Opinions of Friday, 19 July 2013

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

For How Long Will The NDC Remain Shameless & Clueless?

One can hardly understand the type of tissue of which the NDC are made of. Are they not made of some flesh different from that of human, if I may ask by curiosity? The more the revelations in Court indicate the scale of electoral fraud the Electoral Commission collusively involved in with the NDC to rig the presidential election 2012 for John Dramani Mahama, the more the NDC family comes out arguing differently? Who and what do the NDC take Ghanaians for by their actions which are interpretatively a complete underestimation of the intelligence of all discerning Ghanaians?

?The NDC party and government have embezzled the country’s money to the point that there is no money left to pay workers or carry out basic essential developments. The Dramani Mahama government comes up with tax hikes on almost everything in Ghana in a desperate bid to raise quick revenue.

?As rich as most of the NDC gurus with their army of educated illiterates and their zombie-like foot soldiers are, they see nothing wrong about the price hikes but very supportive of the method.?

Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey comes out with damn silly explanation for why Ghanaians MUST accept the tax increases without complaining. He argues that if Ghanaians desire development, there should be money for it. The money can only be available either through borrowing from outside or generating it internally through taxes. Therefore, he sees absolutely nothing wrong with the current increases in taxes on everything including even CONDOM.

? Anita de Sousou, as ignorant and bigoted as she has always been, is very supportive of the tax hikes especially that on condom. She says it will stop women from having sex, giving birth to unplanned children and then becoming single parents. She goes on further to say, it will stop men from being promiscuous and unfaithful to their wives or partners if they would not like to be infected with the ever spreading HIV/AIDS virus or disease. To her, the increase in prices of condoms, making it very expensive for people to buy will deter men from having casual sex as often as they do.

? As naïve as she is, she does not know that the condoms are there as a protective measure against unwanted pregnancy and more so, against the spread of contagious sexually transmitted diseases as HIV/AIDS. The cost to the government and individuals for curing the disease and the adverse impact the disease on the economy and human life are more than preventing it from happening in the first place. Nevertheless, clueless persons like Anita de Sousou and most NDC sympathisers do not see that.

? I listened to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) – Yaro Kasambata this morning, Wednesday 17 July 2013 on air. I found some of his analyses and analogies very preposterous. He was arguing in support of the current price hikes in petroleum products in Ghana. He said, in trade, one should be happy when the price of the commodities he produces to trade in goes up. Therefore, if the world price of crude oil goes up, Ghana must be happy as a producer and exporter of crude oil. In the same breath, Ghanaians must expect increase in petroleum products because the world price of a barrel of crude oil has shot up by $3.00, from US$102.00 to US$107.00, he said. His reason is, Ghana although produces petrol, we export ours only to buy some from others on the world market price hence, the need for price increases whenever the world price of petroleum goes up.

? The question to Yaro is, why should Ghanaians be happy when the price of crude oil goes up when they will end up paying even more than the increase on the world price? When the world price increased by about 2.04%, that in Ghana to consumers went up by 6%. Should Ghanaians be happy? He made an analogy citing increases in producer price of cocoa where Ghanaians with Ghana as a major producer, become jubilant at each world price increment. In the same vein, Ghanaians must readily be happy to accept price/tax hikes, he said. ?

I find his analogy and explanations very annoying, irrelevant and silly. Ghana would be happy if we were not to import petrol but export them in abundance with more than enough surplus to be refined locally for internal use as pertains in the Arabian (Gulf) States – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait etc. These are the States that should be happy when world price of crude oil goes up because they will always be selling without buying any petrol from whoever and for whatever.

? Most of the NDC members who are in a way embezzling funds or making money for no work done are happy the taxes are up. I do not have to delve into its economic implications on the nation and the people. I would not complain if these stealers were going to put the money so generated from the tax and price increases into good use but not pocket it as they have been doing all along. ?

Sorry, I need to go to tackle a more important topic. Bye. ?

Rockson Adofo