Privatising ECG: ‘We might as well sell Ghana’ – Lucy Anin

A veteran member of the Convention People's Party (CPP), Ms Lucy Anin, has said Ghana risks being sold to the highest bidder if the wanton sale of public assets by successive governments does not cease.

The senior citizen’s fears follow Government’s intention to privatise state power distributor, Electricity Company of Ghana, to a private manager, as part of a restructuring programme.

Already, over 50 private local and foreign firms have expressed interest in managing ECG.

Speaking to Class News, Ms Anin, who served in Ghana’s first post-independence Parliament, was unhappy about governments’ desire to sell state enterprises, most of which were established by the Nkrumah administration.

She believed this was part of a grand agenda to erase the legacy of Ghana’s first president.

“If you sell the Electricity Company of Ghana, you sell Akosombo, then you sell Ghana. We have sold this country if we go on selling. What is the purpose of our independence?” she asked. “These are the things we have to know and that is why they want to bury the CPP. They have spent billions and billions to buy CPP, but Kwame Nkrumah’s vision will never die.”

When informed that ECG’s management was to be outsourced because of its mismanagement, Ms Lucy said with “every new thing, you need to go through difficulties. When you go to class one, you start from A,B,C,D…you think Rome was built in a day? Rome was not built in a day, so, it takes time. Then [all we do is] let us sell this, let us sell that, why don’t we sell the whole country and go [into] slavery then?” she asked.

“Do we really need 275 parliamentarians? For what? It is a waste of our money. Instead of managing, what are these MPs in parliament for?…You haven’t heard me speaking these days because I feel so sad when I see mismanagement.

“Don’t you think Ghanaians are capable of doing our own things if we put our foot down, if we are not corrupt?”