The Member of Parliament for North Tongu in the Volta Region, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has slammed his generation of leadership whose primary focus is to sell off assets bequeathed to the state by their predecessors.
Listing a number of items sold by the incumbent administration including the Parks and Gardens, the demolition of judges’ bungalows at Cantonments, the plan to sell off the SSNIT hotels amongst other state assets, the lawmaker concluded that his generation of leaders only came to sell.
Speaking on the KeyPoints on TV3 Saturday, July 13, 2024, the legislator questioned the last time the current crop of leadership acquired any asset for the state for future usage, rather than selling off those it inherited from the predecessors.
“When was the last time you heard of the current generation of leaders having acquired a land bank or some strategic asset that we are saving for the future? As for us, we only came to sell. The generation of our current leaders, that’s what we came to do,” he was explicit.
He said the likes of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, under whose rule Ghana had only five million population, foresaw the need to expand state infrastructure to accommodate a future growing population, and cannot comprehend why his generation of leaders do not posses the wisdom to secure the future of the nation but rather milk it for their selfish and parochial interest.
“You look at the assets that we inherited, land banks, forests, environmental horticultural sites and in Kwame Nkrumah’s era, the population was 5million but he secured lands to build more bungalows because he knew that the population would expand. Today, all the lands, go to Ridge, go to Korlebu, everything has been sold,” he disclosed.
His comment comes on the back of the discontinuation of the sale of the SSNIT hotels following the declaration of strike by Organised Labour.
Organized Labour announced to embark on a strike effective Monday, July 15, 2024, to protest the sale of a 60 percent stake in four hotels owned by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to Rock City Hotel owned by the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong.
This was on back of the National Pensions Regulatory Commission (NPRA) giving the green light for the sale of SSNIT’s shares in some four hotels.
The NPRA on June 28, 2024, directed SSNIT to suspend its negotiations with Rock City over the sale of the hotels, pending further evaluation and engagement.
However, answering questions on the floor of Parliament, Employment Minister who is in charge of Pensions, Ignatius Baffour Awuah disclosed to Parliament on Thursday, July 11, that all due processes have been complied with.
“Yes, it is true that NPRA came up with a directive, but I would appreciate it if my brother, my colleague, really read the directive from NPRA. It said it needed to be furnished with all information relating to the sale of the hotels, which SSNIT has since done that,” he said Parliament.
The decision by the NPRA has been met with stiff opposition from organized labour and has consequently taken action to express its displeasure over the move.
In a letter signed by the Trades Union Congress(TUC) Secretary General, Dr. Yaw Baah, Chairman of Forum for Public Sector Workers, Isaac Bampoe Addo, and Kenneth Koomson, Deputy Secretary General, Ghana Federation of Labour, Organized labour said it finds it extremely difficult to understand how and why NPRA would turn around to approve such a flawed deal two weeks after the directive.
It reiterated its well-known position that the proposed sale of SSNIT’s shares in the four hotels is not in the best interest of Ghanaian workers and therefore asked SSNIT to halt the process of selling the hotels.
“We, therefore, demand that SSNIT terminates the process immediately. From Monday, 1S” July, 2024 all workers in Ghana must not go to work until SSNIT publicly announces the termination of the process for the sale of its shares In the hotels.”
