Port Terminal PPP in Ghana pilloried
Recent reports have put the ways in which the long-term interests of the state can be eroded by shortcomings in governance, strategy and capacity in sharp relief.
Significance – Detrimental to the government and people
As stated last week, container traffic through Tema increased from 17.3 million tonnes 18.9 million tonnes between 2019 and 2020. See: New numbers: GDP expansion, ports activity and mobile money in Ghana. Part of this is explained by operations at the new container terminal opened by Vincent Bollore’s APM Terminals in 2019.
However, the sheen from that success is being rubbed away by the reiteration of governance concerns about the award of the contract in 2014 under the then administration of President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
According to reporting by Africa Confidential, the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) government found that the terms of the 2014 award were “gravely detrimental to the government and people of Ghana” and failed “to reflect honest business ethics between parties”. The African Confidential report contains a copy of the confidential ministerial report critiquing the bidding process, tax arrangements, equity and fee structure inter alia. See here.
It is not a repeat, but it certainly does rhyme with other critiques of 2012-2016 NDC administration licensing awards. However, the reputational stain extends beyond Bollore, former president Mahama, his relatives and administration, to the current NPP administration for at best failing to act and at worst compounding the mistakes of its predecessor.
Moreover, the NPP is still defending itself from allegations of wrongfully forcibly retiring yaw Domlevo as auditor general. In this instance, the response is more effective. See the government’s ‘Open Letter to the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations…’ here.
Outlook – An avenue for change
On the ground, among much of Ghana’s elite, is the twinned sense that political decision makers are not putting their best foot forward when it comes to negotiations, and secondly that they are unable or unwilling to enforce even those terms that have been agreed.
Whichever party is in opposition makes itself the champion of that anger. But only until it wins power. In the past 28 years, the presidency has shifted between the NPP and the NDC 3 times[1], during which time parliamentary majorities and parliamentary discipline spiced with patronage have meant opposition could be ignored.
However, the NPP in 2021 does not have quite the same freedom of motion as the NDC did in 2012-16, nor the first Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo administration 2017-2020. The NPP has an effective majority only as long as the single independent MP votes with his NPP alma mater. Otherwise, this is a hung parliament, with an independent-minded Speaker of the House.
The 2021 budget outlined a number of projects at a procurement stage. For example, in the railway industry. The degree and the implications of parliamentary scrutiny of such deals when they happen may have changed from yesteryear.
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[1] The NDC has held 16 of those years and the NPP twelve.
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