The STX housing deal at the centre of NDC musical chairs

A Ghana News Agency report on 03.08.10 stated that Parliament has passed the STX housing agreement Minority members walked out. The deal is a loan agreement with STX company in South Korea under which 30,000 units of accommodation will be constructed for the security services.

Ever since the agreement was laid before Parliament, grave concerns continue to be expressed by individuals, institutions and parliamentarians about it. The most serious are that the cost of the project is prohibitive and that the Government does not have to give sovereign guarantee for the project to be undertaken. Other reasons are that it is not in the nation’s interest for STX to bring in labour from South Korea to build houses. Added to that, the company and its employees will repatriate their profit and enjoy huge tax incentives.

A Ghanaian institution, Ghana Real Estate Developers Association, has said that Ghanaian companies would be able to do the work at a much lower cost than what is being charged by STX, not to mention jobs it would create for us. Local companies would use local materials which would also give us by products. GREDA has issued a statement outlining proposals it made to the Government. I have my doubt that the NDC Government gave proper and full consideration to the proposals. If it did, it would have issued a response to them.

I can see how frustrating it has been for GREDA that the NDC Government is adamant not to give the contract to Ghanaian companies. The scale of the project and the obligations it imposes on Ghanaians almost turn the agreement into a treaty. To rush into what to me looks like a treaty is regrettable.

The nation uses its scarce resources to import things that we cannot produce ourselves: certain types of food, medicine and medical equipment, books, building materials, tractors, farming implements, cars, aeroplanes, armoury, and so on. On top of that is the fact that the world is an uneven playing field in terms of trade. Developing countries flood our market with things that we can produce ourselves, like tomato and poultry. They sell them at a much cheaper price than our farmers do and squeeze them out of the market. Negotiations have been going on for years and we and other developing countries keep complaining about it. Therefore, we should use the little resources we are left with to support our companies and create jobs. As far as I know, we are under no obligation under world trade agreement to subscribe to the STX loan. Therefore, I am struggling to find out why the NDC Government is determined to sign the agreement. Maybe it is its disdain for property owning democracy. To this I would say that to be spiteful is sweet, but only for those who can afford it.

To use the former NRC catchphrase, we must be self reliant and control the commanding heights of the economy. If constructing houses is not one of the commanding heights of the economy, then what is it? We must not throw away the little foreign exchange we earn for outsiders to do for us what we can do ourselves.

When His Excellency the President of the Republic stepped in to have the agreement withdrawn from Parliament, it was a big relief to many Ghanaians. My feeling was that the President must have acknowledged that there were serious matters at stake that required his intervention. Therefore, painstaking efforts would be made to look at the agreement. I even thought for a moment that the agreement was buried once the President stepped in. That did not happen, and a statement from The Castle about what the issues were would have been helpful. It would have been in furtherance of open government. Unfortunately, nothing was heard from The Castle. Within a few days, the agreement was relaid before Parliament, again without a word from The Castle. I was disappointed.

We talk of separation of powers under our constitution. I am not clear in my mind whether the President can intervene in a matter that is before Honourable Members of Parliament without telling the nation what his concerns were. Two or three days later, the same agreement is laid before Parliament, again without an indication of what consideration His Excellency the President gave to it. Wherein lies separation of powers?

After the Executive had re-presented the agreement to Parliament, it was again withdrawn to rectify errors. It was back on the floor of the House two or three hours later. So one could be forgiven for asking what consideration was given to the agreement when it was withdrawn by the President in the first place. Wherein lies good governance?

In the meantime, the National Youth Organiser of the Convention People’s Party, James Kwabena Bomfeh, Jnr, took the matter of the STX agreement to the Supreme Court. I commend him for that. Again, it is not clear whether the NDC Government took notice of that fact and, if it did, what its consideration was. As a nation, we must be wary of the huge amount of foreign debt that we continue to pile on from the time of independence. I was surprised to read about a year ago from a report that came from Parliament that Ghana was still making default debt or judgement payment in respect of the construction of the Akosombo Dam.

If Ghanaian companies, under the umbrella of GREDA, had been given the housing contract, it would have created a big leap in the nation’s development. Unfortunately, it sounds as if the NDC Government does not want Ghanaian companies to thrive because it sees successful private enterprise as a threat to the NDC. We have seen this before, under AFRC and PNDC and, to a lesser extent, under the first NDC Government. J K Siaw’s Tata Brewery and other big business at the time of AFRC quickly come to mind. The NDC Government does not appear to be mindful of the fact that, if Ghanaian companies do not progress, the economy will remain stagnant.

jasanteyeboah@yahoo.co.uk