Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, has slammed President Akufo-Addo's response to the controversial Ghana-US military agreement.

President Nana Akufo-Addo Addressing the nation on Thursday night to clear the air about the defence cooperation deal which has been mired in a lot of controversy at home rejected accusations by the main opposition National Democratic Congress and its Minority in parliament that he has sold Ghana’s sovereignty to the US for $20million per the deal.

According to him, the NDC and its Minority are being hypocritical about the whole deal.

“How else would we have exposed the unspeakable hypocrisy of a fraternity of some frontline politicians who make a habit of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds who secretly wallow in the largesse of the United States of America while at the same time promote anti-American sentiment to a populist constituency.


“We have to take issue with the frontline politicians who have sought to mislead the people in this blatant manner and those who for mischievous purposes leaked the document destined for the scrutiny of parliament premature to a section of the media who then went on to describe it as a secret document.

However, the seasoned journalist said he was not enthused about the President manner in which the President responded to the crucial issue which was of National interest.

He added that President Akufo-Addo was blinded to the real issues and spoke from his partisan interest, hence failing to see the clear distinctions in the arguments in respect of the deal between both countries.

Speaking on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo, Mr. Pratt minced no words in describing the arguments in favor of the agreement as a “useless partisan battle”.

He noted that if the President had paused to take a critical look at the agreement, he would have known that there were aspects that need to be “fine-tuned” to serve the interest of Ghanaians.

“It’s scaring and shocking to me that Nana Akufo-Addo is taking the current stance that he’s taking. You know why? And do you know why he’s taking the current stance? Because it has turned into an NPP/NDC battle. That is the problem. If we all sit back and carefully and soberly go through this argument, we will all find portions of this argument that at least we want to fine-tune. It’s because it has become such a partisan useless battle not taking the interest of people of Ghana into consideration and we doing these things that won’t help Ghana”.

Clearly not impressed with the President’s address and the partisan approach to the issue by both the Minority and Majority sides of Parliament, Kwesi Pratt stated emphatically that “we have failed in our effort as a people to build a Parliament which has processes which emphasize conscience as against partisan interest. And I’m deeply ashamed by what has happened. When this issue went to Parliament, all Members of Parliament on the NDC side took one position…All members of the NPP in the majority side took one position. Is that possible in a 275-member Parliament? If things were not being done in strictly partisan lines, would that have happened? Not one person dissented”.

“At least, there are aspects of this agreement which we can fine-tune. Why are we not talking about the aspects of the agreement which we can fine-tune in the interest of Ghana? Why are we reducing everything to NDC/NPP and fighting a battle which has no benefit to the people of Ghana?” he fumed.