A former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has said voter disappointment in the Akufo-Addo government is now ‘clearly written on the wall’.
Mr Alex Mould said with the government embroiled in several corruption scandals over the past three years, the NPP government’s final objective was to deceitfully “capture political power” in 2020.
“No wonder people are now using Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to confirm if the President is really the same person they voted for. Hardship in Ghana is real and unbearable,” he jabbed.
He accused the Akufo-Addo government of state capture explaining it is “the efforts of a small number of people who use their power and influence to change the laws and rules of engagement to amass wealth at the expense of the state by stealing assets.”
“And it is undoubtedly the trademark of this corrupt NPP government led by President Akufo Addo,” the former GNPC boss said.
Speaking at the first general meeting with members of Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN), the student wing of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) on Saturday, he cited the suspension of electricity company Power Distribution Service (PDS) and the AKER deal in the upstream energy sector, as examples of state capture under the NPP government.
“In my recent articles, I questioned why everyone is quiet following the facts that emerged from the ‘FTI Report’ and the ‘Government to Qatar delegation Report’ that have exposed the gargantuan on-going state capture. I will reiterate that we have all been played,” he stressed.
The findings as indicated in the report are that, ECG insisted on getting approvals from the right authorities on every stage of the process and the need for thorough due diligence on the financial guarantee.
Despite this, he said there was clear and ample negligence by Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) advisors (the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Millennium Development Authority (MiDA)), Ministry of Finance, and the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, of not applying good governance practices needed in many instances.
There was also a lack of due diligence especially in the approvals of the PDS local partners, and in the selection of the other foreign partner- the Angolan company ANergia SA- who was not initially part of the consortium, he added.
The energy expert and former banker furthered his argument saying: “I guess the discussions going on are focused on how the 51% local content will eventually be split between the currently known shareholders and the real beneficial owners who can’t show their faces yet.
“If this is not a case of good governance gone wrong in a well thought out ‘state capture’ scheme by the powers that be in a bid to engage a private sector company as the concessionaire for ECG, then I do not know what it is.”
“I was flabbergasted when I realised how a foreign firm like, Meralco, which is the only entity in the PDS Consortium that has the technical and financial clout to be in that Consortium, will allow itself to be used by the puppet masters that control government business to perpetuate this grand scheme.”
Source: Myjoyonline.com