture deliberately overturned. Now that the ‘fact’ is out and the government generated fallacies demolished, those who were throwing dust into the eyes of their compatriots must bow their heads in shame and express sincere remorse for their expensive mischief.
Whether the deputy minister would be bold to spill the rest of the facts would be determined by time and the circumstances that the country would find herself in, tomorrow.
Special apologies must be rendered to those who saw things differently and stood their grounds even as they were verbally attacked. Those were the times when government appointees assigned propaganda duties were on rampage adducing different reasons for our predicament in their bids to save the face of their paymasters. They hopped from one radio station to another gleefully telling lies.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was the one who said the energy challenge the country is facing is the result of inadequacy of funds for the sector.
Not enough money was earmarked for addressing the energy emergency, corruption, siphoning what should be earmarked for the sector. Indeed, it has often been said that the longer the challenge, the more money corrupt businessmen in politics make.
Any situation that warrants the resort to ad hoc arrangements to, as it were, import crude oil or engage power barges and the like, opens ways for corrupt practices much to the detriment of the nation’s interest.
Dr. Bawumia, when he insisted that if sufficient money was directed at the base of the energy challenge we would be out of the quagmire – was attacked by propaganda hounds on the payroll of government. They spewed an assortment of invectives against the gentleman in an attempt to rob him of any respect and dignity. Unfortunately, the more they stayed on that trajectory, the more the image of the man soared, even as the country sank deeper in the fallout of bad governance; propaganda and outright lies taking a toll on the nation. It has not abated.
John Jinapor’s admission has rendered foolish those who went on the useless trip of attacking Dr. Bawumia and presented an untrue picture of the cause of the energy ailment.
It is instructive that John Jinapor has remarked that the repercussions of economic occurrences do spare others because of their political affiliations: after all, we all shop from similar markets; prices being uniform.
John Jinapor would do well to tell his stable mates that in such critical issues, like energy, we should look at the subject without political lens. We are excited that John is waking up from slumber. He and his colleagues have all along been holed up in the abyss of political fantasy, the immeasurable pecks of office shielding them from the real Ghana.
We would have rather, he counsels his stable mates about detaching governance from the mischievous politicking which has been the status quo since the present crop of persons assumed the reins of governance of the country.
The whole truth about the energy situation, the confession of John Jinapor notwithstanding, is still not at hand. What emergency power arrangement with Ivory Coast is in place to create a semblance of normalcy as the elections beckon?