GHANA'S YOUNG GENERATION MUST GUARD THEIR NATION'S OIL AND NATURAL GAS REVENUES JEALOUSLY!

Going forward into President Mills' year of action, 2011, Ghana's younger generation must ensure that those old fogies, who have dominated their country for so long, and have dissipated the country's wealth over the years, are not allowed to misuse the oil and natural gas revenues too. It is crucial that young Ghanaians move away from the destructive partisanship that the "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" type of blinkered politics, represents. It is slowly destroying Ghanaian democracy. They must look next door to the tragedy now playing out in the Ivory Coast, to see where that kind of narrow-mindedness leads. They must focus instead, on demanding that those who rule Ghana, at any given point in time, going forward, transform the nation into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia.

They must not allow Ghana's educated urban elite to end up doing what Nigeria's kleptocratic elite has done: purloin that nation's oil wealth for themselves. Above all, they must force Ghana's ruling elite to end the pure nonsense on bamboo stilts self-serving policies, which enable politically well-connected individuals fronting for some of our rulers, to end up getting blocs in oil-fields, for simply leading oil companies here. Is it not the norm that in business deals globally, sometimes locals get "sweat equity" by being given stakes in foreign companies they assist: to compensate them in lieu of cash payments upfront? Who ever heard of such individuals being handed "market share" on a silver platter, in the sector of the economy those entities operate in? Yet, somehow that is precisely the unthinkable that has occurred in our oil and natural gas industries: thanks to the perfidy of self-seeking and greedy politicians.

Amongst other things, young Ghanaians must demand that their homeland Ghana, becomes a nation in which well-built and well-designed affordable public-sector housing, is available nationwide, to all hardworking citizens who need accommodation; railway lines traverse the entire country, thus enabling ordinary Ghanaians to travel to all the regional capitals, by train, whenever they so wish; lack of finance to fund their education becomes a thing of the past, and that coming from a financially-challenged background never again prevents any young person with the aptitude to do so, to study up to tertiary level: because state funding for educating the academically-gifted is available to all who need it.

That is the kind of Ghana Nkrumah planned when he was fighting for an independent nation for his people - and that is precisely the kind of Ghana that young Ghanaians must insist today's Ghana is turned into by their nation's political class: utilizing the country's oil and natural gas revenues. They must never allow a powerful few with greedy ambitions to hijack that wealth for themselves, their family clans, and their cronies. One hopes that they saw and abhored the beginnings of that journey to hell, Nigerian-style, during the Kufour-era: and will never again allow private individuals to be given blocs in oil fields, from which revenues that could improve the lives of all Ghanaians, end up just enriching a few politically well-connected individuals. Henceforth they must insist that if individuals driven by unfathomable greed want to own blocs in Ghana's oil-fields, they must stump up the cash for it. They must jealously guard what in effect are windfall profits, from a finite natural resource, hugely risky, environmentally, to extract. A word to the wise...







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Should The EOCO Investigate The Purchase Of Overseas Properties Worth Millions Of Dollars By Ghanaians?

Nothing epitomizes better, the disservice being done by a large part of the Ghanaian media world, to Mother Ghana, and to Ghanaian democracy, than the deafening silence that has followed, since news reports began filtering through, online, that a very important personage from Ghana had purchased a property worth some three million pounds sterling in the UK.

In any other jurisdiction, where money laundering from the illicit drugs trade is a huge problem, and tax evasion by the most powerful folk, a common occurrence, journalists would be scurrying on to London-bound jetliners, to investigate such a story: in order to ascertain the true facts on the ground.

But this is Ghana – a nation full of moral cowards and in which truth faces extinction – so nothing much is being done to find out the truth.

The question is: Has it not occurred to the authorities that they owe it to Ghanaians, and the very important personage concerned, to move quickly to establish the truth?

As a charitable soul said to me: “Massa, who knows whether it is not a surprise gift to the very important personage? Perhaps it is from an admirer, who has not even yet told him that such a magnificent property, has been purchased for him: as a present for his years of hard work for the poor in society?”

If that is the case (or even if it isn’t), should the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) not be contacting the relevant UK authorities to establish a paper trail to trace the source of the transaction cash – so that they can tell the very important personage concerned whether or not the transaction is a case of money-laundering: to enable him reject or accept it?

Above all, who knows where such a paper trail will lead, I ask, dear reader? Perhaps it might even lead to the discovery of the ownership of some of the many offshore entities that hide the wealth of those who took part in the gang-rape of Mother Ghana during the tenure of the previous regime.

It would really be an outrage, if it turns out that those whose job it is to investigate such things, in the Ghana High Commission in London, have done nothing about it. If they have not done so, they must move quickly to establish the truth.

Above all, the high commissioner must ensure that it is handled by someone who is loyal to the Ghanaian nation-state, and not to the tribal-supremacist cabal that controlled the previous regime – lest they do what is usually done here in such matters.

Luckily for the very important personage concerned, documents cannot be made to disappear in the UK, like they often do here – a case in point being the VALCO documents that some members of the previous regime, insist, were in the possession of the late Baah-Wiredu (of blessed memory), when he died.

Fancy that – trying to blame a dead man who cannot answer back to defend himself: and who incidentally was so meticulous, and principled, he would never have hidden such an important state document, for any reason. But I digress.

Our very important personage need not worry, if it’s an attempt by persons unknown, to smear him – as the truth will emerge eventually. As we all know, if all his known legitimate sources of income are put together, he will still never be in a position to purchase such a property, for yonks – so if he does deny ever purchasing such a property, we must give some credence to what he says.

On the other hand, there is the little matter of the BBC World Service's Celeste Hicks and the Sunday Times' reporters, being ethical professionals, who are unlikely to do what those Ghanaian journalists who sell their consciences, often do – make up stories because they benefit their paymasters.

So it is a bit of a conundrum – as the cynics amongst us are wont to say in such matters. Well, we shall simply have to wait for the EOCO to investigate this faraway little local difficulty for our very important personage: to find out what the truth really is.

Hopefully, our very important personage will be vindicated – if he has actually said openly that he has never purchased such a property, that is. In any case one can only wish him well.

At the very least, this affair has brought up the question of whether or not, to help fight money-laundering in Ghana, it is necessary for the EOCO to investigate the purchase of expensive properties overseas, by Ghanaian citizens (including even those who occupy the highest positions in society!). Hmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: asem ebaba debi ankasa!

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REACTION TO THE UK GUARDIAN’S STORIES BASED ON WIKILEAK’S US DIPLOMATIC CABLES LEAK: REVEALS GHANAIAN ELITE'S MANY THIRD-RATE INDIVIDUALS !

Reaction to the UK Guardian newspaper’s stories about Ghana, based on the WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables leak, by sections of the Ghanaian media, and some members of the country’s political class, illustrates perfectly, how our political and media landscapes are peopled mostly by third-rate individuals. The former Ghanaian President Kufuor’s reaction, said to have been given in an interview on Accra’s Citi FM, if true, really does take some beating – especially when one considers the fact that he did go to Oxford University (Exeter College). He is quoted in a Wednesday, 15 December 2010 www.ghanaweb.com general news web-page article entitled, “Kufuor Slams WkikiLeaks – Guardian expose” in which he makes the most outrageous statements about the integrity of the UK Guardian newspaper, during the aforementioned radio interview.

According to www.ghanaweb.com, when Accra's Citi FM’s Richard Sky asked President Kufuor whether he thought “the Wikileaks-Guardian publication was not a fair reflection of his Government’s performance” Mr. Kufuor responded: “What did Guardian say about Kufuor? And you are Ghanaian and Guardian is not in Ghana. Do you want to believe Guardian who might be paid to do something, criminal against Ghana? Is that what you want to believe?” Incredible. How can an educated man (who studied in one of the world’s best universities in the UK!), who has also been Ghana’s president before, say such an outrageous thing about a global Liberal media icon like The Guardian, I ask, dear reader? Perhaps leading a regime that corrupted so many Ghanaian journalists during its tenure has had an adverse effect on President Kufuor’s sense of objectivity – when it comes to the small matter of judging media houses and journalists?

Thanks to the duplicity of his New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime, which spent zillions of old cedis of hapless taxpayers’ cash (mostly purloined from the Tema Oil Refinery’s coffers and from the bottomless-pit of his national security minister's secret budget), to buy the consciences of so many Ghanaian journalists (and in the process making a complete nonsense of the reason for the repealing of the criminal libel laws), there are precious few journalists in Ghana who have any personal integrity. As a result of that, today, a cursory glance at the columns of Ghanaian newspapers, will lead to only one conclusion: that yellow journalism is alive and well in Ghana. It is thriving as result of the gargantuan sums funneled to corrupt sections of the media and individual journalists – a huge disservice to Ghanaian democracy. It has also caused egregious harm to the well-being of ordinary Ghanaians, and slowed the growth-processes of Ghanaian democracy. Pity. With respect, those in President Kufuor’s inner circle must advise him to weigh his words, a great deal more carefully, than he has been doing of late – lest he is included in the "A" list of the third-rate individuals who people our political and media landscapes: and are ruining the enterprise Ghana with their perfidy. A word to the wise…

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PRESIDENT MILLS WILL NOT BE RETURNED TO POWER AGAIN: IF HE DOES NOT DEAL WITH ALL THE CROOKS IN HIS REGIME!

Any Ghanaian who remembers seeing television news reports earlier this year, showing President Mills submitting himself to the security personnel at the Accra International Airport’s VIP lounge, to be searched by them, and telling them to search all the members of his regime who pass through the VIP lounge too, must be reeling from shock, after reading the latest WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables leak about Ghana: “ (Reuters) - Ghana's president was concerned about drug trafficking and corruption within his own government, the Britain's Guardian newspaper said on Wednesday, citing U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

President John Atta Mills was reported by the U.S. ambassador to Ghana as saying that anti-drug activities at Accra airport had also been sabotaged by narcotics control officers.

"The President told the Ambassador that he knows elements of his government are already compromised and that officials at the airport tipped off drug traffickers about operations there," Ambassador Donald Teitelbaum said in the June 2009 cable.
The head of a British anti-drug campaign in Ghana told the U.S ambassador that Mills was worried about drug problems within his own entourage, and wanted to avoid the embarrassment of seeing them caught by airport officers when heading out of the country.

"...Mills wants these officials to be checked in the privacy of his suite (at the airport) to avoid any surprises if they are caught carrying drugs," another cable to Washington from Teitelbaum said in November 2009.
Drug flights from South America to Europe through West African countries have became common in the last three years and officials have seized ton-sized quantities of cocaine.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Matthew Jones)” End of quote.

How extraordinary. What is it about Ghanaian politicians, which makes them think that keeping the wrongdoing of members of their parties’ under wraps, when in power, somehow helps them avoid public opprobrium? President Kufuor apparently more or less said the same thing, when he intimated that exposure of wrongdoing by members of his regime, by him, would lead to its downfall. How daft can one get, I ask, dear reader? Is it not logical that moving quickly, to prosecute the crooks who lurk in their regimes, whenever such rogues are exposed, is what would rather engender public confidence, in leaders who run the enterprise Ghana, at any given point in time, in our history?

No wonder the crooks in the Mills regime whose wrongdoing has come to light, have all succeeded in holding on to their jobs, regardless, thus far. How very disappointing it all is for those who wish President Mills well. Makes one wonder, whether this regime is really serious about creating a better Ghana – or if it is just a hackneyed and platitudinous phrase, designed to lull Ghanaians into a false sense of security: that their nation is in the hands of a new crop of honest leaders? No wonder this regime has ignored pleas from many patriotic Ghanaians that they publicly publish their assets (as well as that of their spouses!) to enable them occupy the high moral ground in Ghanaian politics, and put clear blue water between themselves and their political opponents.

Perhaps President Rawlings does have a point after all, when he talks endlessly about the “greedy bastards” in President Mills’ regime. Well, if President Mills fails us, one hopes that the more radical of Nkrumah’s followers, such as Mr. Kwesi Pratt, will move from being social commentators, to become active seekers of power. If they were to have a platform, for example, which commits the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) to changing the constitution, to guarantee half of the seats in Parliament for women, as well as reserving half of the cabinet posts for women, and giving the right to all adult Ghanaians who need it, access to public housing provided by the Ghanaian nation-state, surely they would gain widespread following, amongst the younger generation of Ghanaians?

As is common knowledge, most of them are totally fed up with the two dominant parties, which now have such a stranglehold on power, in Ghana – to the detriment of our country. What patriotic Ghanaian does not worry about the zillions of "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon–types, whose intolerance and blinkered support for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is slowly destroying our democracy? That is why so many well-meaning Ghanaians want President Mills to sit up and crack the whip – if he wants to be returned to power again in the December 2012 election. He really must start dealing ruthlessly, with all those crooks that lurk in the shadows, in his regime, and are busy ripping Mother Ghana off by stealth, as we speak: just like those super-clever crooks of the Kufuor-era did. He must remember that time is not on his side – so there is no room for any more prevaricating. A word to the wise…

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WHO ARE THOSE NDC MEMBERS THAT GHANA’S VICE PRESIDENT JOHN MAHAMA SAYS HOLD MEETINGS ON SUNDAYS – AND WILL THEY HAVE THE COURAGE TO OUST HIM SOMEDAY?

As Ghana’s Vice President John Mahama waded into the argument about the use of our oil and natural gas revenues as collateral for loans to build our infrastructure, I wondered, yet again, at the calibre of the people around him. I asked myself, why, when he was in South Korea, those around him, did not advise him to try and convince the South Korean government to provide funding from the KITM Global Infrastructure Fund, to South Korean firms, to build, operate, and transfer motorways (of the Accra –Tema type that Nkrumah built), as well as railway lines to all our regional capitals – and in return get long tax holidays for all earned revenues covering the entire period they would build, own, and operate such motorways and railway lines (before finally transferring them to the Ghanaian nation-state)? Surely that would be a creative way of getting modern roads and railway lines built across the length and breadth of Ghana, without recourse to our oil and gas revenues – if Ghana’s politicians cannot put aside partisanship and agree on exactly what to do with those revenues?

As a wag said to me recently: “Massa, it is very difficult to point out exactly what John Mahama has brought to the table, since he became Ghana’s vice president." Well, for those of us who said that even though he happens to be well-liked by people from across the political spectrum, John Mahama could not possibly make a good vice president to a mild-mannered President Mills (because the president needed someone with a more ruthless streak in him – and able to reach out to all the factions in their party: because he or she is politically acceptable to all the centres of power in the National Democratic Congress (NDC)), that cynical remark does have a gem of truth in it. I have always been of the view that the next president of our nation, after President Mills, must be from the north of Ghana – because the people of the north also deserve to have a president who hails from that part of our country. However, John Mahama would be wise to retire whenever President Mills’ tenure ends – and support another northerner from the NDC to serve our country as president after President Mills. It will be a sacrificial act that will help unite his party.

I will not hide the fact that in a sense I have lost any admiration I had for John Mahama – and I say so with much regret and sadness. But as someone from a long-standing organic cocoa-farming family (which has been in the industry continuously since 1915!), I was dismayed and pretty livid, to hear him saying that he had only asked those British politicians and officials who approached him to intervene on Amajaro’s behalf, to get Amajaro to write a petition to the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCBOD0). Did it not occur to him that as Ghana’s vice president it was his duty to tell them that cocoa was of such importance to Ghana’s economy that any company caught smuggling bags of cocoa could not be allowed to continue trading in that all-important commodity? I do hope that those whom he says are holding meetings on Sundays will make sure that he is forced to retire with President Mills when the president’s tenure ends. The question is: Will they have the courage to do so when the time comes? One hopes that they will – for all our sake. A word to the wise…

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WHAT WILL WE FIND OUT ABOUT GHANA’S POLITICAL CLASS FROM WIKILEAK’S US EMBASSY CABLES LEAK?

There are many Ghanaian patriots and nationalists who are eager to discover, what exactly, over the years, US Embassy officials in the Accra embassy, have been saying behind closed doors, about members of our political class – and their views on our nation’s public discourse. During the Kufuor era, I wondered, in an article (in which I noted the contempt in which American officials held the traitors who overthrew Nkrumah!), what would be unearthed thirty years hence (from the date of the article), when cables about the events of our time from the US Embassy here, are declassified. I wondered what Progressives of that time, would learn about what exactly the Kufuor-era quislings secretly got up to, and what would be gleaned from conversations between the Accra US Embassy and Washington, which would finally shed some light on the opaque Kosmos Oil/E.O. Group jubilee oilfield deal. Little did I know that my fly-on-the-wall wish, would come true, even sooner, than the thirty years I had originally envisaged. Such is life.

It will be riveting to find out just how contemptuous US Embassy officials here have been, and are, of the pro-US members of our political class. As many a Ghanaian Progressive is aware, evidence of the contempt in which US officials held the traitors who overthrew Nkrumah in 1966, was summed up succinctly, in a declassified National Security Affairs memo (Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, Robert W. Komer, Vol. 21 3/3/66-3/2/66. Confidential. A handwritten “L” on the source text indicates that the memorandum was seen by the President). Acting Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Robert W. Komer, wrote to President Johnson in a Washington D.C. memo dated March 12, 1966: “The coup in Ghana is another example of a fortuitous windfall. Nkrumah was doing more to undermine our interests than any other black African. In reaction to his strongly pro-communist leanings, the new military regime is almost pathetically pro-Western.”

For today’s Progressives, the question must be: What will the WikiLeaks cables leak reveal about the quislings in our midst – and who will be on the list of today's stooges for neo-colonialism: ever ready to do the bidding of the US Government and to serve US commercial interests here, even to the detriment of the well-being of the people of Ghana and their nation? One certainly hopes that Ghana’s Progressives will be able to hold such traitors accountable in the public space – and work hard to make sure that ordinary people never give political power, again, to such treacherous nation-wreckers, under any circumstances. The prayer of many such patriotic Ghanaians is that, finally, some light will be shed on the real truth about the Kosmos/E.O. Group deal. Hopefully, that will lead ultimately to the unraveling, of what many Progressives regard as an opaque deal, which enabled undeserving individuals to use their political connections, to purloin part of our oil and natural gas reserves.

In the view of such patriotic Ghanaians, everything must be done to reverse an abuse of power, which ended up enriching a few unscrupulous and greedy individuals, at the expense of our country. They are hopeful that the WikiLeaks US embassy cables leak will expose those politicians who abused the power entrusted to them by the ordinary people of Ghana, and used it to enable members of their family clans and their cronies, to appropriate what belongs to all of the people of Ghana. More to the point, dear reader, will the oft-tongue-tied spokespersons of the Mills regime, have the nous and the gumption, to use such revelations to fight yesteryear’s powerful rogues – and stop them from coming to power again in 2013? One certainly hopes they will – for all our sake. A word to the wise…

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WHY GHANA’S OIL AND NATURAL GAS REVENUES MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO FALL INTO THE GRASPING HANDS OF UNFATHOMABLE GREED & QUISLINGS GALORE INCORPORATED!

When the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), won the run-off of the December 2008 presidential election, he was under the false impression, that he was inheriting an economy, which would make it possible for his party to: “hit the ground running” as the then candidate Mills put it whiles campaigning for the presidency in 2008. Alas, little did H.E. Professor Mills and his party colleagues, know, that in reality, they had inherited what amounted to the economic equivalent, of a poisoned chalice. The painful truth is that Ghana, under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime of the profligate President Kufuor, developed a full-blown bubble economy. It was fueled by corruption and widespread white-collar crime – and enabled scores of politically well-connected individuals, countrywide, to grow super-rich: through the siphoning off of public revenue, and the laundering of the proceeds of criminal activity (including drug-dealing). An example is how the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was turned into a cash-cow. It was milked dry by sundry white-collar criminals who were fraudulently paid zillions of old cedis for goods and services that they never actually delivered.

No one who has any knowledge of economics, and is a sincere individual, will deny the need for the cuts in public spending instituted by the Mills regime. It will prevent even greater pain in future. For, a future Government will have to adopt even more drastic measures, than we are currently having to cope with: in dealing with the consequences of a complete cessation of economic growth – which is what would inevitably occur, if the present regime had failed to adopt the austerity measures it took when it first came into office, and is currently taking. A direct consequence of zero growth would be a resultant loss of confidence in Ghana’s economic prospects – amongst both local and overseas investors. The tragedy for our country, is that those who left our economy in tatters, have been left free to engage in a relentless propaganda war – characterized by a pretense that somehow there is some other way to re-balance our nation’s finances, other than the course the Mills administration has been forced by our nation’s economic circumstances to adopt (as have governments of other nations with large budget deficits, such as the UK, Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Portugal).

What primary school child in Ghana does not know that in order to re-balance our nation’s finances, the necessary first steps would have to involve a regime of cuts in public spending, and broad measures taken to raise more public revenue through increased taxation – and that it is intellectually dishonest to label what we have had to go through to make growth possible again, as an enkoyie economic situation? Of course, some of us believe that abolishing personal income tax would raise productivity, whiles bringing down the corporate tax rate to make it the lowest in Africa, and passing stiff laws prescribing mandatory prison terms, to penalize all tax-dodgers without exception, will help widen the tax net considerably, and bring in additional revenues: as well as help create an enterprise culture in our homeland Ghana as an added bonus. The unfortunate conundrum facing those who love Ghana passionately, is what to do about the abiding inability of the present administration to spell out clearly to ordinary Ghanaians, why a so-called enkoyie economic situation evolved after December 2008.

It is an intolerable situation, which threatens to enable those self-seekers and ruthless plutocrats who dominate the NPP (ace-hypocrites who masquerade as believers in democracy and the rule of law), to successfully return to power again in 2013. Sadly, for our nation, those greedy and powerful rogues who control the NPP, have succeeded brilliantly in hiding their asset-strip-Ghana-for-personal-gain political agenda from most ordinary Ghanaians. It is enabling them gain traction and respectability amongst ordinary folk nationwide. Although they are smart enough themselves to understand perfectly that to ensure a prosperous tomorrow for all Ghanaians, our country must, of necessity, go through a painful period of austerity (during which there would have to be drastic cuts in public spending), from the word go, they have given ordinary Ghanaians the completely false impression, that no positive outcome is possible for our nation and its people going forward, from such a policy (for which, incidentally, there is no viable alternative!).

Ordinary Ghanaians have to be made to understand clearly that a period of sustained growth will be possible, only when such tough measures have been taken, to make us stop living beyond our means as a nation – and that it is only when that has been achieved that Government will finally be able to re-balance Ghana’s public finances. A nation with balanced finances inspires confidence in its real economy amongst investors (both local and foreign). An era of sustained growth will be ushered in, only when Ghana has a relatively balanced budget. It is vital that the administration of President Mills stops being diffident about telling Ghanaians about the terrible legacy of the NPP administration. Let them take a leaf from the book of British Prime Minister David Cameron: who never ceases to mention what he says is the Labour Party's dreadful economic legacy, when out campaigning to get the British people, to accept the Coalition government's swingeing public spending cuts. Ghanaians must be told the real truth about how Kufuor & Co. destroyed our national economy with their short-sighted economic policy decisions: the dreadful result of a combination of unfathomable greed and utter ruthlessness in leveraging the power of the Ghanaian nation-state in furtherance of their personal wealth-creation agendas.

Why, for example, is no one pointing out some of the negative results of the foolish and shortsighted decision to hand over as much as 70 percent of Ghana Telecom (GT) to Vodafone at that absurd price of some US$900 millions? Today, Vodafone is embarking on an asset-stripping programme – presumably to claw back some of that paltry US$900 millions. The question is: Why should they be allowed to sell buildings from GT’s property portfolio (a move in which the word "sale" is cleverly avoided and the word “lease” deployed instead – because it is clearly less emotive)? If the over-pampered and over-paid British executives of Vodafone want a more salubrious and leafy place to work from, why should that result in the sale of its Accra headquarters building (and others countrywide), I ask, dear reader? It will also be illuminating to know just how many other companies put in bids to manage the 750 telephone masts of the erstwhile GT - now outsourced to Eaton Telecom for a period of ten years.

Interestingly, it is at around just that time that most of today's nearly-new generators, which now power those masts, would need replacing: at which point Eaton Towers will conveniently hand their management back to Vodafone (if it is still here, i.e.) and presumably move on to greener pastures elsewhere. Why did those anti-Mills regime officials in the communications ministry, not think of advising the minister to get Parliament to pass a local-content law, that will force all companies, to which telecom towers in Ghana are outsourced, to work with the 48 Engineers Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), in joint-venture partnerships: so as to prepare the GAF for eventually taking over that aspect of the telecoms industry, and secure them for strategic national security reasons? Why have questions not also been posed to the NPP’s big-wigs, asking them precisely how they would have explained and justified any allocation of an oil-block, in one of the oil fields off our coastline, to the maverick Mr. Ayisi Boateng – to whom one was promised to placate him and stop him from forming the breakaway party he threatened to form – should they come to power again (God forbid!) after the December 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections?

Why have Ghanaians not been told how as a result of patronage of the most egregious kind, a timber concession was granted to the selfsame Mr. Ayisi-Boateng during the NPP’s tenure – just so that he could make money waa-waa-waa and stop rocking the NPP’s golden-boat-of-riches, as it were? Can the point not then be made that that is the template, of how the bulk of our oil and natural gas revenues, will eventually end up in the private pockets of politically well-connected, dishonest, and unpatriotic individuals – should the NPP ever be returned to power again? Why have ordinary people not been told that it will be a grave error of judgment on their part, to allow such selfish individuals to come to power again, in the next presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2012: because they will end up appropriating our collective wealth, yet again? Ordinary Ghanaians ought to be made to understand clearly the dire consequences of voting such individuals into office – and must be informed, for example, that the outrageous and scandalous sale of state lands is one such consequence.

Why, does the 1992 constitution not imply, that those whom we elect to govern our country, have a fiduciary duty to protect what belongs to all of us, at all material times during their tenure? Has the enterprise Ghana come to an end to justify the sale of public lands that future Governments can use for all manner of common-good projects, which need not necessarily be the original projects those lands were acquired for? Is it not a fact that many of the NPP’s leading lights grabbed state lands in Accra, for example, whiles cynically ensuring that state lands elsewhere went directly to their tribal Chiefs – so as to enrich those confounded elitist tribal-supremacists – and was it not part of their secret grand-plan to weaken the Ghanaian nation-state and create de facto tribal states within the Ghanaian nation-state in parts of Nkrumah’s Ghana? The NDC’s different factions must wake up and unite now – and work hard to prevent an NPP victory by default in December 2012. Ghana’s oil and natural gas revenues must never be allowed to fall into the grasping hands of Unfathomable Greed & Quislings Galore Incorporated (otherwise know as the controlling clique that 'owns' the New Patriotic Party!) under any circumstances. A word to the wise…

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THE SHABBY STORY OF AMAJARO - AND WHY GHANA'S VICE PRESIDENT JOHN MAHAMA MUST LEARN IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM IT!

The latest scandal, in which a British cocoa exporting company operating in Ghana, Amajaro, succeeded in using its political connections in the UK, to get the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to rescind a decision to ban it from buying cocoa beans in Ghana (as a result of its agents being caught red-handed smuggling bags of cocoa beans to the Ivory Coast – in a video-recording by Ghana’s leading investigative journalist, Anas Ameriyaw), illustrates perfectly, the incredible naiveté and ignorance, of the many third-rate individuals who surround our leaders, and the baleful influence of some foreign powers, on so many of the members, of our largely-unimaginative political class. Before I proceed any further, dear reader, let me say emphatically, that I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that contrary to what some of his political opponents allege, Vice President John Mahama, did not personally receive any financial reward for any assistance, which he might have rendered Amajaro, as a result of appeals from a number of UK politicians and senior officials. Knowing the culture in Ghana, however, it is stretching credulity, for anyone to say that he knew nothing about the decision by the COCOBOD, to rescind its decision to ban Amajaro, from exporting cocoa beans from Ghana.


Obviously, if any money was collected by anyone for the eventual outcome, it probably ended up in the very deep pockets, of some of the small greedy group of ace-hypocrites and super-crooks, who lurk amongst the many fine and honest individuals (who serve our nation diligently, on a daily basis!), at Ghana's seat of power: the Osu Castle. However, the question that all well-meaning, independent-minded, and patriotic individuals in Ghana must ask, is: Why did no one in his circle (including those given cushy sinecures by his regime at the Ghana High Commission in London!) alert the vice president, of the existence of the new Bribery Act in the UK – so that he could point that out to the UK politicians and officials who asked him to intervene on Amajaro’s behalf: and politely tell them that unfortunately there was nothing much that he could do about it, as such was the degree of political awareness amongst ordinary Ghanaians, today, that any intervention on his part, would immediately elicit a response from some clever fellow from one of the opposition parties, who would most likely point out the existence of the UK Bribery Act, and demand that his intervention be brought to the notice of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ)?


Surely, the time has come for members of our political class, and the senior public officials who advise them, to understand clearly, that once the U.K. Bribery Act comes into force in April 2011, they could end up being personally charged, together with executives of UK companies involved in bribery in Ghana, whose companies have not taken adequate steps to ensure that third parties do not pay bribes on their behalf – if any acts of omission or commission, resulting in dereliction of duty, and occasioned by offered advantage of any kind, can be traced directly to them? The days of impunity are clearly over for those accepting bribes from the agents of UK companies operating here. To digress a little: For the over-ambitious Mrs. Nana Kunadu Agyemang Rawlings' information, if her past secret dealings with Mabey & Johnson and Biwater took place a year hence, she would be charged together with their executives, and probably receive a long prison term from a UK judge: outraged that Ghana could be robbed in broad daylight, by some members of its ruling elite, in such callous fashion. The harsh outcome for Ghanaian officials and politicians who bend over backwards to please UK businesses, is, alas, also no different from that, which they can expect, from their dealings with U.S. companies operating here, too.


Unluckily for them, the reach of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other anti-bribery laws, such as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, passed in July 2010, extend here. If they are not yet aware of it, they must understand that any whistle-blowing individuals from Ghana, who submit “original information” to the U.S. authorities, which ends up in a U.S. company being penalized for an FCPA violation in excess of US$1 million, will receive anything from between 10 to 30 percent of any penalty collected. Is that not incentive enough, for example, for those politically well-connected individuals in Ghana, who know the dark secrets of the powerful crooks amongst our political class, who siphon off taxpayers’ funds from sundry contracts, I ask – especially when they are allowed to provide such information anonymously through a lawyer? Incidentally, some of the cynics and conspiracy theorists in our midst, say that the fact that U.S. companies that acquire U.S. domiciled businesses operating overseas, can inherit liability for a FCPA violation, which was committed before a takeover, by the acquired company’s employees or agents, might have a bearing on the withdrawal of ExxonMobil from takeover talks with Kosmos Oil.


Let the many clever white-collar criminals in our country, and elsewhere around the globe, who are ripping Mother Ghana off daily, be informed that some of the agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.), now focus exclusively on FCPA cases. The Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) has also set up a dedicated FCPA unit. One hopes the Ghanaian vice president and other government officials will now take note of the increasing trend in which Western nations are charging executives of companies from their countries, whose businesses offer bribes to public officials overseas, as well as those local public officials themselves, in law courts in the U.S., the U.K., and other nations in the E.U. Henceforth, they must simply ignore all pleas from government ministers and officials from those selfsame Western nations (which often accuse African nations of being corrupt!) to bend the rules in favour of errant businesses domiciled in their countries, which break our laws, to enable them get away with their crimes against our homeland Ghana.


Finally, dear reader, one's humble advice to Ghana's vice president, is that he ought to ponder awhile, and ask himself whether if the boot had been on the other foot, the UK government ministers who approached him to help Amajaro, would have agreed to any request from him to help a Ghanaian company operating in the U.K., which had been caught on a video tape-recording by a top British journalist, smuggling goods in or out of the U.K. Henceforth, the vice president of Ghana must never do any foreign politicians or officials, unwarranted favours, which go against the constitutional edict, which enjoins all Ghanaians to fight corruption, whenever and wherever they chance upon it. This shabby story has dented his image somewhat – the dissimulation of his over-pampered and clueless aides notwithstanding. It was a grave error of judgment on his part to seek to please the ownership of a foreign company whose actions were damaging to our nation’s economy – and it is crucial therefore that he learns important lessons from this most unfortunate of affairs. A word to the wise…


Tel (powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.

A Conversation With Keith Boyd Of Eaton Towers

Recently, I exchanged emails with Mr. Keith Boyd, of Eaton Telecom. Today, with his kind permission, I am publishing replies to some questions that I posed to him in a number of emails, in interview form. It is for the elucidation of those Ghanaians, who like me, are interested in getting to know exactly what the outsourcing of the management of Vodafones' 750 masts to Eaton Telecom entails. On 5 October 2010, it was reported in London that: "Eaton Towers, the African tower company, has signed a 10-year contract to take over the operations and co-location management of 750 telecom towers for Vodafone Ghana." Please read on:

KT: How did Eaton Telecom come to 'buy' Vodafone’s masts - and what is its track record?

KB: Eaton Towers was formed from the merger of 2 companies, and through investment from a number of different sources. The company has been building and maintaining towers in 13 countries in Africa since January 2002, and has an experienced management team including:
- The ex CEO of Orange group (a multinational company with many licences around the world, including Africa
- An Ex director of Vodafone Group
- A co-founder of Celtel (the Pan African operator founded by Mo Ibrahim, that MTC (Zain) bought and then sold to Bharti recently)
- Ex CTO of Celtel
- Ex CFO of a Johannesburg and LSE listed Technology company (turnover > $4 Billion per annum in 2008)
- And many more
I can assure you that we are a very focused, experienced management team, who are absolutely committed to the ongoing development of the African Telco market. We believe that the underlying costs of running a telco network can be cut very dramatically through tower sharing (as we have seen in India, where, despite regular power outages, costs are far lower than in Africa). And we are willing to invest our time and money in making this happen.

KT: Can Ghanaians rest assured that there was no use of insider information: leading to the contract signing?

KB: Absolutely. I give you my personal and professional insurance that there was no access to, nor use of, “insider information” leading to the contract signing. I know this for certain, as I was the first person in our team to start the dialogue with Vodafone 18 months ago, and remained as company lead executive for Eaton throughout the process. In fact, the process has taken this long as Vodafone deployed some of their most experienced international financial and commercial people to oversee that the contract discussions and negotiations were in the best interests of all Vodafone Stakeholders – and they made certain that Vodafone got a very good deal, which is in the interests of their shareholders, staff, and customers.

KT: It is said that Eaton Towers is owned by a private equity company. Is that true? If that is not true, who are the owners of the company, then - and are there any Ghanaian interests in the company's shareholding?

KB: Eaton Towers has a number of shareholders, including Private equity and Management at present. This shareholding base will continue to widen as we go through further rounds of fundraising in the months and years ahead, in order to expand our investments in Ghana and other countries of operation. I cannot disclose any Ghanaian shareholder interests presently, but can assure you that we would welcome further investment in the company – and if you have some suggestions of Ghanaian institutions or individuals of good standing and repute, who would wish to invest in the company, I give you my assurance that we would welcome entering into discussions in this regard. Please feel free to work with me on this in the months ahead.

KT: What would you say to the cynics in Ghana who say that Eaton Towers' presence in Ghana will help widen the footprint of Britain's GCHQ in Africa?

KB: Kofi, our main board has directors from America, Nigeria, Bangladesh, South Africa, Sweden and Britain. And we will widen this to better reflect our companies main shareholder base and objectives as we grow.
We do not report to David Cameron, nor do we seek to advance any political agenda – from any country. We are business people and investors, who seek to make a difference, and make a reasonable profit for our risks and efforts over the years. I am sure you will agree that Mo Ibrahim made a positive difference to our continent, by pioneering Telecommunications developments, and creating healthy competition in countries where other operators were perhaps too scared, or to uninformed, to go in the early 1990’s. By the way, he made himself very, very wealthy. But he took massive personal risks, and he invested a very large part of his life in trying to make life better for many Africans. And I would be very happy to walk, in some small way, in his shadow – by doing well, whilst doing good.

KT: Will Vodafone be paying Eaton Towers during the contract period - and if yes, precisely how much?

KB: Remaining within the bounds of the confidentiality agreements, I can say that the nature of the deal has been published, and it is essentially as follows: Eaton take over responsibility for, and subsidise the costs of maintaining and upgrading the passive (non RF / Telecomms) infrastructure from Vodafone, and we charge Vodafone a reduced amount for this. In other words, Eaton makes a loss, as our charge to Vodafone is significantly lower than their current costs to maintain the infrastructure. We are also responsible to invest in new Capex items (e.g. generators, fuel tanks, fences, air conditioners, tower components) at our own expense, once they become end-of-life. And – most obviously – the maths behind this has been checked again, and again, and again over the last 18 months, by the Vodafone people related to the deal. Our only chance of making any profits is to sell a lot of co-location slots on Vodafone’s towers to other operators. So we are risking our hard earned money on this deal, whilst Vodafone has immediately transferred costs and risk to Eaton. That is the nature of business – you have to risk money, effort and time, in order to have any chance of making a profit.

KT: Many thanks, Keith. Incidentally, there are many Ghanaians who are of the view that if investors were to take a long-term view (in getting a return on their investments in our country!), they need never fear reading news reports with banner headlines screaming (to quote your previous email, Keith!): “…another operator goes bankrupt in Ghana!”

KB: Thanks also from my side for the opportunity to put some things straight. We appreciate that Ghanaians want the best possible deal for themselves and the country. And that has to be finely counterbalanced by a mature view towards long term investment from “foreigners” – people who were unfortunately (through no fault of their own) not born in Ghana! And I am on record as advocating that investors take African investments seriously – and invest for the long term.
We appreciate all the support that we can get in Ghana. We do hope to make a success of this investment, whilst playing a key role in bringing telecoms costs down for everyone in Ghana.


Post Script.

I sent the email that follows below, to thank Mr. Boyd, after recieving the email from which the above interview was taken. His permission to me to publish his replies in the above interview, came in reply to the said email below. It has been edited slighty to correct a few typos! Please read on:

Email from Kofi Thompson to Keith Boyd: 25 October 2010

"I am emailing you to acknowledge receipt of your email with the replies to a number of questions I posed in my email of 23/10/2010. I am grateful to you for endeavouring to answer them. It was very noble of you to do so. I guess one would first have to get an estimated value of Vodafone's masts, if one is to make any meaningful comments on the deal itself. Is that information you can divulge?

I suppose that any gentleman would treat this as private correspondence - and I will treat it as such. However, just as a matter of interest, would you object to my making it public: so that other Ghanaians too can see the positive side of what in effect is the spinning off of Vodafone's masts?

As regards making friends in Ghana, I am sure you will find that there will be a surfeit of Ghanaians with high net worth, happy to invest in your company if given the opportunity to do so. Ditto institutional investors. I am sure they would all tell you that getting Ghanaian shareholders on board via the Ghana Stock Exchange, will satisfy most of the critics of the deal – as in their view it will make Ghanaians see Eaton Towers as contributing to wealth-creation in our share-owning democracy: and also ensure a degree of transparency in its operations.

Hopefully, when you do make any future profits, you will engage in corporate-giving that will help protect Ghana's biodiversity, and also enhance your company’s green credentials locally. Look up the Ghana Wildlife Society; A Rocha Ghana; Rain Forest Alliance Ghana; WWF Ghana; and the Nature Conservation and Research Centre. They are all doing what they can to help preserve our country's natural heritage, and would welcome your widow's-mite-contribution, over the ten years you are contracted to be in Ghana for! Many thanks, once again. I will be in touch again, when I have digested all the information you provided.

Best wishes,

Kofi."


Tel(powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.

Is The Time Not Right For A Cabinet Reshuffle In Ghana?

The current cabinet is a real mixed-bag of good and not-so-good ministers. With the endless snipping from the sidelines, by those National Democratic Congress (NDC) members, who sadly, seem to have forgotten so soon, that their party spent eight long and painful years in the political wilderness, surely, the time has now come for the president to reshuffle his cabinet?

Perhaps one can use the STX deal and a few other examples, as case-studies, to illustrate the mixed bag of good and not-so-good ministers. Although he did not initiate it, the determination with which the hardworking Hon. A. S. K. Bagbin, the water resources, works and housing minister, has gone about ensuring that the STX housing project takes off, as soon as practicable, certainly needs to be commended.

 As a consensus politician, he has done all he can, to try and get the minority benches in Parliament, to back the project: so it is a truly national project. Sadly, the perfidy of the hardliners in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has resulted in their trying to delay it, purely for political ends.

On the other hand, unfortunately, one would find it difficult to say the same positive thing, about the deputy finance minister, who has responsibility for the financial aspect of that deal.

Not too long ago, I was taken aback, when I heard him say that we were being asked to pay that outrageous and astronomical sum for insurance for the STX loan, because this was Africa: and there were political risks to take account of. 

Can he not see the positive side of our country, I ask? Perhaps the question one ought to pose is: Just what is it about our educated urban elite, which has resulted in so many of them becoming individuals, who are completely bereft of any original thinking?

After the global credit crunch, do those members of our political class, who are now in power, for example, still not understand, that it is not slavish adherence to “book-long” economic theories, but creative thinking, which will bring about the “Better Ghana” that the NDC promised Ghanaians?

Has it not yet dawned on that well-educated deputy finance minister, that it was lateral thinking, which prevented the Western world from falling into the abyss, during the financial meltdown that led to the global credit crunch – not slavish adherence to economic theories?

Did he not see how those selfsame Western nations that are always telling our leaders to sell off valuable state assets, whenever the opportunity for companies from their nations, to grab such state-owned entities cheaply, comes along; were themselves pumping billions of their taxpayers’ cash, into collapsing privately-owned businesses in their nations, such as banks?

Was that not done in order to save many of their corporate icons from going under – and tipping their national economies into a deep recession? Was even the venerable General Motors, which is now making profits again, after it filed for bankruptcy protection (the so-called Chapter 11!), not bailed out with a cash-injection by the U.S. administration, at a certain stage, dear reader?

No doubt, if such events had occurred here, members of our political class, many of who do not appreciate the fact that in order for Ghana to prosper, we must move out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking, would have done the exact opposite.

Why does the deputy finance minister, for example, not think of simply telling the Koreans, that there is no political risk whatsoever associated with an African nation, which is admired globally for its enduring stability?

Why, is this not a thriving multi-party democracy, with one of the most vibrant media landscapes, anywhere on the planet Earth, into which even the canny Chinese are sinking billions of dollars of their hard-earned cash, I ask? Why, then, should Ghana have to pay that unrealistic sum, which the Koreans are said to be demanding?

Why does he not think of pointing it out to the South Koreans that they ought to follow China’s example – and put up Korean government money for the project?

If that were to happen, could say ten of Korea’s leading construction firms, not partner the leading Ghanaian construction firms in each region, to build those government houses for the security agencies and other public servants? Would that not enable the delivery of the houses to be speeded up considerably?

Will the outrageous and absurd figure (of some US$ 200 millions!) for the loan insurance that the STX deal stipulates, if given instead to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), for example, not give it a much needed vital shot in the arm – and turn that crucial but woefully under-resourced state institution’s fortunes around dramatically?

 Secondly, the energy minister of an oil-rich African nation aspiring to become Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, has no business being heard telling interviewers on radio news programmes, that the days of cheap energy in Ghana are over.

Why does it not ever occur to that genius that he should rather suggest to the government, of which he is such a prominent member, that the Ghana Embassy in China should be instructed to invite Mr. Liam Casey, of PCH International (aka “Mr. China”), to visit Ghana?

If that were done, will they not be able to get him to help Ghana find and negotiate with China’s global leaders in the fabrication of giant wind power plants, to partner the Volta River Authority (VRA) in joint-ventures to build the world’s biggest collection of wind-energy farms off our entire coastline?

If such a mega project, to deliver say 20,000 megawatts of renewable power, came off successfully, would that not ensure that we become an attractive destination for green-conscious international investors - seeking to take advantage of our abundant and cheap renewable energy: to set up sundry manufacturing plants here, and enhance their green credentials globally, that way?

Would the rest of the world not sit up and take notice of our marvellous and unique nation (now the beacon of hope for Mother Africa!), I ask, dear reader?

With respect, surely, that would be a far better use of taxpayers’ money, than the idiocy of pouring such funds down the financial equivalent of a black hole, which the so-called “Brand Ghana Office" represents: with its raft of daft and self-serving "Alice-In-Wonderland” marketing theories and advertising compaigns – cleverly labelled “nation branding” to fool the unwary?

 There are far too many “way-too-ordinary" intellects, amongst those currently leading our country, for comfort – and President Mills must reshuffle his cabinet as soon as it is opportune for him to do so: so as to reinvigorate his much-criticized administration.

The time has certainly come for him to bring many more world-class individuals, into an administration, which, sadly, is currently bereft of much lateral thinking.

Finally, why does he not get Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings to show Ghanaian what stuff she is really made of – by making her a minister in his regime : and then promptly instruct all his ministers and their spouses (in addition to him and his wife, and the vice president and his too!) to publicly publish their assets?

Will that not be an effective way of preventing and fighting corruption in their government’s ranks? Would that also not be one less issue for Mrs. Rawlings and her husband to criticize the current NDC government for?

Since the Rawlings' are so keen to see the Kufuor-era crooks of yesteryear behind bars, will they not rejoice that he has finally availed them of the golden opportunity, to let the world know precisely what they have accumulated in assets, over their many years of sacrifice, in the service of this great African nation, which they so obviously love, more than the rest of the Ghanaian population, put together?

The question is: Will the president do so? Well, one certainly hopes he has the nous and the gumption to do so – for all our sake.

PRESIDENT MILLS: PLEASE STEP IN QUICKLY TO HELP UNRAVEL THE TRUTH ABOUT STAN DOGBE!

It is such a pity that public confidence in the present National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration is steadily being eroded, as a result of the negative activities of the few crooks, in the regime of President Mills. Yet, the paradox is that President Mills, who is a perfect gentleman, happens to be the most honest individual ever elected to lead our country, thus far, since the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966. Sadly, it does appear that the actions of the few bad nuts in the government, give credence to some of the criticisms of the Mills regime by ex-President Rawlings. Perhaps those who wish President Mills well, and have his ear, ought to ask him to sit up, and start dealing firmly with all those in his regime, whose actions become a cause of concern, for the well-meaning Ghanaians, who are keen that he succeeds: for the sake of our nation and its long-suffering people.

An example is the incredible goings-on in the information ministry. Does it not say a great deal about the naiveté and lack of integrity at the core of the government’s communications team (bursting at the seams, it seems!), that this over-pampered baby-Goebbels figure, Stan Dogbe, apparently could talk his way into being given so much money (as much as some GH¢169,000) to try and influence sections of the media with; refuse to account properly for it; and still be able to hang on to his position at the ministry of information, despite all that? How can that happen in a regime led by such an honest leader, like President Mills? What are those who advise him being paid their fat salaries’ for, one wonders?

Surely, they are not all blind, deaf, and dumb? Have they not heard the allegations against Stan Dogbe? Were the selfsame crimes not allegedly committed by the loud-mouthed Asamoah- Boateng & Co., during the Kufuor era, I ask, dear reader? No wonder nothing much has been done to unravel the mystery of how the Tema Oil Refinery’s (TOR) cash came to be given to Asamoah-Boateng – ostensibly to be used to influence sections of the Ghanaian media. Nothing much seems to have changed in that respect in the “Better Ghana” of President Mills, it would appear.

If President Mills, and the honest ones amongst the powerful individuals who surround him, want ordinary Ghanaians to continue having faith in the present NDC administration, and re-elect them to power again in December 2012, they must ensure that Ghanaians are told the whole truth about precisely how Stan Dogbe used that GH¢169,000. It is such boldness in dealing with corruption in their midst, that will win them the confidence of Ghanaians – not propaganda and the unprincipled and foolish decision to bribe sections of the Ghanaian media. In any case, what is the sense in wasting taxpayers' money, on members of a profession, a majority of who lack personal integrity, and have even failed to master the basic tool of their profession, the English language: and engage in yellow journalism, on top of all that? The president must have him speedily prosecuted if it emerges that he has done anything unlawful – to serve as an example to other crooks who may be lurking in the shadows in his administration. Our leaders must never forget that the Ghana of today is not a nation in which truth can be hidden, for very long. A word to the wise…


Tel (powered by Tigo – the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.

Time To Confront All Ghana’s Tribal-Supremacists!

The tragedy of our country, is that the elitist tribal-supremacists in our midst, whose secret agenda is to enable today’s descendants of the pre-colonial tribal elites, regain the power their forebears lost when the British occupied our country, are successfully able to cloak their narrow-mindedness, their bigotry and their ill-disposition towards the Ghanaian nation-state, with the pretense that they believe in constitutional democracy and the rule of law.

It has enabled them pull the wool over the eyes of many in Ghanaian society (as to their real intentions for Mother Ghana), for decades.

Incidentally, before one proceeds any further, it is important to make the point, whenever these narrow-minded individuals are discussed, that tribal supremacists can be found in all the ten regions of our homeland Ghana.

They are usually to be found in the palaces of traditional rulers – which are the last bastions of tribalism in Nkrumah’s Ghana.

In the wake of his recent altercation with a political opponent, it is little wonder that the Ashanti Region’s share of our nation’s tribal-supremacist elitists, have quickly pounced on the admonitions of the young deputy minister for tourism, the Hon. Kobby Acheampong: who, in effect, told the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) general secretary, Mr. Owusu-Afriyie, to the face, that he has a provincial-mindset – and more or less advised him to try and cultivate a more cosmopolitan outlook.

Those sly and shameless Kokofu-footballers-supreme, are using the deputy minister’s remarks to whip up tribal sentiment in the Ashanti Region – mainly amongst the region’s large crop of myrmidon-types, who, like their counterparts elsewhere in Ghana, have the mentality of serfs written into their DNA (and form the core of the nationwide army of “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” dim-wits, whose blinkered support of political parties is slowly destroying our democracy!).

Incredibly, some of them actually think that their tribal Chiefs are gods whose respective palaces they see as the centre of the universe, for all of humankind. Amazing.

“Onyame entise Alata ni enti,” and unluckily for them, as it turns out, the Hon. Kobby Acheampong actually hails from the Ashanti Region of Ghana: not the Central Region of our country.

The question is: Why would the Hon. Kobby Archeampong, who indeed is a very sane gentleman, insult fellow-citizens who are Ghanaians of Asante descent, like he is?

The plain truth, dear reader, is that he did not – his choice of words may not have been the wisest: but he was merely telling a loquacious and arrogant politician with a provincial mind-set to grow up.

It is time it was made plain to all Ghana’s tribal-supremacists, whichever part of our nation they hail from, that we are all one people: citizens of the ethnically-diverse Ghanaian nation-state. No tribe is superior to another in our homeland Ghana. We are one nation with a common destiny.

We may be descended from various ethnic groups, but out of the great melting-pot called Ghana, a new and modern-oriented African personality and identity has been forged: the Ghanaian.

It is also time to tell those fawning politicians who humour the godfathers of tribalism, by referring to some of them as “Kings,” that there are neither kingdoms nor “Kings” in Nkrumah’s Ghana. Period.

They may think they are being respectful when they call certain tribal Chiefs “Kings,” but they are playing right into the hands of ruthless individuals who think their sole mission in life is to regain the sovereign power their predecessors’ lost, when the British occupied our nation.

If they do not know our history well, let them be informed that on November 20, 1956, the bloodthirsty Akan tribal-supremacist and elitist National Liberation Movement (NLM), and their counterparts from the north, the Northern Peoples Party (NPP), made a declaration of secession.

It was only the sense of nationalism, and strength of character, of the leader of the Bono-Kyempem, Nana Akumfi, of Takyiman, which saved our nation from a bloodbath. Prelude to that cynical move by the NLM and the NPP, on March 14, 1956, Dr. J. B. Danquah, and his blood-relation Nana Ofori-Atta 11, made it plain to a visiting parliamentary delegation, at a meeting in Kibi, that Akim Abuakwa would secede, if their concerns about the nature of the new independent nation to emerge from colonial rule, were not addressed.

Naturally, on top of their list of demands, was for traditional rulers and the pre-colonial tribal elite to be allowed to play a prominent role in the scheme of things in the new Ghana, which they wanted to be a federation of tribal entities, not the unitary republic, which Nkrumah and the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) favoured.

Incidentally, whiles Nkrumah wanted universal adult suffrage, Dr. J. B. Danquah & Co pressed hard for voting-rights to be restricted to property-owners and salaried workers only.

So, that, dear reader, is the genesis of the phrase "a property-owning democracy" in Ghanaian politics!

Is it not interesting, that whiles they grabbed many choice properties for themselves whiles in power during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co, today, Danquah's political descendants are doing everything possible, to stop a housing project meant to provide accommodation for members of the security agencies, and other public servants, throughout the country? Hmmm Ghana, eyeasem oo! But I digress.

Do those politicians in the regime now in power, who give succor to traditional rulers whose secret desire is the fulfillment of the NLM’s agenda, not remember how the dishonest, greedy, and philandering President Kufuor, and his over-ambitious tribal Chief ended up dividing our nation of diverse-ethnicity, as never before, with their absurd and treasonable attempt to create a de-facto state within a state with a 'sovereign' as its head of state, in our country: and used the whole machinery of state to enable them foist him on Ghanaians, successfully?

We have the munificence of God to thank that they did not succeed in their aim. As we all know, so outrageous were their efforts, that in the end, the vast majority of fair-minded Ghanaians, decided that a divisive regime like that, simply did not deserve to be returned to power again, in a multi-ethnic African society: in a unitary republic such as ours.

Truly patriotic politicians must understand clearly that tribal-supremacists ought to be confronted wherever in our homeland Ghana, they seek to impose their will on others.

No politician who wants to rule Ghana must support such Chiefs under any circumstances. Let them always remember that inherited privilege is the greatest enemy of meritocracy. If they want our country to progress they must keep all traditional rulers at arms length – for the seeds for the destruction of our nation lies in the treasonable and foolish ambitions of the megalomaniacs amongst them.

They must not think for one moment, that the drawing into the Kobby Acheampong cocoa asie krakyie palaver, of certain traditional rulers, by the elitists amongst the Akan tribal-supremacists in the Ashanti Region, is accidental.

No part of the landmass of the territory of the Leviathan known as the Republic of Ghana, must be allowed to become a "no-go" area, from which those Ghanaian citizens exercising their right to freedom of expression, are banned – simply because a section of Ghanaian society there does not like what such plain-speaking individuals say openly.

This is a multi-party democracy in 21st century Africa: not the personal fiefdom of some absolute monarch in the dark days of the Middle Ages. Our politicians must wake up – and confront all Ghana’s tribal-supremacists nationwide: no matter their positions in society.

ARE THE DAYS OF IMPUNITY FOR CORRUPT INDIVIDUALS IN GHANA FINALLY OVER?

I had a long phone conversation last night, with a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who thought my previous article entitled: “Mrs. Rawlings: Please Let Bygones Be Bygones!” made interesting reading. Most of our conversation dwelt on the longstanding complaints made by the NDC’s hawks against the Mills regime: That it is far too slow and has not been vigorous enough in prosecuting and jailing the crooks in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) – who they think are getting away with their many crimes against our homeland Ghana. The question is: Why do intelligent politicians, who ought to know better, think that a democratic regime, can act like a military dictatorship, in the Ghana of today, and get away with it?

By definition, is a democracy (a system of government built on the concept of checks and balances, and underpinned by due process), not an extremely slow creature that does not have even a scintilla of speedy-action, built into any of its genes? How then can any regime, operating under a system in which the law courts can negate every executive action, which does not follow due process, be expected to make any meaningful changes in the lives of ordinary people, and take the necessary steps needed to jail the crooks of yesteryear, overnight, I ask, dear reader? Is the bargain we make in choosing democracy, not that in exchange for continuing to enjoy the fundamental human rights guaranteed by various international conventions, as well as all the other freedoms we enjoy under our constitution, we will accept that the pace at which fundamental change occurs in society, will, of necessity, be painfully slow at times?

Surely, that is not such a bad bargain, is it, dear reader – especially if it will prevent dictatorship in our country and ensure that we are not eventually enslaved by any of our rulers? President Mills has been a model democrat. Those who criticize him for not jailing all the rogues into whose dishonest hands Nkrumah’s Ghana fell during the Kufuor-era, must pause for a while and ponder the dramatic events that could soon unfold in our country: For their information, the successor to the spineless and now-defunct Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the new Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), will soon start deploying its extensive powers, to enable it deal with the sundry white-collar criminals in our midst. As we are all aware, many of those loud-mouthed crooks, before the passage of those new laws, had hitherto remained virtually untouchable, largely because of their ill-gotten wealth.

Well, now that President Mills’ regime has finally put into place all the necessary laws, which will enable it deal effectively with the crooks of the Kufuor-era (and the present-day ones lurking in the shadows in the present administration too!), perhaps we shall frequently hear many of the NDC‘s hawks repeating a sentiment expressed by a witty young lady-supporter of the NDC, who, during a current affairs discussion programme on Radio Gold’s Asem Edikai programme, said: “Yen jaili womu a, womu edi womu pen, ewia Ghana sika, nu, enyinaa!” (To wit: “We must jail all those who used their pens to steal Ghana’s wealth!”). With such tough new laws finally on our statute books, perhaps we can now ensure that Ghana’s oil wealth never falls into the hands of unprincipled politicians, who are wont to offer our nation’s resources, such as timber concessions in our forests, and blocks in our oil fields, to favourite members of their family clans; their cronies; and to influential fellow party members, deemed to be high-profile trouble-makers – in order to placate them and stop them from embarrassing their parties during their tenure.

The NDC’s restless hawks must be a little bit more patient now – as they will soon see many of the super-wealthy crooks of the Kufuor-era being prosecuted and jailed for their many crimes against the people of this country. President Mills was right all along in insisting that due process must be followed in dealing with past corruption (as well as present-day corruption!). It will now be virtually impossible for those biased and pro-NPP individuals, in the equipoise institution in our democratic system, the judiciary, to continue frustrating the “Better Ghana” agenda. The NDC‘s hardliners will do well to devote their considerable energies to fishing for leads to give to the EOCO – to enable it build water-tight cases against present-day crooks and the wealthy rogues from the past. The NDC’s hawks must end those counter-productive and outrageous public insults – designed solely to weaken and eventually destroy a hardworking regime led by the most honest and principled leader to rule our nation thus far, since the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966: for, the days of impunity for corrupt individuals in Ghana, are finally over. A word to the wise…

Tel (powered by Tigo – the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.

MRS. RAWLINGS: PLEASE LET BYGONES BE BYGONES!

The trouble about Ghanaian politics is that those who are supposed to give advice to the members of our political class, only tell them what they think they want to hear – otherwise why does someone as intelligent as Mr. Kofi Adams not tell Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings that it is vital that they support President Mills? How can any intelligent Ghanaian expect an intellectual of his calibre, elected into office as president, to be anyone’s puppet – when ultimately it is he who will be judged by history one day, for all that goes on during his tenure? With respect, as decent human beings, we must fair to even our enemies: Does President Mills not deserve the respect of all Ghanaians, for his integrity, if for nothing at all?
In the same vein, why do those who advice President Mills also not ensure that Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings are included in bringing about the better Ghana their National Democratic Congress (NDC) party promised Ghanaians? Do they not realize that it is counter-productive to marginalize a couple who were so important in the military regime that ruled Ghana for so many years after December 1981 - and for all the eight years the first NDC administration of President Rawlings was in power for: and have thus accumulated considerable political experience the Mills regime could benefit from? Surely, no savvy political operator, ever cuts his or her nose, merely to spite their face?

Whiles Mrs. Rawlings may be a world-class female African politician, the truth is that she will never win any open and fair election for president in the Ghana of today. Surely, even she must recognize that painful fact of life? On the other hand, there is no doubt that she will make a pretty good minister for employment and social welfare – so why does President Mills not give her that appointment: so that she can contribute positively to the NDC’s period in office? Why does he also not merge the ministry of information and that of communications – and put that other marginalized world-class NDC politician Dr. Spio- Garbrah in charge of that new ministry: and end the opposition New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) ability to set the political agenda in Ghana, to our nation’s detriment, with such ease?

Both factions of the NDC must understand that they need each other to win the 2012 elections – and that whiles they can count on the continued support of the “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types who support political parties blindly (and whose foolish and egregious partisanship is slowly destroying our democracy!), they must never take the support of the independent-minded and patriotic individuals, whose swing-votes won their party the presidency during the run-off of the December 2008 presidential elections, for granted. Those discerning individuals chose to vote for H.E. Professor Mills because they believed that he would be an honest and fair-minded president.

With respect, and speaking humbly as an independent-minded Ghanaian, who loves his country passionately, whiles I admire Mrs. Rawlings enormously, given what I know about some of her business dealings in the past, I will not vote for her to become president of an oil-rich Ghana, anymore than I would for a President Kufuor-type of politician to rule Nkrumah’s Ghana again. I hope that Mrs. Rawlings and her husband will have the humility and the humanity to finally let bygones be bygones – and elect to start working with President Mills to help create a better Ghana for all of our people.

I also hope that President Mills will have the wisdom to invite both Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings to dinner, with him and his wife, from time to time. It will be good for all concerned – and for Mother Ghana above all. Mrs. Rawlings is a very intelligent woman. One hopes that she did learn some important lessons from her narrow escape from death when her home caught fire not too long ago: the incredible fragility of human existence, and the importance of compassion, in one's relatively short life on this earth. She must be large-hearted enough to let bygones be bygones – and do all she can to help President Mills bring about the better Ghana their party promised all Ghanaians. A word to the wise…


Tel (powered by Tigo – the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.

TO AVAAZ.COM MEMBERS!

Hello Avaaz Members,

Please help us protect one of only two upland evergreen rain forests in Ghana - the biodiversity-rich and unique Atewa Range Forest Reserve (and the off-reserve forestland in private hands that has been included in the concession given to Kibi Goldfields, which is owned by a Ghanaian ambassador, Mr. Saka, and his partners: which includes the Akim Abuakwa Traditional Council).

In addition to the threat posed to that vital rain forest, by the surface gold miners, incredibly, as we speak, a timber company, Birim Timber Complex, said to be from Akim Oda, in Ghana’s Eastern Region, is also busy cutting down trees at Akim Abuakwa Juaso – in the equally biodiversity-rich lower reaches of the foothills of the Atewa Range.

How can such environmentally-irresponsible corporate behavior be tolerated at time of global warming – and in a part of the world it is having the most negative impact on, I ask? The question is: Who, in officialdom, gave them permission to do so?

Below is a link to a rapid assessment survey carried out in the area (designated a Globally Significant Biodiversity Area) by Conservation International: https://www.conservation.org/.../RAP47_Atewa_Reserve_Ghana_Jun-2006.pdf

There is yet another link to an article protesting about the wanton destruction going on there, which is posted on my google web-blog: http://wwwghanapolitics.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-epas-executive-director.html (Please cut and paste each link separately unto your web-browser's URL!).

Unfortunately, the few powerful crooks amongst the many honest and decent people, in the government of President Mills, who, incidentally, is the most honest individual ever elected into office as president of Ghana thus far, since the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1966, are making it well nigh impossible for us to stop Mr. Saka's rapacious company (and its equally greedy partner-in-crime, the duplicitous Solar Mining Company Limited!) from destroying an important part of Ghana's natural heritage.

Please help us stop them, by shaming the government of Ghana into halting this crime against humanity: Please flood the Ghana Embassy in your country with appeals to President Mills to act quickly to stop this intolerable disregard for our nation’s laws by the wealthy rogues behind it. Thanks very much.

Best wishes,

Kofi.

Tel(powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0)27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0)30 2976238.

President Mills: Please Scrap The So-Called "Brand Ghana Office" Now!

Dear reader, today, I am writing in response to a feature article entitled: "Understanding Nation Branding" that was authored by Mathias Akotia, who is the CEO of the so-called "Brand Ghana Office," and which appeared in the general news web-page of Sunday, 10 October 2010 at www.ghanaweb.com.

I hope that it will catch the eye of one of the powerful and honest individuals who surround President Mills - and get his regime to scrap that financial equivalent of a black-hole known as the "Brand Ghana Office." I shall begin my piece by quoting the conclusion to Mathias Akotia's self-serving article:

“...Conclusion Brand Ghana Office will work to ensure that the people of Ghana have a good, clear, believable and positive idea of what their country really is, what it stands for and where it is going, and manage to coordinate actions, investments, policies and communications of all major channels of national expressions so that they demonstrate and reinforce what the nation stands for.

If we manage to do this effectively then we all will stand a better possibility of building and managing a competitive national identity, to the lasting benefit of exporters, importers, government, tourism, international relations and ordinary people of the nation.” End of quote.

God give us patience! What the geniuses at the so-called “Brand Ghana Office” fail to understand, is that it is creative leadership, as well as the adoption and implementation of world-class sustainable-development strategies, which will make our homeland Ghana a prosperous and dynamic place that commands the respect of the rest of the world.

If they want our nation to become the toast of the world, it is hard work, discipline, honesty, and creative thinking on the part of all Ghanaians, most particularly by those we elect to run our nation’s affairs, which will do the trick – not the mission-impossible that the daft smoke-and-mirrors idea of using slick marketing campaigns to "brand Ghana"(dreamt up by individuals with provincial mind-sets ensconced in the “Brand Ghana Office” at the Osu Castle - to benefit their cronies in the advertising and PR worlds: both locally and internationally!), represents.

Ghana will neither become a destination of choice for the outbound tourism markets of the U.S., Canada, the E.U., the U.K., China, Japan, and elsewhere, nor for discerning international investors, as long as we continue to be a nation served by mostly-corrupt public officials, which is slowly being engulfed by filth; and in which traffic lights seldom work; urban roads are riddled with potholes; and is a place where many people living on our coastline answer nature’s call on golden and white-sanded beaches!

Nations with good international images have earned the respect of the rest of the world, because they are corruption-free, well-functioning, and prosperous entities, whose citizens enjoy a high standard of living: and exist in free, secure, clean, dynamic, efficient, and modern societies, which are underpinned by cutting-edge technologies: amongst other things.

Rather than utilizing our taxes to pay those geniuses at the so-called “Brand Ghana Office,” hapless Ghanaian taxpayers’ money should instead be devoted to the provision, by the Ghanaian nation-state, of a good public educational system for the talented offspring of all Ghanaian families;- a health-care system that is truly world class and accessible to all; good infrastructure, including well-built and designed affordable public-sector housing: to ensure that no Ghanaian citizen, who does not want to, ever has to sleep in front of a city-centre shop again; protecting the natural heritage of our nation to underpin the eco-tourism industry (and ensure the well-being of all resident in Ghana!), at a time of global climate change.

Above all, our leaders must step out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking: for example, instead of allowing fat-cat wealthy rogues in the timber industry to continue destroying Ghana's forests for personal gain, they must regard our forests as a new sustainable economic pillar to enable us leverage the new carbon economy, and, like Indonesia (which received some US$ 2 billions from Denmark recently: not to cut down its forests!), benefit financially from maintaining our forests.

They must also ignore the nation-wrecking advice of sundry foreign carpetbaggers, including those agents of unbridled market-capitalism, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - such as increasing taxes in Ghana.

Instead of following such initiative-killing advice, they must rather do the opposite, and act quickly to ensure that we have low interests rates and a liberal tax-regime for businesses in our country – which makes Ghana the nation with the lowest tax-rates for businesses in the whole of Africa, and, best of all, be bold and abolish personal income tax immediately: so that hardworking individuals in our homeland Ghana will benefit from their hard work, instead of slaving to provide non-performing public officials with perks and other creature-comforts at taxpayers' expense.

It is that kind of creative-thinking by our leaders that will end up making Ghana a prosperous country whose citizens are immensely proud of their homeland, and also earn it the genuine respect of the whole world – and give it a positive image that draws tourists and investors by the millions!

Those given cushy sinecures in the "Brand Ghana Office" must get it into their clever minds that the transformation of our nation into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia will be accomplished only by extreme hard work in the real world.

That important task will most certainly not be accomplished, as a result of the adoption, by a nebulous coordinating body, employing Latter-Day-Baby-Goebbels, who will apparently use, amongst other things, "post-modern" (whatever that means!) marketing campaigns, designed to obviously create a false impression of our country in the minds of gullible foreigners.

Ghanaians will definitely be proud of their country only when they have a good quality of life that ensures that they can all lead comfortable lives - because their country has a system that is equitable and works efficiently for the benefit of all: not just for the well-being of the families and cronies of a powerful and politically well-connected few (“…with greedy ambitions”: to quote the great and selfless Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah!).

"Branding Ghana" is not a life-and-death priority item on the list of must-haves for the well-being of our homeland Ghana and its hard-pressed citizens. Consequently, instead of continuing to humour those too-clever-by-half individuals who work there, the honest and hardworking President Mills, must scrap the so-called “Brand Ghana Office” quickly – and politely ask all the geniuses who work there to take their bright ideas to the private sector: and work hard to solicit funds from corporate Ghana to help them brand Ghana as a private-sector initiative, and nation-building contribution from corporate Ghana, to help ensure our nation’s economic well-being.

Those independent-minded and patriotic Ghanaians, whose crucial swing-votes made such a difference, in run-off of the December 2008 presidential elections, will never tolerate Ghana’s oil and natural gas revenues, being dissipated for such dubious ends – just so that the few crooks in the presidency, who still do not seem to understand that the Kokofu-gravy-train days, which characterized much of the era, of the most dishonest individual ever elected to rule Ghana, ex-President J. A. Kufuor, are long gone.

Ghana now has a man who is the most honest and principled individual to rule Ghana since the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966, as its president – and discerning Ghanaians have no intention of allowing the few crooks in his party to derail his “Better Ghana” agenda. President Mills must quickly move to close down the “Brand Ghana Office” now. Period.

LIQUIDATE GHANA INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES NOW – AS A PRELUDE TO SETTING UP A NEW NATIONAL CARRIER!

Why, dear reader, do so many of our politicians suddenly become hard-of-hearing, when they are offered good free advice - especially by those who seek nothing in return for such advice? Take the case of that international airline industry equivalent of a Dodo, the so-called Ghana International Airlines (GIA), for example: Why does the present regime not simply liquidate it - and invite Easyjet to partner Ghana in setting up a new national carrier that will dominate Africa’s present mostly-unsafe skies, and make them safe for all Africans across the continent? Would the outcome of such a bold move not be regarded as one of the best legacies of the administration of the hardworking and honest President Mills? On the home front, would such a new national carrier, using the low-cost-carrier business model, not quickly come to dominate routes in and out of Ghana along the West African coastline, and to the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and elsewhere, I ask?

Easyjet is a well-run and profitable carrier with a much-respected founder (Stelios Haji-loannou) who believes in corporate good governance principles, and is also a socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneur. Years ago, some of us pleaded with Kufuor & Co., to invite Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airlines to partner Ghana Airways in a joint-venture. However, self-interest and greed, made them turn a deaf ear to our pleas. Branson, of course, is famous for not ever giving bribes to obtain business, anywhere on the planet Earth - so one can draw one's own conclusions. Anyway, that massive drain on state resources (some transferred by stealth, and with legal cover, into private pockets!),GIA, is the unfortunate result of their self-serving idiocy.

The question is: Will those powerful individuals surrounding President Mills listen to us this time round – and move to invite leading low-cost carrier, Easyjet, to partner Ghana to set up a new Ghana Airways-Easyjet: and work together with its founder to get the African Union ( AU) to follow Europe’s example, and declare Africa’s skies a single free open-sky, accessible to all African airlines (and outside ones too!) to compete in for freight and passengers? Surely, dear reader, that must be the best way of making Africa’s present mostly-unsafe skies, safe for us all to fly around the continent: for both business and pleasure?

The end result of the refusal of the greedy tribal-supremacist chaps who dominated the Kufuor regime, to listen to us, whiles we were banging on about Ghana seeking project-funding from China, rather than fishing in the piranha-infested waters of the capital markets of the West (and in hairdressing saloons in the seedy backstreets of London!), is that today, our nation is forking out zillions of cedis in hard currency every six months, meeting coupon obligations owed to clever and farsighted foreigners, as well as the offshore entities that hide the wealth of the powerful crooks in the previous regime. If the powerful individuals who now dominate the present regime had listened to us when they first came to power, their regime would not have lost two precious years, would it? Why do Ghana's politicians hardly ever listen to those who offer them good free advice: proffered for purely patriotic and altruistic reasons, I ask, dear reader? Hmmm Ghana eyeasem oo!

Tel (powered by Tigo – the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.

THE BUSINESS OF DYING – AND THE UNPLEASANT POLITICS INVOLVED IN BEING BURIED IN CHRISTIAN GHANA!

In a nation full of Church-going hypocrites, I can think of no fate worse than being finally laid to rest, by those who whiles one was alive, were secretly ill-disposed towards one – and are forced to don mourning clothes, and put up with the nuisance of trudging around the offices of various state institutions, in order to secure the necessary documentation needed to enable them bury one: because of their ties of consanguinity with one. It is the ultimate humiliation and the final indignity suffered by those who are deemed as "failures" by their family clans – because during their lifetime, they committed the unpardonable crime of not accumulating vast fortunes: which would have made them the financial backbone of their extended family.

Since many Ghanaians do not consider the difficult cerebral undertaking, which any really meaningful writing entails, as a worthwhile use of one’s energies and time, it is consequently not a really well-respected occupation, and full-time writers seldom accumulate any wealth: as precious few Ghanaians read in what a writer friend describes as “this land jam-packed with philistines.” As my writing has failed to bring me riches, I decided, years ago, that to avoid the fate reserved for family “failures,” I would donate my body to the Pathology Department of the University of Ghana Medical School – and avoid the humiliation of being mourned by those who would never have lifted a finger to help one, if one had ever been so foolish, as to approach them for some form of assistance, to enable one survive some crisis whiles one was alive. I see no reason why I should give any such individuals the opportunity to show me the ultimate disrespect at the end of my life on this earth.

The question is: Why do so many Ghanaian families treat family members deemed to be” failures” so shabbily, during their lifetime? Surely, we cannot all be successful and wealthy individuals – and is good character not also something to be cherished in a blood-relative, even if that person fails to accumulate any wealth during his or her lifetime? Is it any wonder, then, dear reader, that so many people who lack the strength of character needed to inure one to the ridicule of shallow minds (who despise others simply because they are not “successful people“), end up becoming corrupt individuals, whose lives are underpinned by a “the-end-justifies-the-means” ethos: that ghastly nation-wrecking building-block of corruption, which is responsible for the rampant siphoning-off of state funds, which goes on across our homeland Ghana, on a daily basis? Perhaps one ought to end this piece with a prayer for the souls of all those who, as we speak, are being shown unwarranted disrespect in their death, whiles awaiting their burial – by callous family members who regard them as abject failures they are glad to be finally rid of, for good. One hopes that their souls will enjoy peaceful rest in their final resting places. Hmmm Ghana - eyeasem oo!

PS To those who consider me a "failure" in the family, this is proof-positive that I am indeed a failure: These are pictures of what, in their prosperous eyes, is probably just the shack, which poor old Kofi Thompson is forced to live in: because of extreme poverty, Ghanaian-style!: