President Mills’ Reckless Borrowing Spree, His Officials’ Unbridled Corruption and Ghana’s Future
No one opposes money coming into the country in billions of US dollars but the problem is the circumspection applied by the lending and the borrowing parties. Many are the vociferous party faithful who are ready to mudsling at discerning concerned citizens for their objective views on how Ghana is being run simply by reason of protecting some selfish interest. In total Prof Mills has contracted US$28.5 billion most from the Chinese government in his recent visit to China and this has happened within less than two years of being Ghana’s President
In the first place, why is China in such readiness to lend Ghana so much in one application on one visit? The UK Independent News paper has placed a caution note on China’s readiness to lavish loans on applicant lending nations. What precautionary and due diligence measures has the government put in place for or against the future of Ghana’s development and economic prospects. Both America and most European countries owe China by way of loans but in these countries due diligence and effective public institutions are empowered to protect public and State interests as against any selfish interest of the executive unlike in Ghana where the contrary exists.
In return, as part of trade agreements unrelated to repayment of the loans so taken, Chinese goods relatively not in the same street as British-made or European goods have flooded the markets of these Western countries to the discontent of consumers though these are supposed to be of special quality made for Western markets as compared to those meant for poor developing countries that may not even serve or be satisfactory for the purpose. America owes China trillions of US Dollars as per The Economist however America has its economic discipline and public institutions well in place and trusted to deliver unlike Ghana where executive corruption and social indiscipline have overtaken and consumed the fabric and senses of executives and institutions.
It may be recalled that soon after assuming office, the Vice President set out on a world-wide mission to woo and attract investors into Ghana in an apparent bid to compete with, equal or overtake the pace set by the preceding Kufuor-led NPP administration. The Vice President’s expedition was a grave disappointment because Western economies where the potential investors abound have declined dealing with left-leaning governments. Secondly be reminded that the (P)NDC as a leftist tradition had earlier condemned dealings with the IMF and the World Bank as Western imperialist institutions but they made a sudden U-turn to the World Bank and IMF not-withstanding their attached strings of conditionality and their earlier revolutionary condemnation of these institutions. As it stands now apart from the IMF and the World Bank where they can contract loans as Western international institutions, Western economies are no-go areas in respect of loans to Ghana under a left-leaning government of the sort of the NDC. China in its extreme leftist tradition stretched out open arms in solidarity to embrace the Mills-led NDC as a consoling encouragement to a member leftist fraternity in need for a bail-out.
It’s great to have the money in our country to but we have to be very wary about it imprimis because Mills cannot be trusted when it comes to economic management. Whiles serving under Rawlings as Vice President, the same trio comprising Mills, Dufuor and Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur at the helm of affairs in the economic management team dealt the deadly blow to Ghana’s economy only to be saved subsequently by President Kufuor’s HIPC initiative. As President, John Mills has fielded unqualified, inexperienced, upstart strepent stripling like Fiifi Kwetey in his finance ministry playing chess with a job that requires insight learning. There are too many of his ilk in Mills’ team ‘B’ steering Ghana in juggernaut on rough roads at top speed for applause by daredevils. With all their so-called economic wizards around them the Vice President brought in STX Korea to the approbation of Mills who gave a nod to an amphibolous US$20 billion 200,000 housing deal that took the courage, scrutiny and persistence of the NPP to break by not cutting the Gordian knot but with the application of horse sense and political systematic and mathematical ingenuity. We need to know exactly what Mills has in mind for the Chinese loan and why China has also without hesitation offered to lend so much at a go and with what conditions before we begin clapping for Mills’ bacon he has brought home.
When indebted to another party with a loan of this magnitude, other millstone encumberances must be expected which even the advanced economies try and avoid let alone a pedetentous developing economy like Ghana. By contracting a loan of this magnitude in so short a period from one lender, is there not the possibility of an incipient neo-colonialism awaiting our future in the hands of China? It is certain that Mills has a project in mind but we also need to know how self-sustaining the said project will be without the need to go for more loan burdens because Ghana has almost maxed itself out. The 640 days old Mills-led government has already taken almost US$5 billion World Bank loans only to be scrambled for by as Rawlings phrases it his ‘greedy bastards’.
From the rumour mill Mills is going to construct a Eastern bye pass Accra – Kulungugu railway through the Volta Region, notwithstanding the demised existing triangular railway built by Guggisberg in the late 1920’s that needs repairing and stocking with carriages. If the rumour monger is right, has Mills considered its self-sustainability or is it one of the clap trap public ostentatious projects for votes? I can say on authority that the Northerners especially yearn for economic salvation more than an international airport as promised them and now a rail transport added that would push them into further immiseration.
The fact that Mills’ officers are corrupt beyond expression is open secret in Ghana today so can Mills assure Ghanaians that a huge chunk of this loan is not going to fill the pockets of his functionaries and foot soldiers whiles he would look on unconcerned and subsequently defend them as a trivial matter of indiscretion? If it so happens, the burden of repayment shall be hung on the neck of the up and coming generation for years to come. Is Professor Do nothing not simply trying desperately to prove himself to be Professor Do something that is rather mischievous? Mills is desperate for an immortal recognition that will live on the memory of later generations hence his reckless borrowing and unbridled spending that will be in a different chapter in Ghana’s political history. He ostensibly believes that even if things go wrong, the NPP are there to go HIPC again
Adreba Kwaku Abrefa Damoa & Peter Antwi
London UK
