Feature: Will STX deal endure?

September 30, 2010 No Comments

Even the clock that does not function has the time right twice in each day.

In the life of the parliament of the Fourth Republic, the legislature has on a number of occasions played subservient to the executive with mixed results. There has been instances where major decisions have been taken in haste by the House to please the executive, against dissenting voices of the minority.

The failure to get the STX deal signed, due to last minute concerns about legality, raised by both the representatives of the Ghana government led by my roommate, Vice President, John Dramani Mahama and the STX team led by its Korean chairman, underlines the fact that things done in haste may not be done well in some instances.

That months after Parliament rushed the contract through, it has not been signed for the project to begin means that we as a nation would not have lost anything if Parliament had been enabled to take time to analyse and evaluate the terms of the contract.

But as it is, assuming the legal issues raised are substantial, then it may require the House to resolve all outstanding issues since any defect in the approval process, if that offended or breached any of the rules of the House, would render the approval voidable.

The discussion as to whether the STX deal will endure has come about due to certain observations I have made about some of the decisions which have been taken in Parliament amid controversy and haste.

There is the need for parliament itself to take a look at some of the issues which present the House in the mould of Esau, in the voluntary surrender to the executive or partisan cause, as Jacob reaped from the indiscretion of Esau.

In the First Parliament of the Fourth Republic, the Value Added Tax was rushed through hastily by the near one party House, made up of almost National Democratic Congress MPs and their allies in the National Convention Party. Despite the diffused outcry that the country was not ready and that more education needed to be undertaken, the law was passed.

Days after mass protests over the VAT law, the then President Jerry John Rawlings, unconstitutionally but beneficially directed the House to reconvene to suspend the implementation of the law. With sustained education, the law was re-introduced with little public resistance.

Again in 2000, the NDC attempted to raise the VAT, but mindful of the resistance from the minority New Patriotic Party, and when it looked like the bill could be defeated, the government ingeniously packaged and redirected the bill as Ghana Education Trust Fund bill and it easily passed. The GETFund was never implemented by the NDC but became a veritable source of funding education tinder the NPP administration.

Under the NPP, in a desperate attempt to raise loans, parliament rushed through a deal against criticism from the NDC only to realise that the proposed financier was a phantom. However, decisions of the House to get through the National Health Insurance, construction of the Jubilee House with the concomitant renovation of the Peduase Lodge, as well as the passage of the Representation of People’s Amendment law, which were resolutely resisted and denounced by the NDC, have become productive and useful to the nation.

In a recent trip outside, the Foreign Minister, Mohammed Mumuni, was reported to have assured Ghanaians abroad that the NDC would do everything possible to enable them exercise their franchise.

He explained that the NDC, which introduced dual citizenship, has never been against Ghanaians abroad participating in the electoral process, but that they had a problem with the haste with which the NPP approached the issue.

Thus, in these matters, the expectations were that the concerns of the minority would have been taken into consideration.

In the matter of the STX deal, the NPP has given the assurance that in principle, they do not have objection to the government policy on housing. Their beef, however, is that the STX deal as it stands, does not offer value for money to the Ghanaian.

Whatever the reasons, the majority spurned the minority and within hours approved the contract process. But that legal concerns raised could be an indication that in its attempt to beat whatever perceived deadline before the House rose, some issues might have been glossed over, taken for granted or plainly shoddy work was done.

For as long as those in government are not offering any explanations as to the nature of legal concerns, we the citizens have been empowered to offer our viewpoints.

The major concern then is, are the legal concerns major or minor, are they core or peripheral to the substance of the agreement and as to whether an advice from the Attorney-General could override parliamentary approval.

Beyond all that, would the STX deal end like the first VAT, or it will go the way of the GETFund, NHIS, ROPAL and Jubilee House? For the average Ghanaian, it would be good if Parliament’s haste will ensure that productive decisions are made. Even as these could weaken the House, national progress could be stimulated.

We live to see, in the hope that either the NDC would be vindicated or the NPP would joyously reap from where it prevented the NDC from sowing, or the NDC would return their stone to them.

Source: Yaw Boadu Ayeboafoh/Daily Graphic

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