Readers may recall my mentioning that a due diligence (DD) report was commissioned regarding Hans & Co, the company that won the $96 million to "decommission" (i.e. clean up) Ghana's obsolete Saltpond oilfield. I also said that the story was still developing. So, in this post, I will provide additional interesting information from the DD report. But, first, a recap. 1. The Saltpond oilfield was in operation, on and off, between 1970 and 2015. Upon shutdown, it was necessary to seal the wells and remove the rotting offshore oil platform to prevent massive pollution and risks to marine vessels. 2. A mushroom company called Hans & Co was handpicked and awarded the job for $96 million. The company's principal qualification was the presence of politically exposed individuals such as the then Deputy Director of State Protocol to the then President of Ghana. 3. The scope of the contract was not delivered. After partial delivery, the job was abandoned on the basis that an additional $81.1 million is required to clear off the rotting platform (picture attached). Instructively, a project management company - TSB-Ensol - hired to oversee the work was not allowed to do so due to the massive political clout of Hans & Co. [With that background, here are some matters of further interest from the DD report.] 4. For some reason, the person declared as the Chairman of the company during the negotiations with the government was not even a Director of the company. Of those presented as Directors of the company during contract negotiation, only one, Nana Forson Danso (aka Joe Forson) was an actual Director, recognised in the company's incorporation documents. 5. The stated capital of the company was $2700. 6. The Bartels family held 70% of the company, and Nana Danso/Joe Forson held 30% as at incorporation in 2017. 7. The next year, Gloria Bartels, the matriarch of the family and a "socialite" widely celebrated in the glamour magazines, incorporated the Hans Group with the husband of her daughter. Shares were split evenly. The Group then took over a number of corporate vehicles incorporated to pursue similar deals. Nana Danso, the putative CEO of Hans & Co, is not represented in this new structure. 8. None of the Directors who actually negotiated the $96 million deal in January 2022 were represented in the group structure. Effectively, the government never dealt with the ultimate owners of the company. More bizarrely, multiple senior officials supposedly in charge of the sector did not even know that the Bartels owned the company. 9. Despite a legal requirement for all companies operating in Ghana's oilfields to be registered with the Petroleum Commission (even caterers), the government team did not even bother with verifying the licenses of Hans & Co. 10. The report says that the freelance drilling supervisor, Adejumo Abayomi, that their project director, Kennedy Oham, flew in to oversee the injection of cement into the wells was not fully cleared by regulators. Neither the Environmental Protection Agency nor any of the marine regulators were involved in certifying the operations. 11. Of the four key Hans & Co personnel engaged in the contracting process, two used secondary identities. Only the Project Director, Kennedy Oham, who used to manage the Saltpond oilfield for the last operator until a massive public spat, had the remotest connection to the petroleum industry. 12. I am sorry to add to your headaches today.

In another magisterial piece, Colombia University's Howard French, who has deep bonds in and with Ghana, shines the spotlight on something many African observers routinely neglect. Something that has become a pet subject of mine: the "intentional helplessness" of Africa's elite classes. By refusing to do what other elites have done elsewhere and sacrifice some of their social status and material comforts to confront the system, they have become complicit in everything that happens next. Let us not make any mistake about it, the masses do not have the luxury to be "helpless". Those who can afford private ways around collective failure can pretend to be helpless. The masses don't and so can't. The seeming docility of the masses today is not due to apathy. It is due to a mistrust of the middle-classes who in these societies, as in all others, still control the "public voice". Even if many who hear no longer turn to listen. Today, if Democracy Hub shows small radicalism in Ghana, the Police can simply lock up its leader and refuse bail. Because the revolution is, for the moment, mostly on Twitter. But what happens when those without the patience for a revolution simply abandon the discipline of social change and turn to the easy equality that anarchy brings? They will not distinguish too hard between formal institutions and the elite at large. The likes of IMANI, ACEP, and CDD in Ghana cannot pretend to be authentic voices of the masses. What we can do, though, is acknowledge our class burden and confront the elite with the bitter truth of its decay. Our burden is to be the Jeremiahs at the doorstep of elite consciousness screaming at the top of our voices: we must repent, for judgement has come! Until the turn of dusk, before the long night sets in. Winter is coming. Read Howard's piece here: foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/16…