This IMANI sh*t-tank is at its wit's end indeed

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Thursday, December 19, 2013

My good friends, I have had good cause to comment on the veiled partisan politicking being done by the shit-tank called IMANI. And i have been monitoring its public statements and posturing ever since it caught my attention as a shit-tank and not the think-tank that I had expected it to be at is formation.

Of late, the comments and outings by its leaders, Franklin Cudjoe and Kofi Bentil, have cleared all doubts about their real political motives. Shouldn't a proper think-tank be more interested in proffering ideas and strategies for national development than setting itself up as a reactionary force that is always alert to verbally attack the government for anything it does?

And who knows what the leaders and functionaries of this shit-tank are doing covertly to sustain the Mahama-loathing agenda that they have put in motion all this while? No day passes by without anything coming from Franklin Cudjoe and his team to confirm their notoriety as politically mischievous characters. I have no respect for such characters.

Here is the latest in the array of nonsense coming from that IMANI shit-tank President:

Think tank, IMANI Ghana says it is important for the general public to know the Commercial Court's explanation for dismissing the suit challenging the sale of SSNIT’s 90 percent stake in Merchant Bank to Fortiz.

The Court threw out the case brought by Mr. Andrew Awuni challenging the sale of Merchant Bank to private equity firm, Fortiz. According to the court, Mr. Awuni does not have the locus to challenge Fortiz.

But speaking to Citi News, Executive Secretary of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe said ''if the judgement doesn't say who therefore has locus then there will be serious gaps in our laws indeed.''

''...irrespective of how they go, there are dark clouds that will be hanging around the necks of the people who will manage this bank [Merchant],'' he added.

Mr. Cudjoe said also that despite the ruling, his outfit and other interested parties will continue to take on an advocacy role to ensure transparency.

''Be as it may, I think these are matters that can still be commented upon and an advocacy to let people understand that issues of transparency do matter to everybody who wants to hold himself or herself as an interested party of a publicly owned entity.''

What explanation again is Cudjoe asking for after the Judge had made it clear why she dismissed the suit? For purposes of clarification and reiteration, here is what every sane person needs to know about the judges' verdict:

"Judge Sophia R Bernasko Essah said granting Mr. Awuni locus will be tantamount to power parity and a usurpation of the Board’s powers by any SSNIT contributor."

(Source: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=295540)

Is it the language that Franklin Cudjoe doesn't understand to know that the judge has already given her reason/explanation for her verdict? Let me simplify matters for him and those politically mischievous characters politicizing this matter and, therefore, investing themselves in it to sustain their Mahama-loathing negative politics.

Awuni has been told that he doesn't have the right to do what he is doing because he doesn't belong to the group that has the right to institute court action against SSNIT. He may be a contributor (I wonder how, because he worked at the Ghana News Agency, even as a stringer, when I was a full-time journalist there, and thanks to the News Editor's magnanimity, got recommended to enter the Ghana Institute of Journalism and emerged with good performance to find his niche in public life, where his relationship with SSNIT must have been severed. He served under Kufuor and wasn't contributing to SSNIT. Let him prove me wrong).

So, the Court said that he doesn't have the LOCUS (neither a Board member of SSNIT nor a Trustee) to be able to institute such a legal action. This is a pure matter of law, not misguided politics of the kind that the Merchant Bank issue has wrought among the Mahama-hating elements!!

Awuni has given notice of appealing against the verdict, which some of us are quick to dismiss as the desperate acts of a disappointed political activist.

What about the Court's decision is not clear? Does the Court even have any obligation to explain its decision or be accountable to anybody like Franklin Cudjoe?

Indeed, our kind of democracy is giving too much room to all manner of people to test the patience of well-meaning Ghanaians. And to imagine that such a demand will come from someone claiming to belong to a think-tank!! How much thinking do they do at IMANI?

I shall return…

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