A GIVE YOUR VOTE/USE A UK VOTE (GYV/UAUKV) Project
involving the Planet Repairs Youth Positive Action Campaign (PRYPAC) and its
associated organisations, networks and other campaigns in Ghana;
supported by the
PANAFRIINDABA
All-Afrikan People's Community Consultative Commission in Europe,
London, United Kingdom.
*ISSUES AND QUESTIONS FROM GHANAIANS*
*For British Candidate Members of Parliament in the May 2010 United Kingdom
General Elections*
Collated by
Kofi Mawuli Klu,
PANAFRIINDABA Chief Executive Commissioner,
London, United Kingdom.
25th February 2010.
(1) *FROM HISTORY OF RELATIONSHIP*
**
The pronouncements and actions of some high official Representatives of Her
Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom (UK), as for example the
contributions made by Dr. Nicholas Westcott, the British High Commissioner
to Ghana, to the Public Lecture organised by the Public Affairs Directorate
of the University of Ghana, Legon, in Accra, and held in January 2010 on the
theme "Governments, Growth and Migration: Britain and Ghana Compared", give
credence to the view held by many people that the UK is still using Foreign
Aid and its deeply embedded vestiges of Colonialism to promote dependency
through Neocolonialism, and thus maintain the capitalist stranglehold of
British Imperialism upon Ghana even today. From this viewpoint, many believe
Decolonization was aborted, Sovereignty lost and Independence rendered
meaningless to Ghana since the 24th February 1966 overthrow by coup d'etat
of the Government of the first President, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, with the
implication of British intelligence and security forces in the putsch.
In the light of all these factors in the historical background, how will
you, as a British Candidate Member of Parliament (MP) in the forthcoming May
2010 General Elections, ensure that the diplomatic and other official
Representatives of the UK take these sensitive concerns into account and do
well to prove otherwise in their dealings with the contemporary governments
and the people of Ghana?
Question Exponent: Kwame Adofo Sampong, London, United Kingdom.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: GHANADIKAN.
E-Mail: Kwame3ujimasafo@googlemail.com
(2) *ERADICATION OF POVERTY*
**
Many British governmental and non-governmental organisations openly declare
their concerns about and interest in the Eradication of Poverty in Afrika
and other parts of the World. Tony Blair took such concerns right up to the
setting up of his Commission for Africa, which published its 2005 Report
entitled "Our Common Interest". Bob Geldof and Bono have gainfully
popularised themselves in Europe and the Americas, with their
self-promotional fronting of the Live Aid and other concerts, as well as the
Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History campaigning jamborees,
as the "leading Celebrity Tribunes of the West against Poverty in Africa".
There is no denying the fact that these schemes have attracted considerable
support in Britain. Nevertheless, most Afrikans, including Ghanaians,
particularly those who are actively campaigning and working at home and
abroad against the Impoverishment of the masses of their own people, keep
expressing strong cynicism, together with the dismissal of such Live Aid,
Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History schemes as mere
diversionary gimmicks to throw "Stardust" into the eyes of the World. Many
critics also believe that such schemes are purposely designed to spread the
kind of obscurantism that can blind people not only to the actual
root-causes of Poverty, but also to the grassroots Resistance actions of the
Poor themselves to completely eradicate, and not simply to partially
alleviate, Poverty. Many Ghanaians point to the abysmal failure only
recently of the IMF/World Bank scheme of the so-called HIPC to reduce
Poverty, let alone seriously empower them, as their own experientially lived
proof of the emptiness of the spurious outcomes of such scandalously
fraudulent gimmicks as the "stardusty" Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt and Make
Poverty History deceptive campaigns and similar cruel jokes that are being
perpetrated against the Poor in Afrika by most of the mainstream British
governmental and non-governmental organisations, charities and self-assuring
philanthropists. No wonder that opposition to what some deem "Eurocentric
Schemes of Northern Establishment Grand Deception" is accelerating,
particularly now that Resistance to them is becoming not only more
sophisticatedly polished academically by Think Tanks like the Kwame Nkrumah
Institute of Pan-Afrikan and Global Studies (KNIPAGS), but also galvanized
with more dynamically innovative grassroots Scholar-Activism by the likes of
ABAHLALI BaseMjondolo and its allies of the Poor People's Alliance of South
Africa (PPASA) and the MMOBOROWAHALA Grassroots Resistance Against
Impoverishment Network (M-GRAIN) and its allies of the ADIEYIEMANFO Movement
of Positive Action Networks in Ghana.
Taking into account the growing exposure, condemnation and opposition to
such discredited campaigning gimmicks as far as Poverty in Afrika is
concerned, how will you, as a British Candidate MP, respond with more
convincing efforts to effectively tackle what is seen by many as a
deliberately continuing British imperialist role in the globalization of the
Impoverishment of the "Wretched of the Earth", including those in Ghana
today?
Question Exponent: Kofi Mawuli Klu, London, United Kingdom.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: PANAFRIINDABA.
E-Mail: Mawusafo@yahoo.com
(3) *WATER PRIVATIZATION*
**
"Dirty Aid, Dirty Water", published in 2005 by the London-based World
Development Movement (WDM), exposes the United Kingdom Government's push to
use its Foreign Aid, with strings attached, to misguide, seduce and even
coerce Ghana and other underdeveloped countries into privatizing their water
resources and sanitation works. A source close to the UK Government's
Department for International Development (DFID) is quoted in the publication
as saying that in Ghana "DFID provided funding specifically earmarked for
asset studies and financial studies including those done by London Economics
and Halcrow". A May 2002 memorandum presented to the Government of Ghana by
the country's National Coalition Against Privatisation (NCAP) is also quoted
in the same publication as stating that: "The framework is largely imposed
by external interests in a non-transparent process that has deliberately
avoided public scrutiny and democratic debate", and it singles out the
consultants as "firms [that] all happened to be ideologically favourable to
Privatisation and had a track record working for the large private water
companies. All the studies concluded that the model of Privatization being
proposed by the World Bank, their direct client, is the best one for Ghana.
That said, the implementation was driven by the forceful conditionalities of
the IMF and DFID loans".
Utilising information from the WDM, War on Want (WoW), the Public Services
International Research Unit (PSIRU) and other sources, PANAFRIINDABA is
supporting the TANUSROHA, the PANAFRIKANYEMEI and other member-organisations
of the GHANADIKAN Network, alongside others in the ADIEYIEMANFO Movement, to
challenge British governmental and non-governmental donors to Afrika to
equally, if not actually even a lot more as desirable, fund community and
public ownership alternatives to Privatization. Such Public Ownership
Advocates point to the countless successes of numerous variants of people's
democratic creativity in State as well as Community/Social Enterprise models
of developing water and other natural resources in other parts of Afrika,
Latin America, Asia and the rest of the World. That is why, after the chiefs
and people of the farming Community of Tanyigbe, in the Volta Region of
Ghana, had in 2008, victoriously resisted government-backed foreign
corporate encroachments upon their unique water and other natural resources
of the very rich Kabakaba Mountain range, they are being encouraged by
Activists of the TANUSROHA to organise something like the Cooperativa de
Servicios Publicos Santa Cruz Ltda (SAGUAPAC) in Bolivia to help them
achieve their egalitarian desire to effect a more ethical, equitable and
sustainable development of their water and other Eco-Heritage resources by
way of their own self-empowering, cohesive and vibrant community
enterprising ingenuity.
Will you, therefore, as a British Candidate MP, add your voice to those of
the PANAFRIINDABA as well as of the WDM, the WoW and other British
campaigners, in order to get the British Government, through its DFID and
other departments and agencies, to provide adequate funding to public
alternatives to the needless privatization of water and sanitization
infrastructure development in Ghana and other parts of Afrika and the World?
Question Exponent: Sohefia Kwasi Akposoe, Atidze, Tanyigbe, Ho District,
Volta Region, Ghana.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: TANUSROHA (Tanyigbe International
People's Empowerment Society of Lifelong Learning for Global Citizenship
Action).
E-Mail: Kosigakposoe@yahoo.com
(4) *ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE*
Contrary to what many have been misled into believing, Activists of the
ASASEYAAMMA Pan-Afrikan Green Campaign for Global Justice argue that
governments, companies and environmentally irresponsible elements in Afrika
and other parts of the global South must also share considerable blame
for Climate Change with the governments, corporations and other polluting
elements of the global North of our planet Earth. Some leading members of
the Planet Repairs Youth Positive Action Campaign (PRYPAC) are still engaged
in making, as their current Work-in-Progress, a very interesting documentary
film on "ENVIROGENOCIDE", which exposes how governmental and
corporate bodies and irresponsible members in society are worsening the
already deplorable sanitation and genocidal environmental problems
in Ghana's capital city of Accra.
Noteworthily, some efforts are now being made by an increasing number of
governments and corporations in Europe to carry out their own and
even support non-governmental campaigning in promotion of Green Awareness
and Lifestyles and in taking some kinds of environmental action, albeit
grossly inadequate and oftentimes very misleading. One cannot dispute the
usefulness of some of the efforts of such European governmenal and corporate
bodies, as for example, the propagation of messages about the need for all
to be careful about the use of motor cars and other polluting goods and
services. To the contrary, most governmental and non-governmental
organisations, companies, schools, colleges, universities, even research
institutions, intelligence and security agencies, Parliaments and other
bodies of State and Civil Society in Afrika, appear to be more callously
impervious to any kind of serious Environmental Justice Reasoning!
For example, the State of the Republic of Ghana, according to ASASEYAAMMA
Activists, is still promoting environmentally damaging Lifestyles and
activities. It is incredible that increasingly Green conscientious British
taxpayers will, time again and again and again, have their monies given as
donations and loans to Ghana for Poverty alleviation, only for the recipient
governments to turn around and misuse such precious monies by recklessly
distributing them to members of Parliament and other officials of State, and
even some non-governmental organisations, to buy 4x4s and other high carbon
emitting posh vehicles, goods and services, and extravagantly indulge in
wantonly vulgar acts of conspicuous luxury consumerism and other obscenities
of environmental havoc-wrecking profligacy. The attempts by Greenstaryouth
Activists of the PRYPAC to popularise the use of bicycles and other
environmentally friendly means of transportation, more appropriate
technology and Green Lifestyles, particularly in homes as well as schools,
colleges and universities throughout West Afrika, are being seen to be not
very well supported by other non-governmental and even governmental
organisations in Ghana, despite their quite voceferous post-Copenhagen 2009
hypocritical media propaganda.
Will you, as a British Candidate MP, try working diligently to get the UK
Government, and also non-governmental organisations, to ensure that none of
their donations and other resources, especially those meant for Poverty
alleviation, are diverted in Ghana into procuring 4x4s and other similar
posh vehicles and environmentally damaging luxury goods and services?
Question Exponents: Kwabena Ed Antwi, and Kojo Prah Annan, Accra, Ghana.
Exponents' Organisational Affiliation: Planet Repairs Youth Positive Action
Campaign (PRYPAC).
E-Mail: Keantwi@ymail.com and Kojopannan@googlemail.com
(5) *MINING POLLUTION*
**
"GOLD RUSH: The Impact of Gold Mining on Poor People in Obuasi in Ghana", an
investigative Report by ActionAid, published in October 2006, gave huge
credence not only to the long expressed serious grievances of persecuted
local Ghanaian campaigners like those of the Wassa Association of
Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM) but also to the Global Justice
Advocacy work on such matters by the AFRIKASOREE Pan-Afrikan Human and
Peoples' Rights International Defence Campaign, in partnership with
PANAFRIINDABA and others. Among the recommendations to the United Kingdom
Government made in the 2006 ActionAid Report is the need to "establish an
independent review to examine the rights of redress of affected Communities
in UK Courts for abuses caused overseas by UK companies and their
subsidiaries". This recommendation was correctly addressed to the British
Government because, since the colonial expropriation of the gold mines from
the local Community, foreign corporations have controlled mining, and the
Obuasi mines are now completely privately owned by AngloGold Ashanti
Limited, the parent-company of which is the Anglo American Corporation
(AAC), with headquarters in London, United Kingdom.
Greater weight has been added to the ActionAid position by the August 2007
published Report of the British Charity, War on Want (WoW), entitled "Anglo
American: The Alternative Report". Among the observations made in the 2007
WoW Report is the clear statement that: "In Ghana and Mali, local
Communities see little of the huge profits being made by AngloGold Ashanti
but suffer from fear and intimidation and from the damaging impact of its
mines on their Environment, Health and Livelihoods". In spite of all these
abuses long exposed by WACAM and others within and beyond Ghana, Queen
Elizabeth II, the United Kingdom Head of State and titular Leader of the
British Commonwealth of Nations, conferred an Honorary Knighthood in June
2003 on Sam Esson Jonah, KBE/ACSM, a Ghanaian former President of AngloGold
Ashanti, who is seen by many as a willing stoogey accomplice to the crimes
perpetrated by Anglo American PLC against not only the Obuasi Community but
also the entire people of Ghana and the rest of the continent and diaspora
of Afrika. Not surprisingly, Sam Jonah in 2009 also became a non-executive
Director of Vodafone.
In a 15th April 2008 Press Release, Ruth Tanner, the WoW Senior Campaigns
Officer, strongly emphasized the point that: "While Anglo American reaps
massive gains overseas, the firm is complicit in the dreadful cost to the
Poor and the Environment. We cannot rely on companies' voluntary action to
ensure responsible operations in developing countries. If Gordon Brown wants
to tackle global Poverty and Climate Change, he must bring in regulation to
halt this abuse".
What is your own response, as a British Candidate MP, to these position
statements of both ActionAid and War on Want in order to ensure true Justice
gets done to WACAM Activists and the long suffering Communities they are
standing up so courageously to defend in and beyond Ghana today?
Question Exponent: Kofi Mawuli Klu, London, United Kingdom.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: PANAFRIINDABA.
E-Mail: Mawusafo@yahoo.com
(6) *CORRUPTION*
**
The 8th February 2010 article, "The UK and Corruption in Ghana: The British
Government Are the Biggest Hypocrites", is one of the latest bombshell
contributions of Craig Murray, a former United Kingdom Deputy High
Commissioner to Ghana, to the controversial debates and Reasonings about the
nation-wrecking malaise of Corruption in Afrika. Craig highlights,
most noteworthily, the hypocritical role of UK Governments in scheming
cover-ups and promoting British state and corporate involvement in nefarious
anti-People deals in Ghana, contrary to its global propaganda vociferously
decrying Corruption and other repugnant acts of bad governance in Afrika.
PANAFRIINDABA has added its voice to those of the MMOBOROWAHALA Grassroots
Resistance Against Impoverishment Network (M-GRAIN) and other
member-organisations of the ADIEYIEMANFO Movement of Positive Action
Networks in amplifying support for the GHANADIKAN Network idea of annually
holding "Anti-Corruption Video Conferences on the State of Ghana and the
United Kingdom Relations", with reports to be officially discussed by
participants with the Parliaments of both Ghana and the UK every year.
GHANADIKAN means this to be primarily a Civil Society grassroots-led
initiative, rooted in the Praxis of People-to-Peoples' Internationalist
Solidarity, involving and actively supported by genuine social movements and
a wide-range of vibrant non-governmental as well as governmental
organisations, networks and campaigns in Ghana and the UK. Above all, such
Video Conferences are meant by GHANADIKAN to be seeking, in particular, to
globally amplify the true voices of the impoverished Communities of
Resistance, and of their grassroots Activists who are courageously standing
up, speaking out and taking Positive Action in defence of their own Human
and Peoples' Rights.
Will you, as a British Candidate MP, support, work for and promote this
proposal of the GHANADIKAN Network?
Question Exponent: Kojo Prah Annan, La, Accra, Ghana.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: GHANADIKAN.
E-Mail: Kojopannan@googlemail.com
(7) *VODAFONE-GHANA TELECOMS DEAL*
**
There is a very strong perception among huge numbers of Ghanaians at home
and abroad that the British Government and other Western Powers are
pressurising President Fiifi Atta Mills and his new Government to desist
from implementing the recommendations of their own appointed Committee to
review the controversial 2008 Vodafone-Ghana Telecommunications Sales Deal.
Some people understand this to be so because of the obvious weaknesses of
the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), which appear to be due not
only to their vulnerabilities arising from albatrosses around their necks
such as the Mabey and Johnson Bribery Scandal but also the dependency
constraints of Neocolonialism which are still imposing
the capitalist stranglehold of Imperialism upon the State of the Republic of
Ghana. The 8th February 2010 article and subsequent follow-ups by Craig
Murray have stronger reinforced this perception among even greater numbers
of Pan-Afrikan and Global Justice campaigners all over the World.
What will you, as a British Candidate MP, do to allay such fears of all
those concerned in and beyond Ghana and the UK, ensuring that there shall be
no unscrupulous inteference by the British Goverment and other foreign
Powers in the making and/or review of contracts between Afrikan governments
and Western corporations, so that the legitimate democratic will and
interests of Peoples shall always be transparently seen to prevail over and
above voracious corporate greed, in accordance with the best norms of Human
and Peoples' Rights and the Global Justice letter and spirit of
International Law?
Question Exponent: Awura Afitsufe Ampofo, Pokuase, Accra, Ghana.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: GHANADIKAN.
E-Mail: Afitsufe@googlemail.com
(8) *LAND AND HOUSING*
The official residence of the British High Commissioner to Ghana is located
in the La township of the country's capital city of Accra. The
PANAFRIKANYEMEI Cooperative Society for Community Regeneration has now
started working to draw the British High Commission into constructive
engagements of shared Social Responsibility with the La Community
grassroots. This is being done with a PANAFRIKANYEMEI view to promote
"Lifelong Living Learning" partnership amongst all, by way of sharing both
the Ghanaian and British experiences of Neighbourhood Renewal in terms of
the Best Praxis in the Regeneration, Cohesion and Empowerment of Communities
in the two Commonwealth countries.
As may very well be known to many, there are seething grievances and
numerous burning issues concerning the Social Responsibility owed but yet
inadequately fulfilled by local and foreign companies as well as
governmental and non-governmental organisations to the Communities where
they locate their businesses, offices and/or residences in Afrika. This
matter is now getting to boiling point not only in La but also in all the
other urban townships and rural outskirts of the city of Accra. The
temperature of Community sentiments is fast rising in Accra in particular
because of growing popular agitation and mainly youth-led Resistance to
the aggressive expropriation of the indigenous population. Indeed, many of
the Accra youth at home and abroad are planning even more sophisticated
Community Resistance in defence of the impoverished majority of their
indigenous Ga-Adangbe people, who are being ruthlessly dispossessed of huge
tracts of their Community land and sea resources by predatory Afrikan and
foreign property grabbers. Such predators include not only cowboy/girl
speculators of all sorts but also absentee land-hoarders, biofuel
crop-farmers, other commercial agrobusiness venturers and luxury private
estate developing companies, some with European connections, as for
example, Dale Murdock Properties, with an office in London,UK, Trasacco,
originating from Italy, and even some Afrikan Church business-contricksters
who are directing their unscrupulous operations from the cities of Europe.
Amidst these growing tensions focusing upon Land and Housing, the
PANAFRIKANYEMEI Activists are striving to bridge gaps and conflicting
interests with their own grassroots people's democratic creativity
initiatives in Neighbourhood Renewal Dialogue around issues of Community
Regeneration, Cohesion and Empowerment. It is for this reason that they are
seeking to draw the British High Commission into such Dialogue. Moreover,
PANAFRIKANYEMEI believes there is a lot Activists like its own, embedded at
the grassroots of their increasingly multiethnic and multiracial Communities
in Ghana and the United Kingdom, can teach and learn from each other in
promoting true Global Citizenship educational fraternity to advance genuine
People-to-Peoples' Internationalist Cooperation in Community Regeneration
for Sustainable World Development in the best multicultural interests of all
Humanity.
There is a vital need also to take into serious account the widespread
criticism that most DFID programmes and other international development
initiatives of British governmental and non-governmental organisations
remain locked up in the ivory tower realms of the privileged Elite in
Afrika; and that, even when they are supposed to be about Poverty
alleviation, they often have, in actual fact, little to do with the
impoverished majority of Afrikan people, because they do not reach the
Community grassroots where most people live.
Duly taking all such concerns into account, therefore, how will you, as a
British Candidate MP, help the UK Government to respond appropriately to the
PANAFRIKANYEMEI overtures being made to the British High Commissioner who
resides in their La neighbourhood of Accra?
Question Exponent: Nii Amaa Ollennu, La, Accra, Ghana.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: PANAFRIKANYEMEI Cooperative Society
for Community Regeneration.
E-Mail: Panafrikanyemei@googlemail.com
(9) *EDUCATION*
**
Contrary to official British governmental propaganda as being spewed out
globally by DFID, many people in and outside Ghana believe the United
Kingdom is among those European Powers that are actually orchestrating not
only the Brain Drain but also the destruction of meaningful Education for
All throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika. This is grossly evident
in the institutionalisation of Anglophile Eurocentrism and Afriphobia,
particularly against Indigenous Knowledge Systems and non-Westernised
traditional Intelligentsia within the curricula and entire system of
Education (or more appropriately system of foreign Miseducation) in Ghana,
indeed since the colonial period of the Gold Coast. This very bad deplorable
situation is being more obscenely worsened by the fact that the UK
Government appears to be ensuring that only the children of its brainwashed
"Black-Skin-White-Masked" Elite (see Frantz Fanon) get the increasingly
restricted access to the best resourced schools, colleges and universities
within and outside Ghana. The disgraceful corruption being apparently
encouraged, condoned and promoted by the UK Government and its diplomatic
Representatives and other governmental and non-governmental agencies,
between British and other foreign corporations and unscrupulous Ghanaians,
is now witnessing, as in the infamous Mabey and Johnson Scandal,
the sponsorship and payment of the very exhorbitant fees being demanded
in Britain today by bribe-giving foreign business-crooks to enable the
children of high ranking past and present Afrikan government officials
and party apparatchiks to study comfortably in the UK and other countries of
Europe and North America. The UNESCO-initiated Education for All propaganda
being vociferously touted on behalf of the UK Government by DFID and other
governmental and non-governmental organisations is reaching only a neglible,
numerically insignificant and lucky few of the children and adults among the
vast majority of the impoverished "Wretched of the Earth" (see Frantz Fanon)
in Afrika, including Ghana, today.
Facing the stark reality that most of such unfortunate people who comprise
the masses of those suffering abject impoverishment can never access better
resourced Education abroad, there has been put forward a proposal to try and
address their predicament by the UBUNTUMAFUNZOKRONTI Pan-Afrikan Council for
Global Citizenship Education. This proposal seeks to establish a Communities
Lifelong Learning International Project of Distance Educational Cooperation
(CLLIPODEC) as an agency for linking up grassroots
community-based organisations and institutions in Afrika and those in
Britain, Europe and other parts of the World to provide free and/or cheap
affordable access to well-resourced Distance Learning to the youth and adult
Poor, starting from Ghana. The GYE NYAME Ecology Educational Complex (GYE
NYAME Ecoducomplex), being a versatile, trailblazing, non-governmental
social enterprise, has put itself forward as an institution located in the
predominantly deprived Pokuase rural outskirts of Accra as well as Nsawam,
in order to serve as a grassroots base for the experimental launch of the
CLLIPODEC in the Greater Accra and Eastern Regions of Ghana respectively.
So also has been put forward for the experimental launch of the CLLIPODEC
the publicly owned local authority school in the village of Atidze in
Tanyigbe, in the Ho District of the Volta Region of Ghana. Seeing that
various Communities of the impoverished masses of Afrikan people are
creatively making such strenuous attempts to innovatively address their
burning want of Education and other basic necessities of life, some
organisations, networks and campaigns of Civil Society within and outside
Afrika are lobbying the governments of the UK and other European Powers
enriched by Afrikan human and material resources to give back at least some
of that wealth to the Poor. This is expected to be done in such way and
manner as to ensure the Pay-Back actually gets into the hands of
impoverished Communities to enable them support their own grassroots
endeavours, especially community economical ventures, cooperatives and other
social enterprises and, thereby, work themselves dignifiedly out of
impoverishment. The CLLIPODEC proposal of UBUNTUMAFUNZOKRONTI is one such
very good example. If the CLLIPODEC gets well launched in Ghana for it to
take off properly as the envisaged authentic, community-driven and duly
accountable vehicular agency for achieving true Education for All, then it
will certainly go a long way to prove the real possibilities of resounding
successes for similar other initiatives of the Poor, by the Poor and for the
Poor, to lift each other out of Poverty as they climb together in principled
Unity within and beyond Afrika.
Will you, therefore, as a British Candidate MP, work to secure regular
funding from governmental and non-governmental sources, within and beyond
the UK, for the CLLIPODEC and similar initiatives?
Question Exponent: Kofi Mawuli Klu, London, United Kingdom.
Exponent's Organisational Affiliation: PANAFRIINDABA All-Afrikan People's
Community Consultative Commission in Europe.
E-Mail: Mawusafo@yahoo.com
(10) *IMF/WORLD BANK - THE BRETTON WOODS INSTITUTIONS*
**
During the recent 18th February 2010 hosting of John Lipsky, the First
Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by a
Special Committee of the Ghana Parliament in Accra, the Majority Leader,
Alban Bagbin, an MP of the currently governing National Democratic Congress
(NDC), was reported in the media to have called for a change of the "Old
Order" whereby the IMF only deals with the Executive of State in their
transactions with countries like Ghana. Decrying the lack of transparency in
the operations of such International Financial Institutions (IFIs), Alban
Bagbin demanded that the IMF also reckons with the Legislature of State,
explaining that it is Parliament that forms a better microcosm of society
and that, properly consulting MPs meant consulting the whole country. Other
members of the Special Committee of the Ghana Parliament who met with John
Lipsky were also reported to have said that the IMF conditionalities were
unacceptable because they offer packages to developing countries that had
detriments far outweighing their benefits.
Noteworthily, the request made in Ghana recently by Alban Bagbin simply
echoes the standpoint expressed in the "International Parliamentarians'
Petition for Democratic Oversight of IMF and World Bank Policies", which was
formally launched in April 2005 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the
creation of the IMF and the World Bank - the now quite notorious Bretton
Woods Institutions (BWIs). Endorsement since then of this International
Parliamentarians' Petition (IPP) by a considerable number of MPs all over
the World, including those belonging to the UK All-Party Parliamentary
Groups on Debt, Aid and Trade, World Government and Overseas Development,
the European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA) and the Parliamentary
Network on the World Bank (PNoWB), not to mention the host of Civil Society
organisations, networks and campaigns that have signed up to it, has changed
nothing substantial in how the Bretton Woods Institutions do their dirty
business with most countries of the continent and diaspora of Afrika today.
In its September 2009 official statement on Economic Policies for 2010,
submitted to Government, and entitled "Regaining Sovereign Control over
Development Policy-Making", the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of Ghana
counselled the new administration headed by President Fiifi Atta Mills to
ignore the policy advice and directives of the Bretton Woods Institutions
because of the view it holds "that the standard IMF and World Bank policy
prescriptions are not the way out of the Crisis". Indeed, the Ghana TUC went
further on in its statement to categorically "urge all workers, Civil
Society organisations, research institutions and all Ghanaians to stand up
against IMF/World Bank domination in economic and social policy-making in
our country". The September 2009 statement of the Ghana TUC ended upon the
following unequivocal note: "The only way we can achieve true social and
economic development is to ignore the IMF/World Bank neo-liberal policy
biases towards inflation management to focus attention on employment
creation for our people. We hope Government will gather the courage to
ignore IMF/World Bank prescriptions and lead us away from Poverty
to Prosperity".
Will you, as a British Candidate MP, support and help to rally
Internationalist Solidarity from the masses of British and other peoples,
for the Government and People of Ghana if they were to act in accordance
with the exhortation of the Ghana TUC in dealing with the IMF/World Bank and
similar International Financial Institutions (IFIs)?
Question Exponents: Kwame Adofo Sampong, GHANADIKAN Co-Chairperson and RMT
Trade Unionist, London, United Kingdom; and
Kofi Asamoah, the Ghana TUC Secretary-General, Accra, Ghana.
Exponents' Organisational Affiliations: GHANADIKAN and the Trades Union
Congress (TUC) of Ghana respectively.
E-Mail: Kwame3ujimasafo@googlemail.com and Info@ghanatuc.org
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