Mr. Adom-Otchere,
As promised on your 19th September, 2019 Edition of the Good Evening Ghana Official show, you indeed did come out for the Jospong Group(owners of Zoomlion and sponsors of your program) on your show yesterday 24th September, 2019.
You said a lot of things and attacked a lot of institutions and individuals but let me just leave that aside, they themselves or their assigns will respond to you if they want.
Mine is to correct the wrong impression you are churning out.
After watching you ‘rant’ for over 40min, I realized that GCDGL decided to pick and choose which document they want to give to you which you also did use same on the show.
You promised at the beginning of your show that you will compare and contrast the treatment from the government to the GCDGL, a subsidiary of the Jospong group (Ghanaian) as against the treatment from same government to a certain Manganese company at Takoradi and a certain gold company at Obuasi, both owned by Chinese and South Africans respectively. Well, after 40min or more of your show which was dedicated to the GCD/GCDGL matter, I did not hear of any such comparison. So I will also not go there; except to inform you, if GCDGL themselves did not tell you, that GCDGL had already contacted some South Africans to come and invest in the company.
Starting with your presentation, you stated that you have the full story and letters which you will “read and cast a verdict”. Apparently, it turned out that you do not have even about 20% of the story but the few documents selectively made available to you by GCDGL.
You read a letter dated 4th December, 2018 from GCDGL titled Re: Final Demand Notice. The title of the letter suggests that the the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) had already written to GCDGL, but strangely, the initial letter was not given to you.
SOME FACTS WHICH YOU MAY NOT HAVE
On the 12th of December, 2018, the Ministry of Lands wrote to GCDGL informing them to remedy breaches of terms of its six (6) mining leases that were granted on 31st December, 2012.
I believe you did not have this letter because you did not read any letter from the Ministry.
Then on 9th April, 2019, the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) through its lawyers, the Cardinal Law Group wrote again to the management of GCDGL to “serve you(GCDGL) notice that upon your persistent failure to remedy your default in settling your indebtedness arising from the non-payment of the balance of the total consideration due from you for the divestiture of the assets of the company (GCD) to you, our client(DIC) has instructed us to invoke Paragraph 13 of the offer letter dated May 6, 2011 with Reference Number DIC/119/01 to abrogate all agreements our client has with you on the subject.”
The response for this letter from GCDGL which was written on 15th April was made available to you which you read on your show even though the main letter that elicited the said response was not read.
Following the Ministry’s 12th December 2018 letter, it wrote to GCDGL on 10th June 2019 to cancel the mining lease of the company(GCDGL) in pursuant to section 68 of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703). (https://eveningmailgh.com/index.php/2019/07/08/govt-abrogates-akwatia-gcd-contract-with-jospongs-gcdgl/)
Again this letter was not given to you so you did not read it.
Subsequently, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr. Darfour Kwakye Eric visited GCDGL on 12th July, 2019 to ascertain for himself the realities on the ground (https://eveningmailgh.com/index.php/2019/07/12/minister-questions-the-continued-occupation-of-concessions-of-gcd-by-gcdgl/). Indeed it was during the Regional Minister’s visit that it came out that GCDGL was bringing in investors from South Africa after almost eight (8) years of virtually NO WORK DONE.
You can read more about this issue in my first letter to you (https://eveningmailgh.com/index.php/2019/09/24/gcd-saga-open-letter-to-mr-paul-adom-otchere-of-metro-tv/,)
I have also attached some of the documents which you did not have.
LYING FALLOW
You stated from an Executive Summary prepared for you by GCDGL that the company had been on divestiture for over 21years and that in your words, no foreign company wanted it. You said the company was ‘lying fallow’ for 21years.
That is completely WRONG and this gives clear indication of how less information you have about this issue.
Indeed the company was in operation till 2007 where parts of its operations were closed down. GCDGL took over in 2011. Between 2007 and 2011 definitely cannot be 21years; assuming that it was not even working at all between that period. This therefore does not support your claim that the company was ‘LYING FALLOW’.
It is also completely FALSE that no foreign investors wanted it. Indeed several foreign and local investors did put up their bid for the company. In the words of former President John Dramani Mahama, then the Vice President, during the inauguration of GCDGL at Akwatia, he said “government decided to divest GCD to a Ghanaian owned company, GCDGL, despite PERSISTENT ATTEMPTS from several foreign companies so as to strengthen the local industrial base.”
Just reading documents provided to you by GCDGL and casting aspersions and insinuations against individuals and institutions may not be the way to go.
You may want to do more than just that.
Like I did for TV3 Ghana, I can make available all relevant contacts and documents at my disposal to you for you to do further works on it if you are so interested.(You can equally watch the TV3 documentary for more information; https://youtu.be/8CH9E5YDY-g)
Kwasi Frimpong Sayit-Right
(gilbfrimp@gmail.com)
