Kwesi Pratt Jnr
Not quite long ago, the Managing-Editor of the so-called Insight newspaper,Kwesi Pratt Jnr told any Ghanaian citizen who would listen that as long as he was endowed with breath by divine providence, he would work hard to ensure that the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) held onto the reins of governance.
And so, it is rather amusing to hear Mr. Pratt call on his fellow Ghanaians to revolt against the Mahama government, in order to ensure that space-rocketing inflation of electricity bills was drastically reduced to manageable proportions by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) – (See “Gov’t Must Be Forced to Reduce Electricity Bills – Pratt” Adomonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/27/16).
According to Mr. Pratt, within a couple of months, his electricity bill has jumped from GHc300 to GHc 1,800 and then to GHc 2,000 and counting. According to him: “The bill that was brought last month was just too serious; it was 6,000 Ghana cedis. I don’t know whether to cry or laugh about this….” Mr. Pratt was recently quoted to have lamented to a radio talk-show host.
My simple riposte is: Stomach-oriented Mr. Journalist, come on, go hang yourself by the balls. I will take care of your funeral arrangements.
This is the same man who, not very long ago, was widely alleged to be on the free-gas list of the Flagstaff House, together with other equally notorious stomach-oriented media operatives.
Back then, the self-proclaimed die-hard Nkrumaist also let it be known that it would be politically suicidal for him to facilitate the return of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to power.
Now, Mr. Pratt is accusing President John Dramani Mahama of deliberately scheming to run him out of business.
“No one in Ghana can say that the new billing [regime] must continue; it would disturb us if it is allowed to continue. It is very harsh; it would collapse companies. They should decrease it early because it is very disturbing,” the talk-show circuit fixture was widely quoted to have said.
What intrigues me to no end here, though, is the fact that a notoriously and obnoxiously critical Mr. Pratt has yet to demand to know precisely what sort of “Usain Bolt” meter gauge the ECG has been using, since the Chief Resident of the Flagstaff House and his energy point man declared the catastrophic regime of Dumsor to have effectively become a thing of the past.
The government also has yet to release any reliable figures explaining just how many jobs were lost or run aground by the protracted and erratic power supply, instead, has become characteristic of its key operatives. The Mahama regime has been claiming to have created some 300,000 (three-hundred-thousand) jobs within the past year or so.
On the other hand, some labor experts have claimed that at least ten times the number of jobs that the government claims to have created may very well have been lost. Whatever the quiddities of the real story may be, one thing is incontrovertibly clear: this is a seismic election year in which the notoriously kleptocratic National Democratic Congress’ taxpayer-money guzzling juggernaut has become clearly strapped for cash.
Which means that the Mahama posse is hell-bent on squeezing electioneering campaign dole out of any nook or crevice that it deems milkable, including the callous manipulation of the key operatives of the ECG and the latter’s Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) overlords to mass up direly needed campaign funds.
The strategic and timely decision by the three-time running-mate of the presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr.-Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, to expose the NDC scam-artists over the $250 million Eurobond “idle funds” could not have come at a worse time for the Flagstaff House’s Abongo Boys.
And on the latter scandal, too, rather than boldly and honestly face up to their shenanigans, the Mahama attack dogs, including the Parliamentary Majority Leader, Mr. Alban S. K. Bagbin, have virulently accused the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana of attempting to seriously undermine the country’s standing with the IMF and World Bank, whose representatives were in the country to assess the economic performance of the Mahama regime, with his revelation.