President Mahama Confesses Impotence At Davos

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• Apara Hara. 11 years ago

  Windfall Profit tax as I call it was in place to make up for the bad deals in privatising our utilities/resources.
  
  The problem for non-implementation is nothing but WEAK LEADERSHIP.Since windfall tax aim at excessive profi ...
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  Windfall Profit tax as I call it was in place to make up for the bad deals in privatising our utilities/resources.
  
  The problem for non-implementation is nothing but WEAK LEADERSHIP.Since windfall tax aim at excessive profits from privatization, no privatized firm should aim at reducing employees to make up for this tax as it is not a recommended solution in the windfall tac act accepted practice.
  
  If any firm wishes otherwise, the Head of state should stand his ground to implement it as it is done in the UK, USA and elsewhere.
  
  Leaders should be a bit more radical or rascal in this regard.
  
  Signed; Apara Hara.

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• insight to the bone 11 years ago

  We see in the Ukraine today how justice and freedom are obtained , if you are not ready to fight for it nobody will give it to you on a silver platter. no corrupt judiciary like atuguba or police can lie to these idealists an ...
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  We see in the Ukraine today how justice and freedom are obtained , if you are not ready to fight for it nobody will give it to you on a silver platter. no corrupt judiciary like atuguba or police can lie to these idealists and nationalists , no compromise or bribe of power sharing is good enough to make them sell out on the wishes of the people . npp should follow ken agyapong and 10,000,000 of us insights to the bone will come out and fight to the death in the streets to reverse the injustices to the Akans of the last 60 years. the abuse of the electoral processes by rigging did not pass there and should not pass here in Ghana. we dream like we have a democracy like the usa or any other normal country but in reality we have a system of governance with characters like we see in north Korea and Ukraine , criminals to the core are in charge, arise people of Akan and fear not the fight as we shall be victorious and triumph in this fight , yes its time for war . long live the republic of Akan

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• Kojo T 11 years ago

  Kutu Aheampomg also tried it and failed

  Kutu Aheampomg also tried it and failed

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• Philp Owusu-Adjapong 11 years ago

  Are you surprised at this? We have known all along that Mahama is clay footed. Who says he has the interest of Ghana at heart! He is there for himself & his cronies. Period!

  Are you surprised at this? We have known all along that Mahama is clay footed. Who says he has the interest of Ghana at heart! He is there for himself & his cronies. Period!

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• Ben, US 11 years ago

  Look at what happened to Nkrumah when he refused to "play ball". Doc when you get the chance purchase this book and read it: "THE SHOCK DOCTRINE- The rise of disaster capitalism" by Naomi Klein. As you stated in your article ...
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  Look at what happened to Nkrumah when he refused to "play ball". Doc when you get the chance purchase this book and read it: "THE SHOCK DOCTRINE- The rise of disaster capitalism" by Naomi Klein. As you stated in your article Ghana, Iraq, Chile, and many South America countries who refused to play ball not only had their leaders removed but were punished. That was why Nkrumah fought for African unity because he understood very early on that individual countries in Africa, South America, Middle East would be crashed if they go solo and face these powerful multinational companies or the East or West blocs.

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• Repugnant. 11 years ago

  MAHAMA claims to have a degree in communication and contract, so if this wasn't a flip flop then, the least said about him the better, yet the fatal truth cannot be perverted, he is zonkers/unglued.
  
  Does Mahama really lis ...
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  MAHAMA claims to have a degree in communication and contract, so if this wasn't a flip flop then, the least said about him the better, yet the fatal truth cannot be perverted, he is zonkers/unglued.
  
  Does Mahama really listen to Terkper or he has him under duress?

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• Yaw Ohemeng 11 years ago

  What this article fails to acknowledge is that Dr Nkrumah never overcame this problem. We have the Akosombo hydro contract with Kaiser and the fact that Ghana was dependent on food aid (provided by the same neo-colonialists) ...
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  What this article fails to acknowledge is that Dr Nkrumah never overcame this problem. We have the Akosombo hydro contract with Kaiser and the fact that Ghana was dependent on food aid (provided by the same neo-colonialists) in Dr Nkrumah’s time as proofs.
  
  In essence both the quote attributed to Dr Nkrumah and what President Mahama said at Davos are lamenting the same unfairness. The difference is that Dr Nkrumah’s was more general and more refined while John Mahama was too crude and more specific.
  
  We should ask ourselves why the multi-nationals are so powerful. They own the capital – both in funds and skilled human resources. Their influence spreads globally but they are not accountable to any electorate. We can only challenge their dominance by running our economy better to enable indigenous firms to exploit our natural resources.
  
  We brought them in on unfair terms because we needed to attract the investment. We have, however, not used their presence to skill up our people to take over. We have not educated our people to develop skills and we have not run our economy efficiently to make investment funds available to our indigenous firms at reasonable interest rates.
  
  We will be committing suicide if we even consider nationalisation. We should rather be smart – look at periods over which we allow these firms to write off their investments and look at our labour laws to make it expensive for the mining companies to lay off workers.
  
  Finally instead of taxing profits and charging royalties, we should consider shifting to rather having our share of the refined minerals, like we do for petroleum. In this way, we can also share in the boom in commodity prices. There will then be no need for windfall taxes.
  
  We have to be smart within the current world trade order to plug the loopholes exploited by the multi-nationals. Militancy and nationalisation will not help us. It will be a recipe for disaster!
  
  I, however, agree that John Mahama cut a spineless figure for himself at Davos. He is ill-prepared for the position he occupies.

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• Asante 11 years ago

  Yaw are you saying Nkrumah was also ill prepared for the position he occupied? PLSE TELL ME HOW MANY AFRICAN LEADERS HAVE STOOD UP AGAINST THE POWERS THAT BE AROUND THE WORLD AND WON? ITS A COLLECTIVE THING IF YOU WANT TO FIG ...
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  Yaw are you saying Nkrumah was also ill prepared for the position he occupied? PLSE TELL ME HOW MANY AFRICAN LEADERS HAVE STOOD UP AGAINST THE POWERS THAT BE AROUND THE WORLD AND WON? ITS A COLLECTIVE THING IF YOU WANT TO FIGHT THEM. THAT IS WHY NKRUMAH WAS FOR A CONTINENTAL GOVT. UNITY IS POWER. If WE HAVE DONE THAT, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EASIER TO FIGHT THE NEO- COLONIALISTS AND THEIR MULTI NATIONALS.

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• Yaw Ohemeng 11 years ago

  I never said that Nkrumah was ill-prepared. I rather paid him compliments that he did state the problem in more refined terms.
  
  I do not think a united Africa is the cure. What stops us now from cooperating for our collecti ...
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  I never said that Nkrumah was ill-prepared. I rather paid him compliments that he did state the problem in more refined terms.
  
  I do not think a united Africa is the cure. What stops us now from cooperating for our collective good?
  
  Even the EU block is being spun around by MNCs. Recently it came to light Google, Amazon and Starbucks were operating profitably in the UK but were not paying their fair share of taxes. The Prime Minister displayed the same helplessness.
  
  You just have to find ways of beating them. You legislate against transfer pricing, you extend the time frame over which they write down capital investments, you tax in kind, etc.
  
  We, above all, have to empower our local entrepreneurs and to educate to skill up our people.

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• Kojo T 11 years ago

  We are our own enemies

  We are our own enemies

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• Kofi Ata, Cambridge, UK 11 years ago

  Doc, the indecisiveness of the Mahama government regarding implementation of rules, regulations and legislation is not only with foreign mining companies but across board. For example, government begins to address the sale of ...
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  Doc, the indecisiveness of the Mahama government regarding implementation of rules, regulations and legislation is not only with foreign mining companies but across board. For example, government begins to address the sale of imported wax which is killing the local textile industry and those selling the imported ones complain. The next decision is suspension of the action by government. The same happened to imported rice through land borders and the implementation is suspended, illegal mining the same. Parliament passed a law to monitor the operations of telecom operators who are avoiding taxes by hiding the their full income but the Telecoms say, no and government allows them to go scot free. Telecoms operators in Ghana are powerful than Parliament. In effect, the problem in Ghana is the inability of people in authority to enforce the rules, regulations and legislation. The country is gradually becoming lawless, if it is not already so.
  
  I have always said that, if Ghana is able to enforce half of the existing rules, regulations and legislation, the country would be a far better place than it is today. I have also recommended that the three arms of governance (the Executive,the Legislature and the Judiciary) should suspend making, passing and applying any new rules, regulations and legislation for just six months and put all their efforts into enforcing the existing rules, regulations and legislation. Thereafter, they can compare and contrast and decide which way the country should go (either enforcement to the letter or relaxation as previously).
  
  The president's admission in Davos is an indication that Ghana has lost its sovereignty to foreign companies and big business.

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• mother'schild 11 years ago

  A strong leadership must be followed by a strong followership and a weak leadership will be followed by a weak followership. In a way leadership is a reflection of followership and vice-vers. The recently published book "Afri ...
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  A strong leadership must be followed by a strong followership and a weak leadership will be followed by a weak followership. In a way leadership is a reflection of followership and vice-vers. The recently published book "African culture in Governance and Development" clearly reveals the mental batle and we are all losing badly because of the wrong mind-set which works in the interest of the enemies of Africa. Nkrumah and his real followers knew that no-one but Africans can build Africa for Africans. We are in a mental investment oriented mess while we borrow unworkable second hand ideas from the very people benefitting from Africa's weakness. Wake up!

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• TRUTH 11 years ago

  My brothers, in one of his speeches he asked those of his party members to wait until 2016 for its not far [as he (president) was being criticized by some of them (ex Albin Babgin)] and that Ghanians do not know him. He went ...
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  My brothers, in one of his speeches he asked those of his party members to wait until 2016 for its not far [as he (president) was being criticized by some of them (ex Albin Babgin)] and that Ghanians do not know him. He went on to say that " Ghanians will soon get to know who and how he is". That is what we are seeing today so why worry; after all in Africa , one becomes president with an aim of his family becoming the richest at the of leaving office. If he is having a different view then lets wait till 2016

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• Papa Yaw 11 years ago

  Ho

  Ho

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• AL-WAIZ 11 years ago

  Wow, Doc. you hit the nail directly on the head...I strongly hope our leadership will pay heed to your rich words of advice...

  Wow, Doc. you hit the nail directly on the head...I strongly hope our leadership will pay heed to your rich words of advice...

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• Whatever 11 years ago

  It's sad because it seems we've put into power someone who doesn't know how to lead a population to tap vast mineral resources. Imean if he knew, will he be in full flight, running from a situation where multinational compani ...
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  It's sad because it seems we've put into power someone who doesn't know how to lead a population to tap vast mineral resources. Imean if he knew, will he be in full flight, running from a situation where multinational companies are threatening to decrease their own profit, lay their contractual workers off and reduce their mining activities? Mahama is behaving like he's still a parliamentarian. It's troubling

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• Kwesi Agbenu 11 years ago

  All he knows is to go around negotiating fraudulent deals on EMBRAER Planes

  All he knows is to go around negotiating fraudulent deals on EMBRAER Planes

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• SHOOTER 11 years ago

  Ghana is headed for the rocks and the clear lack of leadership and vision keeps confronting Ghana and Ghanaians each and everyday from the NDC gov't led by John Mahama and Amissah Arthur.
  Clearly this is a gov't team which ...
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  Ghana is headed for the rocks and the clear lack of leadership and vision keeps confronting Ghana and Ghanaians each and everyday from the NDC gov't led by John Mahama and Amissah Arthur.
  Clearly this is a gov't team which is completely unfit for the serious task of governance, and the earlier Ghanaians jettisoned this NDC gov't in 2016, the better it would be for the socio-economic development and growth of the country.

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• TEE 11 years ago

  MAHAMA IS SIMLPE USELESS PERIOD. NEVER USE NKRUMAH'S NAME AS SAMPLE

  MAHAMA IS SIMLPE USELESS PERIOD. NEVER USE NKRUMAH'S NAME AS SAMPLE

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