A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the number one critic of the government, Mr. Charles Kofi Wayo, has expressed his reservation about the appointment of Mr. Kan Dapaah as Minister of Energy, saying the man is best qualified to be appointed as an accountant at the ministry than the current position.
He said all over the world it is those who have indepth knowledge about the petroleum sector who are appointed as Ministers of Energy to head the sector, but not professional accountants as we are having here in Ghana.
Speaking in an interview on Skyy Power FM, a Takoradi-based radio station last Saturday, Wayo said industries have not sprung up in the country as one would have expected because the energy sector of the economy, which they are supposed to depend on, is itself crumbling but nothing is being done to salvage it.
According to him, when the government wanted to increase the electricity tariff, he protested because there are so many loopholes, which if sealed, would render the tariff increased useless, but this advice to the government was ignored.
He said as at the time that the tarriff was increased, individuals and organisations were owing the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) close to ?200 billion, which is a substantial amount that the sector ministry should have devised means to collect and stop the increase.
Cigar-puffing Wayo further told his host, Philip Nyakpo, that despite all these problems that the country is going through, sometimes between 60 and 70% of ministers in President Kufuor's government are reported to have travelled outside the country when our problems are domestic ones that must be solved here without intervention by any country.
He further said most of the ministers have become travel-happy because the government on assumption of office increased their per diem for foreign trips to $250 per day so most of them prefer to stay outside the country in order to get more dollars than to stay in the country and solve problems that have engulfed their respective ministries.
According to Wayo, if one is lucky to meet a minister in his office here in Ghana, that minister would prefer seeing the so-called foreign investors to his own country men who may want to do a genuine business that would offer employment to the people.
He alleged that at the moment before our budget statement is presented to us, the government has to send it first to America for scrutiny and approval.
This, he argued, means that Ghana cannot be said to be an independent country.
The defeated NPP candidate for Ayawaso in the last elections further told his listeners that when he wanted to buy the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), the government through the sector ministry refused, but now there are rumours that the government intends selling the refinery to either President Obasanjo of Nigeria or Eyadema of Togo and their South Korean friends.
Turning the heat on Ex-President Rawlings, Wayo said the former President has no moral right to have accepted the numerous cars that were allocated to him by the transitional team, yet he accepted them.
"But do I have to blame him? No! Everybody came to chop so those who were on the transitional team from NPP side were in hurry to get Rawlings out so that they can also come and chop," he said. Kofi, however, commended the government for the proper rule of law that the country is experiencing.
