I was angry and I saw that anger in my younger brother Nana Boakye affectionately called NANA BEE who represented the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on the most listened morning show of our times, Kokroko, ably handled by the indefatigable Kwame Sefa Kayi. What was the issue? Kwesi Pratt in executing his contract as a lead communicator for the ruling NDC, had rubbished Nana Akufo Addo’s vision of helping get a factory in each of the 216 Districts throughout the country as a means of addressing the serious unemployment situation confronting this nation. He had gone on to insult the intelligence of Nana Akufo Addo and all the NPP people by suggesting that the party has done no studies to implement the programme he was touting around. He doubted the feasibility of the vision.
NANA BEE in his efforts to let the public know that the idea of one factory per a district was not new and that the idea was found in the 2014 FISCAL POLICY of the Mahama administration, started reading from the Budget document, some of the projects outlined in the policy document. All of a sudden, Kwesi Pratt, playing an actor in a Concert Party Show at the National Theatre, burst into a very scornful laughter of a scoundrel, which lasted for minutes in spite of the protestations of NANA BEE. Indeed, many listeners to the programme were aghast with the laughter which was equally nauseating, irritating and disrespectful to the listeners.
When NANA BEE justifiably descended on him and told him he is speaking for the NDC, he fumed and wanted a retraction or an apology as it were. I was happy NANA BEE did not offer either. Kwesi Pratt is in an intercourse with a group he is not comfortable with but is compelled to do the bidding of the relationship for two obvious reasons, his pay for the job offered him and his innate hatred for the NPP. I was utterly surprised when Kwesi Pratt attempted to deny the fact that he has been contracted by the NDC to speak for them. Somewhere in 2013, he was introduced on Metro TV hosted by Randy Abbey as a member of the NDC communication team. Why is he running away?
Kwesi Pratt is behaving like a poor drunkard who lost his father and they arranged a wake-keeping for him in the family house. So poorly was the event organized that there were no signs of a funeral. The guy whose father died, could not stay in the house but left to another wake-keeping in the same community where sound systems were blaring and drinks flowing. He had disregarded his own father’s funeral for another. That is Kwesi Pratt for you. He should start speaking for the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
Kwesi Pratt has never been worried by the fact that the VRA owes banks, N-Gas, Ghana Gas and other suppliers almost US$1billion in spite of the huge electricity tariffs consumers have been paying under Mahama. Mahama presides over lawless destruction of farmlands, river bodies and others by illegal miners. Kwesi Pratt does not see that. Accra gets flooded, fire engulfs part of the city, hundreds of people lost their lives in 2015. A year after in 2016, a serious flood occurs, not too many people lose their lives, though properties were lost and people became homeless, vehicles were submerged and small and medium scale businesses halt production to clean up their premises. Kwesi Pratt is happy because the floods did not kill as many people as in the previous year. That Mahama’s brother’s company, which used state equipment to dredge part of the choked drains in Accra should be applauded for preventing worse flooding and not sympathize with the affected people.
Kwesi Pratt did not see the failures of Mahama’s promise after the June 3 2015 disaster to Ghanaians, the pledge that what happened on that unfaithful day would not happen again, he instead decided to laud the government and its agents because more people did not die this year. When Accra is subdued by floods in two successive years, Kwesi Pratt shouts ‘hosanna’ to Mahama. As I write, SHSs in the Northern Regions are shut down because the Mahama government has refused to pay subventions to the schools. Should Nana Akufo Addo pledge to honour that obligations to the schools, Kwesi Pratt will say Nana Addo cannot do it and engage in a scornful laughter.
Under Mahama, public lands are being expropriated by known individuals and groups associated with the NDC, Kwesi cannot see that. It is in his nature to blame all governments from Guggisberg if the matter against the NDC is so obvious and indefensible. He is indeed working hard to justify his remunerations in all forms. That is fine for him, but Kwesi should stop insulting other people he meets or contributes to the Kokroko programme. He has done that to me on a few occasions, challenging my integrity and intellect as if he is the only person who has knowledge and wisdom.
. Kwesi Pratt’s paper ‘The Insight’ established somewhere in 1993 and launched at the then International Press Centre on the Korle Bu road is still crawling, after more than 20 years of its existence. I was at the launch. He cannot even use his own paper to propagate the ideas and ideals of the NDC successfully. Take him off the broadcast media and his voice will forever be drowned even though he answers to the title ‘Managing Editor’ of a failed newspaper. Kwesi thinks because he has failed in bringing his paper to an appreciable level in the Newspaper industry, everyone else is incapable of doing anything good from the NPP stable.
In his defence for the pungent of a so-called gift from a foreign contractor to President Mahama, Kwesi Pratt tells Ghanaians that President Obama of the United States of America receives over US$3 million worth of gifts. I do not know about that figure so I will give Kwesi Pratt the benefit of the doubt. The questions that flow from his example are who gave those gifts to President Obama? Have any one of them, be it an individual, group of individuals, corporate bodies or foreign nationals ever done any contractual jobs for the U.S. government?
Before the Burkinabe contractor got the highly inflated contract from the government of Ghana, had he ever given Mahama or any other highly placed Ghanaian official any gift? The so-called gift was presented only after he had courted the friendship of Vice President Mahama through another NDC contractor, won a contract from the government of Ghana and executed same for the government of Ghana. It did not end there, he subsequently had a much bigger contract worth millions of euros from Mahama as a President.
In Arithematic in my primary school days, we used to do what is called ‘Simple Proportion’. If US$650 000.00 worth of contract is equal to one second hand Ford Expedition gift, what gift will arise out of €25.5million worth of contract? A hotel in Dubai can be the gift. Kwesi Pratt had the voice and the courage to pummel President Kufuor because his adult son, an accountant by profession had had syndicated loans from Commercial Banks to purchase a private property. That in the view of Kwesi Pratt was bad.
Today, a foreigner, eager to obtain contracts from the government of Ghana, courts the friendship of a sitting Vice President, wins a government contract of ‘outrageous value’, buys a second hand Ford Expedition as a gift to his friend who has progressed from a Vice President to a President, obviously to expedite action on future contracts, which indeed came handy, this time at a geometrically improved value, and Kwesi Pratt, doing his work as a communications contractor for the NDC, wants to insult the intelligence of Ghanaians. Kwesi Pratt is entitled to his views, but civility requires that he respects the views of others. An apology to NANA BEE and the listeners for that pathetic laughter will be good for his decrepit image.
Two tots of bitters.
