It appears former President John Agyekum Kufuor has incurred the wrath of Ghanaians for attacking former President Kwame Nkrumah, the founder of today’s Ghana.
The latest to vent venom on President Kufour is a communication specialist, Stephen Kwabena Attuh who took to his social media page to remind Mr. Kufour that unlike him, Dr. Kwame Nkramah never went to beg any hairdressing salon to secure a loan to embark on any development project for Ghana.
Former President Kufour has blamed Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s rush for industrialization for Ghana’s failing fortunes.
According to him, instead, if the country to plan after independence, the country under Kwame Nkrumah just zoomed into industrialization without any form of plan.
“When we gained independence we just zoomed into industrialization so we started building factories. If your memories serve you right, in the first republic there were several factories scattered across. That involved a lot of money. The money which was at the Bank of Ghana. That time we were 6 million people in Ghana and the reserves comparing it to now would have been billions because in 1957 it was about 450
Comparatively, countries that are now been used as an example of developed countries like Korea, China and others could not be compared to us at all. Just four years after independence and even before Ghana’s population got to ten million people, all the reserves were gone.
This was because we were running, we wanted to build factories. Shoe factory, leather factory. We didn’t take our time to plan and also make the treasury gain some interest in it. We just started chopping the capital. You don’t chop your capital. That is why the economy collapsed.”
For President Kufour, Those shouting Fix The Country should not present the picture as if the country was built by someone and another person had come to destroy it.
But NDC’s Zeinab took the former President to the cleaners reminding him that at the time Dr. Nkrumah was busily developing Ghana, his (Kufour) party members were busily throwing bombs.
“Nkrumah didn’t take Ghana to a hairdressing salon to secure loan” – She quized
The Saloon loan saga:
In 2004 during the former President Kufour administration, the government has decided to procure $300million loan from the China New Techniques Construction and Investment Limited (CNTCI).
It however turned out that the phone numbers on the documents of the load lead to a Hairdressing saloon in the United Kingdom.
The then Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo responded to the allegations when he met newsmen and these are excerps of what he said:
“Somebody came out with a telephone number which is nowhere on the address given to us…. where the person dreamt that up, I don’t know. In these things, you must deal with patent documents. We are in touch with lenders and we basically believe in the credibility of the shareholders particularly China Rail and a couple of banks but when we look further into this, we will come out with the facts” to do “due diligence” on the loan.
He claimed that most of the concerns raised about the loan especially in relation to the discrepancies in the fax and telephone numbers that point to an $18 per cut for men and $45 for women hairdressing saloon in the London are not correct.
“I think that somebody came out with the telephone number which is no where on the address given to us. So where the fellow dreamt of his number I don’t know.”
By: Efo Korsi Senyo / awakenewsroom.com