
Audio By Carbonatix
The Member of Parliament for Manhyia, Matthew Opoku Prempeh (Napo), has said that if suggestions of a conspiracy by American interests to do Ghana in turn out to be true, then they represent a very bad reaction that would "come back to hurt the American government."The suggestions stem from allegations that the US may be peeved over the treatment of certain American business interests by the ruling National Democratic Congress.Economist Dr. Nii Moi Thompson gives credence to the assertion in an article he authored and points out that a recent poor classification of Ghana as the world's 9th worst economy by The Forbes Magazine is only one of several tactics adopted by the powers that be to pile pressure on the government to rescind its position to block the sale of shares of Kosmos Energy in the Jubilee Field to ExxonMobil because it says due process is not being followed.The development has led to what Ghanaian government officials allege as a frosty relations between the US and Ghana, expressed in occasional unexplained denial of US visas to Ghanaian officials even for official business.But Napo who spoke on Metro TV's Good Morning Ghana, said listening to Barrack Obama, "he realises that eight years of Bush [administration] did nothing, among others, to promote the image of America in the world."He said "America is such a force for good that when you see people with particular interest destroy that image, it sends a bad image all around the world... Just let's imagine for one moment, those championing these things, if - and I'm coming from the point of visa refusals to government officials and parliamentarians and even official business where people have paid money to attend things that are directly related to ... US embassy is refusing visa nilly willy.""If the Red Indians whose natural environment was America instituted a visa regime, how many people who were fleeing away from famine, drought and hunger in Europe, could have ended up in America. Do you think the slaves who were transported from Africa to America would have qualified for visas? America has been a bastion for the free world, a bastion where everybody as soon as you land there, whether you have visas or not, you can declare that yes, you have run away from persecution either from Europe or from Africa to there, but all of a sudden, even people who have genuine reasons [are refused]."He said the situation doesn't augur well for the diplomatic relations between the two countries."So I think that the people in charge of the American Visas and American Embassy here should look at the long term US interest because they are losing friends left, right and centre."While admitting that the way the ruling government was treating Kosmos Energy was not probably right, Napo said some of them in the NPP dialogued with the government and "they themselves have gone round and gone round and come to the conclusion that 'ok I think in order to get Ghana progress, we get our oil and get our money maybe we should let them continue'.... It is not up to foreign forces to interfere...".He said security pursuits and collaboration on other sectors may require that the US government liaise with counterparts in Ghana, a situation he said does not lack precedent, and there is therefore the need to be careful that appointees working in various offices don't by their actions and inactions cause a level of resent in America that doesn't augur well for America.
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