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Opinions of Saturday, 22 May 2010

Columnist: Sarpong, Justice

Hypocrite Rawlings And Togolese Gilchrist Olympio Should Be Arrested.

Yes, Rawlings and his Togolese buddy, Gilchrist Olympio perpetrated a daylight robbery on Ghanaians when Rawlings arbitrary gave the Togolese Terrorist the Abosso Glass Factory without any Parliamentary approval and therefore both Rawlings and Olympio should be arrested for causing financial loss to the country. Folks, let's kibitz and perpend on how Togolese Gilchrist Olympio came to own and control a national asset without the approval of Ghanaians. I have an eidetic memory of the history of the Olympios in Togo politics and Gilchrist Olympio should not have been given a Ghanaian asset for free, he is a terrorist with Togolese blood on his hands..

I know the Rawlings sycophantic denizens of the street and NDC factotums might consider this issue an afterclap but it is an issue that needs to be revisited due to Rawlings constant howling and malarkey's about others causing financial loss to the state when he is the biggest culprit when it comes to finacial malfeasance to our country. How long can this hypocrite clad himself in the iron curtain indemnity clause that protects him from rendering an account of his 19 years of killing fields rule and then harangue others to account for their stewardship despite all the social and economic problems he brought on the country? This caitiff nabob who flummoxed Ghanaians with his socialist ideas and portrayed himself as one of of the common people is living a lucullan lifestyle,driving in convoy of bullet proof cars and hiding in the government Australian house or another government property despite his ghost inhabited multimillion East Legon mansion gathering cobwebs.

RAWLINGS AND GILCHRIST PLYMPIO SHOULD BE ARRESTED AND PROSECUTED FOR CAUSING FINANCIAL LOSS TO THE STATE IN THE ABOSSO GLASS FACTORY COLLAPSE ALONE.HE STOLE GHANACAN AND GAVE IT TO HIS WIFE AS A WEDDING PRESENT, WE CAN'T ALSO TAKE CARE OF HIS TOGOLESE FAMILY.

What is it that makes Rawlings so enamored with the Olympio family of Togo? Is he related to this Togolese opposition leader? Does he hate the Eyadema ruling clan in Togo he was willing to sacrifice the interest of Ghanaians to see his Togolese friend or family member, Gilchrist Olympio live the high life at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayers? He handed over the Abosso Glass factory and renamed it Tropical Glass Factory to deceive the prying eyes of Ghanaians to a branded Togolese terrorist, Gilchrist Olympio. Why should a Ghanaian factory be diversified to a Togolese terrorist in the divesture implementation policy adopted by the NDC when it won power in 1992? This is the height of Rawlings hypocrisy accusing others of crimes when he used the treasury of Ghana as his personal property and dished out factories and corporations to his friends and family.

The Abosso Glass factory was commissioned in 1965 by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to produce bottles for the local Breweries and some for export and despite his overthrow in 1966, this factory and others continued to serve Ghana until Rawlings and his NDC who called themselves social democrats but were more capitalists than the Warren Buffets' and the Bill Gates' decided to sell 300 companies to themselves and give some away as gifts, like the Abosso Glass Factory which was handed over to Gilchrist Olympio in 1992 by the incoming Rawlings NDC administration on a silver platter. Gilchrist Olympio used this property to borrow 200,000 pounds sterling from Commonwealth Development Corporation(CDC), a London-based organisation, to rehabilitate the company, but failed to pay the money back to his creditors.

The CDC after being given the run around by Olympio and his benefactor Rawlings, sued him and the Abosso Glass Factory at an Accra High Court where they succeeded in getting judgement in their favour to liquidate the company to enable them get their 408,000 pound sterling, which is the original amount plus the interest that has accrued on it. The taxpayers of Ghana ended up paying this amount.

Rawlings and the NDC regime at the same time handed over $2.5 million Japanese grant to Olympio to import machinery to equip the factory. To be fair to the Togolese, some machines were imported to modernise the factory but whether the whole 2.5 million dollars was used is another question.

After aquiring this factory without paying a dime for it, Gilchrist Olympio formed a governing board for with only Togolese citizens without any NDC or for that matter any Ghanaian being on the board of Directors of this factory and proceeded in running this factory at Abosso near Tarkwa as if it is in Lome, Togo.

The NPP government decided to take the company back from Olympio who was using this state property as his personal property when they assumed office because the company has accumulated an electricity bill of 1.5 billion old Ghanain cedis and the Electricity Corporation was not getting anywhere with him to pay his bill.The cutting off of electricity supply to the company was the last straw that shut this company down that used to employe over 300 people mostly from the area.Gilchrist Olympio, the Togolese opposition leader after failing to convince the Electricity corporation to get power back on went and collected all the bottles that had already been produced by the company and sold them. He did not deem it convenient to even pay a pesewa to EGC to defray part of the debt.

Olympio shut the factory down and high tailed to Paris, France tippling at fine resturants with jorums of fine French wines while the workers at the factory were left holding the bag without getting any severance pay.

When the electricity to this factory was cut off, another credit account house in Accra which claimed Gilchrist Olympio and his Abosso Glass factory owed it some money stormed the factory and forcibly removed airconditioners, deep freezers and other electrical equipment to defray part of the debt. Rawlings gave a vibrant state factory to his Togolese family member Olympio who dismantled it and went into hiding in Paris, France.

The hypocracy of Rawlings kamikaze political rhetorics and sanctimonious pontification of his virtues is a mirage that only his acolytes who support him just because they are from the same tribe should be brought to the fore because some young people in this forum are not aware of what Rawlings did in his 19 plus years rule and the opposition NPP is not doing a good job in highlighting the mess NDC created before leaving office in 2001.

Justice Sarpong

Houston, Texas.