Former president J.J. Rawlings has underscored the importance of the Bui Dam electrification project and called for funding for its completion.
Acknowledging the role of ex-president J.A. Kufuor in sourcing funding for the project’s take-off, Rawlings said the project is so important that every effort must be made to ensure that it is not starved of funds when the current funding system proves inadequate.
Mr. Rawlings said this when staff of United States of America-based investment group, MAGNAWORLD Partners, called on him at his residence in Accra on Wednesday.
He said the energy sector was so critical to the development of the country that it should not be toyed with.
In this regard he appealed to the delegation to consider investing in the energy sector of the country with special emphasis on the Bui Dam.
Former President Rawlings also stressed the need for resources generated from the nation’s oil find to be managed transparently.
That, for him, is the only way the poor in the society will benefit from the national resource.
Oil Transparency
Talking about oil, Mr. Rawlings doubted there was transparency in discussions of matters relating to the find under President Kufuor.
“If our government is wise and I hope they will be, everything (that took place under Kufuor) should be re-examined,” he stated.
He is confident if that is done, many former government officials “will be found wanting.”
“Kufuor and his administration was known for its economic savagery, its political savagery and its judicial savagery,” he charged.
A senior partner of MAGNAWORLD, Balozi R.M.Z. Harvey, assured the former president investors interested in the energy sector would be brought into the country to assess his request.
He said they were interested in investing in areas the people of Ghana consider beneficial to them.
According to him, a chain of investors in China and elsewhere were ready to come and invest in the country, explaining that since Ghana was the headquarters of Africa, MAGNAWORLD will facilitate the process for them to invest on a sustainable basis in the country.
PNDC Film
The Chief Executive Officer of MAGNAWORLD Partners, Samad Davis, said plans were underway to make a film on the achievements of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
He said the film will help to document adequately, the progress made under the regime. It will also make it impossible for people to distort the story of the PNDC and what the regime stood for.
Davis, who is also the founding member of Motion Picture Equity Fund, an international film financing company, believes the film will also provide the way forward in critical areas such as agriculture and affordable housing, which were focused on by the regime.
