The founding president of IMANI has called out former Education Minister Elizabeth Ohene for her latest article titled “All-knowing Neutrals”.
The IMANI Chief Executive Officer accused her of double standards by labelling the country’s Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) as being all-knowing, following their critique of the Agyapa Royalties deal.
He quizzed how she never thought of IMANI as being all-knowing when she made use of its forums to trumpet her views during the days when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was in opposition.
“Here was Ms Elizabeth Ohene speaking on corruption when IMANI gave her the platform when she and her party were in opposition. She was given another platform to speak on education reforms when she and her party were in opposition,” he captioned on his tweet feed.
“The CSOs are currently very busy doing what they do best, which is to point out what the government is doing wrong. Since that is their self-appointed role, I wouldn’t feel the need to comment but for the persistent fact that the CSOs appear to think that any criticism directed at them means one is against them.
“I can’t understand why it is okay for them to point out what they believe to be wrong and yet, someone pointing out what they might have gotten wrong is supposed to mean you don’t want them to exist,” she said in her article.
According to her, “They claim to love Ghana far more than anybody else and definitely more than anybody in politics. I have problems with that. They claim to be honest, hardworking and effective and they have answers to every problem. They are mistaken.”
Government has rejected the content of a letter issued by the CSOs raising issues on the Agyapa Minerals Royalties deal with the latter calling for its suspension.
In the letter, the CSOs suggested among other claims that the timeline of 4 months to Initial Public Offering (IPO) is problematic, therefore to ensure favourable pricing of the offered securities, the timeline for listing any MIIF SPV on any international exchange should be extended to at least April 2021.
Honorary Vice-President of IMANI-Africa, Bright Simons was concerned that government’s reaction to the objections raised by CSOs was that the input of the country’s CSOs on the Agyapa deal is not needed.
He emphasized that the role CSOs play in ensuring accountability by government is very critical, therefore, saying their efforts are not needed is unfortunate.