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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Breaking the Poverty Cycle in Africa-the Case of Infrastructure Investment


Infrastructure investment and democracy as a form of government in Africa is the only solution to Africa’s underdevelopment and impoverishment. The continent is lagging behind all the continents in the world in terms of economic and social development. All the countries making up the African continent have similar economic problems namely unemployment, higher deficits, poor state of economic and social infrastructures including roads, harbours, education, airports, telecommunication, health and sanitation.

Centuries of slavery and colonialism deprived the continent of her able human and economic resources. Where as the able men and women were carried away to work in the plantations of the Americas (in all about 30 – 40 million), the natural resources where looted by the European countries namely Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy. After slavery was abolished the looting of the natural resources continued. The irony is that virtually all the income from these resources was used to finance the economic and the infrastructural development of the European countries with little or nothing used to develop the various countries where these resources came from. A clear example is the case of Democratic Republic of Congo where King Leopold II of Belgium enslaved the Africans, forced them to work without pay, killed about 10 million and looted the country of her resources and virtually nothing was used to invest in the country except guns which the Belgium army used to kill the Africans. When the DRC was transferred from Leopold II to the Belgium state the looting and killing continued till DRC gained her independence in the 1960s. In fact DRC (Congo Free State) was the main supplier of rubber a vital raw material for the tyre industry and all the money from the sale of the rubber went to Belgium. King Leopold II was able to transform Belgium as one of the poorest countries in Europe into one of the wealthiest courtesy the enslavement and looting of Africans and their resources.

Belgium was not alone in what they did to the continent. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy all looted Africa of her gold, diamond, ivory, timber, cobalt, and all the minerals you can think of. The Africans who resisted the illegal activities were killed in their millions as happened in South West Africa (now Namibia) where the Germans in 1904 to 1907 committed the first genocide of the 20th Century by killing the Herero and the Namaqua people. While Europe became richer Africa became poorer and the trend continued till the 1950s when the African countries started to gain their ‘independence’beginning with Libya in 1951, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia all in 1956 and Ghana in 1957.

With little or no investment in the continent the various post colonial governments inherited countries with practically no infrastructure: roads, rails, harbours, telecommunications, education, health and sanitation and airports. The only areas which saw some few infrastructure investments during the colonial days were those where raw materials were heavily extracted. The attainment of independence did not come on silver Plata. Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, Kenya, Namibia and to some extent South Africa all attained their independence from their colonial masters through arm struggles and in most cases the few infrastructures that existed were destroyed due to the conflict.

As if slavery, colonialism and the looting of the continent’s resources were not enough the continent became a battle ground during the Cold War as the two super powers and their allies battled for influence and control on the continent mainly for her resources. As a result many African governments who were deem to be pro-Russia or America were overthrown using the military. A case in point was the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana on February 24th ,1966.Another example is the overthrow and assassination of Patrice Lumumba of Congo on January 17th 1961.Other leaders such as Nelson Mandela were imprisoned for either advocating for independence or improvement of conditions of Africans. CIA and the western intelligence community have been implicated for engineering the assassinations and overthrow of elected leaders of Africa. For example Larry Devlin, the CIA Station Chief in Congo during Patrice Lumumba’s days spoke to Washington Post in December 2008 saying he refused an order to assassinate Patrice Lumumba but his refusal did not stop the CIA and the Belgium government from overthrowing and assassinating him. The assassination attempt on Gamal Nasser of Egypt on 24th October 1954 and the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 were alleged to be the work of Britain M16 due to their refusal to hand over the administration of the Suez Canal the British. The CIA, KGB and their allies encouraged and financed wars and political instabilities throughout the continent. Angola became the battle ground for the CIA, KGB and the Chinese as each tried to gain control over the country, her people and resources. The civil war that engulfed the country in 1975 only ended in 1991 after 26 years of conflict. When the war ended the few infrastructures that remained after the war of independence (1961-1974) were gone.

The product of these assassinations and coups were the political instabilities and the wanting destruction of lives and property including infrastructures that have bedevilled Africa till today. As the elected leaders of the continent were assassinated, overthrown and subjected to all forms of cold war tactics including bribery, arm twisting and blackmail the continent degenerated and faulted on all aspects of human endeavour. The new crop of leaders who replaced the post colonial independence leaders and who were largely puppets of the European and American governments became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. Joseph Mobutu Seseseku who became the choice of the Americans after they help to assassinate Lumumba ruled Congo for 32 years and in those years the country became poorer as Mobutu and his cronies got richer and the western countries notably USA and her allies had free hand looting the mineral resources most importantly cobalt a very important mineral needed for missile development. Little infrastructure activities was carried out by Mobutu. As a result Congo today can only be accessed by boats and canoes mainly through the River Congo.

As tyrants and dictators gained the support of western governments and did whatever they wanted with their economies without questions their people became poorer and hopelessness and desperation were the hallmarks of their lives. As the little money that came into government coffers were taken by corrupt government officials and civil servants there were almost no money to carry out infrastructural development and the poverty deepened. Poverty, desperation and hopelessness visited the people and coupled with their inability to change their leaders democratically, dissents were sowed among the population which serve as breeding grounds for more coups, civil wars and civil disturbances. This was evidence in Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Liberia, Mauritania, Algeria, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sierra Leone all experienced coups in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even in the early 1990s. These waves of coups were followed by civil wars that hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, CAR, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Niger and Guinea. These wars apart from it human cost also contributed to the destruction of roads, harbours, airports, rail lines, telecommunications, hospitals, schools and many more. With the absence of infrastructures the countries have been unable to make any headway in terms of economic development. To reverse centuries of slavery and colonialism on one hand and decades of coups and civil wars on the other hand, governments should focus their attention on building the infrastructures on the continent.

This is because the state of infrastructures on the continent is nothing to write home about: the roads, harbours, telecommunications, health, education, market and airport are either none existence or are in a state to appalling to describe. We have neglected the few that have existed to decay yet we have forgotten that no continent or nation no matter the size of the natural resources that she has can develop without investing in infrastructure. That is why Democratic Republic of Congo has every mineral you can think of yet they are one of the poorest on the continent. That is why Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong have developed and that is why President Elect Obama is talking about building US infrastructures because they are the engines that run the economy. You cannot export if you do not have harbours and airports to support it. You cannot attract tourists if you do not have airport, hotels and other infrastructure that support it. You cannot move goods from centres of production to centres of consumption if you do not have roads, rail lines and inland water infrastructure to deliver it. You cannot supply the industries with doctors, architects, bankers, lawyers, planners, engineers, teachers, nurses if you do not have the educational infrastructure to deliver it. And you cannot run an efficient and vibrant economy if you do not have the energy and telecommunication infrastructures in place. Africa has been experiencing serious disruptions in the energy sector for years and no government has seen any wisdom to solve. As a result factories are folding up and are laying off workers and we are waiting for nature to help fill our dams before we rectify the problem. Could these do nothing approaches to problem solving help our continent and nations to develop? What are we doing with the abundance of sunshine on the continent? We have not taken advantage of it, have we? We have sunshine 365 days and we have not tap into solar energy which is cheap and more reliable than hydro. It is another indication of the useless institutions that we have and lip service paid by the various political parties and their leaders to development. Look around yourselves and see if any of the goods you see are made in Africa. I mean the mobile phones, computers, televisions, cars and all the flashy things that Africans are crazing for. It is sad to note that almost all the raw materials needed to build these mobile phones, cars etc are obtained from countries on the continent.

To appreciate the importance of infrastructure as the bedrock of the continent’s development let us consider transportation infrastructure in a country for example. The development of every country is strongly dependent on a reliable transportation infrastructure system for internal transportation and for linking rural communities to market centres. The role of infrastructure to the economy of a nation cannot be overemphasized especially its effect on sustainable development, GDP growth, inflation, and poverty reduction. Efficient and effective provision of transportation infrastructure in a nation underlines all attempts to reduce poverty.

Transportation infrastructure plays essential role by unifying all sectors of the economy including agriculture, health, education, trade, industries, and services. It is therefore said that transportation is the life wire of the economy. Without transport infrastructure social and economic activities and development in general will stagnate. Transport infrastructure ensures that raw materials are brought to the factory, while industrial finished goods are also distributed to market centres and communities where they are mostly needed. Agriculture commodities such as food crops are made available to urban dwellers through roads, rails, airports and harbours. Transportation infrastructure also ensures that services produced elsewhere are available where they are needed and at appropriate time.

Transportation infrastructure again makes the administration of political entities such as districts, boroughs and regions easy because it provides access to social infrastructural facilities such as schools, clinics, hospitals, markets, security services, and administrative offices. Transportation infrastructure has a correlation in the improvement of the overall living standards of people living in both rural and urban communities. It improves the quality of life of the people and has added advantage of ensuring rapid growth and sustainable development and has a long run effect of alleviating poverty.

In areas where transportation infrastructure facilities are unavailable or have deteriorated in the serious difficulties are encountered in the production, distribution and marketing of goods and services. Such situations also have negative implications for the patronage of goods and services produced as well as usage of such facilities such as clinics, hospitals, markets, and schools. This has a negative repercussion on the state and quality of life of the people affected by such situations as well as a down trodden effect on production and productivity levels in the areas where the transportation infrastructure condition is bad. It is a well recognized fact that transportation infrastructure and for that matter all infrastructure investments have correlations in development and hence the standard of living of the people.

To move the continent away from its current predicament, public transportation infrastructure works should be carried out by all governments. Fast speed rail lines should be constructed to link the various parts of the continent. This will make the transport of bulky raw materials and goods easier. Roads should be constructed to make transportation less difficult. River Nile which is the longest river in the world should be developed as a major internal water transportation network so that goods could be transported up and down the stream. The other major rivers such as the Limpopo, Zambezi, Congo, Niger all should be developed to make it possible for goods and people to move easily. Every effort should be made to develop the technology that will harness the solar energy potential of the Sahara Desert so as to make access to energy easily.

Major harbours such as those in Durban, Cape Town, Lagos, Tema, Mombasa, Port Said, Tunis, Tripoli and Benghazi should be developed be expanded if necessary and every effort should be made to remove every administration bottleneck and bureaucracy that will cripple trade and development. The airport infrastructure should be developed to make it easier for people to move with ease throughout the continent. The international airports in each country should be expanded if need be and should be equipped with modern technology to make less cumbersome for passengers to go through. Besides bureaucracies, administration bottlenecks, delays that inhibit easy flow of people should be eliminated. Therefore there should be a common immigration policy which is well streamlined to take care of the people. The benefit of transportation investment is enormous and therefore should be given a priority.

If we can benefit so much from transportation infrastructure then how about our education sector upon which the development of the continent and our nations rest? The education infrastructures on the continent and in our nations have not been developed. Have they? Look at the world ranking of Universities and see where the first university on the continent falls. Can we afford to develop the continent and our nations with low quality graduates not to mention the millions of illiterates and semi-literates that roam around the continent and in our countries? Of the about 9,760 Accredited universities in the World, less than 10 universities were able to make it the top 500 and even those that made it about 90% came from South Africa which is the most developed country on the continent (source: topuniversities.com). It is abundantly clear that our education system is not producing the architects, engineers, planners, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, social workers, nurses and the scientists that we need in the 21st Century. That is why every major architectural and engineering activity on the continent is undertaken by foreigners and foreign companies especially from USA, Japan, China, India and Europe. And any continent and for that matter any nation that depends on foreign expertise for her survival is doom to fail in the long run.

The Universities lack well trained lecturers. They lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, and books. They lack them because we cannot build them; we cannot build them because the curricula have not prepared our students to build them. As a result we have to import the equipments and books from countries that have done their home work well and have invested heavily in education notably in science and technology. In many of our universities, Polytechnics and secondary schools lecturers/teachers are still teaching students the same way the 19th century academic institutions taught forgetting that we are in the 21st century. The same notes given a final year student four years ago are still being given to first year students with no addition and subtraction. Lecturers cannot write books for students because they do not have the resources to carry out research that form the basis of any academic material.

Whereas students in advanced countries get their hands on books immediately they are released those on the continent have to wait 4 years or even more to get the same books. What is more the academic facilities including libraries are in a state too appalling to describe. Not a single of our universities can boast of more than two million volumes of books in their libraries. Even the few books that they have are so old that information contained in them are useless. Very few books have been published by Africans. Due to this most students have to rely on the notes that lecturers give them. This is state of our universities and the little I say about our Polytechnics and secondary schools (High Schools) the better. Our research institutions have achieved very little because they are underfunded and the researchers do not have the expertise and the facilities to carry out any meaningful research. A case in point is Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) located at New Tafo in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Despite decades of its existence Ghana still exports raw cocoa beans for peanuts. No value has been added to the cocoa. CRIG has not been able to come up with other ways in which to use the beans to benefit Ghanaians despite the mounting evidence that the beans have several potential uses. In order to make Africa continent and the governments should make education a priority. They should as matter of urgency and of necessity invest in educational infrastructure.

In addition to these institutions of higher learning should be structured to produce engineers, doctors, lawyers, bankers, sociologists and all the various human resource needed for nation building. Exchange programmes should be established between the institutions and universities on the continent so that students on the continent could meet, interact and share ideas. Every effort should be used to raise the learning and quality of learning on the continent. Effort should be made to attract Africans in the Diaspora to come and share their expertise with their colleagues and contribute their knowledge towards the development of the continent. Research institutions should be established across the continent and funding provided to them to come up with how the various natural resources on the continent could be used to benefit the people. With the right human resource capacity Africans could now embark on their journey of liberating her people from poverty

How about the state of the housing infrastructure? A visit to any village or town gives the same picture of poor housing and poor quality of public service. People are living in mud/thatched houses with bamboo or raffia leaf as roofing sheet with no electricity, potable water and clinics. They live in a subsistence environment without social security, health insurance and are condemned to poverty, desperation and hopelessness. Those living in urban areas are without jobs, without mortgage, and face high utility bills with poor service. They face constant barrage of water and energy disruptions everyday. In every country, region, district the situation is not different. On the other hand our MPs, ministers, vice presidents, the presidents and political leaders, their cronies and families live in total luxury with mansions, SUVs, bodyguards, fat salaries, fat bonuses, house servants and they have all the resources of the continent at their disposal. Yet they claim to be serving the people. How can it be? Governments should invite the private sector to take part in the delivery of housing. Land and other service infrastructure such water, electricity and waste management should be provided to make it less difficult for the private sector to join.

Look at the state of the agricultural sector. How many of our farmers have their own tractors and farming equipments to produce beyond the level of subsistence? Virtually none. Nearly all the important equipments needed to make the agric sector viable and productive have to be imported and how many of our farmers have their own resources to buy even the basic machinery to expand their farms? Although we are in the 21st Century yet our farming practices indicate that we have still not moved beyond the 19th century. This is the more reason why we continue to hunger even though rich soils abound in Africa. During the early part of the 2008 financial crisis violence broke out in Egypt, Sierra Leone and in many other countries on the continent. Why is this so? The answer is we have neglected the sector for quite too long. Farmers have no access to irrigation which can make farming all year round possible. They have to rely on nature for rain before they can start planting. They have no access to credits could help them to expand their farms. Yet Ethiopia for example could afford millions of dollars to buy military hardware while famine threatens to annihilate her people. She cannot afford tractors and irrigation equipments that could help put food on the table and bring back her people’s dignity. Lack of agricultural infrastructure has brought famine to millions on the continent. There are no silos for storage during bumper harvest. No roads to producing areas. We under utilise our land for lack of political commitment. We cannot develop our economies if we fail to invest in infrastructure.

Besides, trade among the countries should be encouraged at all levels. Africans must know that together they stand or fall and therefore the old politics of former colonial master first and neighbours second should be discouraged and stopped straightway. This is the more reason why it is so important that these countries trade among themselves, develop their market, share their resources so that the lives of their citizens will improve. The continent should not be allowed to serve as the dumping ground for European manufactured goods. Import substitution industries should be adopted widely on the continent and trade should be encouraged at all levels. The era where raw materials with little added value are exported for peanuts should be given the boot. As the Americans used to say to the Japanese‘if Japan wants a share of the American market then their goods should be manufactured right here in America. The same yardstick should apply to any company or country that wants a share of the African raw material.

All national interests should give way to a common interest for the good of the people on the continent and the allegiance and influence of outside bodies should be treated as detraction. Africa and her people must be given a serious consideration in all matters of economic, social and political developments. The old philosophy of selling out the continent to international cartels and corporation should be given the boot. Africans should know that the Europeans, Americans and their Bretton Wood Institutions have no interest to see them develop at best they would rather that slavery and colonialism were back.

The above mentioned issues should be given a priority if Africa is to break away from the cycle of poverty which the people have endured for decades if not centuries.

Hope that the 21st Century will be different for the continent. Hope that infrastructure building will be given a higher priority by the various African Union members.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Do we have to die for NDC and NPP?

NPP and NDC are fooling Ghanaians, our economy and the lives of our future leaders?
NPP and NDC are fooling Ghanaians, our economy and the lives of our future leaders?
Finally the NPP's Dr. Kofi Asare has been declared winner of the Akwatia Parliamentary election, but does someone have to die? Do we have to fight, destroy lives and property in order to vote for a candidate?

Why should the entire residents of Akwatia have to suffer curfew because of NDC and NPP? Why should Salifu Maikankan has to die for NPP and why should Danny Ofori Atta has to die for NDC? It still beats my imagination that someone will die for politicians who have kept them poor, uneducated and unskilled and who do nothing to help them.

You may be mad about NDC or NPP and will go heaven and earth to defend them but do you think these parties care about the plights of Ghanaians? NDC ruled Ghana for 8 years and NPP has also done the same but did any of them help to make Ghana a developed country? Did any of them solve the unemployment problem in Ghana? How about electricity, education and health? Look at the poor nature of roads in Ghana. Do we deserve that? Can Ghanaians recall anything extraordinary that the NDC did before it was replaced by the NPP in 2000? Or anything remarkable that the NPP did before it was replaced by the NDC in 2008? And since taking office 7 months ago has the NDC done anything tangible to alleviate the suffering of Ghanaians? Any person who has been to Europe, Asia or America can say for sure that both major parties have not done much for Ghanaians.

Look at the state of Ghana's manufacturing sector. What do we produce? Close to nothing. What do we do with the cocoa that we produce? Don't we export the raw beans for peanuts? How about the gold and the diamond and the many minerals we mine? Aren't they exported to Switzerland and Dubai before Ghanaians go there to buy the wedding rings and bracelets to sell to us? Computers, cars, mobile phones, fridges are made in Europe, Japan and the US and they are affordable there but Ghanaians cannot buy common chocolate even though the vital raw material which is cocoa is produced here. And the same is true about gold and diamond. We cannot buy products made from them even though they are mined right here.

Look around yourself and see if any of the goods you see are made in Ghana. I mean the mobile phones, computers, televisions, cars and all the flashy things that Ghanaians are crazing for. It is sad to note that almost all the raw materials needed to build these phones, cars, plasma TVs, camcoders, satellite dishes are obtained from Ghana and other African countries. Has the NDC or the NPP helped us to build any of these things? No.

The reason why we are unable to convert these rich natural resources into finish goods to benefit ourselves is the poor manner in which the NPP and NDC have managed our country. Don't forget it is government that must take the initiative, provide the necessary environment and policy direction and resources for a strong manufacturing sector to take root. Look at the policies of both major parties and see if they can even put Ghana on the level of Korea, Taiwan or Hong Kong in the next 20 years. Ghanaian business men and women are frequenting Dubai and China importing every good you can think of. Investigate to find out how the Chinese and the Koreans did it and whether any of the parties can help Ghana do the same. Didn't the NPP throw the NDC Vision 2020 Document that was supposed to make Ghana a middle income country into a dust bin? And do you think the NDC is going to implement Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRS II) prepared by the NPP? This is the politics that has brought us no development but unemployment, poverty, hunger, misery and hopelessness and divisions.

So do they care, I mean NPP and NDC? Look at the state of Ghana's infrastructure: energy, roads, harbours, telecommunication, health, education, rail system, market and airport. What are the records of the two major parties on infrastructure? Have they been able to add anything to what Dr. Nkrumah built? Haven't they even neglected the few that Nkrumah built to decay? If you think I am not making any point just look at the state of our railway sector. Most of the tracks have been left to rot to the extent that there are no train services in many parts of the country which once relied on that vital important means of transport. For decades that sector received no investments and no modernisation to the extent that it now takes about 10 hours to travel by train from Kumasi to Accra, a mere 200km. Compare that with a train service in Japan where it takes one hour to cover more than 270km. Despite having the advantage of being cost effective, cheap, reliable and business friendly 11 years of PNDC rule plus 8 years of NDC and another 8 years of NPP did not help the rail sector and our country except turning former poor soldiers and politicians into billionaires at the expense of our nation. After 52 years of independence and more than 27 years of (P)NDC and NPP rule our trains still run on engines that are 50 years old.

NDC and NPP have neglected Ghana's infrastructure needs for years, yet we have forgotten that no nation can develop without investing in infrastructure and technology. That is why Democratic Republic of Congo has every mineral you can think of yet it is one of the poorest in the world. That is why Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong have developed and that is why President Obama is talking about building US infrastructures because they are the engines that run the economy. You cannot export if you do not have harbours and airports to support it. You cannot attract tourists if you do not have airport, hotels, well developed roads and other infrastructures that support it. You cannot move goods from centres of production to centres of consumption if you do not have roads, rail lines and inland water infrastructures to deliver it. You cannot supply the industries with doctors, architects, bankers, lawyers, planners, engineers, teachers, nurses if you do not have the educational infrastructure to deliver it. And you cannot run an efficient and vibrant economy if you do not have the energy and telecommunication infrastructures in place.

Look at the state of Akosombo dam. Ghana is shut off anytime it refuses to rain yet we have had parties and their political leaders who have promised us so much yet have delivered so little. Ghana has been experiencing serious disruptions in the energy sector for years and no political party has seen any wisdom to solve it. As a result factories are folding up and are laying off workers and we are waiting for nature to help fill Akosombo Dam before we rectify the problem. Will this do nothing approach to problem solving help our nation? What are we doing with the abundance of sunshine in the country? We have not taken advantage of it, have we? We have sunshine 365 days and we have not tap into solar energy which is cheap and more reliable than hydro.

In a situation that mimic problem facing the entire African region, the Finnish president on a visit to Nigeria in March 2009 asked, “Nigerian people have so much sun and wind, why don’t they use it for the generation of light for cooking and every other thing”? She queried, and added that “we do it in Finland for our renewable energy”. Source: www.dailytrust.com, 12 March 2009. The sad story is that Finland and most of the nations in Europe are locked up for most of the year by cold winter but take advantage of the short summer to convert the little sunshine they receive into solar energy while here in Ghana we have sunshine most of the year but do nothing with it. Dwindling rainfall has limited the ability of Akosombo dam to produce the needed energy to support the economy. It is another indication of the useless institutions that we have and lip service paid by the various political parties and their leaders to Ghana's development.

Look at the state of the agricultural sector. How many of our farmers have their own tractors and farming equipments to produce beyond the level of subsistence? Virtually all the important equipments needed to make the agric sector viable and productive have to be imported and how many of our farmers have their own resources to buy even the basic machinery to expand their farms? Today after 52 years of independence our farmers still depend on nature for water for their economic activities despite the availability of irrigation technology and what has the NDC and NPP done so far to help them? Aren't they still using cutlasses and hoes to plant and harvest their crops, technology our forefathers were used before they were colonised. Aren't they still relying on nature to plant their crops in this 21st Century? Aren't we still importing rice from India and China after 52 years of self governance? We cannot even feed ourselves after 16 years of NDC and NPP rule. Where are the food sufficiency policies of the two major parties then? What are the many directors at the ministry of Agriculture who enjoy fat salaries and bonuses doing? Although we are in the 21st Century yet our farming practices indicate that we have still not moved beyond the 19th century. Fishermen are always faced with the constant shortage of premix fuel despite the pledge by both parties to help them. This is the more reason why we continue to hunger even though rich soils abound in Ghana. We under utilise our land for lack of political commitment.

It is common to hear Ghanaians say that 'Malaysians got their palm fruit seed from Ghana'. Well Malaysians use the oil they get from the palm fruit as fuel for a number of engines including cars, something they accomplished through research and we what do we use the oil for? It is sad to say that Malaysia got independence about the same time as Ghana but they have made great strides economically, while we have been marking time curtesy NDC and NPP. While the rest of the world is moving forward scientifically and technologically we are still marking time because of corruption, poor leadership, poor governance, bogus agricultural and economic policies, politicisation of every national issue, tribalism, ethnicity and military incursions into our social, economic and political life.

If Agriculture which provides us about 35% of our GDP is bad, then can our educational sector upon which the development of the nation rest be any better? Aren't the NDC and NPP toying and playing politics with our secondary school system. The SSS (now SHS) was a three year programme when it first started. When the NPP replaced the NDC in 2001 they changed it to four years and now the NDC is considering reversing it to three years. Who are they fooling? Is it not Ghanaians, our economy and the lives of our future leaders?

Is the entire educational system anything to be proud of? Just look at the world ranking of Universities and see where the first university falls. Of the about 9,760 Accredited universities in the World, Ghana's prominent universities including University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology only managed to place 5,702 and 6,703 positions respectively in the World University Ranking. Even in Africa, our own backyard they only managed to secure 43rd and 63rd positions respectively. (Source: topuniversities.com/2008) Can we afford to develop the nation with ill-prepared graduates not to mention the millions of illiterates and semi-literates who roam around the cities and countryside?



Myjoyonline Ghana News Photos |
Dr. Ave Kludze, the top Ghanaian born NASA Scientist in a rebuke of our leaders and our education system said in an interview with the CNN "no empire has ever achieved greatness without technology and the earlier the leaders realise this the better". He later told BBC that, "But where African schools have a problem, is that they focus heavily on theory, whereas [universities in the west] focus on the practical - solving real world problems.” Source:bbc.co.uk, Thursady, 12 February 2009.

It is abundantly clear that our education system is not producing the architects, engineers, planners, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, social workers, nurses and the scientists that we need in the 21st Century. That is why every major architectural and engineering activity in Ghana is undertaken by foreigners and foreign companies especially from USA, Japan, China, India and the European Union. The Universities lack well trained lecturers. They lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, and books. They lack them because we cannot build them; we cannot build them because the curricula have not prepared our students to build them. As a result we have to import the equipments and books from countries that have done their home work well and have invested heavily in education notably in science and technology.

In many of our universities, Polytechnics and secondary schools lecturers/teachers are still teaching students the same way the 19th century academic institutions taught forgetting that we are in the 21st century. The same notes given a final year student four years ago are still being given to first year students with no addition or subtraction. Lecturers cannot write books for students because they do not have the resources to carry out research that form the basis of any academic material.

Whereas students in advanced countries get their hands on books immediately they are released those in Ghana have to wait 4 years or even more to get the same books. What is more the academic facilities including libraries are in a state too appalling to describe. Not a single of our universities can boast of a million volumes of books in their libraries. Even the few text books that they have are so old that information contained in them are useless. Very few books have been published by Ghanaians. Due to this most students have to rely on the notes that lecturers give them. This is state of our universities and the little I say about our Polytechnics and secondary schools the better.

The streets of Accra, Kumasi and other major cities in the country are swarmed with children selling ice water, bread, chewing gums and anything that can be hawked. Children head potters are visible every where in Kumasi, Accra, Tema and Koforidua, a clear manifestation of the misery and hopelessness that the NDC and NPP have brought to Ghanaians. These are the children who are supposed to be in the classroom and be trained as future leaders but have to abandon the classroom and scavenge for food because the NPP and NDC do not care about them.

When they drive in their expensive tax-payers' Land Cruisers do the NPP and NDC MPs, ministers, Vice Presidents, the Presidents and their advisors see the children who live, sell, and are taught by the street in Accra, Kumasi, Tema, Takoradi and Koforidua?

Do you know why NDC and NPP keep toying with Ghana's education? Because they want to keep the people in darkness like poorly cooked rice, so no one will rise up to challenge their corrupt and useless administrations. Ask your President or his vice or their ministers where their children are schooling now and you will understand why they don't give a damn about SHS, Poly or University education. Their children are schooling in expensive universities in Europe and North America. And as to how they pay for those expensive fees your guess will be as good as mine.

When their children finish their education overseas they stay there and work. They only return to Ghana when there are big contracts where they would make millions of dollars for staying away and doing nothing for the nation, and what do the poor Ghanaians who could not travel to study outside and had to pass through God knows what get? Nothing - no contract, no retirement packages, just poverty.

Our research institutions have achieved very little because they are underfunded and the researchers do not have the expertise and the facilities to carry out any meaningful research. A case in point is Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) located at New Tafo in the Eastern Region. Despite decades of its existence we still export raw cocoa beans for peanuts. No value has been added to the cocoa. CRIG has not been able to come up with other ways in which to use the beans to benefit Ghanaians despite the mounting evidence that the beans have several potential uses.

Have you visited Korle Bu or Komfo Anokye or any of our hospitals lately? Didn't you see patients lying on the floor even though they are sick and are suppose to be receiving care? If Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye hospitals are crying for resources then you can imagine the situation at Donkokrom. And where is the NDC and NPP that you want to die for or support so blindly? Where in Ghana are mosquitoes not widespread? Are we not still dying from mosquito bites and other minor and preventable diseases? Despite NDC and NPP pledges, our hospitals are without the basic essentials needed to run a hospital not to mention the advanced technologies that save millions of lives in Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Europe, Japan and America. And NDC and NPP what are they doing? According to peacefmonline "888 out of every 100,000 pregnant women in Ghana who visit the hospital, end up dying. Another expert, whose statistics were even more frightening said, out of every 1,000 pregnant women about 451 die". Source: peacefmonline.com, Thursday, 23 July 2009.

How about the state of the housing infrastructure? A visit to any village or town gives the same picture of poor housing and poor quality of public service. People are living in mud/thatched houses with bamboo/raffia leafs as roofing sheet with no electricity, potable water and clinics. They live in a subsistence environment without social security, health insurance and are condemned to poverty, desperation and hopelessness. Those living in urban areas are without jobs, without mortgage, and face high utility bills with poor public services. They face constant barrage of water and energy disruptions everyday. In every region the situation is not different. Go to Nima, Agbogloshie, New Town, James Town, Sodom & Gomorrah and see the kind of living conditions and environment in which fellow Ghanaians are living in this 21st Century. People are living in squalid conditions not even fit for animals yet we have NDC and NPP always promising to build us castles, swimming pools and what have you.

Majority of the people in Teshie and Nungua have no access to toilet facilities and have to use the coast as places of convenience and even in those places where there are few toilet facilities you could hardly stand the stench. Please you can verify this by going to where Dutch Hotel is situated at Nungua and witness how people troop to the coast in the morning to attend nature's call. On the other hand our MPs, ministers, vice president, the president, their cronies and families live in total luxury with mansions, sport utility vehicles, bodyguards, fat salaries, fat bonuses, house servants and they have all the resources of the state at their disposal. When they leave office they propose special emolument packages for themselves yet they claim to be serving the poor. How can it be?

I can continue all day but it is a fact that both the NDC and NPP are a bunch of hungry politicians with no concrete economic and social agenda to move Ghana beyond the level of importing used computers, used cars, used televisions, used underwear and any used thing you can think of. What are all these telling you about Ghana, the NPP, and the NDC? Do we have any option not to vote for them? Why should Ghanaians continue to die and suffer for such people who only think about their stomach? These leaders and their parties always play on the ignorance of the people promising them heaven but failing to even provide them earth. Until we have leaders who have vision like Dr. Nkrumah and are committed to industrialise Ghana beyond agro raw material production and export, Ghana will continue to be classified as a developing and poor country and even though we will continue to vote we will continue to wallow in abject poverty as we have always done.

I want to urge every Ghanaian to seek education and knowledge which I believe will help us to question our leaders and demand accountability from them. I also want to challenge the various TV and radio stations to devote money and resources to embark on documentaries on what it really means to live in poverty in Ghana under the NPP and NDC, documentaries and programmes that will show Ghanaians the living conditions of the people in rural areas and expose the lies of the NDC and NPP. And to the parasitic NDC and NPP I say 52 years is enough for us to see real development in the country.



Credit: Lord Aikins Adusei
(Email: politicalthinker1@yahoo.com


Monday, August 17, 2009

"NDC and NPP Do They Care? Why should one die for them?"


Why should the residents of Akwatia have to suffer curfew for NDC and NPP? Why should Salifu Maikankan has to die for NPP and why should Danny Ofori Atta has to die for NDC? It still beats my imagination that someone will die for politicians who have kept them poor, uneducated and unskilled and who do nothing to help them.

You may be mad about NDC or NPP and will go heaven and earth to defend them but do you think these parties care about the plights of Ghanaians? NDC ruled Ghana for 8 years and NPP has also done the same. Did any of them help to make Ghana a developed country? Did any of them solve the unemployment problem in Ghana? How about education and health? Look at the poor nature of roads in Ghana. Do we deserve that? Can Ghanaians recall anything extraordinary that the NDC did before it was replaced by the NPP in 2000? Or anything remarkable that the NPP did before it was replaced by the NDC in 2008? And since taking office 7 months ago has the NDC done anything tangible to alleviate the suffering of Ghanaians? Any person who has been to Europe, Asia or America can say for sure that both major parties have not done much for Ghanaians.

Look at the state of Ghana's manufacturing sector. What do we produce? Close to nothing. What do we do with the cocoa that we produce? Don't we export the raw beans for peanuts? How about the gold and the diamond and the many minerals we mine? Aren't they exported to Switzerland and Dubai before Ghanaians go there to buy the wedding rings and bracelets to sell to us? Computers, cars, mobile phones, fridges are made in Europe, Japan and the US and they are affordable but Ghanaians cannot buy common chocolate even though the vital raw material which is cocoa is produced here. And the same is true about gold and diamond. We cannot buy products made from them even though they are mined right here.

Look around yourself and see if any of the goods you see are made in Ghana. I mean the mobile phones, computers, televisions, cars and all the flashy things that Ghanaians are crazing for. It is sad to note that almost all the raw materials needed to build these phones, cars, plasma TVs, camcoders, satellite dish are obtained from Ghana and other African countries.

So do they care, I mean NPP or NDC? Look at their policies and see if they can even put Ghana on the level of Korea, Taiwan or Hong Kong in the next 20 years. Ghanaian businessmen and women are frequenting Dubai and China importing every good you can think of. Investigate to find out how the Chinese and the Koreans did it and whether any of the parties can help Ghana do the same. Didn't the NPP throw the NDC Vision 2020 Document that was supposed to make Ghana a middle income country into a dust bin? And do you think the NDC is going to implement Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRS II) prepared by the NPP? This is the politics that has brought us no development but unemployment, poverty, hunger, misery and hopelessness..

Look at the state of Ghana's infrastructure:energy, roads, harbours, telecommunication, health, education, rail system, market and airport. What are the records of the two major parties on infrastructure? Have they been able to add anything to what Dr. Nkrumah built? Haven't they even neglected the few that Nkrumah built to decay? If you think I am not making any point just look at the railway sector. Most of the tracks have been left to rot to the extent that there are no train services in many parts of the country which once relied on that vital important means of transport. For decades that sector received no investment and no modernisation to the extent that it now takes about 10 hours to travel by train from Kumasi to Accra, a mear 200km. Compare that with a train service in Japan where it takes one hour to cover more than 270km. Despite having the advantage of being cost effective, cheap, reliable and business friendly 11 years of PNDC plus 8 years

of NDC and another 8 years of NPP did not help the rail sector and our country except turning former poor soldiers and politicians into billionaires.

Yet we have forgotten that no nation can develop without investing in infrastructure. That is why Democratic Republic of Congo has every mineral you can think of yet they are one of the poorest in the world. That is why Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong have developed and that is why President Obama is talking about building US infrastructures because they are the engines that run the economy. You cannot export if you do not have harbours and airports to support it. You cannot attract tourists if you do not have airport, hotels, well developed roads and other infrastructures that support it. You cannot move goods from centres of production to centres of consumption if you do not have roads, rail lines and inland water infrastructures to deliver it. You cannot supply the industries with doctors, architects, bankers, lawyers, planners, engineers, teachers, nurses if you do not have the educational infrastructure to deliver it. And you cannot

run an efficient and vibrant economy if you do not have the energy and telecommunication infrastructures in place.

Ghana has been experiencing serious disruptions in the energy sector for years and no political party has seen any wisdom to solve it. As a result factories are folding up and are laying off workers and we are waiting for nature to help fill Akosombo Dam before we rectify the problem. Will this do nothing approache to problem solving help our nation? What are we doing with the abundance of sunshine in the country? We have not taken advantage of it, have we? We have sunshine 365 days and we have not tap into solar energy which is cheap and more reliable than hydro. Nations in Europe that are locked away for most of the year by cold winter take advantage of the short summer to tap into the energy potential of the sun while we have the sun throughout the year. It is another indication of the useless institutions that we have and lip service paid by the various political parties and their leaders to Ghana's development.

Look at the state of the agricultural sector. How many of our farmers have their own tractors and farming equipments to produce beyond the level of subsistence? Virtually all the important equipments needed to make the agric sector viable and productive have to be imported and how many of our farmers have their own resources to buy even the basic machinery to expand their farms? Today after 52 years of independence our farmers still depend on nature for their economic activities despite the availability of irrigation technology and what has the NDC and NPP done so far to help them? Aren't they still using cutlasses and hoes to plant and harvest their crops, technology our forefathers were used before they were colonised. Aren't they still relying on nature to plant their crops in this 21st Century? Aren't we still importing rice from India and China? We cannot even feed ourselves after 16 years of NDC and NPP rule. Where are the food sufficiency policy

of the two major parties then? What are the many directors at the ministry of Agric who enjoy fat salaries and bonuses doing? Although we are in the 21st Century yet our farming practices indicate that we have still not moved beyond the 19th century.Fishermen are always faced with the constant shortage of premix fuel despite the pledge by both parties to help them. This is the more reason why we continue to hunger even though rich soils abound in Ghana. We under utilise our land for lack of political commitment.

It is common to hear Ghanaians say that 'Malaysians got their palm fruit seed from Ghana'. Well Malaysians use the oil they get from the palm fruit as fuel for a number of engines including cars, something they accomplished through research and we what do we use the oil for? It is sad to say that Malaysia got independence about the same time as Ghana but they have made great strides economically, while we have been marking time curtesy NDC and NPP. While the rest of the world is moving forward scientifically and technologically we are still marking time because of corruption, poor leadership, poor governance, bogus agricultural and economic policies, politicisation of every national issue, tribalism, ethnicity and military incursions into our social, economic and political life.

If Agriculture which provides us about 35% of our GDP is bad, then can our educational sector upon which the development of the nation rest be any better? Aren't the NDC and NPP toying and playing politics with our secondary school system. The SSS (now SHS) was a three year programme when it first started. When the NPP replaced the NDC in 2001 they changed it to four years and now the NDC is considering reversing it to three years. Who are they fooling? Is it not Ghanaians, our economy and the lives of our future leaders?

Is the entire educational system anything to be proud of? Just look at the world ranking of Universities and see where the first university falls. Of the about 9,760 Accredited universities in the World, Ghana's prominent universities including University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of 'Science and Technology' only managed to place 5,702 and 6,703 positions respectively in the World University Ranking. Even in Africa, our own backyard they only managed to secure 43rd and 63rd positions respectively. (Source: topuniversities.com/2008) Can we afford to develop the nation with ill-prepared graduates not to mention the millions of illiterates and semi-literates who roam around the cities and countryside?

It is abundantly clear that our education system is not producing the architects, engineers, planners, bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, social workers, nurses and the scientists that we need in the 21st Century. That is why every major architectural and engineering activity in Ghana is undertaken by foreigners and foreign companies especially from USA, Japan, China, India and the European Union. The Universities lack well trained lecturers. They lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, and books. They lack them because we cannot build them; we cannot build them because the curricula have not prepared our students to build them. As a result we have to import the equipments and books from countries that have done their home work well and have invested heavily in education notably in science and technology.

In many of our universities, Polytechnics and secondary schools lecturers/teachers are still teaching students the same way the 19th century academic institutions taught forgetting that we are in the 21st century. The same notes given a final year student four years ago are still being given to first year students with no addition or subtraction. Lecturers cannot write books for students because they do not have the resources to carry out research that form the basis of any academic material.

Whereas students in advanced countries get their hands on books immediately they are released those in Ghana have to wait 4 years or even more to get the same books. What is more the academic facilities including libraries are in a state too appalling to describe. Not a single of our universities can boast of a million volumes of books in their libraries. Even the few text books that they have are so old that information contained in them are useless. Very few books have been published by Ghanaians. Due to this most students have to rely on the notes that lecturers give them. This is state of our universities and the little I say about our Polytechnics and secondary schools the better.

The streets of Accra, Kumasi and other major cities in the country are swarmed with children selling ice water, bread, chewing gums and anything that can be hawked. Children head potters are visible every where in Kumasi, Accra, Tema and Koforidua, a clear manifestation of the misery and hopelessness that the NDC and NPP have brought to Ghanaians. These are the children who are supposed to be in the classroom and be trained as future leaders.

When they drive in their expensive tax-payers' landcruisers do the NPP and NDC MPs, ministers, Vice Presidents, the Presidents and their advisors see the children who live, sell, 'school' and do everything in the streets of Accra, Kumasi, Tema, Takoradi and Koforidua?

Do you know why NDC and NPP keep toying with Ghana's education? Because they want to keep the people in darkness like poorly cooked rice, so no one will rise up to challenge their corrupt and useless administrations. Ask your President or his vice or their ministers where their children are schooling now and you will understand why they don't give a damn about SHS, Poly or University education. Their children are schooling in expensive universities in Europe and North America. And as to how they pay for those expensive fees your guess will be as good as mine.

When their children finish their education overseas they stay there and work. They only return to Ghana when there is a big contract where they would make millions of dollars for staying away and doing nothing for the nation, and what do the poor Ghanaian who could not travel to study outside and had to pass through God knows what get? Nothing- no contract, no retirement packages, just poverty.

Our research institutions have achieved very little because they are underfunded and the researchers do not have the expertise and the facilities to carry out any meaningful research. A case in point is Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) located at New Tafo in the Eastern Region. Despite decades of its existence we still export raw cocoa beans for peanuts. No value has been added to the cocoa. CRIG has not been able to come up with other ways in which to use the beans to benefit Ghanaians despite the mounting evidence that the beans have several potential uses.

Have you visited Korle Bu or Komfo Anokye or any of our hospitals lately? Didn't you see patients lying on the floor even though they are sick and are suppose to be receiving care? If Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye hospitals are crying for resources then you can imagine the situation at Donkokrom. Where in Ghana are mosquitoes not widespread? Are we not still dying from mosquito bites and other minor and preventable diseases? Despite NDC and NPP pledges, our hospitals are without the basic essentials needed to run a hospital not to mention the advanced technologies that save millions of lives in Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Europe, Japan and America. And NDC and NPP what are they doing? According to pecefmonline "888 out of every 100,000 pregnant women in Ghana who visit the hospital, end up dying. Another expert, whose statistics were even more frightening said, out of every 1,000 pregnant women about 451 die". Source:peacefmonline.com,Thursday, 23 July 2009.

How about the state of the housing infrastructure? A visit to any village or town gives the same picture of poor housing and poor quality of public service. People are living in mud/thatched houses with bamboo/raffia leafs as roofing sheet with no electricity, potable water and clinics. They live in a subsistence environment without social security, health insurance and are condemned to poverty, desperation and hopelessness. Those living in urban areas are without jobs, without mortgage, and face high utility bills with poor public services. They face constant barrage of water and energy disruptions everyday. In every region the situation is not different. On the other hand our MPs, ministers, vice president, the president, their cronies and families live in total luxury with mansions, Sport Utility Vehicles, bodyguards, fat salaries, fat bonuses, house servants and they have all the resources of the state at their disposal. When they leave office they

propose special emolument packages for themselves yet they claim to be serving the poor. How can it be?

I can continue all day but it is a fact that both the NDC and NPP are bunches of hungry politicians with no concrete economic and social agenda to move Ghana beyond the level of importing used computers, used cars, used televisions, used underwear and any used thing you can think of. What are all these telling you about Ghana, the NPP, and the NDC? Do we have any option not to vote for them? Why should Ghanaians continue to die and suffer for such people who only think about their stomach? Until we have leaders who have vision like Dr. Nkrumah and are committed to industrialise Ghana beyond agro raw material production and export, Ghana will continue to be classified as a developing and poor country and even though we will continue to vote we will continue to wallow in abject poverty as always before.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
The author is an activist and anti-corruption campaigner. He blogs at http://www.ghanapundit.com

Ghana: Is Obama shaking his head in disbelief?



...Where is President Mills in all these? Why has he maintained his silence despite the call for him to step in?
Obama decided to choose Ghana out of about 48 countries in Africa South of the Sahara for his maiden visit because of what he calls Ghana's strong democratic credentials, human rights record, rule of law, freedom of speech and assembly and economic performance.

But barely one month after his visit he must be shaking his head for praising the country and authoring those praising words. He now wished he had not visited the country at all. He has now realised that Ghana too is an African country where nothing good could come from. The question he is asking is, "Is this the country that I visited just one month ago? I thought they were peaceful democrats who respect the rights of their citizens" shaking his head in disbelief. He is now angry with his advisors for deceiving him into choosing Ghana. "Ghana is no better than my father's Kenya" he might be exclaiming. "In my father's Kenya they steal, they arrest, they detain, they kill and they engage in violence during elections. In Ghana too they steal, they arrest, detain, kill and now in Akwatia election violence is ongoing. So what is the difference he might have asked Mr. Johnnie Carson his top envoy to Africa.

Ever since Obama's visit a lot has happened in the country. Barely a day goes without an opposition member been arrested and detained by the BNI or someone been beaten to death or shot dead by the Police and the BNI.

Ghana is slowly joining the likes of Zimbabwe where the state security apparatus arrest and detain Movement of Democratic Change MPs or members at will. Like Guinea where life has become so cheap that Ghana's ambassador was attacked by the state security forces, our nation too is slowly turning into a police state with the BNI arresting and detaining people and interrogating them without their lawyers being present.

We are told that Lawyers who followed Asamoah Boateng to the BNI were pushed and heckled by operatives of the Organisation. The lawyers were also not allowed to sit in during the BNI meeting with their client even though the laws of our land dictates that a person must have his lawyer present when been interrogated. Even though the BNI claims to have secured a bench warrant for Asamoah Boateng's arrest his lawyers were not shown a copy of the warrant.

Besides, the BNI operatives did not spare the wife of Asamoah Boateng. She too was dragged and pushed into a gutter. Like all unprofesional security agencies who use brute force, threats, intimidation, harassment the BNI is increasingly showing itself as no exception. Any cultured organisation treat women with respect and dignity but the behaviour of Atta Mills' BNI leaves much to be desired. Their unprofessional behaviour at the airport where they allowed Asamoah Boateng and his family to finish going through departure formalities only for them to enter the plane and ground it is a continuation of what they did in 2001 under Kuffour regime where they harassed members of then NDC opposition members. Why did the BNI allow the family to board the plane before going in to disturb everyone there?

Betty Mould Iddrissu the Attorney General who should know better is as pathetic as the BNI itself. Instead of rising to defend Mrs. Asmoah Boateng and her children she has joined the BNI wagon in mistreating them. Women are their own enemies indeed. Consider the trauma Asabee's children are going through having to watch their parents being forcefully removed from the plane. What examples are we setting for them? Two times they have seen their parents being yelled at, being dragged, being pushed around at the airport, in the plane. How can the peace lover Mills explain to these kids what is happening to their parents? Father of all indeed!

When a court ruled that the passport of the former foreign minister be handed to him the BNI and the Attorney General say no way. We will give to him at our time and place of choice. This shows that neither the BNI or the A-G respect the court and its ruling. A contempt of law? Not in Atta Mills' Ghana. The BNI says it arrested and detained Asamoah Boateng because they could not locate him. Instead of going to Asabee's house the BNI went to his in-law's house as if Asabee lives in his in-law's house. What effort did the BNI make to contact Asabee's lawyers when the BNI could not find him? There is no indication that the BNI called Asabee's lawyers to find out about his whereabout. Did the BNI leave a note in Asabee's house to the effect that he was being sought? The only excuse the government has given concerning Asabee's arrest is that he was arrogant when he was in government. But no where in our constitution has it said that a person should be
arrested if he is arrogant.

Asamoah Boateng was prevented from travelling by the BNI even though he had told the court he would be travelling for a week. He was later arrested and detained for days and when his sympathisers organised themselves to hold a candle vigil for him they were tear gassed, beaten and murdered by the BNI and their police counterpart.

"Can't the BNI go about its work professionally without the drama that it is creating? Is the BNI aware that public opinion is against it?" a panel member retorted on Joy FM's program News File on Saturday 15 August 2009.

The culture of violence and impunity seem to be growing by the day. The recent election campaign violence in Akwatia where people have been killed and several vehicles destroyed all point to growing insecurity and lawlessness in the country. NPP General Secretary Nana Ohene Ntow claims he has been asaulted by NDC supporters with NDC's Asiedu Nkatiah also making similar allegations. Supporters of both NPP and NDC are causing mayhem forcing a curfew to be imposed on the town. Due to the violence the Eastern Regional Security Council has been forced to issue a directive to the effect that the election cannot go on.

When Mpiani was invited by the BNI he too was detained for more than 10 hours before finally being released.

Mr. Sammy Crabbe, NPP Regional Chairman claims he was threatened with arrest and detention when he appeared before the BNI for a ‘friendly conversation’. He has since sued the BNI and A-G for abuse of his human rights.

Peace FM Online has reported that the Eastern Regional Women’s Organiser of the NDC, Evelyn Ama Koran, was beaten by the Akwatia NDC executives, for being a hypocrite.Source:peacefmonline.com, Friday, 14 August 2009.

Since January 2009 Ghanaians have witnessed unemployed youth, apparently from the President's own NDC party threatening and forcefully seizing toilets in Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi and Tamale. These NDC lawless thugs have used force, threats and intimidation against employees of National Youth Employment Programme and National Health Insurance Authority at Juaso, Bibiani and some other places and demanding their sack.

"The harassment of certain individuals by the NDC government is very unfortunate especially when the head of the government is a Law Professor who should know well when it comes to human rights abuses" says a Political Activist.

Slowly a peaceful nation is becoming like a banana republic. Former President Kuffour has already warned that trouble is slowly brewing in the country saying the government is behaving like there has been a coup.

The Christian Council of Ghana, a well respected body in the country has also added its voice to the ongoing mistreatment of citizens of this nation. The Council on Friday 13 August 2009 expressed regret about recent events surrounding the former Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr Stephen Asamoah Boateng and the Bureau of National Investigations and called for peace.

A statement signed by the Reverend Fred Deegbe, General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, said it had also noted with regret the loss of life and the alleged treatment of his wife and legal counsel on Thursday."We believe that citizens should be treated with honour and dignity in accordance with the law and due process, as we seek justice and accountability," it said.

The Christian Council of Ghana noted with concern the "culture of vendetta that seems to be taking root in our country" and called on the government and various leaders "to eschew this so that we can live in peace and progress and be the truly democratic and lawful country we seek to be". Source: Ghana News Agency, 14 August 2009.

The Council has therefore petitioned the President to step in to calm the situation but he seems not bothered, even though he professes to be a peace enthusiast. Will the President listen to the Christian Council? So far there is no indication that he would. The question many Ghanaians are asking is what would have happened if Mills had said he was not a peace loving man? Definitely half of Ghanaians may have been given to his dogs.

In what it saw as government blatant abuse of the rights of its citizens The Statesman in an editorial critically condemned the government for failing to protect the rights of its own citizens. Part of the editorial reads, "What we find most worrying is the posture of the government, specifically the President and his Attorney General, both of whom are lawyers. They are exhibiting a very worrying contempt for the rule of law and civil rights. The editorial quoted two prominent civil society actors calling on the government to protect the rights of its citizens rather than abusing them. "The head of Legal Resources, Edward Amuzu, is calling on Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu to rather focus on defending the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizen than to fighting against it", it says. Source: myjoyonline.com, Friday, 14 August 2009. But will they listen to such a good advice? No, I don't think so.

Where is President Mills?

And where is President Mills in all these? Where is his leadership in the ongoing saga and who is advicing him to keep quiet while Ghanaians are being murdered? Has he chosen not to say anything for fear of being attacked by those who placed in him in the Castle? Is he trying to pleased the many factions in the NDC and Rawlings in particular for promising not to attack his government again? Does his silence mean that he is aware of everything that is going on but has chosen not to do anything about it? Mr. President what could be more important issue to attend to than BNI's infringement of people's human rights? Nobody knows what is going on except you Mr. President.

There are two words that sum up Mills' poor handling of everything in the country. Weak leadership. Since he took office Mills seems to have been overwhelmed by the responsibilities of government and as a result has chosen to blame his predecessor for all his woes. He has constantly being saying that the debt incurred under Kuffour's regime is preventing him from improving the economy. A very cheap excuse isn't it?

Is President Mills not worried about the spate of defeats that his government continue to suffer from the Courts? Is he not worried about the poor performance of the economy which has taken a nose dive since he took office? The Governor of Bank of Ghana has declared that he can no longer work with the Law Professor and as such he is calling it quit at the end of this August. This apparently is because of the poor handling of the economy by Mills and his angents.

The economic situation in the country seems to have moved from worse to the unthinkable and there are many indicators which point to the fact that the economy has been left to sink under the watchful eye of the President. Since taking office, inflation has been soaring hitting more than 20% in June. Fuel prices are higher today than they used to be 6 months ago. Unemployment is more than 20% and is still rising steadily with companies like Vodafone threatening to slash over 950 jobs. The currency the Cedi has lost more than 30% of its value putting prices of commodities beyond the reach of the ordinary Ghanaian.

Under the watchful eye of the President fuel shortages is becoming a norm with drivers in Greater Accra, Volta, Brong Ahafo and Northern Regions being forced to queue for long hours to the detriment of their businesses. Fishermen in the country have complained bitterly that they cannot get premix fuel to go to sea despite the fact that they are in their peak season, a situation that has forced them to issue threats to government that they will hit the streets if nothing is done to salvage the situation.

In a message that sums up the failure of Mills' government and the displeasure of Ghanaians with the performance of the government someone texted to Joy News at 6pm that "Mills promised us free fuel, now we cannot get it to buy. Better Ghana indeed". Source: Joy News at 6pm, Wednesday, 12 August 2009.

Depicting a government that is in disarray, sick and falling apart, the Spokesperson for Jerry Rawlings, Mr. Kofi Adams has even called on the President to stop sleeping behind the wheel and sack people in his government that he Adams considers to be saboteurs. “In as much as their actions are condemnable, I think that the best thing for the President to do is to quickly clear out those who are perceived to be sabotaging his administration, to satisfy party members,” he said, adding “We have four years mandate from Ghanaians and they expect us to deliver. If there are some people who are sabotaging the government, they must be removed". “We want to deliver to the people of Ghana and if one's actions are clearly undermining the activities of the government, then that person must be sacked for another person to take over". Source:The Chronicle, Thursday, 06 Aug 2009.

There are reports that NDC Propagandists in the Northern and other Regions have turned against the goverment and is bashing it for failling the nation. One such Propagandist is Mahama Sayibu, "a regular radio panelist who until now was seen as a supporter of the party and spoke in its favour on local radio stations, seems to be moving to a different direction. He has in recent times taken an entrenched position, made a u-turn and lashing at the Mills administration, to the shock of the NDC party kingpins in the region. Source:Daily Guide, Monday, 10 August 2009.

To make matters worse the government has suffered even in the areas where it has placed much effort.Over the last couple of weeks the government has suffered defeat after defeat in Court.

The defeats and the refusal to contest Mr. Crabbe's case have further sent a shockwave to the centre of the administration, demoralising the already dysfucntional government machinery and sucking the remaining energy of ministers and staff alike. The Attoney General and her deputy who were caught pants down, have issued pronouncements to the effect that government is not pleased with the three judgments. Why will the government be happy when Mills is sleeping behind the wheel?

The heart of the government was further shattered by the wind of deep seated corruption that has been blowing in the government and in the party. First came the confirmation by the Auditor General that its report has implicated Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni (current Foreign Minister) in financial malfeasance and wrong-doing. Then came the corrupt Muntaka khebab and pampas saga and allegation that he travelled to Germany with Ms Edith Zenayela who is believed to be his girl friend at the expense of the nation forcing him to resign as sports minister.

The Muntaka saga was quickly followed by the allegations that Mr. Mahama Ayariga, Spokesperson of the President purchased five tractors meant for poor Ghanaian farmers and paid for only one.

A black hole was created in government when it was revealed that the Finance Minister Dr. Kwabena Duffour suggested that, "donor inflows to the country must be channelled through his bank, Unibank" forcing Dr. Duffour to vehemently deny it.

But his denials did not settle the matter for the government when news surfaced in Nigeria and Ghana that the NDC's 2008 election victories were made possible through a $3.5m illegal cash donation made to Jerry Rawlings by the Governor of Rivers State in Nigeria. While panting for breadth the government and the party were given knockout blow when the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom begun court proceedings against Mabey & Johnson for paying millions of pounds as bribe to top officials of the NDC governemnt that ruled between 1994 and 1999.

In admitting the failure of his governemt Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communication speaking on Joy FM's News File programme on August 8, 2009 said "the recent premix saga was embarrassing for the government and promised it will never recur".

Also speaking to Joy News’ Elvis Adjetey, a youth activist of NDC Mr. Mohammed Aboagye said the leadership has not shown interest in the welfare of those at the grassroots since the party assumed office. He said “the way and manner our leadership are behaving now” leaves the grassroots supporters with little hope“. Source: myjoyonline.com, Tuesday, 11 August 2009

And he is not alone with that assessment. Mr. Gabriel Aggah founder of Atta Mills Foundation in an interview with the Chronicle descended heavily on the government and its operatives accusing them of growing horns while doing nothing to help the ordinary Ghanaian.

My advice to President Mills is that he must get serious and solve the many problems facing the nation. And to all those who wish Ghana well I want to urge them to stand up and defend the constitution and the rights of citizens of this nation. We must not forget that what is happening in Somalia, Sudan and other places did not start in a day. They are the fruits of years of harassment, detention, torture. Rwanda was not plunged into turmoil in a day. A seed was sown and was nurtured before it started bearing the fruit that resulted in 800,000 people been murdered in just under three months.

The onus is on President Mills to act. He can choose to rein in on his attack dogs or he can choose to ignore the attrocities they are committing and allow the problem to fester on before exploding into another Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Chad or Zimbabwe. As for Obama he is still disapponted but he has consoled himself knowing very well that Ghana is still part of Africa.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
The author is an activist and anti-corruption campaigner. He blogs at ghanapundit.blogspot.com