The leader and founder of the United Renaissance Party (URP), Kofi Wayo, has said he should be given the mandate to be in charge of Ghana’s oil since he possesses the skill and technical knowledge in the oil business. For Ghanaians to gain, negotiations have to be in a way that benefits the country with the other party getting the least, he said. The leader of the URP said he would make a difference within thirty days if given the green light. Chuck, as he is popularly called, made this known in an interview with Atta Kusi Adusei on Focus FM’s ‘Community Watch’, on Monday August 2. Chuck made it clear that from what he had seen so far, the oil was not going to benefit all Ghanaians but only a few elite and the country wouldn’t be any different from the likes of Nigeria and Angola. “If they had allowed me run the show, Ghanaians would have been better off. I know how to negotiate tactically and not from books. By now infrastructure should have been laid in Takoradi offshore for everybody to see that we have the capability to negotiate and we have done the right thing. They [leaders] just don’t know what they are doing so Ghanaians are getting poorer and poorer. All they want is money, the Africans’ mentality. They are not interested in the country or the people’’, he bewailed. His comments come in the wake of a press statement issued by the General Secretary of the Convention Peoples Party, for government to empower the Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) to be able to buy shares from Kosmos in relation to the Jubilee Fields. On the issue of the competence of a Ghanaian company to manage the oil, Kofi Wayo said “Ghanaian companies do not have the capacity; they lack knowledge, technical acumen and negotiation capabilities”. The Board Member for the Energy Commission further stated that it was the same lack of negotiation skills that had made Ghanaians poor although we have gold. “If we have people who know what they are about, Ghanaians will be wealthy through our gold. We would have had great cities; Kumasi would have been a Metropolis - same as Chicago or Johannesburg”, he lamented. By David Apinga, Focus FM, KNUST, Kumasi