Breaking News RIP OFF- Foreign Ministry Studies Report On STL

Breaking News

RIP OFF- Foreign Ministry Studies Report On STL

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has began a comprehensive study of all reports on the operations of Superlock Technologies Limited (STL) an Israeli company which was awarded a contract for the renovation of three of Ghana's missions abroad.

The contract of US$16,746,682.00 was for the renovation of Ghana's missions in New York, Washington DC and Ottawa.

Interestingly, Superlock Technologies Limited has no construction experience.
Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Insight that the Don Arthur report on the renovation of the missions as well as all media reports are being studied for serious action.

A report prepared by a Ghanaian team headed by Dr Adu Arthur of the office of the President says the contract was awarded without regard to the Public Procurement Law (ACT 663).

There were no consultants engaged for the procurement of the works and no applicable contractor-selection procedure was adopted. The report claims that statutory processes and procedures were completely ignored and basic documents normally submitted for building works are not available.

Conspicuously absent from the contract documents are offer and acceptance correspondence, technical specifications, bill of quantities and activity schedules.
The scope of works for each contract was given only in narrative form without any Bills of Quantities specifying the exact quantum and quality of each item of work to be executed.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Kufuor and by extension the state was pushed into contracts the limits of which were not clearly defined.
The lump-sum quotations submitted by STL were accepted by the Ministry without any negotiations.

Payment schedules were exclusively time bound and did not take into account, quantum and quality of work done. Superluck Technologies Limited was incorporated in Ghana over 20 years ago to sell security locks and doors.
In 2003, the company was re-lunched with two Ghanaians, a man and wife listed as owners with Mr. Yaron Tal as Managing Director.

In June 2008, the Company's ownership changed. The Ghanaian couple sold their shares to a Swiss Company whose directorship remains undisclosed. An important event marked the change in the fortunes of STL. On Wednesday, November 11, 2003, Hajia Alima Mahama, then Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and PSI publicly announced that “Superlock Technologies Limited would serve as good ambassadors for Ghana and attract foreign investments from Israel and other developing countries.”

A strategic partnership had been established between the Kufuor administration and STL which has since reflected in the fortunes and influence of the Israeli company. Since then STL through a system of political patronage has become the largest single provider of Data Communication services and surveillance systems to public institutions in Ghana.

The institutions include, the Ghana Commercial Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, National Health Insurance Authority, the Electoral Commission and the National Security Council Secretariat. STL has carefully cultivated strategic relations with influential members of the dominant political parties in Ghana including the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Source:  

The Insight Newspaper http://www.insightnewspaper.com/

Kwesi Pratt Causes Fear And Panic In The NPP! Part One

Kwesi Pratt Causes Fear And Panic In The NPP!

Part One: What Exactly Did Kwesi Say?
Feature Article | by Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,




Introduction.

I wish to raise the following: US Military Bases In Ghana: Any Secret Deal Between The NPP And The Americans? Gabriel Asare Ochere-Darko, Executive Director of the Danquah Institute,  Says So! This also includes, quite naturally, a special treatment of the NPP-USA.
The latest twaddle of the NPP USA concerns three main issues:

1. The link between our oil and the US Military Bases in Africa
2. The GNPC-KOSMOS Dispute Over Violations Of the Laws Of Ghana.
3. Socialism and Capitalism

These are not subjects that one can treat exhaustively under one article unless one is full of wine, or beer, as it might be in the case of the scribes of the NPP USA. I am thus compelled to take them one after the other in subsequent feature articles. This permits me to deal effectively and fairly comprehensively.

Thus for now, our focus is on the first point:

The link between Africa's Oil and the US Africom: What Does The NPP Say About This?

What Exactly Did Kwesi Say About This Link? 
A lot of people have heard of the strange and monumentally ignominious call by the USA-NPP for the arrest of Kwesi Pratt, Jnr. Whilst this marks a very extremely low point for our precious infant democracy. It is obvious from their press releases that the NPP USA are very adamant not to bite the finger that feeds them. This however should not prevent us to defend our own country, Ghana. What many people are unaware of is the question of what did Kwesi say exactly whilst contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji political programme, to incur the wrath of this group who now accuse Mr. Pratt for causing needless "fear and panic" in their hearts and are therefore calling for his arrest?

It is amazing the speed with which they are seeking refuge behind meaningless ideological debates instead of discussing real and present dangers facing our continent today, which could be worse than slavery and colonialism combined! It is the exposure of the NPP's involvement once again in a brutal mischief against the people of Ghana and Africa which is the source of the fear and the panic they are complaining of! By the time I am through with this article, I would have given enough hints to alert Ghanaians as to why they should be extremely careful about every single move of the dubious clique of treacherous elites and traitors of their own people who dare to call themselves "patriotic"!

 "USA Is Ready To Kill And Destroy For Ghana's Oil... NPP Is Supporting Them!"

A Transcription of the Statement by Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Jnr., by the courtesy of the Office of the Odikro.


BEGIN QUOTE
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has said that it is interested in buying the 23 per cent stake of Kosmos in the Jubilee Field. It is not, as it were, extracting that stake from Kosmos. Kosmos itself says, "We want out, we want to sell."

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation says, "We want to buy it."


Kosmos says, "We will not sell to Ghana. We will only sell it to another American company."

The whole of the US establishment is mounting monumental pressure on our government to cave in to US demands. Christian Council is quiet, Bar Association is quiet. New Patriotic Party is supporting Kosmos against Ghana. I mean, this is incredible! You cannot believe it my brother, it's incredible!

Kosmos has violated the laws of Ghana with impunity. They have made data, that we have paid more than 300 million dollars collecting - the GNPC expenditure on collecting seismic data and so on, cost the Ghanaian tax payer, more than 300 million dollars - Kosmos takes the data and distributes it free of charge in order to promote its interests, in order to ensure that it gets more money for its shares.

This matter is raised, and the very people who are making noises about our oil revenue, K.T. Hammond, New Patriotic Party, all these World-Bank-and-IMF-funded so-called NGOs! They are supporting Kosmos in this, against the people of Ghana. And they are the same people making noises about oil revenue. I mean, it is incredible!

I don't know how many people have read "The Cheney Report", the Cheney Report on America's strategic interests in West African Oil? I don't know how many people have read it. Now, if you have read the Cheney Report..., you know, when George Bush became President in 2001, one of his first acts was to establish a committee which would determine the US strategic energy interests and so on.

That committee was chaired by Dick Cheney, his Vice President, and they've written a very interesting Report. The Report says that, given all the turmoil, the social, political and economic turmoil in the Middle East and  the Persian Gulf and other places, The Report said  at the time that the US was importing around 11 per cent of its total oil requirements from West Africa.  Eleven to twenty five per cent in ten years!

So let us open our eyes. Let us listen to the world - what is happening what is happening in the world! The major threat to us is the conspiracy by some of the Western powers, especially the United States of America, to control our oil resources. And don't you make a mistake, military bases are not established for picnics! Military bases are established for the purposes of killing and destruction, and not for organising picnics!

So what the US is saying is that they are ready to kill, to maim, and destroy, in order to control our oil resources. And our churches, our Bar Association, and the so-called elders in society are quibbling about whether we should put our money in the bank or spend it! They are not thinking about how to control the resource. The are thinking about what to do with the crumbs which fall from the table of the big powers. That is what they are thinking about!

I think that the first  and most important thing that any citizen of Ghana who loves his country has to do is to ensure that the oil belongs to us, and we control it, and we exploit and utilize it on behalf of our people, especially the disadvantaged.

END QUOTE.
 
Click her to listen: Audio Attachment: Listen to Kwesi Pratt in his own voice, on why he thinks the USA is ready to kill for Ghana's oil; and the NPP's alleged support for KOSMOS


De-linking Oil From US Military Bases In Africa

It is very strange that the NPP-USA puts up such brave face with evident Dutch courage to make the fatuous claim that there is no link between US Militarisation of diplomacy and desire to establish military bases here in Africa has nothing to do with Oil!

Just listen to them:

"What makes this claim infantile is that in reality, Ghana’s proven oil reserves of 1.8 billion barrels, while contextually significant and greatly appreciated, constitute 0.17% of proven oil reserves on the African continent. Pratt would have us believe that the United States would spend $10 billion (the minimum spent on even the smallest of military bases) for that amount of oil? It is true that the United States does not build military bases for charity purposes, and that it does so to protect its interest. That said, a cost/benefit analysis does not support the puerile claims made by this third rate debater. What’s more, plans to establish a United States Military base in Ghana surfaced at least four years before the oil discovery, and it had more to do with the war on terrorism." See PRESS STATEMENT FROM NPP-USA – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, KWESI PRATT’S LIES ARE NOT RADIO WORTHY, Ghanaweb.com, Diasporian News of Thursday, 18 November 2010, Source: NPP-USA

Kwesi quite rightly reacts:

"The USA branch of the NPP does not deny that the United States of America intended or wished to establish a military base in Ghana. It stated inter alia that “….plans to establish a United States military base in the country surfaced at least four years before the oil discovery and that it has more to do with the war on terrorism than the control of oil resources in Ghana”. Clearly what this branch of the NPP seeks to do is to admit the intent to establish a US military base in Ghana but to delink it from the control of the country's oil. Unfortunately, the United States itself coupled its intention to establish a military base in Ghana with its control of the oil resources of West Africa.

When President George W. Bush became the President of the United States of America in 2001, he set up what has come to be known as the Cheney Committee, chaired by his Vice President good old Dick Cheney with a mandate to review US strategic energy requirements. The report of the Cheney Committee predicted that US oil imports from West Africa will rise from 11 per cent in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2015 as a result of several factors. The report recommended that as a measure to protect US interest in West African oil, military bases needed to established in West Africa. Following this recommendation the late president of Nigeria, Omaru Yardua stated that Nigeria will not allow the establishment of foreign military bases on its soil and will use all of her influence to prevent the establishment of US military bases in West Africa. See: NPP - USA: Attack dogs of Imperialism And Ignorant Noise Makers!

Other people, including scholars and US officials, including  Donald Norland, former U.S. Ambassador to Chad told a Congressional subcommittee virtually the same thing:

"In May 2001 the Cheney report warned that the U.S. would grow increasingly dependent upon foreign oil in the years to come and recommended that as a matter of policy the Bush Administration work to increase production and export of oil from regions other than the Middle East, noting that Latin America and West Africa were likely to be the fasting growing sources of future U.S. oil imports.[48] Africa supplies about 15% of U.S. oil imports, but with African production growing at twice the global rate, it could be supplying the U.S. with as much energy as the Middle East within a decade.[49] Three months later, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner declared that African oil "has become a national strategic interest.[50] " This statement is particularly noteworthy in that it uses the language of the Carter Doctrine in the Middle East, in which President Carter went on to declare that the U.S. would intervene by any means necessary to protect its national interest in Middle Eastern oil. In April 2002, Donald Norland, former U.S. Ambassador to Chad told a Congressional subcommittee: "It's been reliably reported that, for the first time, the two concepts—'Africa' and 'U.S. national security'—have been used in the same sentence in Pentagon documents."[51] Having declared African oil to be of strategic interest to the United States, the Bush Administration has not taken the second step to actually apply the Carter Doctrine to Africa. This has left U.S. policy open to criticism from both sides. The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy in Africa has criticized it for failing "to make a geopolitical shift to pay sufficient attention to West Africa's energy rich Gulf of Guinea,"[52] while others see a neo-imperial push unfolding in the sub-region.[53] " - Letitia Lawson, U.S. Africa Policy Since the Cold War, Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 1 (January 2007) US Naval Postgraduate School.

When Kwesi Pratt Jnr., first broke the news in 2007 of the US intentions to establish its Africom headquarters in Accra with the connivance of the ruling NPP, my first reaction was "how are they going to pull that off? We were virtually in an electoral year and an overwhelming majority of Ghanaians would not approve of a party that brings in a foreign power to establish a military base on our territory!" Reading later on from an article written by Mr. Akufo-Addo's right-hand man, Gabby Asare Ochere-Darko, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, all the denials and assurances given by Presidents Kufour and Bush in Accra during the latter's visit was nothing but the "Baloney!" itself!

Indeed, I suspected it as it was happening, that the NPP, particularly Nana Akufo-Addo must have prevailed with George Bush to defer public manifestation until after the elections, since the NPP was bound to lose the elections if this issue came up before the December 2008 elections. Ochere-Darko's article, "Obama's Visit, What Is In It For Us And The US?" confirmed my worst of fears! Both our own President, Mr. John Agyekum Kufour and Mr. George Bush lied publicly to the people of Ghana and the world at large, when Mr Bush declared to the media that the US was not interested in establishing military bases in Ghana. They were both aware that they were deceiving the public. Needless to say, that these lies must have been carefully discussed and rehearsed! In the next part we shall discuss a very closely related subject: "Bush And Kufour Working In Secret And Throwing Dust Into Our Eyes!" after the famous "Baloney!" Declaration. Please don't miss it! Give me a follow on twitter and I shall show you where I am coming from!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

The Odikro, Nana Akyea Mensah II,
 

E-Mail: nanaakyeamensah@gmail.com
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,
Friendfeed: /friendfeed.com/theodikro
 

Blogs: 

Feature Articles: nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com,
Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com)

NPP - USA: Attack dogs of Imperialism And Ignorant Noise Makers

By Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

The United States of America (USA) branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) does the electoral fortunes of the party no favours by its brazen defense of imperialism especially from the stand point of absolute ignorance.

This branch of a party which believes in “Property Owning Democracy” feels offended by my calling for the defence of the national interest in the exploitation of the natural resources of Ghana. It ignorantly tries to decouple the establishment of US military bases in Africa from US attempts to control West African oil resources and it claims that Ghana did not spend any resources to acquire valuable data which KOSMOS Energy distributed illegally to oil companies.

The USA branch of the NPP demands that the Ghana Police Service should pick me up and put me before court for daring to speak out against US interference in the management of our oil resources. Interestingly this is the same branch of the NPP which screamed loudly against the arrest and prosecution of Nana Darkwa for claiming that former President Rawlings burnt his own house. They claimed that the arrest of Nana Darkwa was a violation of his right of free speech. However their commitment to the right of free speech evaporates into thin air when the subject of criticism happens to be the Almighty United States of America.

Many of the claims of the USA branch of the NPP are completely false. It claimed that “The actual amount spent to collect 3D seismic data was just over $30 million and all that cost was borne by KOSMOS, not Ghana. “This is obviously meant to debunk my statement that Ghana has spent in excess of $300 million to collect relevant data which KOSMOS illegally made available to oil companies without the consent of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). Perhaps the USA branch of the NPP needs to be reminded of the fact that data acquisition on Ghana's oil fields have a more than 100 year history. Indeed at the time that data acquisition began KOSMOS did not even exist. The Geological Survey Department, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, the erstwhile Soviet Union, Romania under communist rule and several other entities have all contributed in varying degrees to the acquisition of data on Ghana's oil resources. As a fact between 1984 and 1994, Ghana spent in excess of $300 million on data acquisition and related projects. KOSMOS           was itself attracted to Ghana after the data had been made available to it.

The USA branch of the NPP does not deny that the United States of America intended or wished to establish a military base in Ghana. It stated inter alia that “….plans to establish a United States military base in the country surfaced at least four years before the oil discovery and that it has more to do with the war on terrorism than the control of oil resources in Ghana”. Clearly what this branch of the NPP seeks to do is to admit the intent to establish a US military base in Ghana but to delink it from the control of the country's oil. Unfortunately, the United States itself coupled its intention to establish a military base in Ghana with its control of the oil resources of West Africa.

When President George W. Bush became the President of the United States of America in 2001, he set up what has come to be known as the Chenney Committee, chaired by his Vice President good old Dick Chenney with a mandate to review US strategic energy requirements. The report of the Chenny Committee predicted that US oil imports from West Africa will rise from 11 per cent in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2015 as a result of several factors. The report recommended that as a measure to protect US interest in West African oil, military bases needed to established in West Africa. Following this recommendation the late president of Nigeria, Omaru Yardua stated that Nigeria will not allow the establishment of foreign military bases on its soil and will use all of her influence to prevent the establishment of US military bases in West Africa.

The USA branch of the NPP states that ….”Ghana's proven oil reserves of 1.8 million barrels, whiles contextually significant and greatly appreciated, constitute only 0.17 per cent of proven oil reserves on the entire African continent” and therefore the US will not spend more than $10 billion to establish a military base in Ghana. The ignorance of the USA branch of the NPP is more than apparent. The US military base in Ghana was to serve the strategic interest of the US in the entire West African sub-region and beyond. Secondly, it is only the Jubilee Oil Field in Ghana which has been assessed to have reserves of up to 1.8 billion. There are several other fields with huge potentials and the US unlike the NPP branch knows this.

In attempting to refute my claim that the NPP has supported the KOSMOS – EXXON – MOBIL deal, the branch wrote “certain individuals who may be sympathetic to the NPP have expressed support for the deal, but the party itself has not made any declaration in support of it”. What a pity and who are these individuals who support the deal?

The loudest supporter of the KOSMOS – EXXON deal has been Mr. K.T. Hammond, former NPP Deputy Minister of Energy who has acted as the party spokesperson on Energy in many instances. Other persons with substantial influence in the NPP have also spoken out in favour of this rather dubious deal which frowns on the laws of Ghana. In any case the USA branch of the NPP leaves no doubt about what the party's position is, when it asks “…why would Pratt be so vehemently opposed to an American company buying out another American company, but demonstrates tacit support for the Chinese Company's purchase? Although it was supposedly a GNPC/CNOOC offer, with the Chinese putting up the entire $5 billion, who do you think would control the stake when purchased? Do not forget that when the opportunity presented itself for the Chinese to invest money to explore for oil in Ghana, they laughed at what they called the “oil graveyard”. Can the NPP's position on the KOSMOS-EXXON deal be more clearer?

Statements by the USA branch of the NPP which tend to glorify gold exploitation in Ghana are at best misinformed. As at today, Ghana gets only five per cent of the total value of gold it exports. Is the USA branch of the NPP happy with this situation too?

I am sick and tired of these imperialist attack dogs and their anti-national machinations and if these types get anywhere near power we might as well begin to sing the requiem mass for Nkrumah's Ghana.

Source: The insight Newspaper