“My position and the position of people like me is radically different from some of the positions I’m hearing around. I have heard people say that let’s review the agreement….let’s change some clauses, no matter the number of clauses we change in this agreement will remain a very bad agreement”; Kwesi Pratt Jnr’s posturing on the controversial Ghana-United State military agreement.
In the said agreement the United States government gets unrestricted access to a host of facilities and wide-ranging tax exemptions to the United States military and civilian personnel.
The government of Ghana in a letter sent to Parliament of Ghana urged the august House to consider the agreement and give its approval.
The document which was leaked to the media further states that the agreement will provide a framework for enhanced partnership between the two countries in order to strengthen the defence relationship between them.
“Ghana shall accord to military personnel and civilian personnel the privileges, exemptions, and immunities equivalent to those accorded to the administrative and technical staff of a diplomatic mission under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961.”
But this, Kwesi Pratt Jnr says it is a bad agreement which can’t be changed nor improved hence the need for it to be outrightly rejected by Ghanaians.
He insists that endorsing the deal amounts to plunging the country back into the system of slavery or colonialism. For him, slavery has no feats and the sovereignty of a particular country cannot be sold at any price.
“We are not selling who we are. We are not selling our rights over our territory for any amount, so those of you who want to count benefits, go and count elsewhere because there are no benefits in the agreement and there cannot be any benefit in this agreement” he said without missing out any word.
The Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, who is also a socialist believes Ghanaians are very proud and courageous who fought and won the independence of the country, therefore they can fight hard for the already signed agreement to be withdrawn.
“The Bond of 1844 was signed and yet we fought against it, and got freedom from colonialism, we will do it again,” he said.
ghanaweb
