Rawlings is a vision killer -Nyanteh’s Family

The eldest daughter of the late industrialist and politician, Nana Kwame Nyanteh, Madam Akua Adoley Nyanteh, has launched a blistering attack on former President Jerry John Rawlings, describing him as a vision killer.

According to the 55 year old woman, the former junta leader should be held responsible for “our economic woes," because of the roles he played whilst he was running the country. Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle, Adoley said Mr. Rawlings destroyed local investment through the politics of hatred he pursued against his perceived political opponents.

Recounting how her father died like a pauper, the strong lady said her father suffered a stroke, and later had kidney problems, after Mr. Rawlings collapsed his fishing net factory at Somanya. According to her, the former military dictator seized all the raw materials Mr. Nyanteh was using for production, including even food for workers.

The eldest daughter of the late Nyanteh, a strong member of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), who later formed the Peoples Popular Party (PPP), disclosed that her father’s fishing factory was second to none in Africa at the time. She explained that when the then European Economic Community (EEC), now European Union (EU), decided to support the African fishing industry, Nyanteh’s fishing company was the one they considered because of its capacity, but the former president decided to collapse it.

Saying that her late father, who died in 1999, was strongly against buying and selling, and took a conscious effort to write against some of these things in papers like The Chronicle after the 79 coup, which infuriated Mr. Rawlings. The emotionally charged Adoley stressed that “the end of my father was terrible; a man who was paying over 500 workers, including 13 South Koreans, 3 Japanese and one Scot.”

Adoley told The Chronicle that her father was a self-made man before Mr. Rawlings decided to collapse his business, and that he was even going to establish a plant to assemble Hyundai cars, before he was kicked out of business. Other business plans which were cut short were 300 acres of salsal plantation for the production of cocoa sacks, and the establishment of tomato factory at Asesewa, the capital of the Upper Manya Krobo District.

She further mentioned that Ghana received 15 Hyundai cars during the early 1980s from the South Korean government, through the instrumentality of Nyanteh’s fishing industry. The late Nana Kwame was a police officer, but later retired and went into business trading in arms and ammunitions. Touching on the administration of the current government, she stated that one thing her late father told her was to be an action person and talk less.

She, therefore, advised the NDC government, particularly President Mahama, to talk less and be an action person.

Suggesting some economic factors leading to job creation and improvement of the economy, she called on the President to create an enabling environment for local industry players, as well as brainstorm with local business gurus on how to create jobs.