Nduom’s Businesses collapsed For Political Reasons – PPP

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The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has said it now believes the closure of Groupe Nduom’s companies was politically-motivated.

The party, in a statement, alleged that the collapse of GN Bank, Gold Coast Fund Management, among others, was a deliberate attempt to destroy the PPP’s former founder and former presidential candidate Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom’s entrepreneurial and job creation agenda.

“In 2012 and 2016, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) fielded the same presidential candidate, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, who is known throughout the country as ‘Edwumawura’ for creating thousands of good permanent jobs, directly and indirectly in Ghana. He was considered a ‘doer’ by people from all walks of life due to his job creation accomplishments that people could see and feel”, the statement signed by its National Secretary Paa Kow Ackon said.

The PPP continued: “Since the 2016 elections, however, Dr Nduom’s job creation machine has been shut down for political considerations, contrary to what pertains in right-thinking societies; that the job creation abilities of citizens like Dr Nduom, evidenced in his private life as a global giant of enterprise, is an asset that he would bring to bear on solving the unemployment problem in Ghana.”

“It is sad, but we wish to put on record that prospective entrepreneurs, majority in the youth bracket of the Ghanaian population, who looked up to Dr Nduom, have been denied the critical mentorship needed to achieve their dreams and have now added up to the unemployed graduates and jobless youth associations with dire consequences for the country’s economy, security and democracy.”

The party further served “notice that the challenges that have been deliberately foisted on Groupe Nduom companies, particularly GN Bank and Gold Coast Fund Management (GCFM), resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs, cannot and will not be ignored in the call to account for the increased unemployment situation in the country.”

The party emphasised that: “Over the past two years, we have restrained ourselves as a political party from getting involved in what we considered to be corporate affairs, separate from politics. However, the legal gymnastics by lawyers of the Bank of Ghana, Ministry of Finance and their collaborators in the ruling government, to unduly delay and orchestrate the denial of justice in the GN Bank case before the courts, have convinced us that the closure of GN business interests is politically-motivated and must be seen as such, without prejudice to the proceedings in court.”

According to the PPP, “Prior to this conclusion, we had dismissed portions of a plan widely circulated ahead of the 2016 election which indicated that, should then-candidate Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo of the NPP win the election to become President, businesses belonging to opponents such as Dr. Kwabena Duffuor and Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom would be ‘cut down to size’. We now know that there is fire beyond that smoke.”

The party reiterated its promises in 2016, to “create jobs, use government’s purchasing power to ensure that we eat what we grow and use what we produce in Ghana. Improve Ghana’s business climate to enable investment in job creation so that our people will stay at home to help develop the country and its economy”.

“Our promise to relentlessly provide support to Ghanaian industry and our farmers and fishermen using low interest loans, technical assistance, tax incentives and priority access to the Ghanaian market. Building inter-region highway with the same high quality throughout the country to accelerate job creation nationally and to open up the country for investment and development, still stands.”

It further continued: “So, when businesses owned by Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, our founder, go from more than 7,000 employees to less than 1,000 in two years, we believe that our jobs, jobs, jobs agenda for people and in the national interest, is under severe threat”.

“When indigenous Ghanaian businesses are collapsed by an administration that promises a ‘private sector-led economy’ and their places are taken by foreigners and associates of the ruling party, our interest is spiked. We will not take these assaults on our human rights and economic freedoms lying down”, adding that the PPP as a party is “wide awake and will resist the oppressors’ rule” with all its “will and might forevermore!”

The PPP has therefore urged the people of Ghana to demand job creation accountability from the government and other political parties as the country heads into another general election.

The PPP is of the view that Ghanaians must evaluate how the “various political parties have performed in solving the unemployment situation” in the country.

“The 2020 elections must be fought on the platform of jobs for every Ghanaian” and recalled that in “2012 and 2016, all political parties promised to create jobs because that was the most pressing need at the time in the lives of the majority of the electorate.”

However, according to the party, “eight years after those promises were made, the situation has become worse.”

According to the PPP, “it is in the national interest to demand that political parties account for what they have done to create sustainable jobs for Ghanaians; and for the citizens to decide who has caused the unemployment situation in the country to rise and be guided by that in selecting the next President in the December 2020 elections”.

By: Class FM