MUST READ: A Letter to the President of Ghana-John Dramani Mahama from a Concerned Ghanaian- K. Andam Jr…

Despite the uncountable problems hovering over Ghana, there are those who by propaganda or pure absurdity continue to sing the “all things are well” song—and there are those who have kept their hands in-between their thighs, waiting for that divine intervention which will NEVER come.

As usual, there are those whose conscience cannot be bought, undermined, tricked and restrained with gibberish and multiple propagation of falsehood. One of such persons is a concerned USA based Ghanaian-K. Andam Jr, who has written an interesting letter to His Excellency-President John Mahama, outlining some of the key Ghanaian problems with suggested solutions.

It’s a lengthy piece, but it is worth a read….

Check the letter out below.

 

Letter to: His Excellency President John Mahama
Flag staff house, Accra
Republic of Ghana

Dear Mr. President of Ghana,

I write to request audience with your offices for the Ordinary People of Ghana whose votes got you your appointment as CEO of our country Ghana. As you may have realized or maybe not realized yet, we have been a very unhappy people over the past two years because of how terrible your government has managed the affairs of our country and its resources.

We are a country who is currently producing Oil in commercial quantities, ranked globally as a major producer of one of the most consumed commodity in the world (Cocoa), highly respected as a global producer of Gold, and have so many other Intellectual Assets for easy access to structured capital and financing without becoming dependent on international capital gangsters like the IMF, IFC, and the World Bank. Why can’t our human capital and tools at our disposal, and the abundant resources we have in our beautiful country be put into effective use and structure qualified and competent people to help manage them so that we can become a self sustained economy?

I have been sitting in my room wondering why we have so much given to us but always end up with terrible leaders and incompetent people to manage the affairs of the simplest GDP contributors to our national coffers. As a concerned Ghanaian, I would like to know what you and your team of non performing but wasteful executives plan to do to resolve Ghana’s financial woes and chaos that your government seems to enjoy creating?

I have been reading a lot about Ghana lately and lost two dinners to friends because of our world cup loss to the US which is upsetting to me. Now I have to buy steak for two Americans who are really determined to eat. I will send you pictures tomorrow of my dented wallet so that you can see the pain your match fixing executives have caused me. After reading comments of our fellow country men and women on the many websites and international mediums, I felt the need to write this personal letter to you to express my concerns about the direction that our country is currently headed economically, financially, and politically under your leadership. 

I am not writing to try and become a blah blah blah whining Ghanaian and so please don’t throw my letter away before you read its contents YOUR EXCELLENCY!!! I know you like to be called that big title just like all the Dr. TITLE buyers who are parading your offices and the various ministries without any meaningful competencies or qualifications in the real world of governance and exemplary leadership.

If I were to have the opportunity to help you appoint good advisors from the ordinary people of Ghana to advise you Mr. PRESIDENT OF GHANA, five things I believe they will suggest immediately that you do to start showing Ghanaians that there is hope for our country will be as follows:

1. Identify a competent Minister of Finance who understands international commerce and bilateral trade relations that can bring great partnerships to our country and provide a sound foundation for value creation with our assets. Your current finance minister is a joke and we all know it. I won’t approve any loans or credit facilities above $200 million dollars for his ministry and your country because he is incompetent and a laughing stock in financial circles around the world.

How can you expect a tax accountant to balance the financial coffers of a country like Ghana. His presentation last year in Washington DC was a joke among the many qualified and competent financial managers who came to learn about Ghana and the prospects of investing in opportunities in our country. When the meetings were done, my phone rang constantly from friends and partners who had a sour taste in their mouth after listening to him speak. His presentation of our countries financial position and direction was so terrible that I was embarrassed to even defend our beloved country against what my friends felt they heard.

2. Appoint competent advisors in the areas of energy, mining, and agriculture which are the key strongholds of any developing nation that is determined to improve the lifestyles of its CITIZENS. If TOR were to be managed right and a real budget was approved to rebuild our refinery, Ghana could be a poster child for doing things right in Oil and Gas after all the problems that have been represented in international circles about our neighbor Nigeria.

How can we as a country produce gold but not have an international standard gold refinery since independence? How can we not allocate $25 Million dollars of our national budget to build a global standard gold refinery and convert the unrefined ore we export internationally into bullion and establish a depository that will bring real value to our people and our country? Why can’t we turn the tailing that have piled up in Tarkwa and provide our small scale miners with the tools to start processing these tailings instead of creating a man made mountain out of them?

We already created a man made lake and got global recognition for that and that is enough for the next 100 years. Let’s turn the current mounting that is building up into value by processing gold out of the tailings. If you don’t know this Mr. President, there is something called GLD (http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2011/11/15/is-gld-really-as-good-as-gold/) that can help our refined gold to become more valuable in reserves than it being sold and taxed less.

I don’t want to write too much about this but I hope that someone looks into this and help you make some needed decisions to help our mother Ghana. With Agriculture, there is a lot to discuss but I will table my thoughts for another day because if I start writing, this might turn into a personal book to you.

3. Hire some good and successful ENTREPRENEURS to come and help organize our various MINISTRIES and create real strategies to convert our abundant but dormant resources into real valuable capital assets that can return great revenues to our country Ghana and help reduce our debt.

On this front, I want to say that if you had some good and real entrepreneurs who have actually built or managed real business in their life and careers and not received political favors and free money from crooks in government, the GYEEDA fiasco that has caused major financial loss to the Ghanaian tax payer would have at least been avoided.

4. Our people are starving and your government is not doing much to help alleviate the level of stress that our country men and women are going through. Please fire your entire team of advisors, ministers who are underperforming, executives who have never run any meaningful corporation or held any administrative position outside of appointments through political affiliations, and all the chop chop people who are killing our country and stealing from us.

5. Please reach out to competent Ghanaians with real qualifications and successes under their belt and call them to services for the sake of Mother Ghana. There are so many Ghanaians out in the world with real qualifications and expertise who can help resuscitate the economy of Ghana that the people you trusted have raped and pillaged even when there is no conflict but peace in our lovely country.

Why can’t you identify such people with all the access and resources that you have at your disposal as President of the Republic of Ghana? This is a question that baffles me daily and gives me nightmares in my sleep.

On another note, I heard that the two cocoa factories in Takoradi where I grew up have been shut down because of the non availability of cocoa seeds for processing due to debt that is owed to the government and Ghana Cocoa board.

My childhood dreamland has been mismanaged and run into the ground because of the incompetent appointments that leaders like yourself allow your advisors to guide you to make. How is this possible? As I write, tears are running down my face because of the level of disappointment that I am currently feeling for our beloved country Ghana.

How can the smell of Cocoa at WAMCO be shut down? Which other factories will be turned over and sold to people within your circle like how Merchant Bank was sold to a group that has never built any successes in real life that can be identified in the world of trade, commerce, and banking? Is there a plan to sell Wamco and Taxi (Cocoa Processing Factory – Takoradi) as well in the same light and format to benefit people within your circles?

This one hits home too hard for me personally because both factories have my childhood dreams embedded in their confines and those memories are being killed and destroyed because of bad leadership. If there is a plan, please keep us the ordinary people informed because we may be able to piece together our pesewas and Cedis together to save our factory.

I read that all the executives of the GFA and those who were part of the scandals at the World Cup are now being popularized on our national media/TV, and being provided with the platforms to defend themselves even when the evidence against them is so glaring and unacceptable.

How can you see someone on video negotiating a match fixing gig, and allow them to still hold a position such as the President of the GFA? What example are you setting for our young ones and future leaders if you can’t bring thieves and corrupt individuals appointed to guard the integrity of our countries pride to justice?

Mr. President, this is the administration that is appointed to manage our beloved BLACK STARS. How can we as a nation sit and watch you allow the rest of the world to ridicule us because of the incompetency of a few who are only out there looking for their short term personal gains and benefits? What are you doing to help fire these crooks, and please don’t use the excuse of FIFA and its crap. They took our tax payers money and so we want accountability and some heads to be fired. We don’t believe in your committees and so please don’t try to pull one over our eyes with that strategy.

I remember all the committees that were setup by your administration to investigate Subah Infosolutions, Agams group, Zoom Lion, Fortiz Group bank scandal, and the many other corrupt inward dealings that have tarnished the image of our country. What happened to the committees that were setup to investigate all the money that was wasted by GYEEDA and the various individuals who filled their pockets at the expense of the Ghanaian tax payer? Where is the report that you promised to make public after the investigation and why hasn’t the supreme court summoned the culprits to be put on trial for justice to be served?

Then there was the period where Ghanaians were promised that the lights out (“Dum Sor”) phenomenon had come to an end only to start experiencing it worse than before because the Bui Dam’s 400 megawatts which was suppose to be the saviour failed to deliver on its promise to date.

Why haven’t we addressed the issues that can easily be fixed on the Akosombo dam with real competent engineers who can resolve the turbine issues and update the technology that is outmoded on the existing infrastructure? I know that your team will tell you that it will be too costly to fix the issues with the existing Dam. Remember that these are the same fools who advised you to rent a barge to supplement energy to help resolve the Dum Sor crises.

Why do you keep on listening to people who have no understanding of modern innovations in the energy sector? How difficult is it to engage a team of brilliant Ghanaian engineers who have the qualifications and experience to identify the most prudent and cost effective solution to our power problems and establish a fund to solve the problem? Praying for rain is not the solution to our power problems Mr. President. Engineering a competent solution and appointing qualified individuals to identify the right capitalization structure is what your team needs to advise you to do. This is not rocket science Mr. President.

As I write to you, I feel that you and your team need more than the divine intervention of GOD that some of your people have been visiting pastors to get. If GOD were to be a man or woman, I am confident that he will whip all of you first like his SON whipped people out of his father’s temple before considering accepting your plea for forgiveness.

Your Excellency, there is a lot more that I would like to write but I feel that your advisors will probably look at this letter and say that “Arkowa Yee Dze Oye Too Known”, and shove it down in the piles of concerned letters that many competent Ghanaians have probably already written to you to express their fears for our country and our people.

Please take a bold stand and be a true PRESIDENT and LEAD us out of our current crises. I will await a response from your offices if you ever get to read this letter. I know you won’t write back but facebookers will write and so I am happy to review the thoughts that readers will share if they are as concerned as I am.

Your humble concerned citizen,

K. Andam Jr.