Ghana - Are any of these reports true?

It is often said that no news is good news. However, some news reports about Ghana can make you stagger in the middle of a road in broad daylight. Some of these headlines might be ?late news?, but they underline the fact that there is no end to the suffering of the average Ghanaian. We have been taken through countless bloody coups, through ?revolutions?, through African style socialism and through democracy. Yet, fifty years on, we have moved nowhere. If anything, we have regressed. Every new regime makes bold promises. Yet, after assuming power, nothing of real significance happens and the man in the street is left wondering what the fuss was all about.

This is not an article in your normal sense of the word. This is a series of questions an ignorant Ghanaian (like myself) has for his so-called educated leaders and elite; past and present. I do not expect answers from any quarter because this is Ghana, and anyone with a little bit of authority ?no matter how little- can act with impunity without being held accountable. I therefore do not expect anything from anywhere, unless someone is willing to break the mould. My questions are:

1. ?...is it a fact that VRA produces power at the cost of 6.27 cents per kwh, but is forced to sell it to VALCO at 2.7 cents per kwh??

This detail appeared on the Ghana web on 22 Sep. 06. Is it true and if it is, why is this happening? Further to this question, why is the blazing sun being allowed to burn our backs; why are we not utilising the solar energy it produces in abundance to generate electricity? I have heard a few commentators say that the technology is very expensive. Sure, it is and that is because when Nkrumah established the science and technology institutes, he was laying the foundations for such technological innovations and advancements to emerge from them so that the cost of such technology would be affordable, if not cheap. With his political foresight, he could envisage a world where those with the knowledge could deprive us of advancement. He knew they have no friends, just interests.

He also knew that since we came into contact with the peoples of the west, (while we haven?t harmed them or inflicted any woes on them) we have seen only misery in pursuit of their interests. We have been trough slavery, colonialism, apartheid, racism, and now (what he wanted to avoid most), exploitation.

Having studied in the west, he knew the fuel of the west is greed. To counteract this, he aimed at self-sufficiency. Today, nothing of value in this land belongs to us: cocoa is mortgaged in advance; gold was wrestled from our hands a long time ago; diamonds belong to some foreign men who look at us as if we are animals; bauxite is being siphoned away at an alarming rate; we are prevented from exporting finished products even though they sell us land mines and deadly guns to destroy ourselves with; and our bright students study History and Religion at our technological institutes. I am sure he (Nkrumah) died further in his grave when he heard that some of those technological institutions he established now offer Christian Religious Studies as a course of study. What prompted the various technical institutions to digress from the teaching technology to that of mythology?

2. ?Ghana takes big loan to buy Cocoa?

The headline ?Ghana takes big loan to buy Cocoa?, released by GNA, appeared all over the world on 22 September 2006. It gave me a massive headache. Why do we have to borrow money to buy cocoa? Pardon my naivety, but this Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) has been going since the beginning of Ghana. It has fuelled a lot of our very limited developmental initiatives. To my mind, the organisation is very rich and should have reserves to purchase any amount of cocoa produced in the country.

Maybe, the man in charge can explain to us how the mechanisms of the industry work; whether we are being bullied when it comes to how we purchase our cocoa, how we export or don?t export it, who we export it to, how the insurance cover payments work during exportation, how we sell it, who we sell it to and at what price, ect. It would be interesting to know how much control we have over such matters.

The poor farmers of this country have sustained us for a very long time. They continue to do so. Yet, you can count on your fingers how many farmers? children have received the so called ?CMB Scholarship?. I might be ignorant about the scheme but it sounds as if it was meant to benefit the primary producers of the product. Yet in my student days, it appeared to me that only children from well heeled backgrounds claimed to have the scholarship. There were no farmers? children, only fair, bespectacled, and mono-linguistic girls from Accra/Tema, Takoradi and Kumasi... ?.. and they were all on special diet, including my girlfriend.

The farmers, apart from being paid a fair price for their produce, have had little incentives to go on and produce more. No wonder we have been overtaken in the production stakes by a warring nation. Instead, some of the smartest money from cocoa goes towards the purchase of cars. Go to the CMB headquarters in Accra, and have a peek at the car park. It is reminiscent of a car supermarket on the outskirts of Hamburg: from the Chief Executive to the chief labourer; and from production division to export division: they all have cars parked out there.

As a footnote to this paragraph, I also hope they have started building their own warehouses. It would save us a lot of money.

3. Did ?Korean miners destroy farms at Kutukrom??

Kutukrom (W/R), March 30, GNA - Hakimi, a Korean small scale mining company operating at Kutukrom near Prestea, has destroyed farms in the area without paying compensation. This can only happen in Ghana. We are again being bullied by Koreans; I wonder who would be next. I bet the rest of the world is queuing up, ready to exploit and bully Ghana. The illiterate Lebanese are doing it; they have been doing it for years. The British, the Americans, the Portuguese, the Indians, the Chinese, The Italians, the Malaysians; and pretty soon it would be the turn of the Togolese?.and why not, everyone else is having their wicked ways with Ghana, so why not Togo. At the time of our independence, Korea and Malaysia were in the same economic league as Ghana, if not worse. What happened thereafter? They had visionary leaders; we had shitty leaders. From the moment we toyed with the idea of a one party state, and coups, we invited the wrath of the god of underdevelopment. This god has wreaked havoc on our nation by giving us incompetent leaders and fanned the fires of mediocrity and underachievement. He has placed the wrong and inefficient backstabbers in the most important positions, while the truly gifted and efficient ones are sidelined and reduced to cleaning gutters or leaving the country.

This god has blocked the vision and wisdom of national leaders so that we are unable to establish meaningful employment for the masses, and have further divested the little that we had. Everything is now in foreign hands. These foreigners treat us like dirt while they enslave us in our own land.

Today, just look at Ghana. It is a nation filled with corruption, religion, narcotics, slums, and under-achievement. Still, the people have not learnt. We continue to slide happily along the path of self-destruction. Anytime you open your mouth to criticise openly, you are termed ?agriculturally? as ?too known?. Every one is looking after ?number one?. Therefore, decent people continue to live in slums, while others, through greed and corruption by virtue of incompetence, collusion and lack of accountability, and the undue advantage that comes with these vices, live in ten-bedroom houses?.. and they have the temerity to complain about armed robbers. Who are the biggest armed robbers, the elite or the down trodden?

4. ?Norwegian court says: President Rawlings took bribe.?

This headline appeared in the New Statesman on 23 July 2007. Is this true? I hope to the almighty that this is not true. I just hope that it is a misunderstanding and that eventually the truth will come out and exonerate Mr. Rawlings. At the time of the 1979 revolt, history was my favourite subject and I was so enthralled that I wrote a piece (which was never published), comparing it to the French revolution of 1789. In essence, Rawlings was my hero at the time. I am not the only one. From Frances Esiam to Francis Esiama (we had been schoolmates then); we all felt elated. Looking back, Acheampong and Akuffo had devastated Ghana. Only women with big, fat behinds (behinds that could support a bag of cement), had rosy cheeks. The rest of us had to queue for ?essential commodities? with bony, long drawn faces. Students could not have sole monopoly over their chicks. Army officers in Pinzgauer military vehicles had the upper hand, and they made our girls two-time us. Families starved while pot-bellied fathers enjoyed exotic holidays with our campus girls. Enter J. J. Rawlings. I do not know the man. I never set foot in Ghana while he was in power. I left Ghana soon after he came to power. He was a saviour at the time. Therefore my image of him as a messiah still remains. I have read about some serious incidents involving the death of some judges. I have also read about the sense of security he offered. I have heard of him not being personally corrupt. I have also heard about the Scancom bribery allegation. These contradictions are making me a bit confused. In any case, I will sideline my confusion and put on my journalistic hat. If this is true, then how can a whole head of state accept bribe? A head of state is supposed to be altruistic. Therefore, he has no personal interest but the interest of the state. I know in Italy, they think differently. However, as a nation we cannot afford to have corrupt and scandalous politicians who are capable of lying and cheating and deceiving us and amassing wealth in the process. We need to recognise and accept the evil nature of certain inherent vices in our society. Some of the ugliest women who do not use mirrors eventually dupe themselves into thinking they are Miss World material. No amount of self denial can propel Ghana into a developed country. We have to look in the mirror and reappraise our actions. We need to view corruption with anger and disdain and in place, honour patriotism and altruism, industry and honesty. If we were that way inclined, a lot of the evils that continue to haunt us would have disappeared by now.

5. ?Hotel Kufuor: President To Be Investigated?

Ghanaweb Monday, 30 January 2006 ?The President, Mr J.A. Kufuor, has submitted himself to the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for investigation into an allegation made against him over the use of state resources for private gain. This is the first time in Ghana's 49-year history that a sitting President has allowed a constitutionally established body to summon him to account for the use of public funds.? Is this true, has there been the purchase of a hotel and a related investigation? If the answer to both is yes, then the above news presents a dichotomy. On one hand, we could all question the morality of the character in question, and conclude that the fact that he has become the subject of such an investigation, he has inadvertently brought disgrace and dishonour to the office. On the other hand, it shows that he is committed to the principles of democratic governance. Therefore he should be commended for making such a bold move. It brings to mind shades of the Clinton-Lewinsky-Starr m?nage-a-trois and the eventual attempt to impeach the great man.

However, my question is, why did the issue crop up in the first place? Is there ?a scramble for and the partition of? assets in Ghana? Some say his son bought it. Others say it was bought by the president. Both the president and his son are old enough to have acquired the asset before or after the presidency. Why did that not happen, why did they buy it while in office? I use ?they? to refer to the JAK family unit. The answer lies in opportunism, as a result of public office and is therefore deeply rooted in corruption. By virtue of the name and position, it became possible for the acquisition. It could not have happened before JAK became president simply because it did not happen. It could be that the hotel was not built then, or that there was not the financial clout to effect such a major purchase, or that there was fear that the then administration could have scuppered the deal. You can draw your own conclusions.

Then again, what was the result of the investigation?

The one thing that is most single-handedly responsible for the underdevelopment of Ghana is corruption. Corruption means several things. It can mean that:

o the money meant for a development project goes into one man?s bottomless pocket;

o the wrong type of person gets into a vital position and under performs to the detriment of the nation;

o the capital city looks anaemic, devoid of meaningful jobs, ringed by slums and plagued by crime;

o after 50 years of self rule, were are still receiving aid from the colonisers;

o we now import everything, from matches to machetes;

o we are a jaundiced nation, bereft of ideas and unable to shake off bad habits; and

o we still victimise and punish talent at the expense of excellence and achievement.

We behave as if corruption is an incurable disease. People learn about it, heave a big sigh of discontent and carry on suffering in silence. It is almost theatrical; all you usually hear is ?what can we do?? ??..and in the same breath the soliloquising wreck retorts, ?nothing?, with his head bowed. However, we can and should defend ourselves against corruption, especially in our own backyard. There is no better time than now, to form an anti corruption unit within the police force to work in collaboration with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), with the sole aim of fighting corruption, so that the money from our natural resources could be channelled directly to the development of the nation, rather than into the pockets of foreign economic vultures and their local stooges.

These headlines do not make for pleasant reading. As a concerned citizen, I am disturbed by them. I hope they are not true. I hope they are false, because the assumption is that we have very good technocrats and bureaucrats who negotiate on our behalf to secure the best deals possible. They are patriots and have the interest of the nation at heart. They want dignity and respect for the country and its citizens. Conversely, if they are true then they constitute a microcosm of why we are 2000 light years away from eliminating slums, and creating mass employment to alleviate the suffering of the ordinary person in the street.