A quick note to Father Joop Visser - on the compassion of the deeply religious regardless of faith

Sage, wu y3 bue, ankasa ooooo. Wow. Kudos to you, Father Joop Visser, for yet another philosophical masterclass.

You have shown, clearly, in simple language, how a common denominator, which underpins the worldview, and mental outlook, of the genuinely religious -  regardless of their faith - is that compassion fuels their passion for common-good causes, in fighting for equity in society, worldwide. No?

Whatever be the case, this is just the one pesewa widow's mite cognitive-contribution, of an uneducated old fool, living near a fascinating small village, somewhere in the Central Region, oooo, Sage.

Incidentally, one happens to live in a housing estate, which is next door to what is a unique melting-pot community, full of energy, in which the fate of the many needy Ghanaians (and nationals from sister nations across West Africa, in Ghana seeking greener-pasture-opportunities), who took refuge there, because of the availability of accommodation at rock-bottom rental rates, from a location, where Accra is not too far by tro-tro, now hangs in the balance - as today's litigating descendants of pre-colonial traditional elite-privilege, oblivious of the fact that they will be killing a metaphorical goose that lays golden eggs, dream of coming riches: when they can legally begin selling land that once upon a time, was a UN-designated refugee settlement area, Camp Liberia, to super-wealthy estate developers. Such is life.

How can we bring lasting prosperity, to all parts of rural Ghana - and boost our immune systems too?

How can we bring lasting prosperity, to all parts of rural Ghana - and boost our immune systems, on top, too, dear critical-reader?

One would have thought that with available global Covid pandemic science and data, showing  us clearly, the  importance of strong immune systems, as a factor in the ability to survive and recover from  viral infections,  the  conversion of all food production in Ghana within the shortest possible timeframe, to certified organic  farming agribusiness models, would have been considered a national  public health policy priority - and all the needed steps taken to execute such a  national food security and common-good wellness  green economy strategic plan, to boost the immune systems of all those who reside in Ghana. Hmman, ey3asem oooo, Ghanafuor.

Could we not bring lasting prosperity, to all parts of rural Ghana, dear critical-reader, if such a policy were to be implemented?

To do so, we must first end the power and impunity enjoyed by the purveyors of the  agrochemicals (whose oft-ecocidal and health-damaging products, are poisoning our nation's soils, groundwater,  river systems, and impacting biodiversity in food producing areas nationwide,  and drastically reducing the invaluable ecosystem services they render Ghanaian society), who prosper so mightily, in the process, even though they are weakening the immune systems, of tens of millions of  consumers, too, and imposing avoidable costs on our over-burdened public health sector, on top, too.

In light of that, the question a wise and aspirational African people ought to ponder over is: How can we end the baleful influence of the purveyors of agrochemicals - and break the vice-like grip they have on those who dominate and control our corruption-riddled byzantine system?   

The remedy to that unfortunate situation, is simply to ban the importation and local production of agrochemicals, and implement a new national policy, designed to convert all food production in Ghana, to a new 100 percent organic farming agribusiness model. Nothing short of that will do -  if we are to become and remain a healthy people with strong immune systems, to enable us survive coming furure viral infection pandemics.

What is tragic about this unfortunate situation, is that the African Development Bank Group  (AfDB), could sctually be persuaded to fund the building of giant factories to produce  Apostle Kojo Sarfo Kantanka's amazing and innovative growth mediums,  foliar fertilizers and bio-pesticides, as key imputs for local organic food production, and for exporting surpluses to the  African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA).

Organic agricultural produce, command premium prices in markets worldwide. We can boost our export sector's contribution to Ghana's GDP, improve our balance of payments metrics, and strengthen our worthless currency,  if the whole of our agricultural sector is converted to 100 percent organic  production.

And if the unique organic profit-sharing climate resilient smart farming agribusiness model, of our country's  beautiful and bountiful Western Region's B-BOVID Farms (founded by  Issa Ouedraogo, and its production underpinned by agroforestry principles to empower its value-chain's smallholder farmer-stakeholder communities, to enable them bootstrap their own way to financial independence),  is replicated across our nation, food production in Ghana can be transformed into a profitable 100 percent organic farming agribusiness model.

 
We could definitely bring lasting prosperity, to all parts of rural Ghana, as sure as day follows night, dear critical-reader, if such an innovative  policy were to be implemented nationwide, could  we not?

How can we make galamsay a criminal activity tantamount to signing one's own death warrant?

How can we make galamsay a criminal activity tantamount to signing one's own death warrant? Egregious iIllegal activities in Ghana's mining sector, occur, because of failure on the part of Ghanaian officialdom, to end impunity, accompanying mining sector illegality.
 
That illegal gold mining (galamsay) has enriched a powerful and well-connected few, in our homeland Ghana, at the expense of ordinary Ghanaians, and at great cost to society, is beyond doubt.

There is no question, too, that the resultant destruction of vast acreages of land in Ghana's priceless forest reserves, by gold miners (ecocidal-criminality that runs through the gamut of both legally registered and illegal mining entities), would never have reached current levels, had regulatory-failure not occurred.

Regulatory failure, results from the unparalleled greed, and lack of moral compasses,  that  have made corrupting key officials of  all the  regulatory  bodies that issue permits and licenses to mining sector entities, a  path to personal enrichment for public officials employed to ensure compliance by sector players  of all the rules, regulations and laws governing operational activities in the mining sector.

In light of  that, the Special Prosecutor's galamsay corruption investigations will yield unprecedented dividends, if he demands that all the key officials in the mining sector regulatory bodies  who sanction permits and licenses for gold prospecting and mining for both small and large scale entities,  should declare their assets, and those of their spouses, to the Office of the Special Prosecutor, within a week.

They are the betrayors-supreme, whose greed and lack of moral compasses,  power the ecocide gradually destroying our biodiversity  hotspots, the invaluable  ecosystem services of which, our longterm survival, and quality of life, depend on, oooo, Ghanafuor. Yoooooooo...

That said, clearly, to successfully root out mining sector illegalities, we must endeavour to remove the human factor, from the last-mile-end of the fight against galamsay, nationwide, as much as is practicable.

In that regard, we must treat the fight against galamsay as a national emergency, and put it on a war footing, and deploy killer-drones with night-vision capabilities that use AI to search, locate and destroy targets across the length and breadth of our country.

Nothing else will do if we are the effectively protect the remainder of our priceless natural capital - now even more valuable than all the minerals underneath our forest reserves combined, at a time of climate change.

To do so, we must put an end to  night-cover-galamsay operations pronto, by the usage of killer drones  -  which will quickly make venturing out at night to engage in galamsay, to be regarded by sundry criminal types, across Ghana,  as  tantamount to signing one's own death warrant. Enough, really, is enough.  Case closed.

Could credit card-sized gold bars and Adinkra symbol embossed gold coins bedrock Ghana's tourism sector?

Could credit card-sized gold bars and Adinkra symbol embossed gold coins bedrock Ghana's tourism sector? For yonks,  some of us have written countless articles, humbly suggesting that the Precious Minerals Marketing Company  (PMMC), ought to be allowed to mint credit-card-sized gold bars, gold coins embossed with Adinkra symbols, and traditional jewelry pieces.


The idea is to  turn the PMMC'S gold  trading floor, into a magnet for prosperous middle class Chinese and other Asian national demographics - and help grow our inbound tourism market, by leaps and bounds, that way.


If Thailand earned nearly US$72 billion from 31 million visitors in 2016, would gold-bedrocked tourism, not be more beneficial to our national economy - than allowing assorted  poverty-stricken foreign-chancers to come and engage in galamsay across Ghana's entire territorial landmass, with total impunity?


Even as we speak, criminals from all over the world, are busy destroying our groundwater sources, streams, rivers systems and other water bodies as they engage in illegal gold mining, with impunity - polluting our soils, sundry water resources,  with heavy metals and toxic chemicals, in the process: and committing ecocide by felling trees to produce chainsaw bushcut  lumber, to finance their operations, to add insult to injury. Haaba.


And, worst of all, they are  smuggling tonnes of gold out of our bankrupt nation, year round, without paying a pesewa in taxes on them. Why are they being allowed to get away with what is an open secret? Isn't that madness? Haaba.


As wise and aspirational Africans, the question to ponder over is: Has the time not now come for us to eliminate the galamsay business entirely in ruthless fashion - and replace it with community-based ecotourism,  bedrocked on PMMC trading floor sales of credit-card-sized gold bars, Adinkra symbol embossed gold coins and traditional-themed gold jewelry made by master-crafts-people?

Thinking the unthinkable to rescue Mother Ghana from the doldrums

We must think the unthinkable, if we want to rescue Mother Ghana from the doldrums, by stepping out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking, which limits our horizons no end.


Asked what stepping out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking, in practical terms, involves, I opined to a dear old friend that essentially, it means executing the steps needed to facilitate the transformation of Ghana into a prosperous and equitable society, underpinned by a system, which benefits all its populace's demographics.


As a wise and aspirational African people, whose national economy has tanked, and who face collective-ruination, we must think the impossible, oooo, Ghanafuor - if we are to pull ourselves out of the slippery-walled hole, we have ended up in: thanks to the unparalleled greed driving the state-capture rent-seeking crowd (whose greed is unparalleled in our post-independence history), who now dominate our byzantine system. 


What does thinking the unthinkable entail, dear critical-reader? It entails envisioning an African nation-state determined to profit handsomely from the myriad opportunities available to it, by the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) market, fork9 example.


What is the significance of the AfCFTA? To quote the World Bank:"The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement will create the largest free trade area in the world measured by the number of countries participating. The pact connects 1.3 billion people across 55 countries with a 11combined gross domestic product (GDP) valued at US$3.4 TRILLIONS1. It has the potential to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty, but achieving its full potential will depend on putting in place significant policy reforms and trade facilitation measures."


Thinking the unthinkable to enable us benefit fully from the AfCFTA, means ditching conventional economic thinking and adopting creative sure-fire policies to grow our national economy rapidly.


Why, for example, do we not make Ghana a paradise for both entrepreneurs and workers, by encouraging them to collaborate to ensure the success of all commercial undertakings in Ghana? Will that not make our private sector companies super-competitive? Will that not turn our manufacturing sector into an AfCFTA manufacturing  hub for many products?


To achieve that desirable end, we should have the courage to ban investors who use shell companies, registered in tax havens, such as Mauritius and Luxembourg - which, when targeting Global South markets, are invariably established for the sole purpose of ripping off emerging nations, if truth be told. Nothing good can flow from such investments, as far as mobilising funds for the development of nations in Africa is concerned.


Thinking the unthinkable, also entails, for example, removing the burden of funding the expansion and modernisation of critical infrastructure required to grow our national economy, from the state completely - and in so doing, create opportunities for the private-sector (in partnerships between local and foreign investors), examples being private companies self-financing the building of high-speed railway networks, and tolled six-lane dualised concrete motorways, from Accra, to all the regional capitals, which they will own, operate and maintain for 35 years, before transferring them to the state: transferring their profits overseas 100 percent during that period.


Pension funds and insurance companies in Ghana can provide longterm low interest capital for such projects. 


Thinking the unthinkable, also entails designing initiatives that make regular assured tax-revenues available to governments-of-day.


Building new green climate resilient housing for slum-dwellers in new purpose built green communities, for example, will make it possible to raze down slums across Ghana, and facilitate the building of new world-class high-end mixed commercial and residential developments, in areas where hitherto  slums existed, nationwide.


The aforementioned policy, will be made possible, by the provision of 100-year generational levelling-up funds, for individuals and families, that apply for them, to underpin the building of new green family homes for slum dwellers, in new planned green climate-resilient communities across the landmass of the Republic of Ghana - with repayments from such loans providing revenues for pension funds and insurance companies that provide them, as well as taxes for governments-of-the-day.


Finally, to transform rural Ghana into an area of prosperity, we must encourage the brightest and best entrepreneurs in our country to invest in the agricultural sector, and ensure food security, by thinking the unthinkable - making the whole of our national economy's agricultural sector, not just the cocoa industry, tax free.


That can be done by replicating the brilliant Western Regional organic agripreneur, Issa Ouedraogo's unique profit-sharing climate smart organic farming model, which uses agroforestry principles, to empower its value-chain's oil palm smallholder farmer-stakeholders to bootstrap their way out of poverty to financial independence, for all our key crops, nationwide. These are just a few examples of thinking the unthinkable, if we want to rescue Mother Ghana from the doldrums.

A quick note to Kofi Boakye-Yiadom - on why the war in Ukraine concerns Africans too

Favourite nephew, on the thorny issue of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the question to ponder over is: Why fight wars in the first place - when every general, who genuinely cares about the well-being and welfare of the troops under his or her command, whom you talk to earnestly, will tell you candidly, that resolving differences between nations, is achieved most effectively, in the longterm, not militarily, but through diplomacy?

In any case, if the privileged politicians who declare wars (that ordinary folk invariably end up having to fight in, and risk being maimed and losing their lives doing so), were forced to lead battlefield troops, personally, from the frontlines, themselves, wouldn't wars virtually cease, somehow, worldwide, I ask? Haaba.

Unfortunately, many Africans think that the war in Ukraine doesn't affect them - but it does. Ukraine exported about 6.26mn tonnes of wheat to Africa in 2021-22, accounting for nearly 12 percent of total African wheat imports. Bread is important for most families across the continent, is it not? Haaba.

Furtheremore, the super-ruthless Russian mercenary group, Wagner, has a presence in Africa - where it is hoovering up minerals and other valuable natural resources, in exchange for providing more or less outdated Russian military hardware, and ineffectual training to enrich its founder, the billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin.

So every African, who thinks clearly, ought to be concerned about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and its deliberate targeting of civilians and critical infrastructure. That the Wagner Group could attempt to do same here, too, one day, cannot be ruled out.

Favourite nephew, Putin has forced a great European power, the Russian Federation, which ought to be a force for good, globally, to morphe into a bad-actor on the global stage - which is why Africans, a mostly compassionate people, must condemn Russia's totally unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine. Full stop. Case closed.

Is an iteration of the events of June 4th 1979 a certainly in today's Ghana?

Has the arrogance, unparalleled greed and insensitivity of those who now dominate our system, made an iteration of the events of June 4th 1979, a certainty, in our homeland Ghana, today, anaaaa, Ghanafuor? Hmmm, 3y3nsem piiiii, oooo, Ghanafuor. Yoooooooo...

In that light, perhaps the key lesson that future governments-of-the-day, in Ghana, ought to learn (from the inability of members of the current government to properly guage the real mood of ordinary people across the country), is to ensure that world-class professionalism, bedrocks our security agencies, at all material times, oooo, Ghanafuor. Yooooooo...

If those who dominate any nation's system in Africa, jam-pack its secret services with party foot soldiers, as a jobs for the boys move  -  to placate those who miss out on the sharing of state-capture benefits, which flow from Machiavellian pork-barrel-politricks - the possibility of the leadership losing touch with the concerns of common people, because they inhabit a luxurious bubble-of-comfort, becomes a certainty: making the possibility of enforced regime-change, a question of when, not if, ooooo, Ghanafuor. Yooooooo...

The question a wise and aspirational African people ought to ponder over is:  What serious country, anywhere in our biosphere, will tolerate the continued stay in office, of a finance minister who more or less  destroyed the national economy, by piling up a gargantuan metaphorical debt-mountain, dear critical-reader?

Ken Ofori-Atta's continued stay in office, as Ghana's finance minister, illustrates perfectly, the total lack of respect for ordinary people, which characterises the current regime. The arrogance, unparalleled greed and insensitivity of those who now dominate our system, has made an iteration of the events of June 4th 1979, a certainty, ooooo, Ghanafuor. Yoooooooo...