Cem Uzan was once labeled as “the greatest threat to the ruling party” of the Republic of Turkey”. Recet Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, had identified the relatively young, suave and swashbuckling business mogul from Anatolia as a potential ambition stopper, what with his string of businesses stretching from Telsim, then number one mobile telecommunications provider through the STAR group of companies (Radio, TV and Newspapers), numerous banking and insurance interests and finally to KEPEZ and Cukurova, the generators and distributors of private electricity power to citizens of Turkey and sovereign states such as Syria and adjoining regions. The Uzan family was a rather rich and resourceful one, paying as much as $4.26billion in legal compensation to Motorola international out of a deal gone wrong. If ever there was a family that could challenge the ambitions of Tayyip Erdogan, it was that of the Uzans as they needed very little financial muscle form elsewhere to stake their claim to the high office of modern day Turkey. However, good money they say, breeds and attracts unfavourable wrath. Perhaps the Uzans and in particular Cem, should have stayed away from anything political and with that enjoy the flourishing of his businesses; he could even have sponsored the Prime Minister or candidates of his AK Partesi in order to guarantee political insulation from the rigours of life as an opposition leader in a semi-developed country.
Needless to say, both the ideological and repressive apparatus of state that Louis Althusser became famous for were fully marshaled and arraigned against his family’s business interests so that today, what remains of the Uzan heirloom are shadows of days gone by and unending dates with the courts of law to determine what was either fraudulent, illegal or against the interests of Turkish citizen-investors in the Uzan financial empire. Inasmuch as a gallant effort was put in by the Uzan family like an angry snake to save and mount a decisive challenge against what was clearly government and political interference in private business affairs, like a limp rag they withdrew into resignation, perhaps hoping for brighter days to reclaim their lost glory. Today, if Cem Uzan is ever in the news, it is to report on the progress of this or that case in court regarding their collapsed empire.
Fred Oware and Afari Apeadu Donkor doubled as midwives of what has now become CAL Bank Limited. When they created Continental Acceptance Limited (CAL) and the Security Discount Company, theirs was a viable and robust forward looking venture that envisaged a Ghana in which the private sector, acting through financial services and support would underpin the rapid developments that Ghana was poised to go through under the tenure of His Excellency Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings. The story is told that at an investment forum in the United States of America, Mr. Kwesi Ahwoi, then head of the Ghana Investment Promotion Company invited Mr. Fred Oware to present the case of the financial sector and private initiatives vis-à-vis opportunities for the potential American investors that Ghana was aiming to attract. That was where his troubles begun; said Mr. Ahwoi “…and now we have a short presentation by Mr. Fred Oware, a banker who has managed to mobilize $17million locally to spearhead an ambitious expansion of the banking sector…”. Immediately after these pronouncements, someone is reported to have exclaimed “what! You mean he has $17million? Does Dr. Agama (then Governor of the Bank of Ghana) know about this? We shall look into it when we return to Ghana”. That was the beginning of the end of this private initiative of Fred Oware and his friend Afari Apeadu Donkor as a string of very strange but calculated moves were initiated to deprive them of their years of toil and sweat. Interestingly, people who were supposed to be their protégés and trainees freely offered their services and insights to stab these noble gentlemen in the back, a feat that even Judas Iscariot is likely to be jealous of had he been alive today. If Afari Apeadu Donkor in particular has been prevented from joining the board of CAL Bank as one of its directors, I can vouch that one of the reasons is some people’s fear of reprisal and retribution due to their back-stabbing role in years gone by. Like Cem Uzan of Turkey (is it not interesting that Afari Apeadu Donkor negotiated the Chinese financing of the Bui Dam project with Fred Oware doubling no longer as the CEO of the Bui Company? A transition team member even had the effrontery to ask Fred Oware “how much kickback did you get out of the deal”) Afari Apeadu Donkor and his friend’s interests in power production and the possible profits thereof have been perceived by some as a “kill it before it grows and gobbles us up”. Like Cem Uzan of Turkey, he is likely to be firmly ensconced in the courts of law seeking a declaration that would enable him enjoy the fruits of his labour, toil and sweat which some people have taken by dint of political machinations.
Augustus Obuodam Tandoh, a.k.a Goosie Tanoh’s case is even more significant. In 1999, acting as the anchor of Radio Gold’s now defunct programme Friday Morning Rejoinder, Goosie Tandoh told me from his base in Chelsea, United Kingdom that he “accepts what is happening to the company, Transport and Commodities General” (T&CG) after the state had yanked financial support from a company that the state had shares in! All this was simply because he and his coterie of “we no go sit down make them cheat us apparatchiks” had split from the ruling NDC and formed their own Reform Movement which eventually morphed into the National Reform Party. To a question asked as to whether what happened to T&CG was not reminiscent of Fred Oware’s sad case, Goosie had this to say: “I accept it in good faith. Maybe you are right, we should have spoken up when it happened to Fred. It is only déjà vu but it is strange that a country that can spend huge sums traveling the world over to attract private investment can come right back into itself and undermine bona fide entities including those it has interests in, just for political expediency”. Needless to say, this was as striking as it was revealing for those were the days when the Government of Ghana was spearheading an ambitious drive to attract investment from the farthest reaches of the globe to the Land of Our Death and yet, its local initiatives were simultaneously being petrified into oblivion, using state apparatus without fear or favour, let or hindrance. Transport and Commodities General has never recovered from that needless onslaught and from information available has quietly relocated operations to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Eddie Annan is a business mogul in his own right, making a stash of cash from a string of businesses stretching from computer equipment to meat sales. His flagship Masai Group of Companies is said to have suffered ‘strangulation’ under the government of the NPP, as he was declared a pariah, and major conduit for the financial activities of the NDC. There are those who claim that his fingers were in any serious economic and financial pie so that it became fashionable to simply sabotage his business interests in order not to waste time looking for the so-called fingerprints. Whenever anyone passes through the Community 18 bypass to access the Accra-Tema motorway, one is likely to see the shell of the (in)famous Accra Abattoir, which is now a shadow of its former glory when compared to what it was at its inception; no longer was Masai invited to supply computers for a burnt SSNIT office, the excuse being that first of all, there was no ‘strange fires’ to engulf SSNIT and secondly, there is such a thing called the Public Procurement Law thereby blocking any inclinations towards “selective tendering” to favour the Eddie Annans within the Land of Our Death. In the words of someone, Eddie Annan “could not adjust his business interests to the new realities. He is one of those who simply cannot do business without the NDC in power”. I doubt that assertion but it would be worthwhile watching closely to see if his business interests acquire a new lease of life under the NDC administration. Same applies to the Ahwoi brothers and their cocoa and cashew nut buying companies; would the defeat of the NPP mark the rebirth of these “hibernating” enterprises?
Which brings me to my main issue for today: Joseph Agyepong is a very young entrepreneur, known for being the driving force behind JOSPONG Printing Press and the more popular Zoomlion Limited. Although he is also behind a string of businesses, he is more recognized as Ghana’s foremost garbage collector, having implemented a radical programme to transform the sanitation management and disposal business in Ghana and by extension the West African sub-region. His has been that of turning a simple idea into a money-making venture while insulating the general public from disease and beautifying the environment at the same time. Zoomlion has also employed droves of otherwise unemployed youth who exert their energies into the sanitation industries. The company and by extension Joseph Adjepong has even introduced a novelty by training women, yes women to operate heavy construction machinery such as bulldozers, tipper trucks and excavation machines and deployed them to zones within Ghana that need massive cleaning up and proper garbage disposal. No region of Ghana in contemporary times has failed to benefit from this initiative; any observer is likely to see people in blue overalls with some luminous reflective jackets sporting the Zoomlion logo and emblem for identification purposes. They have even been instrumental in helping His Excellency President Mills to partially achieve his pledged 100 day achievement of ridding Ghana of filth.
Word within political circles however has it that some people ‘a Zoomlion do not like’. Reminiscent of the English poet Robert Frost statement “something there is that doesn’t like a wall”, these anti-Zoomlion posse led by a former Member of Parliament, close to the seat of government and power have purposed in their hearts to bring the company to its knees. Nobody knows why Zoomlion, which is not simply lining up somebody’s pockets but benefiting the entire country is next in line for state-sponsored attacks; my guess is that it is ostensibly because it is a sponsor and donor that was created by the opposition New Patriotic Party while in government. Nothing could be further from the truth: Zoomlion and its founder are products of the “enabling environment” created by the NDC government during its first 8 years in power. True it is that the founder and his business interests expanded dramatically during the tenure of the NPP. However, to cripple the company and its business minded founder simply because of an innate and irrational fear of his financial clout being put at the disposal of the NPP is tantamount to revisiting the Fred Oware/Afare Apeadu Donkor, Goosie Tandoh/T&CG and Eddie Annan/Masai unfortunate eras. The cacophonous shrieks of opprobrium regarding this laudable business and social intervention scheme is one that has to be dealt with cautiously for it is very likely to backfire ironically not in the faces of the “destroy him/it” protagonists; invoking an alleged manipulation of the District Assemblies system to benefit Zoomion is still not enough to deliberately collapse somebody’s business that to all intent and purposes benefits the entire Ghanaian populace. The NDC should be wiser than that for such a move would contribute in no small measure towards the belief that the NDC government is anti-business in outlook and does not mind cutting its nose to spite the face of Ghana. May we not see this evil plot ever come to fruition for how can we go back to the Chinese, Indians, Americans, Japanese, British and French to solicit help and support when their local comprador groups become nothing but canon fodder in the political chess games of contemporary Ghana? I leave you to imagine what effect such an action would have locally on the environment and internationally on the image, reputation and clout of Ghana as a sovereign Republic and our president as a “father for all”. Jehovah M’Kaddesh sanctify our thought processes till we meet again!
