Opinions of Thursday, 23 January 2014

Columnist: Pobee-Mensah, Tony

It Is So Disappointing And Heart Sinking, President Mahama

I could not believe what I was reading when I read that President Mahama is complaining that the mining companies in Ghana are forcing him to suspend implementing windfall tax on their profit. They can force our President to suspend implementing the tax because they know we have a weak President on whose head they can hold the threat of lay-offs.

If I were the President, I would hold a press conference at their premises and tell the workers that I am going to implement the tax right away and if even one person is laid off, they should stop working right away and go on strike. I will tell them that if that happens, I will immediately nationalize the company and take the company over.

I know many will say that it will scare off foreign investors. This may well be, but there comes a time when you have to pay the price to assert yourself. These people have continued to steel our gold for too long and they continue to do so. Now they know that all they have to do is threaten lay-offs and our President will cower. If we don't take that advantage from them, they will continue to use it to get whatever they want. If the President knew how to create jobs, he would do what he needs to do notwithstanding the threats of these companies.

Now that our President has told us that he will so easily give in to threats of jobs, we have our orders now to remove him from office and put a more assertive person in office. There are so many things that we can do and to see that we have no one to do them is very disheartening.

By the way, President Mahama, is it your policy that communities should charge tolls to maintain their roads as your Minister of Roads and Transport advocated? I am asking this because our press won't ask the important questions. They seem to be as bad as our leaders.