Ken Agyepong Has a Point, But...

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
July 24, 2014

If it is true that the General-Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr. Kofi Asamoah, sat on the Board of Directors of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) that ratified the sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz, then Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyepong is apt in his assertion that Mr. Asamoah has thoroughly compromised his moral credibility and competence to lead today's massive protest demonstrations by members of the TUC against the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Today's nationwide protests are aimed at alerting the NDC government to the exponentially rising cost of living, which is making life increasingly ungovernable for the average Ghanaian worker. The widely recognized and outspoken New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament (NPP-MP) for Assin-Central is correct in accusing the TUC General-Secretary of playing the hypocritical role of a political chameleon (See "Hoot at Kofi Asamoah - Kennedy Agyapong" MyJoyOnline.com 7/24/14).

Sitting on the Board of Directors of SSNIT clearly makes Mr. Asamoah an integral part of management; and unless he is authorized to do so by the constitution of the TUC, or the latter's articles of incorporation, Mr. Asamoah may well be in flagrant breach of the trust of the very workers whose collective interests he is supposed to be serving and/or protecting.

Under the preceding circumstances, there are two options left for the TUC boss to redeem his image and his integrity, namely, the need for Mr. Asamoah to immediately resign his membership from the governing board of SSNIT or his post as General-Secretary of the TUC. I, however, strongly disagree with Mr. Agyepong that the united front forged by the demonstrators ought to be interrupted, or even punctuated, with boos directed at Mr. Asamoah merely because the TUC General-Secretary, in the opinion of the Assin-Central MP, lacks the kind of unalloyed moral credibility needed to confront the Mahama government head-on. That would be counter-productive; and, at any rate, such punitive call comes rather too late in the process.

My intention here, however, is not to debate whether the sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz was economically warranted or savvy, as I am not an expert in this field of endeavor. What is more, I have heard prominent politicians, some from among the front ranks of Mr. Agyepong's own party, observe that the sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz was absolutely the right thing to do.

In other words, calling on the workers involved in the proposed demonstration to boycott the same in protest against Mr. Asamoah, as Mr. Agyepong is widely reported to have admonished on-air, would be rather infantile and actually redound to the public relations benefit and/or advantage of President Mahama, his minions, supporters and sympathizers. And I don't for a split-second suppose that Mr. Agyepong would have the rest of Ghanaians, and the world at large, believe that all is hunkydory vis-a-vis the way and manner in which the Mahama government is administering the country.

Attempting to scapegoat the TUC General-Secretary, on the part of Mr. Agyepong, may seem the right thing to do presently; but it does not address the far significant problem of the gross incompetence of the Mahama regime.

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