Opanin,
The article copied below was brought to my attention a few minutes ago. It is apparently posted on www.ghanaweb.com.
I have often wondered, when I have come across his ghastly writing online, how anyone penning fare, which one would normally only associate with semi-literates-with-giant-egos, can be an - to quote the poor man himself - "Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City."
No wonder so many Americans of the kind that attend - again to quote the poor man - "Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City",
can barely write English.
Take my advice, Opanin. If you have any friends in New York, let them bring this semi-literate "Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City" to the attention of New York's young right-wing Republican activists promptly.
I promise you that they will be so scandalised that a third-rate individual, who, as evidenced by the dreadful, insulting and badly-written piece below, in reply to something you had apparently written about his blood-relative, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, clearly is unable to write English of a standard, which well-educated native speakers of the language, would think had been probably written by someone with the same sort of background as theirs, is actually being paid an associate professor's salary, by New York's taxpayers, to teach "English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City." Incredible.
They would ensure that he is stopped immediately from inflicting his bad English on the mostly disadvantaged students attending "Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City."
In any case, if you have not yet seen his insulting piece, here it is in all its sodding 'glory.' No wonder today America is falling behind so many nations, academically.
Hmm, eyeasem oo - and this semi-literate has the gall to insult Nkrumah?
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't allow this semi-literate buffoon into my news room, had I one, let alone allow him to teach journalism to any interns working in it. Here is his semi-literate ranting:
"How Can Akufo-Addo Even “Shockingly” Endorse Prof. Doo-Little, the Insult- Supervisor, Mr. Bature?
In its giddy desperation to hang onto power by hook and/or crook, the Mills-led National Democratic Congress government appears to have hired unconscionable mercenaries like Alhaji Iddrisu “How-Much-Did-Woyome-Give-You” Bature, the notorious pathological liar and editor-publisher of the Al-Hajj newspaper, to mislead their readers by the use of sophistry (See “Akufo-Addo's Shocking Affirmation… Mills Needs 2 Terms” Peacefmonline.com 4/2/12).
Consequently, Alhaji Bature and his ilk have resorted to the lurid business of excavating the New Patriotic Party presidential candidate's development agenda, as intermittently detailed in speeches and media reports, and tweaking it to expediently suit the morbidly vacuous reelection campaign of President John Evans Atta-Mills. In the latest of such patently oafish and downright disingenuous twists, Alhaji Bature has Nana Akufo-Addo claiming that “Four years is not enough to change Ghana's economy.” Well, Alhaji Bature ought to be told that Election 2012 is a righteous referendum on the administrative performance and managerial competence of the Mills-Mahama government, and not the selfish desire of Messrs. Mills and Mahama to remain in power.
Then also, Alhaji Bature has Nana Akufo-Addo asserting that: “We [i.e. an Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party] will transform Ghana in ten years.” First of all, nowhere is Nana Akufo-Addo noted on record as claiming, either categorically or implicitly, that the constitutionally stipulated four-year term of the presidency is not enough to remarkably transform the country's economy. Rather, what the NPP flag-bearer has emphatically stated is that given the electoral mandate, the New Patriotic Party ought to be able to significantly transform Ghana's economy to at least the level of the beginnings of an industrial revolutionary economic culture within a decade. Now, the foregoing statement is a far cry from Nana Akufo-Addo claiming that no governing party in Ghana can transform the country within the four-year presidential term clearly and unambiguously spelt out in Ghana's 1992 Fourth-Republican Constitution. What is more, an objective comparison between the first four years of President John Agyekum-Kufuor's tenure would clearly indicate Mr. Kufuor to have been far and way ahead of the game and far ahead of his immediate successor, a man with absolutely no parliamentary and prior electoral experience in democratic governance, other than his adjunct service as the nauseatingly servile lieutenant of former President Jerry John Rawlings! Which, of course, is largely why it took the now-President Atta-Mills three tries before narrowly clinching the presidency.
Well, they may not know this, but what reprobate media scam-artists and pathological liars like Alhaji Iddrisu Bature achieve by such reckless and unconscionable sophistry is insult the intelligence of Ghanaian citizens, at large, before the proverbial international community. The fact of the matter is that prior to the promulgation of Ghana's Fourth-Republican Constitution, a legitimately constituted assembly of legal mavens, scholars, distinguished and responsible Ghanaian citizens was established to comprehensively determine the practical parameters of a democratic political protocol or culture for the country. And it was, of course, that group of remarkable individuals, representing the various constituencies and legitimate civic bodies and organs, nationwide, that formulated our current Constitution. We must also promptly point out the glaring fact that Ghana's most recent Constituent Assembly was definitely not the first of its kind in the 55-plus-year-old history of the erstwhile Gold Coast.
And so, if I may pertinently ask: What is the problem now? There clearly appear to be two issues at stake here, neither of which is too far-fetched to raise any remarkable concerns. The first, of course, regards the evidently abject self-centeredness of many a Ghanaian politician and his/her media hireling and/or thug, such as Mr. Iddrisu Bature and the “Trokosi Boys.” For instance, to-date, not many of these same apologists screaming for President Mills to be afforded a second presidential term have come out to vociferously condemn the military coup-plotters who criminally and violently ousted the legitimately-elected governments of Drs. K. A. Busia and Hilla Limann. Instead, we have had these leaders, neither of whom concluded a single term in office, roundly and summarily condemned for administrative mismanagement and gross incompetence. Now, what does such myopic intellectual temperament tell the outside world about the proverbial “Ghanaian Personality”? And just exactly when are we going to cultivate that noble spirit of humility and realism in order to both vindicate and rehabilitate Drs. Busia and Limann, now that we appear to have learned and become more knowledgeable about the byzantine complexities of democratic governance?
I have deliberately excluded Mr. Kwame “MacBeth” Nkrumah and his neo-fascist Convention People's Party (CPP), obviously, because the latter demonstrated a shameless and abject disregard for human rights and judicial equity. Also between 1956, Ghana's eve of sovereign reassertion, and 1966, when he was auspiciously and righteously ousted, President Nkrumah never called for and/or organized a single general election, not even to simply rubber-stamp his mandate. Instead, what Ghanaians were inordinately subjected to were a series of predetermined referendums/referenda geared towards the entrenchment of the Show Boy's personality cult of apotheosis (“Nkrumah Never Dies!”) and the farcical conversion of a hitherto multiparty and democratic Ghana into a one-party autocracy.
Also, the problem that media mercenaries like Alhaji Bature have convincing their fellow Ghanaians of the need to afford President Mills a second term, is the glaring fact that unlike Nana Akufo-Addo, his main ideological opponent, President Mills has yet to unveil any credible development agenda for the country, beyond the characteristically superficial NDC culture of vacuous sloganeering and cynically dismissive attitude towards the more clearly defined agenda of their main political opponents, such as the hoopla created around Nana Akufo-Addo's promise to make pre-tertiary/pre-university education tuition-free for all Ghanaian citizens, were he to be elected president in December 2012.
Needless to say, on almost every significant front of national development – namely, Health and Sanitation, Agriculture, Law Enforcement, Education and Housing – the Mills-Mahama government has demonstrated itself to be Absent Without Leave (AWOL). The STX Housing and Woyome Judgment-Debt scandals also clearly show the Mills-Mahama government to be up-to-the-neck submerged in an irreparable crisis of gross administrative incompetence, naked robbery and the unremitting exploitation of the Ghanaian people.
Indeed, when it is not neck-deep about the ungodly business of derailing the Kufuor-minted National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Mills-Mahama regime has been engaged in tapping the phone-lines of its own party operatives and other Ghanaian citizens who have not been charged with any crimes, bordering on a breach of national security, without any judicial authorization or warrant, an egregious violation of human rights by a government that pontifically claims to be both “Democratic” and protective of the rights of the citizens it is supposed to be dutifully serving.
And Alhaji Bature really thinks that such a roguish government deserves another four-year term, in order for the Mills-Mahama posse to continue giving more grief to responsible, diligent and law-abiding Ghanaians? Hell, no!
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. , is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Danquah v. Nkrumah: In the Words of Mahoney.” E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net."
End of culled www.ghanaweb.com piece by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD."
What utter gibberish. Opanin, this person actually teaches English in America - and is an associate professor teaching creative writing? Wonders. Forgive the poor man - he is to be pitied.
"And he is all over the place, too" to quote a wag I know. With this semi-literate fare? Incredible. Poor Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo must wince every time he reads something written by this verbose buffoon. What an embarrassment. Massa, just ignore him. Treat it with the contempt it deserves.
Yours in the service of Ghana,
Kofi.
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
GHANA OUGHT TO TACKLE FOREST CRIME MORE INTELLIGENTLY & VIGOROUSLY NATIONWIDE
Today, dear reader, I am posting a call by the World Bank for more determined efforts, globally, to prosecute illegal loggers.
It couldn't have come at a better time for environmental activists in Ghana.
Indeed, there is an urgent need for all the political parties in Ghana, vying for power in the December 2012 elections, to tell Ghanaians, precisely how they intend to safeguard the remainder of our nation's forests.
They must show Ghanaians, in detail, precisely how they will go about preserving what is left of our nation's natural heritage - and above all, exactly how they intend to deal with the wealthy and well-connected criminal syndicates behind illegal logging in Ghana: and halt their criminal activities once and for all.
They must study the recommendations made by the World Bank - and incorporate it in their manifestos.
Incidentally, the World Bank statement is culled from today's edition of the e-newsletter of the Danish forest certification organisation, NEPCon
(Nature, Ecology and People Consult).
One hopes that it will catch the eye of Ghana's minister of lands and natural resources, and his ministerial colleague, the eastern regional minister - as well as officials of both ministries - and the top brass of the Forestry Commission of Ghana. Ditto the chief executives of all the District Assemblies in Ghana's forest belt. Please read on:
"World Bank: time to get tough on forest crime
3 April 2012
In recent years, a number of initiatives have been launched to address the problem of illegal logging, such as the EU FLEGT program addressing forest governance in tropical countries and initiatives in the US, EU and Australia to make possession or trade in illegal timber products in those markets unlawful.
Bringing forest criminals to justice
However, a recent World Bank report Justice for Forests points out that one of the most obvious means of regulating illegal logging is being largely ignored: law enforcement ensuring that those benefitting from illegal harvesting are convicted for their crimes.
Effective investigation, prosecution, imprisonment, and confiscation of illegal proceeds constitute the sort of actions needed in order to put forest criminals straight, according to the World Bank.
The report admits that current legal justice systems are generally ‘woefully ineffective’ and that there are only few examples of significant convictions involving illegal logging; however, legal frameworks such as the CITES convention and anti-money laundering regimes are in place and may be harnessesed to halt forest crime.
Serious offense
The report describes illegal harvesting as a complex of criminal offenses. Although full and accurate data about illegal logging do not exist (for obvious reasons), the report uses available estimates and figures to provide a glum picture of the scale of illegal harvesting:
“Every two seconds, across the world, an area of forest the size of a football field is clear-cut by illegal loggers. In some countries, up to 90 percent of all the logging taking place is illegal.
Estimates suggest that this criminal activity generates approximately US$10–15 billion annually worldwide —funds that are unregulated, untaxed, and often remain in the hands of organized criminal gangs”.
Follow the money
There are potentially many types of legal violation involved in illegal timber harvesting and trade, committed by different people along the timber’s route towards the final product on the marketplace.
For example, “the smuggling and transportation of logs are generally handled by parties distinct from those involved in the actual logging, and the whole process may be overseen by the heads of organized syndicates”.
The report points out that money laundering and assett confiscation regimes can be applied and help to identify, freeze, and confiscate proceeds from illegal logging, thus depriving the criminals of their expected benefits of the crime.
Applying anti-money launcering laws may result in “additional jail time or fines above those imposed for the underlying forest crime”.
By focusing on money laundering, crimes may also be uncovered more efficiently as financial institutions will be involved in detecting suspicious transactions.
Engaging legal and financial experts
The World Bank also recommends using a range of different methods, including electronic surveillance, undercover operations and witness protection, to uncover and prosecute forest crime.
The World Bank points out that there is a great need for awareness raising about illegal logging amongst the legal and financial sectors. These experts need to understand the scale of the issue and the importance of forest law enforcement.
As the report points out, “There is no substitute for honest, experienced, motivated, and creative investigators and prosecutors who have specialized knowledge of forest crime, and have available the time and resources required”.
End of culled World Bank statement from NepCon's e-newsletter.
It is a real tragedy for Ghana that our nation's forests are being decimated with such impunity, by greedy and powerful individuals, with political connections.
At any rate, one can only hope that those in charge of the Forestry Commission of Ghana, will begin to see the billions available for them to leverage, in the new carbon economy - via community carbon sequestration projects utilising forest reserves and other protected conservation areas, for example - rather than the relatively paltry sums timber companies currently pay them to gang-rape forests in Ghana (literally), as the future for forest management in Ghana.
Finally, for their information, I do know for a fact that Carbon Trading & Trust, who are due in Ghana in August 2012, and Greenheart Conservation, also due here this year, after their trip to Gabon (and before August 2012) for a scoping visit, will be happy to work with them, in that direction.
I would be happy to facilitate their coming together in a meeting, when both aforementioned teams visit Ghana - and for free too. With respect, one hopes they will be bold and creative enough, to take the initiative, and make contact with both organisations.
For the sake of present and future generations, Ghana really ought to tackle forest crime more intelligently and vigorously, nationwide. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
It couldn't have come at a better time for environmental activists in Ghana.
Indeed, there is an urgent need for all the political parties in Ghana, vying for power in the December 2012 elections, to tell Ghanaians, precisely how they intend to safeguard the remainder of our nation's forests.
They must show Ghanaians, in detail, precisely how they will go about preserving what is left of our nation's natural heritage - and above all, exactly how they intend to deal with the wealthy and well-connected criminal syndicates behind illegal logging in Ghana: and halt their criminal activities once and for all.
They must study the recommendations made by the World Bank - and incorporate it in their manifestos.
Incidentally, the World Bank statement is culled from today's edition of the e-newsletter of the Danish forest certification organisation, NEPCon
(Nature, Ecology and People Consult).
One hopes that it will catch the eye of Ghana's minister of lands and natural resources, and his ministerial colleague, the eastern regional minister - as well as officials of both ministries - and the top brass of the Forestry Commission of Ghana. Ditto the chief executives of all the District Assemblies in Ghana's forest belt. Please read on:
"World Bank: time to get tough on forest crime
3 April 2012
In recent years, a number of initiatives have been launched to address the problem of illegal logging, such as the EU FLEGT program addressing forest governance in tropical countries and initiatives in the US, EU and Australia to make possession or trade in illegal timber products in those markets unlawful.
Bringing forest criminals to justice
However, a recent World Bank report Justice for Forests points out that one of the most obvious means of regulating illegal logging is being largely ignored: law enforcement ensuring that those benefitting from illegal harvesting are convicted for their crimes.
Effective investigation, prosecution, imprisonment, and confiscation of illegal proceeds constitute the sort of actions needed in order to put forest criminals straight, according to the World Bank.
The report admits that current legal justice systems are generally ‘woefully ineffective’ and that there are only few examples of significant convictions involving illegal logging; however, legal frameworks such as the CITES convention and anti-money laundering regimes are in place and may be harnessesed to halt forest crime.
Serious offense
The report describes illegal harvesting as a complex of criminal offenses. Although full and accurate data about illegal logging do not exist (for obvious reasons), the report uses available estimates and figures to provide a glum picture of the scale of illegal harvesting:
“Every two seconds, across the world, an area of forest the size of a football field is clear-cut by illegal loggers. In some countries, up to 90 percent of all the logging taking place is illegal.
Estimates suggest that this criminal activity generates approximately US$10–15 billion annually worldwide —funds that are unregulated, untaxed, and often remain in the hands of organized criminal gangs”.
Follow the money
There are potentially many types of legal violation involved in illegal timber harvesting and trade, committed by different people along the timber’s route towards the final product on the marketplace.
For example, “the smuggling and transportation of logs are generally handled by parties distinct from those involved in the actual logging, and the whole process may be overseen by the heads of organized syndicates”.
The report points out that money laundering and assett confiscation regimes can be applied and help to identify, freeze, and confiscate proceeds from illegal logging, thus depriving the criminals of their expected benefits of the crime.
Applying anti-money launcering laws may result in “additional jail time or fines above those imposed for the underlying forest crime”.
By focusing on money laundering, crimes may also be uncovered more efficiently as financial institutions will be involved in detecting suspicious transactions.
Engaging legal and financial experts
The World Bank also recommends using a range of different methods, including electronic surveillance, undercover operations and witness protection, to uncover and prosecute forest crime.
The World Bank points out that there is a great need for awareness raising about illegal logging amongst the legal and financial sectors. These experts need to understand the scale of the issue and the importance of forest law enforcement.
As the report points out, “There is no substitute for honest, experienced, motivated, and creative investigators and prosecutors who have specialized knowledge of forest crime, and have available the time and resources required”.
End of culled World Bank statement from NepCon's e-newsletter.
It is a real tragedy for Ghana that our nation's forests are being decimated with such impunity, by greedy and powerful individuals, with political connections.
At any rate, one can only hope that those in charge of the Forestry Commission of Ghana, will begin to see the billions available for them to leverage, in the new carbon economy - via community carbon sequestration projects utilising forest reserves and other protected conservation areas, for example - rather than the relatively paltry sums timber companies currently pay them to gang-rape forests in Ghana (literally), as the future for forest management in Ghana.
Finally, for their information, I do know for a fact that Carbon Trading & Trust, who are due in Ghana in August 2012, and Greenheart Conservation, also due here this year, after their trip to Gabon (and before August 2012) for a scoping visit, will be happy to work with them, in that direction.
I would be happy to facilitate their coming together in a meeting, when both aforementioned teams visit Ghana - and for free too. With respect, one hopes they will be bold and creative enough, to take the initiative, and make contact with both organisations.
For the sake of present and future generations, Ghana really ought to tackle forest crime more intelligently and vigorously, nationwide. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Monday, 2 April 2012
THE NDC MUST DEAL WITH PRESIDENT MILLS' UNELECTABILITY NOW!
By the time Ghana went to the polls in December 2008, a majority of the independent-minded and patriotic individuals (as opposed to the "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types whose blinkered support for political parties, and intolerance, is slowly destroying Ghanaian democracy), whose crucial swing-votes now elect Ghanaian presidents, had become completely fed up with the unfathomable greed; endless abuse of office; outrageous nepotism; high-level corruption; and the divisive tribal-supremacist arrogance of Kufuor & Co., that they were determined to vote the New Patriotic Party (NPP) out of power in that election for the presidency.
They welcomed the historic opportunity for Ghana to end high-level corruption, which the election of President Mills, a gentleman many of them regarded as honest and incorruptible, represented, for them.
The dismissal of Martin Amidu, from his position as Attorney General, after he revealed to the nation that gargantuan crimes were being committed against Ghanaians by regime-insiders, shocked many in this important group of discerning Ghanaian voters, to the core.
Alas, it has eroded their confidence in the administration of the honest President Mills - whose inability to curb corruption amongst some of those in his administration (famously referred to by ex-President Rawlings, as "greedy bastards"), has made these patriotic individuals become thoroughly disenchanted with his leadership.
To many of these patriotic individuals, an honest leader unable to deal firmly with corrupt members of his administration, by dismissing and prosecuting them, is of little use to Ghana - a nation whose major stumbling block to economic development that benefits a majority of its people (as opposed to economic growth that enriches a well-connected and powerful few, with greedy ambitions - to paraphrase President Nkrumah), is high-level corruption.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) ought to wake up to the reality of their party's present predicament. They must understand that the elections will not be about the achievements of their regime - which are many and deserving of praise.
If he stands for re-election, it will be a referendum on President Mills' leadership. It is time they all understood clearly that President Mills' dismissal of Martin Amidu, and his perceived inability to deal with the "greedy bastards" in his administration, by sacking them, are insurmountable obstacles to Mills' re-election.
The plain truth, is that even if he succeeds in turning Ghana into paradise by December 2012, Ghanaians will not re-elect President Mills in that presidential poll - because they feel that he is a weak leader, who is unable to root out high-level corruption in his regime.
(Incidentally, their salvation lies in a ticket consisting of Martin Amidu for president, with Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, as his running-mate. That is the creative and thinking-outside-the-box solution, to securing the victory for a second 4-year tenure, which their party's many achievements in office thus far, make them deserve. But I digress.)
The NDC must stop burying its collective head in the sand and confront the painful truth that President Mills is unelectable now - and deal with it before it becomes too late for their party to do anything about it. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
They welcomed the historic opportunity for Ghana to end high-level corruption, which the election of President Mills, a gentleman many of them regarded as honest and incorruptible, represented, for them.
The dismissal of Martin Amidu, from his position as Attorney General, after he revealed to the nation that gargantuan crimes were being committed against Ghanaians by regime-insiders, shocked many in this important group of discerning Ghanaian voters, to the core.
Alas, it has eroded their confidence in the administration of the honest President Mills - whose inability to curb corruption amongst some of those in his administration (famously referred to by ex-President Rawlings, as "greedy bastards"), has made these patriotic individuals become thoroughly disenchanted with his leadership.
To many of these patriotic individuals, an honest leader unable to deal firmly with corrupt members of his administration, by dismissing and prosecuting them, is of little use to Ghana - a nation whose major stumbling block to economic development that benefits a majority of its people (as opposed to economic growth that enriches a well-connected and powerful few, with greedy ambitions - to paraphrase President Nkrumah), is high-level corruption.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) ought to wake up to the reality of their party's present predicament. They must understand that the elections will not be about the achievements of their regime - which are many and deserving of praise.
If he stands for re-election, it will be a referendum on President Mills' leadership. It is time they all understood clearly that President Mills' dismissal of Martin Amidu, and his perceived inability to deal with the "greedy bastards" in his administration, by sacking them, are insurmountable obstacles to Mills' re-election.
The plain truth, is that even if he succeeds in turning Ghana into paradise by December 2012, Ghanaians will not re-elect President Mills in that presidential poll - because they feel that he is a weak leader, who is unable to root out high-level corruption in his regime.
(Incidentally, their salvation lies in a ticket consisting of Martin Amidu for president, with Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, as his running-mate. That is the creative and thinking-outside-the-box solution, to securing the victory for a second 4-year tenure, which their party's many achievements in office thus far, make them deserve. But I digress.)
The NDC must stop burying its collective head in the sand and confront the painful truth that President Mills is unelectable now - and deal with it before it becomes too late for their party to do anything about it. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Sunday, 1 April 2012
SHOULD GHANA'S GNPC REPLICATE AFRICA OIL'S KENYAN REVENUE-SHARING DEAL WITH TULLOW OIL FOR OIL PRODUCTION?
Today being All Fools Day, lest people get the wrong idea, one needs to stress that one is deadly earnest in this - and posting this with a straight face. Hand on heart. This blog is sharing part of a newsletter about the incredible potential of East Africa's oil find, by Crisis and Opportunity's Christian DeHaemer.
It gives the background to the revenue-sharing deal between Tullow Oil and the Canadian company, Africa Oil - which owns about 32,000 square miles of East African oilfields.
I hope that it will be taken note of by the leadership of all Ghana's political parties - as well as the board members and management of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC).
The time has now come for the GNPC and the GNGC to be more aggressive in securing the best possible value, for what remains uncommitted, of the remainder of our nation's oil and natural gas deposits.
The main reason I am sharing part of Christian DeHaemer's investment newsletter, is to make the point, dear reader, that sadly, if the deal had occurred in Ghana, between the GNPC and Tullow Oil, it would be Tullow, instead, not the GNPC, which would have ended up with royalties of 67 percent of the production revenues.
Surely, as a people, we must end that negative "Uncle Tom" mentality, which results in our leaders ending up always giving away our birthright, so to speak, to foreigners for peanuts? Please read on:
"Exclusive: The story oil industry insiders spent millions keeping this secret from you
I Bought this Stock Based on a Single Word
This little-known management group's last 7 projects averaged 10,600% gains...
and they've just pulled off their latest — and biggest — deal yet.

Sometimes, a single word is worth more than a thousand pages of financial reports and analyst opinions.
Let me illustrate for you...
In 2002, a little-heard-of management firm took over three tiny oil and mineral exploration companies located in points around the globe where you wouldn't send your mother-in-law:
One was an oil explorer with properties in the Middle East – market cap in 2002: $4 million – shares trading at 45 cents.
Another was a petroleum company operating in Russia – market cap in 2002: $13.5 million – shares trading at 55 cents.
The third was a gold mining company operating in Western Africa – market cap in 2002: $45 million – trading at $1.35 per share.
Four years later, they sold the first company for $16 per share – market cap: $750 million – gains: 18,750%.
Two years after that, they unloaded the second one at $31.50/share – market cap: $1.9 billion – gains: 14,074%.
Two years after that, they sold the third for $30.50/share – market cap: $8.98 billion – gains: 19,955%.
In total, this management firm took on 7 of these development projects in the last 9 years – average returns on those 7 projects: 10,600%.
That's not a typo or a misplaced decimal point.
These 7 companies grew, on average, by a factor of over 100 from their initial 2002 market cap. And that's just an average.
One of these 7 lucky companies started off as a $2.1 million microcap; another was at just $4.6 million when this management group took the reins...
Today they're worth $2.4 billion and $5.4 billion respectively.
That means that every dollar you invested in 2002 would have yielded you a return of $1,142 and $1,173.
Of course, not all 7 stocks did quite as well...
The worst performer of the group rose a mere 1,608%.
Overall, this legendary management company turned $204.4 million dollars into a staggering $21.67 billion.
So when I heard that this management company had made another acquisition earlier this year — by far their biggest project yet — I knew we were in for something unprecedented.
I literally needed to know nothing else about this investment other than the fact that this legendary management firm had taken over operations.
You see, this time we weren't dealing with a microcap mineral or oil explorer...
What we're looking at what could easily become the world's next Chevron, BP — even Exxon.
The plan was massive any way you looked at it:
Over 124,000 square miles of never-before-developed property were on the table...
A piece of oil-rich land about the size of New Mexico was going to be split up among just a couple oil companies — and with it, an estimated 71.1 billion barrels of crude whose raw resource value today stands at $69 trillion.
Here's where it gets really interesting, though: Billion-dollar names like Apache and Tullow and Anadarko have also signed contracts for blocks of land within this 124,000 territory.
The oil company this management group took over, however — with a market cap of just $330 million — was the smallest of the bunch.
And here's the kicker...
Despite this company's small size, their chunk of this 124,000-square-mile development zone is anything but.
In fact, when all is said and done, this growing oil company will hold one of the biggest shares of what is probably the very last major land-based crude deposit left untapped... anywhere on the planet.
You're about to learn everything you need to know about this incredible management group which has made a name starting some of the fastest growing and most successful oil exploration firms in history.
More importantly, I'll tell you about their latest project — and the details of a move they're about to make to leverage their huge position into profits of up to 2,040% annually for the next thirty years...
A profit flow which will start as early as November of this year.
But before I get to all that, I want to give you an inside look into the secret plot this quarter-trillion-dollar cartel cooked up to divide what is almost certainly the last great land-based oil deposit on earth.
Geology Has No Borders
"East Africa is experiencing one of the highest levels of investment in the world right now — but we're only seeing the beginning."
— New York Times
Earlier this year, I bought my way into a covert meeting of some of the most powerful oil execs in the world.
It cost me about $10,000 out of pocket to get there and to make it past security, but I flew commercial.
God only knows how many millions the rest of the attendees, many of whom arrived on their private Gulf Streams and Learjets, spent on this week-long meeting.
It happened at the only four-star hotel in Nairobi, Kenya... behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the press.
And for good reason: This meeting was never supposed to be public information.
However, unbeknownst to the CEOs, COOs, and big-dollar corporate geological consultants who were in attendance, there was one financial journalist present when the doors of the conference room were shut and latched...
Yours truly.
They had intended for that number to be zero, because in the next couple years, the land development deal they were there to finalize will shift the balance of power of the global energy market.
But they didn't want anyone to know that just yet.
You see, Africa's got a reputation for being a backward, unindustrialized backwater — on a continental scale.
What many don't know, however, is that Western Africa supplies 12% of the world's global annual crude oil demand.
With four OPEC nations inside its borders (Algeria, Angola, Nigeria and Libya), Africa is second only to the Middle East in terms of membership in this nearly omnipotent cartel.
But while North and West Africa crank out almost 6 million barrels of crude per day, East Africa is hardly on the map at all.
All this is about to change forever...
Because not only have major production operations sprung up in the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the last five years, effectively moving the oil frontier east...
But major natural gas deposits were confirmed off the coasts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania just last year.
And as anybody who's studied fossil fuel geology knows, where there is natural gas, there are also crude oil deposits close by.
The most compelling evidence that East Africa is holding some of the world's richest fossil fuel resources goes back loooong before the natural gas strike and the recent expansions in West African production.
You see, scientists have known for years that much of East Africa shares the same basic geology as the region on the opposite side of the Gulf of Aden...
Land which is today occupied by Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and the biggest oil empire of them all, Saudi Arabia.
If you look at the diagram below, paying special attention to the fossil fuel deposits highlighted in red, you'll see the basic concept behind what happened here millions of years ago:
Up until 18 million years ago, East Africa and the Arab Middle East were joined.
When the rift formed, the continents drifted apart, taking the oil with them...
Discoveries in North and Western Africa began to confirm these suspicions 30 years ago, but it wasn't until last year that Tullow Oil's natural gas strike off the coast of Tanzania finally made it clear to the execs what geologists had known for decades...
East African geology isn't just similar to the geology which gave the Saudi Royal families the legendary Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila Basins.
It's the same geology.
Now, to the bigwigs at this Nairobi conference, all this news was a mixed blessing.
Representing companies that have made some of the biggest discoveries the industry's ever seen over the last thirty years, it's their job to find new oil...
And with East Africa, they're about to chalk up another victory — a major one.
However, it will also most likely be the last cheap oil any of them ever find. Because as the world's mainstay oil deposits gradually dry up, the industry has no choice but to start seeking out harder-to-reach pockets of crude.
Evidence of this comes from the vast number of off-shore oil drilling platforms that have popped up in recent years...
In fact, while the rest of U.S. production has fallen by 50% since the 1980s, offshore oil production has risen to account for 1/3 of the total national output — double what it was relative to 20 years ago.
This is especially alarming when you consider the cost of operating these offshore platforms has gone up 530% since 2001.
On top of that, at an average cost of $100 million, each of these rigs is about 1,000 times the cost of a typical conventional well... and that's before you even factor in the $1 million/day operating overhead.
But progress cannot be stopped.
And each year, more and more of these platforms are built and positioned.
Leading the charge is the United States, whose own conventional land-based deposits peaked in the 70s. The rest of the oil-producing world isn't far behind.
As the easy-to-reach resources are used up, there is simply no alternative but to go farther out to sea, drill deeper, and take more risks.
The results of this you and I know personally: rising prices at the pump... rising prices of any goods requiring transportation... rising prices to heat and cool your house.
So a massive, shallow-lying, land-based crude deposit couldn't have come soon enough.
And not just for the oil exploration firms — but for all of us who rely on cheap oil.
There is, however, another reason we should consider ourselves all lucky. And it's got nothing to do with geology — and everything to do with the nation hosting our secretive little meeting...
Investors Are Already Here
Just to give you an idea of how serious the men at the conference are about setting up shop in Kenya, here's a fact for you:
Kenya is a nation of about 225,000 square miles. Of that, the cartel which took over the Hilton Nairobi will own close to 124,000 square miles. That's more than 55% of the country's total landmass.
Doing that in the United States would require the private leasing and development of all the land west of Omaha, Nebraska.
Now remember, this cartel consists of companies as large as 48-billion-dollar Apache...
Together, the members are worth well over $150 billion. So if anybody is up for the job, they are.
But here's the really intriguing part:
The Canadian-based oil explorer I've been hinting at this whole time — with a market cap less than 2% of Apache's — has singlehandedly secured over 32,600 square miles of this territory, a full 26% of the total land acquisition — making them the single biggest shareholder in this 124,000 square mile development zone.
If you look at the highly confidential block map below, you'll actually see the parcels:
You'll also notice the figure next to the surface area, the percentage share.
Now, I know what you're going to say: So they really don't have exclusive reign over this potentially priceless real estate?
Well, here's where it gets even more interesting.
You see, with a market cap of only $330 million, this exploration company isn't big enough to thoroughly exploit a landmass the size of the state of Indiana.
So to maximize efficiency and profitability, they've partnered with another company that is big enough.
Those share values I mentioned don't represent the percentage of the parcel my new pick owns, but rather the royalties they'll be collecting from the production. And as you can see, that figure isn't small.
With rights to as much as 67% of the earnings that come out of this land, this small but brilliantly-run company will literally be sitting back and collecting checks while their partner does all the work.
So who is this mysterious big-name partner?
Well, that may actually be the best news of all...
Because the company that will developing and managing this massive property on behalf of my new recommendation is none other than $19 billion exploration giant Tullow Oil.
In the world of fossil fuel exploration, sweetheart deals like this come around maybe once in a career...
A giant, world-acclaimed outfit doing all the work so that their tiny partner can rake in unheard-of profits.
To figure out exactly what kinds of returns you can expect, the math is pretty simple:
If the USGS is anywhere near correct, and this region contains 71 billion barrels...
Then my company's holdings would contain in the neighborhood of 19 billion of those barrels.
At an average royalty rate of 50% on that resource, at today's prices, my company will stand to profit close to $923 billion of this project — almost 3,000 times their current market cap!
But let's do away with any optimism and see what kind of numbers we're dealing with if things don't turn out quite so well:
Let's say the USGS is way off on their figures based on preliminary drill test results. They overestimated the total deposit by a factor of five. Let's also assume that it will take 30 years for Tullow to produce and refine the resource...
Even with 50% royalties, those unrealistically low figures still translate into annual gains equivalent to 20.4 times my company's current total value — or profits of 2,040% each and every year for the next three decades.
Sounds incredible, right?
Well, it's not.
You see, at the heart of this deal isn't just the land or the incredible partnership with Tullow...
It's the management dream team that I've been talking about from the start.
As I already mentioned to you, they've pulled off record-breaking successes before.
Here's a list of those 7 projects, along with the returns the generated:
Out of seven companies, The Lundin Group is averaging returns in excess of 10,600% over a nine-year period!
That amounts to annual gains of 1,180% — and it doesn't even account for the shorter hold periods of the three massively-profitable buyouts that this team worked out between 2006 and 2010...
The absolute worst performer of the bunch brought a 1,600% return, while the best made investors $1,173 for every dollar invested!
Just imagine... a mere $852 investment in 2002 would be worth $1 million today!
Again, this is not a typo.
The management group behind my latest oil exploration pick has made a world-renown name out of turning small startups into multi-billion-dollar monsters. They were literally the only guys in the business who could have put a property package of this size and value under such a small and efficient corporate umbrella.
So now you know why the $10,000 investment to get into the meeting where I learned this all — before the start of production — was a bargain.
Once production begins — and this news hits the covers of the Wall Street Journal and this company's CEO starts getting interviewed by Forbes and Fortune Magazine — the information won't be worth a dime.
It's the definition of an explosive opportunity."
End of culled portion of newsletter by Crisis and Opportunity's Christian DeHaemer.
Why, dear reader, can't those who run our country and the GNPC and GNGC, pull off such revenue-sharing deals too, I ask? One hopes that going forward into the future, we will come to hear of such deals in Ghana's favour, when our leaders negotiate oil agreements with the likes of Tullow Oil. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
It gives the background to the revenue-sharing deal between Tullow Oil and the Canadian company, Africa Oil - which owns about 32,000 square miles of East African oilfields.
I hope that it will be taken note of by the leadership of all Ghana's political parties - as well as the board members and management of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC).
The time has now come for the GNPC and the GNGC to be more aggressive in securing the best possible value, for what remains uncommitted, of the remainder of our nation's oil and natural gas deposits.
The main reason I am sharing part of Christian DeHaemer's investment newsletter, is to make the point, dear reader, that sadly, if the deal had occurred in Ghana, between the GNPC and Tullow Oil, it would be Tullow, instead, not the GNPC, which would have ended up with royalties of 67 percent of the production revenues.
Surely, as a people, we must end that negative "Uncle Tom" mentality, which results in our leaders ending up always giving away our birthright, so to speak, to foreigners for peanuts? Please read on:
"Exclusive: The story oil industry insiders spent millions keeping this secret from you
I Bought this Stock Based on a Single Word
This little-known management group's last 7 projects averaged 10,600% gains...
and they've just pulled off their latest — and biggest — deal yet.

Sometimes, a single word is worth more than a thousand pages of financial reports and analyst opinions.
Let me illustrate for you...
In 2002, a little-heard-of management firm took over three tiny oil and mineral exploration companies located in points around the globe where you wouldn't send your mother-in-law:
One was an oil explorer with properties in the Middle East – market cap in 2002: $4 million – shares trading at 45 cents.
Another was a petroleum company operating in Russia – market cap in 2002: $13.5 million – shares trading at 55 cents.
The third was a gold mining company operating in Western Africa – market cap in 2002: $45 million – trading at $1.35 per share.
Four years later, they sold the first company for $16 per share – market cap: $750 million – gains: 18,750%.
Two years after that, they unloaded the second one at $31.50/share – market cap: $1.9 billion – gains: 14,074%.
Two years after that, they sold the third for $30.50/share – market cap: $8.98 billion – gains: 19,955%.
In total, this management firm took on 7 of these development projects in the last 9 years – average returns on those 7 projects: 10,600%.
That's not a typo or a misplaced decimal point.
These 7 companies grew, on average, by a factor of over 100 from their initial 2002 market cap. And that's just an average.
One of these 7 lucky companies started off as a $2.1 million microcap; another was at just $4.6 million when this management group took the reins...
Today they're worth $2.4 billion and $5.4 billion respectively.
That means that every dollar you invested in 2002 would have yielded you a return of $1,142 and $1,173.
Of course, not all 7 stocks did quite as well...
The worst performer of the group rose a mere 1,608%.
Overall, this legendary management company turned $204.4 million dollars into a staggering $21.67 billion.
So when I heard that this management company had made another acquisition earlier this year — by far their biggest project yet — I knew we were in for something unprecedented.
I literally needed to know nothing else about this investment other than the fact that this legendary management firm had taken over operations.
You see, this time we weren't dealing with a microcap mineral or oil explorer...
What we're looking at what could easily become the world's next Chevron, BP — even Exxon.
The plan was massive any way you looked at it:
Over 124,000 square miles of never-before-developed property were on the table...
A piece of oil-rich land about the size of New Mexico was going to be split up among just a couple oil companies — and with it, an estimated 71.1 billion barrels of crude whose raw resource value today stands at $69 trillion.
Here's where it gets really interesting, though: Billion-dollar names like Apache and Tullow and Anadarko have also signed contracts for blocks of land within this 124,000 territory.
The oil company this management group took over, however — with a market cap of just $330 million — was the smallest of the bunch.
And here's the kicker...
Despite this company's small size, their chunk of this 124,000-square-mile development zone is anything but.
In fact, when all is said and done, this growing oil company will hold one of the biggest shares of what is probably the very last major land-based crude deposit left untapped... anywhere on the planet.
You're about to learn everything you need to know about this incredible management group which has made a name starting some of the fastest growing and most successful oil exploration firms in history.
More importantly, I'll tell you about their latest project — and the details of a move they're about to make to leverage their huge position into profits of up to 2,040% annually for the next thirty years...
A profit flow which will start as early as November of this year.
But before I get to all that, I want to give you an inside look into the secret plot this quarter-trillion-dollar cartel cooked up to divide what is almost certainly the last great land-based oil deposit on earth.
Geology Has No Borders
"East Africa is experiencing one of the highest levels of investment in the world right now — but we're only seeing the beginning."
— New York Times
Earlier this year, I bought my way into a covert meeting of some of the most powerful oil execs in the world.
It cost me about $10,000 out of pocket to get there and to make it past security, but I flew commercial.
God only knows how many millions the rest of the attendees, many of whom arrived on their private Gulf Streams and Learjets, spent on this week-long meeting.
It happened at the only four-star hotel in Nairobi, Kenya... behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the press.
And for good reason: This meeting was never supposed to be public information.
However, unbeknownst to the CEOs, COOs, and big-dollar corporate geological consultants who were in attendance, there was one financial journalist present when the doors of the conference room were shut and latched...
Yours truly.
They had intended for that number to be zero, because in the next couple years, the land development deal they were there to finalize will shift the balance of power of the global energy market.
But they didn't want anyone to know that just yet.
You see, Africa's got a reputation for being a backward, unindustrialized backwater — on a continental scale.
What many don't know, however, is that Western Africa supplies 12% of the world's global annual crude oil demand.
With four OPEC nations inside its borders (Algeria, Angola, Nigeria and Libya), Africa is second only to the Middle East in terms of membership in this nearly omnipotent cartel.
But while North and West Africa crank out almost 6 million barrels of crude per day, East Africa is hardly on the map at all.
All this is about to change forever...
Because not only have major production operations sprung up in the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the last five years, effectively moving the oil frontier east...
But major natural gas deposits were confirmed off the coasts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania just last year.
And as anybody who's studied fossil fuel geology knows, where there is natural gas, there are also crude oil deposits close by.
The most compelling evidence that East Africa is holding some of the world's richest fossil fuel resources goes back loooong before the natural gas strike and the recent expansions in West African production.
You see, scientists have known for years that much of East Africa shares the same basic geology as the region on the opposite side of the Gulf of Aden...
Land which is today occupied by Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and the biggest oil empire of them all, Saudi Arabia.
If you look at the diagram below, paying special attention to the fossil fuel deposits highlighted in red, you'll see the basic concept behind what happened here millions of years ago:
Up until 18 million years ago, East Africa and the Arab Middle East were joined.
When the rift formed, the continents drifted apart, taking the oil with them...
Discoveries in North and Western Africa began to confirm these suspicions 30 years ago, but it wasn't until last year that Tullow Oil's natural gas strike off the coast of Tanzania finally made it clear to the execs what geologists had known for decades...
East African geology isn't just similar to the geology which gave the Saudi Royal families the legendary Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila Basins.
It's the same geology.
Now, to the bigwigs at this Nairobi conference, all this news was a mixed blessing.
Representing companies that have made some of the biggest discoveries the industry's ever seen over the last thirty years, it's their job to find new oil...
And with East Africa, they're about to chalk up another victory — a major one.
However, it will also most likely be the last cheap oil any of them ever find. Because as the world's mainstay oil deposits gradually dry up, the industry has no choice but to start seeking out harder-to-reach pockets of crude.
Evidence of this comes from the vast number of off-shore oil drilling platforms that have popped up in recent years...
In fact, while the rest of U.S. production has fallen by 50% since the 1980s, offshore oil production has risen to account for 1/3 of the total national output — double what it was relative to 20 years ago.
This is especially alarming when you consider the cost of operating these offshore platforms has gone up 530% since 2001.
On top of that, at an average cost of $100 million, each of these rigs is about 1,000 times the cost of a typical conventional well... and that's before you even factor in the $1 million/day operating overhead.
But progress cannot be stopped.
And each year, more and more of these platforms are built and positioned.
Leading the charge is the United States, whose own conventional land-based deposits peaked in the 70s. The rest of the oil-producing world isn't far behind.
As the easy-to-reach resources are used up, there is simply no alternative but to go farther out to sea, drill deeper, and take more risks.
The results of this you and I know personally: rising prices at the pump... rising prices of any goods requiring transportation... rising prices to heat and cool your house.
So a massive, shallow-lying, land-based crude deposit couldn't have come soon enough.
And not just for the oil exploration firms — but for all of us who rely on cheap oil.
There is, however, another reason we should consider ourselves all lucky. And it's got nothing to do with geology — and everything to do with the nation hosting our secretive little meeting...
Investors Are Already Here
Just to give you an idea of how serious the men at the conference are about setting up shop in Kenya, here's a fact for you:
Kenya is a nation of about 225,000 square miles. Of that, the cartel which took over the Hilton Nairobi will own close to 124,000 square miles. That's more than 55% of the country's total landmass.
Doing that in the United States would require the private leasing and development of all the land west of Omaha, Nebraska.
Now remember, this cartel consists of companies as large as 48-billion-dollar Apache...
Together, the members are worth well over $150 billion. So if anybody is up for the job, they are.
But here's the really intriguing part:
The Canadian-based oil explorer I've been hinting at this whole time — with a market cap less than 2% of Apache's — has singlehandedly secured over 32,600 square miles of this territory, a full 26% of the total land acquisition — making them the single biggest shareholder in this 124,000 square mile development zone.
If you look at the highly confidential block map below, you'll actually see the parcels:
You'll also notice the figure next to the surface area, the percentage share.
Now, I know what you're going to say: So they really don't have exclusive reign over this potentially priceless real estate?
Well, here's where it gets even more interesting.
You see, with a market cap of only $330 million, this exploration company isn't big enough to thoroughly exploit a landmass the size of the state of Indiana.
So to maximize efficiency and profitability, they've partnered with another company that is big enough.
Those share values I mentioned don't represent the percentage of the parcel my new pick owns, but rather the royalties they'll be collecting from the production. And as you can see, that figure isn't small.
With rights to as much as 67% of the earnings that come out of this land, this small but brilliantly-run company will literally be sitting back and collecting checks while their partner does all the work.
So who is this mysterious big-name partner?
Well, that may actually be the best news of all...
Because the company that will developing and managing this massive property on behalf of my new recommendation is none other than $19 billion exploration giant Tullow Oil.
In the world of fossil fuel exploration, sweetheart deals like this come around maybe once in a career...
A giant, world-acclaimed outfit doing all the work so that their tiny partner can rake in unheard-of profits.
To figure out exactly what kinds of returns you can expect, the math is pretty simple:
If the USGS is anywhere near correct, and this region contains 71 billion barrels...
Then my company's holdings would contain in the neighborhood of 19 billion of those barrels.
At an average royalty rate of 50% on that resource, at today's prices, my company will stand to profit close to $923 billion of this project — almost 3,000 times their current market cap!
But let's do away with any optimism and see what kind of numbers we're dealing with if things don't turn out quite so well:
Let's say the USGS is way off on their figures based on preliminary drill test results. They overestimated the total deposit by a factor of five. Let's also assume that it will take 30 years for Tullow to produce and refine the resource...
Even with 50% royalties, those unrealistically low figures still translate into annual gains equivalent to 20.4 times my company's current total value — or profits of 2,040% each and every year for the next three decades.
Sounds incredible, right?
Well, it's not.
You see, at the heart of this deal isn't just the land or the incredible partnership with Tullow...
It's the management dream team that I've been talking about from the start.
As I already mentioned to you, they've pulled off record-breaking successes before.
Here's a list of those 7 projects, along with the returns the generated:
Out of seven companies, The Lundin Group is averaging returns in excess of 10,600% over a nine-year period!
That amounts to annual gains of 1,180% — and it doesn't even account for the shorter hold periods of the three massively-profitable buyouts that this team worked out between 2006 and 2010...
The absolute worst performer of the bunch brought a 1,600% return, while the best made investors $1,173 for every dollar invested!
Just imagine... a mere $852 investment in 2002 would be worth $1 million today!
Again, this is not a typo.
The management group behind my latest oil exploration pick has made a world-renown name out of turning small startups into multi-billion-dollar monsters. They were literally the only guys in the business who could have put a property package of this size and value under such a small and efficient corporate umbrella.
So now you know why the $10,000 investment to get into the meeting where I learned this all — before the start of production — was a bargain.
Once production begins — and this news hits the covers of the Wall Street Journal and this company's CEO starts getting interviewed by Forbes and Fortune Magazine — the information won't be worth a dime.
It's the definition of an explosive opportunity."
End of culled portion of newsletter by Crisis and Opportunity's Christian DeHaemer.
Why, dear reader, can't those who run our country and the GNPC and GNGC, pull off such revenue-sharing deals too, I ask? One hopes that going forward into the future, we will come to hear of such deals in Ghana's favour, when our leaders negotiate oil agreements with the likes of Tullow Oil. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Friday, 30 March 2012
NANA AKUFO-ADDO: TELL GHANAIANS PRECISELY HOW YOU WILL FUND FREE SECONDARY EDUCATION NOW!
Now that Dr. Bawumia has been chosen as Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo's running mate, Ghanaians expect detailed information from the New Patriotic Party (NPP), showing them the exact sustainable funding source for the free secondary education promised by the party's presidential candidate.
For all the promises they make to Ghanaians during the election campaign, the NPP (and all the other political parties in Ghana wooing them for votes) ought to be aware that voters also expect them to give the nation time-lines, for expected outcomes impacting living standards in Ghana positively, during the ten years that Nana Addo says it will take to transform the national economy.
Can the NPP tell Ghanaians, for example, at which point in the ten years the journey to economic transformation will take, that the party expects ordinary people's living standards and quality of life to have improved dramatically (in comparison to their lot today), in practical terms, in the real world (as opposed to cloud-cuckoo-land)?
Will the improvement in living standards and the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians during Nana Akufo-Addo's tenure, mean, for example, that at a certain point, during the 10-year journey to the new NPP-paradise-on-earth, rent advance (demanded by Shylock landlords) for poor quality accommodation, countrywide, would have become a thing of the past?
And at that precise point, can they tell us, today, just how the NPP administration of Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo would have resolved the housing deficit Ghana now faces?
In other words, Ghanaians don't want vague verbal assurances, but actuals in the real world: funding sources for policy proposals; some examples of quality-of-life-enhancing policies; time-frames for their implementation in the 10-year journey to the economic transformation of Ghana, promised by Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
Above all, discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians want to know, why, if it will take 10 long years to transform Ghana economically, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo and his party, expect President Mills to change Ghana and make it a better place for us all, in four short years - especially when they know perfectly well that the unfathomable greed of Kufuor & Co., had brought our country to its knees, by the time President Mills assumed power in January 2009?
With respect, would it not be a fair point, for ordinary people to make, dear reader, that saying that the economic transformation of Ghana will take 10 years, is simply a very very clever political teflon-strategy, designed to enable a future NPP administration to successfully deflect criticisms during its tenure - should they win the December 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections (God forbid)?
Alas, in the Ghana of today, no individual politician, or political party, seeking the mandate of the good people of Ghana, will be able to win power, simply by rubbishing everything done by their opponents, and making vague and impossible-to-achieve promises.
Those days are over - which is why Ghanaians await to be told the exact funding source(s) expected to pay for the free secondary education promised by Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
Above all, now that the NPP's economic manager-in-chief, Dr. Bamwumia, is finally on board, ordinary people want, and expect, that crucial piece of information soon. And they want it long before the December elections - like now: in order to subject it to proper "stress-testing" to see what downside risks to Ghana's economic well-being, are inherent in the fulfilment of that singular promise. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo -the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
For all the promises they make to Ghanaians during the election campaign, the NPP (and all the other political parties in Ghana wooing them for votes) ought to be aware that voters also expect them to give the nation time-lines, for expected outcomes impacting living standards in Ghana positively, during the ten years that Nana Addo says it will take to transform the national economy.
Can the NPP tell Ghanaians, for example, at which point in the ten years the journey to economic transformation will take, that the party expects ordinary people's living standards and quality of life to have improved dramatically (in comparison to their lot today), in practical terms, in the real world (as opposed to cloud-cuckoo-land)?
Will the improvement in living standards and the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians during Nana Akufo-Addo's tenure, mean, for example, that at a certain point, during the 10-year journey to the new NPP-paradise-on-earth, rent advance (demanded by Shylock landlords) for poor quality accommodation, countrywide, would have become a thing of the past?
And at that precise point, can they tell us, today, just how the NPP administration of Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo would have resolved the housing deficit Ghana now faces?
In other words, Ghanaians don't want vague verbal assurances, but actuals in the real world: funding sources for policy proposals; some examples of quality-of-life-enhancing policies; time-frames for their implementation in the 10-year journey to the economic transformation of Ghana, promised by Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
Above all, discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians want to know, why, if it will take 10 long years to transform Ghana economically, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo and his party, expect President Mills to change Ghana and make it a better place for us all, in four short years - especially when they know perfectly well that the unfathomable greed of Kufuor & Co., had brought our country to its knees, by the time President Mills assumed power in January 2009?
With respect, would it not be a fair point, for ordinary people to make, dear reader, that saying that the economic transformation of Ghana will take 10 years, is simply a very very clever political teflon-strategy, designed to enable a future NPP administration to successfully deflect criticisms during its tenure - should they win the December 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections (God forbid)?
Alas, in the Ghana of today, no individual politician, or political party, seeking the mandate of the good people of Ghana, will be able to win power, simply by rubbishing everything done by their opponents, and making vague and impossible-to-achieve promises.
Those days are over - which is why Ghanaians await to be told the exact funding source(s) expected to pay for the free secondary education promised by Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
Above all, now that the NPP's economic manager-in-chief, Dr. Bamwumia, is finally on board, ordinary people want, and expect, that crucial piece of information soon. And they want it long before the December elections - like now: in order to subject it to proper "stress-testing" to see what downside risks to Ghana's economic well-being, are inherent in the fulfilment of that singular promise. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo -the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
PEACEFUL ELECTIONS IN DECEMBER 2012: A SACRED OBLIGATION FOR GHANAIAN POLITICIANS & THEIR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO MOTHER GHANA
The misery experienced by refugees who flee their countries because of civil strife, such as the Ivorians now sheltering in Liberia, and the hell-on-earth daily existence, which is the lot of internally-displaced persons, such as the people of Darfur, now living in camps near Chad, ought to be constant reminders to ordinary Ghanaians, Ghana's politicians and its political parties - that electoral violence can so easily ruin what has taken decades to build: Ghana's stability.
Recently, the chairperson of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Jake Okanta Obestebi-Lamptey, wrote an open letter to President Mills, complaining about the drawing and brandishing of pistols, by a number of individuals from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and appealed to him to do something about it, before it gets out of hand (no pun intended).
That was in the right direction. However, Mr. Obestebi-Lamptey's party too has its fair share of violent-types. It is crucial that he and the rest of his party's leadership rein in the more violent members of their party.
Indeed, it is vital that the leadership of all Ghana's political parties, impress it upon their supporters, that nothing must be done by any party supporter (across the spectrum) to ruin Ghana's worldwide reputation as a peaceful and stable democracy in Africa.
They must all show world-class leadership during the entire campaign period leading up to the polls - and ensure that the December 2012 elections pass off peacefully. That is a sacred obligation for all of them - and their patriotic duty to Mother Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Recently, the chairperson of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Jake Okanta Obestebi-Lamptey, wrote an open letter to President Mills, complaining about the drawing and brandishing of pistols, by a number of individuals from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and appealed to him to do something about it, before it gets out of hand (no pun intended).
That was in the right direction. However, Mr. Obestebi-Lamptey's party too has its fair share of violent-types. It is crucial that he and the rest of his party's leadership rein in the more violent members of their party.
Indeed, it is vital that the leadership of all Ghana's political parties, impress it upon their supporters, that nothing must be done by any party supporter (across the spectrum) to ruin Ghana's worldwide reputation as a peaceful and stable democracy in Africa.
They must all show world-class leadership during the entire campaign period leading up to the polls - and ensure that the December 2012 elections pass off peacefully. That is a sacred obligation for all of them - and their patriotic duty to Mother Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
INSTEAD OF PATRONISING LOCAL COMMUNITIES INVESTORS OUGHT TO FORM MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL PARTNERSHIPS WITH THEM
One felt so sad reading a Daily Graphic news report culled and posted on www.ghanaweb.com's general news web-page edition of 27th March, 2012.
Entitled "BOST Builds Largest Petroleum Depot", I am reproducing it here, by way of illustration: to show how when opportunities crop up that can help reduce the glaring disparities in wealth in our country, and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, our hidebound and unimaginative ruling elites invariably miss them.
For example, one doubts very much whether if he had been around today, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah would have tolerated the situation in which, whiles the management and board members of state-owned entities receive compensation packages in the Arabian oil sheiks' bracket (even when they are loss-making entities), the workers, whose hard graft keeps those entities going, receive derisory compensation levels.
If as a nation most of us agree that some things, such as energy, the provision of potable water, railways and roads, for example, are better organised and provided for by the state - instead of leaving it to the private sector (to which the state hypothecates road tolls, utility rates, and sundry taxes, in exchange for their provision and maintenance), then the question we must ask is: Why have our leaders not thought of restructuring all state-owned commercial undertakings - so that management and workers will own 25 percent of the shareholding (through a trust); with another 25 percent being sold on the Ghana Stock Exchange to the general public; and the state retaining a 50 percent stake in them?
If that were the case, would the management and staff of those state-owned entities not work harder, and do everything possible to make them productive and profitable undertakings, I ask?
And to keep our healthcare professionals happy and motivated, why do we not simply earmark 25 percent of whatever surplus is left over, after all costs have been deducted from the revenues earned by each healthcare institution in Ghana, to those who actually work in them?
Would all government-employed medical doctors, nurses and the supporting staff who help them serve the public, not all be keen to deliver the best healthcare possible, to local communities nationwide?
Then there is the case of state-owned commercial undertakings, such as the Metro Mass Transit Company Limited (MMTCL), for example. Would their drivers and conductors not be more productive, if they owned 25 percent of that company, dear reader?
And to contribute to creating an enterprise culture amongst the younger generation of Ghanaians, would it not make sense (to the management and staff, including drivers and conductors, as well as the MMTCL itself), to put a margin on top of the purchase-price of company's buses, and sell same to their drivers and conductors, on a work-and-pay basis?
That will make their business model one in which the company makes its money from selling buses at a profit to its workers on a hire purchase basis, and, additionally, makes money selling spare parts and servicing those buses in its own workshops nationwide.
Usually compensation is paid for crops on communal land that the state takes over for projects of a national character. If we also regarded all such land as equity in those projects, would that not enable the Chiefs and people who own such communal land to benefit financially from those projects, on a long-term basis?
And if that were the case, would people in mining towns like Obuasi and Tarkwa, not be a great deal better off than they currently are? I rest my case for now, dear reader - www.ghanaweb.com's culled Daily Graphic news report mentioned above, follows below. Please read on:
"BOST Builds Largest Petroleum Depot
The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Ltd (BOST) is in the final laps of preparations to construct the largest petroleum terminal and strategic depot in the country that will create 500 new permanent jobs.
The US$200-million BOST Petroleum Terminal to be sited at the coast of Atwereboanda in the Pumpuni Traditional Area of the Ahanta West District, Western Region, will be linked with rail wagons, offshore pipelines and other transmission devices to receive and transmit processed natural gas from the Jubilee Field.
The Managing Director of BOST, Dr Yao Akoto, said the Pumpuni Terminal would be the biggest strategic petroleum depot in the country and was intended to be the petroleum hub for West African.
Dr Akoto disclosed this on March 15 when he led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the Ahanta West District Coordinating Council as well as the chiefs and people of Pumpuni, the people who have willingly given their land for the project.
BOST said it would work closely with the community to design programmes to develop the skills of the people of the area for some of the high-end jobs such as oil terminal management and logistics, adding that the company would also support schools in the area to improve on the quality of education of that area.
“We want to be the hub and provider of oil and gas services in West Africa and we will want to partner the Western Region and the Ahanta West District in our quest to provide these services. Site preparations will start in the third quarter of this year and the project should take two years to complete,” Dr Akoto explained.
BOST has already received an Executive Instrument from the government to acquire a 300-acre plot located on the Pumpuni reef for the state-of-the-art petroleum terminal which will include a dispatch centre to link to a transmission network for the distribution of processed natural gas from the Jubilee field and other newly discovered fields.
BOST has already completed the payment of compensation for economic crops on the land three years ago.
“The company is committed to ensuring that it offers fair compensation for the land that it has acquired and we will also continue with our corporate social responsibilities which we have done in other communities where we have depots,” the BOST managing director assured the chiefs and people.
The District Chief Executive for Ahanta West, Mr Joseph Dofoyena, said the district coordinating Council was aware of the project and had already started sensitising the people of the area to be respectful, law abiding and not ferment trouble.
He said in view of the rush for land in the area, the district had gone ahead to map the area and generated designs which it wanted developers to fit in.
Mr Dofoyena said his team would work with that of BOST to make the project fit into the design for the District and would also support the entire process to ensure that the project came into fruition.
Elders of the community took turns to thank BOST for selecting the area to site the project, dding that they would support it wholeheartedly.
They, however, appealed to the government, particularly to BOST to keep its pledge to develop the skills of the people so that they could easily be integrated in upcoming turn-key projects of the kind BOST was embarking upon.
Some youth in the community indicated to the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in an interview that they were readying themselves in anticipation of getting jobs in the oil and gas sector which was fast opening up the Western Region to investors.
One young man, Mohammed Yankey, already had skills in sand blasting, sand writing and spraying and had gone ahead to register a formal company to start business.
Another young man, Solomon Cudjoe, was an apprentice driver who was learning to drive and operate trucks and earthmoving machines.
BOST presented some food items to the community as a token to cement their already cordial relationship."
End of www.ghanaweb.com's culled piece from the Daily Graphic.
Well, there we are, dear reader. When what is said will be the largest bulk gas storage facility in Ghana is completed, will the Chiefs and people of Atwereboanda and Pumpuni traditional areas, of the Ahanta West District in the Western Region, not be much much better off, financially, if their land had secured them a 10 percent stake in the business situated on their communal land?
The colonial days are long gone. Surely, we must end such exploitative developmental models - which deny ordinary grassroots people a place at the high table, so to speak?
Finally, as a people, let us always take advantage of such business opportunities to expand the numbers of the comfortably well-off in Ghana, nationwide.
If that is done, instead of such nauseating news items, in which our ruling elites unwittingly patronise ordinary people in that condescending manner the BOST executives unconsciously did, in that www.ghanaweb.com culled Daily Graphic news report above, we would rather have the happy situation in which our country follows a developmental model, which is full of win-win outcomes that will put us on a path towards the creation of an African equivalent of an egalitarian Scandinavian society.
For a better Ghana, we ought to encourage all investors in our economy, both local and foreign, to form mutually beneficial win-win relationships, particularly with grassroots people, in both rural, as well as the poorer parts of urban Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Entitled "BOST Builds Largest Petroleum Depot", I am reproducing it here, by way of illustration: to show how when opportunities crop up that can help reduce the glaring disparities in wealth in our country, and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, our hidebound and unimaginative ruling elites invariably miss them.
For example, one doubts very much whether if he had been around today, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah would have tolerated the situation in which, whiles the management and board members of state-owned entities receive compensation packages in the Arabian oil sheiks' bracket (even when they are loss-making entities), the workers, whose hard graft keeps those entities going, receive derisory compensation levels.
If as a nation most of us agree that some things, such as energy, the provision of potable water, railways and roads, for example, are better organised and provided for by the state - instead of leaving it to the private sector (to which the state hypothecates road tolls, utility rates, and sundry taxes, in exchange for their provision and maintenance), then the question we must ask is: Why have our leaders not thought of restructuring all state-owned commercial undertakings - so that management and workers will own 25 percent of the shareholding (through a trust); with another 25 percent being sold on the Ghana Stock Exchange to the general public; and the state retaining a 50 percent stake in them?
If that were the case, would the management and staff of those state-owned entities not work harder, and do everything possible to make them productive and profitable undertakings, I ask?
And to keep our healthcare professionals happy and motivated, why do we not simply earmark 25 percent of whatever surplus is left over, after all costs have been deducted from the revenues earned by each healthcare institution in Ghana, to those who actually work in them?
Would all government-employed medical doctors, nurses and the supporting staff who help them serve the public, not all be keen to deliver the best healthcare possible, to local communities nationwide?
Then there is the case of state-owned commercial undertakings, such as the Metro Mass Transit Company Limited (MMTCL), for example. Would their drivers and conductors not be more productive, if they owned 25 percent of that company, dear reader?
And to contribute to creating an enterprise culture amongst the younger generation of Ghanaians, would it not make sense (to the management and staff, including drivers and conductors, as well as the MMTCL itself), to put a margin on top of the purchase-price of company's buses, and sell same to their drivers and conductors, on a work-and-pay basis?
That will make their business model one in which the company makes its money from selling buses at a profit to its workers on a hire purchase basis, and, additionally, makes money selling spare parts and servicing those buses in its own workshops nationwide.
Usually compensation is paid for crops on communal land that the state takes over for projects of a national character. If we also regarded all such land as equity in those projects, would that not enable the Chiefs and people who own such communal land to benefit financially from those projects, on a long-term basis?
And if that were the case, would people in mining towns like Obuasi and Tarkwa, not be a great deal better off than they currently are? I rest my case for now, dear reader - www.ghanaweb.com's culled Daily Graphic news report mentioned above, follows below. Please read on:
"BOST Builds Largest Petroleum Depot
The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Ltd (BOST) is in the final laps of preparations to construct the largest petroleum terminal and strategic depot in the country that will create 500 new permanent jobs.
The US$200-million BOST Petroleum Terminal to be sited at the coast of Atwereboanda in the Pumpuni Traditional Area of the Ahanta West District, Western Region, will be linked with rail wagons, offshore pipelines and other transmission devices to receive and transmit processed natural gas from the Jubilee Field.
The Managing Director of BOST, Dr Yao Akoto, said the Pumpuni Terminal would be the biggest strategic petroleum depot in the country and was intended to be the petroleum hub for West African.
Dr Akoto disclosed this on March 15 when he led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the Ahanta West District Coordinating Council as well as the chiefs and people of Pumpuni, the people who have willingly given their land for the project.
BOST said it would work closely with the community to design programmes to develop the skills of the people of the area for some of the high-end jobs such as oil terminal management and logistics, adding that the company would also support schools in the area to improve on the quality of education of that area.
“We want to be the hub and provider of oil and gas services in West Africa and we will want to partner the Western Region and the Ahanta West District in our quest to provide these services. Site preparations will start in the third quarter of this year and the project should take two years to complete,” Dr Akoto explained.
BOST has already received an Executive Instrument from the government to acquire a 300-acre plot located on the Pumpuni reef for the state-of-the-art petroleum terminal which will include a dispatch centre to link to a transmission network for the distribution of processed natural gas from the Jubilee field and other newly discovered fields.
BOST has already completed the payment of compensation for economic crops on the land three years ago.
“The company is committed to ensuring that it offers fair compensation for the land that it has acquired and we will also continue with our corporate social responsibilities which we have done in other communities where we have depots,” the BOST managing director assured the chiefs and people.
The District Chief Executive for Ahanta West, Mr Joseph Dofoyena, said the district coordinating Council was aware of the project and had already started sensitising the people of the area to be respectful, law abiding and not ferment trouble.
He said in view of the rush for land in the area, the district had gone ahead to map the area and generated designs which it wanted developers to fit in.
Mr Dofoyena said his team would work with that of BOST to make the project fit into the design for the District and would also support the entire process to ensure that the project came into fruition.
Elders of the community took turns to thank BOST for selecting the area to site the project, dding that they would support it wholeheartedly.
They, however, appealed to the government, particularly to BOST to keep its pledge to develop the skills of the people so that they could easily be integrated in upcoming turn-key projects of the kind BOST was embarking upon.
Some youth in the community indicated to the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in an interview that they were readying themselves in anticipation of getting jobs in the oil and gas sector which was fast opening up the Western Region to investors.
One young man, Mohammed Yankey, already had skills in sand blasting, sand writing and spraying and had gone ahead to register a formal company to start business.
Another young man, Solomon Cudjoe, was an apprentice driver who was learning to drive and operate trucks and earthmoving machines.
BOST presented some food items to the community as a token to cement their already cordial relationship."
End of www.ghanaweb.com's culled piece from the Daily Graphic.
Well, there we are, dear reader. When what is said will be the largest bulk gas storage facility in Ghana is completed, will the Chiefs and people of Atwereboanda and Pumpuni traditional areas, of the Ahanta West District in the Western Region, not be much much better off, financially, if their land had secured them a 10 percent stake in the business situated on their communal land?
The colonial days are long gone. Surely, we must end such exploitative developmental models - which deny ordinary grassroots people a place at the high table, so to speak?
Finally, as a people, let us always take advantage of such business opportunities to expand the numbers of the comfortably well-off in Ghana, nationwide.
If that is done, instead of such nauseating news items, in which our ruling elites unwittingly patronise ordinary people in that condescending manner the BOST executives unconsciously did, in that www.ghanaweb.com culled Daily Graphic news report above, we would rather have the happy situation in which our country follows a developmental model, which is full of win-win outcomes that will put us on a path towards the creation of an African equivalent of an egalitarian Scandinavian society.
For a better Ghana, we ought to encourage all investors in our economy, both local and foreign, to form mutually beneficial win-win relationships, particularly with grassroots people, in both rural, as well as the poorer parts of urban Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
NDC: SHUNNING THE MULTI-MEDIA GROUP IS POLITICALLY SENSIBLE & DEFINITELY NOT UNDEMOCRATIC
The government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) must not allow itself to be swayed by those who say they believe in press freedom - but deliberately closed their eyes and ears to the perfidy of the Multi-Media Group. Let them leave that biased entity to its own devices.
Why bother with an entity in which there exists a crop of biased, arrogant, smug and third-rate journalists, with an anti-NDC agenda - and determined to help remove the NDC from power?
Let the tiresome sods stew in their own juice. This is nothing more than a case of being hoisted on their own petard - for an arrogant lot who delude themselves into thinking that somehow they are in Komla Dumor's league: and whose anti-NDC agenda does not fool a single discerning and independent-minded Ghanaian patriot.
That is why many of the cynics in our midst insist that the only reason those clamouring for the government to end its politically sensible decision to boycott the Multi-Media Group, is that it negatively impacts the company's collaboration with the BBC - and actually does jeopardise same in the long-term.
Clearly, were the NDC to retain power after the December 2012 elections, and decide to maintain its boycott of the Multi-Media Group, it would be rather difficult for people in the UK, made poor by massive public-sector spending cuts, not to question the point of the tie-up, from the BBC's point of view - if the Multi-Media Group lacked direct access to Ghanaian government members?
Another positive outcome from this fuss-over-nothing, is the shocking revelation that the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) was made to risk pensioners' money, buying Multi-Media Group corporate bonds. When exactly did that happen, I ask, dear reader?
Who was the muppet (apologies to Goldman Sachs!) in the government who came up with that daft idea, one wonders?
One certainly hopes that the new private sector pension companies, will not be lent on, by politicians looking for roundabout ways of helping the wealthy and politically well-connected, to become even richer at the expense of the rest us - using this rip-Mother-Ghana-off model of financial engineering, to fund the private business empire of an arch crony-capitalist: who prospered mightily during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co.
That daft investment by SSNIT, and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation's 10 percent stake in the Multi-Media Group, are some of the most outrageous examples of the socialisation of private risk, that I have ever come across.
Naturally, it is a business model much loved by our wealthy business class - who, when it suits them, always say that the private sector ought to be the engine of growth.
Yet, the reality is that they are constantly sponging off the Ghanaian nation-state - and in this particular instance, compared to what they would have forked out servicing a bank loan, more or less accessing interest-free long-term capital.
Above all, over the years, none of them has been known to hesitate to make a beeline for SSNIT's cash - when the opportunity to use it as a bank of last resort, presents itself.
If the purchase by SSNIT of Multi-Media Group corporate bonds isn't a classic example of elite-rip off of Mother Ghana, I don't know what else it is. One wonders what sense it makes, from an investing-for-income point of view, for the Ghanaian nation-state.
That is why it will be an act of kindness for one to sound a note of caution to the boards of SNNIT and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.
They must really be alive to their fiduciary duties, in as far as this double-whammy instance of daft public-sector investment in a private undertaking goes - by ensuring that the Multi-Media Group gives their companies a return on their investments.
They must understand clearly that in reality, their companies' investment in the Multi-Media Group, are egregious examples of investment in a private entity (dependent solely on the shifting sands of unpredictable advertising revenues), which financially responsible public bodies should never have allowed themselves to be more or less coerced by politicians, into making.
Indeed they must be very careful. Alas, were a regime that neither encourages nor tolerates elite rip-off to come to power in Ghana tomorrow, they could all end up in the law courts - for playing a role in a case of the wilful causing of financial loss to Ghana, by others.
Finally, I encourage the NDC government to maintain the boycott of the Multi-Media Group - which makes perfect political sense and isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, an anti-democratic gesture.
Those who know what strategy was adopted by the NPP and its "rented press", when they met at Asylum Down's Highgate hotel to plot an NPP return to power in December 2012, shortly after the NDC assumed power in January 2009, say the boycott of the Multi-Media Group, is a political master-stroke - against an arrogant and hypocritical oligarch abusing his power as a press baron. Period. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Why bother with an entity in which there exists a crop of biased, arrogant, smug and third-rate journalists, with an anti-NDC agenda - and determined to help remove the NDC from power?
Let the tiresome sods stew in their own juice. This is nothing more than a case of being hoisted on their own petard - for an arrogant lot who delude themselves into thinking that somehow they are in Komla Dumor's league: and whose anti-NDC agenda does not fool a single discerning and independent-minded Ghanaian patriot.
That is why many of the cynics in our midst insist that the only reason those clamouring for the government to end its politically sensible decision to boycott the Multi-Media Group, is that it negatively impacts the company's collaboration with the BBC - and actually does jeopardise same in the long-term.
Clearly, were the NDC to retain power after the December 2012 elections, and decide to maintain its boycott of the Multi-Media Group, it would be rather difficult for people in the UK, made poor by massive public-sector spending cuts, not to question the point of the tie-up, from the BBC's point of view - if the Multi-Media Group lacked direct access to Ghanaian government members?
Another positive outcome from this fuss-over-nothing, is the shocking revelation that the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) was made to risk pensioners' money, buying Multi-Media Group corporate bonds. When exactly did that happen, I ask, dear reader?
Who was the muppet (apologies to Goldman Sachs!) in the government who came up with that daft idea, one wonders?
One certainly hopes that the new private sector pension companies, will not be lent on, by politicians looking for roundabout ways of helping the wealthy and politically well-connected, to become even richer at the expense of the rest us - using this rip-Mother-Ghana-off model of financial engineering, to fund the private business empire of an arch crony-capitalist: who prospered mightily during the golden age of business for Kufuor & Co.
That daft investment by SSNIT, and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation's 10 percent stake in the Multi-Media Group, are some of the most outrageous examples of the socialisation of private risk, that I have ever come across.
Naturally, it is a business model much loved by our wealthy business class - who, when it suits them, always say that the private sector ought to be the engine of growth.
Yet, the reality is that they are constantly sponging off the Ghanaian nation-state - and in this particular instance, compared to what they would have forked out servicing a bank loan, more or less accessing interest-free long-term capital.
Above all, over the years, none of them has been known to hesitate to make a beeline for SSNIT's cash - when the opportunity to use it as a bank of last resort, presents itself.
If the purchase by SSNIT of Multi-Media Group corporate bonds isn't a classic example of elite-rip off of Mother Ghana, I don't know what else it is. One wonders what sense it makes, from an investing-for-income point of view, for the Ghanaian nation-state.
That is why it will be an act of kindness for one to sound a note of caution to the boards of SNNIT and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.
They must really be alive to their fiduciary duties, in as far as this double-whammy instance of daft public-sector investment in a private undertaking goes - by ensuring that the Multi-Media Group gives their companies a return on their investments.
They must understand clearly that in reality, their companies' investment in the Multi-Media Group, are egregious examples of investment in a private entity (dependent solely on the shifting sands of unpredictable advertising revenues), which financially responsible public bodies should never have allowed themselves to be more or less coerced by politicians, into making.
Indeed they must be very careful. Alas, were a regime that neither encourages nor tolerates elite rip-off to come to power in Ghana tomorrow, they could all end up in the law courts - for playing a role in a case of the wilful causing of financial loss to Ghana, by others.
Finally, I encourage the NDC government to maintain the boycott of the Multi-Media Group - which makes perfect political sense and isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, an anti-democratic gesture.
Those who know what strategy was adopted by the NPP and its "rented press", when they met at Asylum Down's Highgate hotel to plot an NPP return to power in December 2012, shortly after the NDC assumed power in January 2009, say the boycott of the Multi-Media Group, is a political master-stroke - against an arrogant and hypocritical oligarch abusing his power as a press baron. Period. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Friday, 23 March 2012
ECOWAS MUST IMPOSE AN IMMEDIATE ECONOMIC BLOCKADE ON MALI
The Malian military's overthrow of the legitimate civilian authority in Bomako must be swiftly reversed. It must not be allowed to succeed. A military dictatorship in any part of Africa in the 21st century is simply out of the question.
A return to constitutional rule by reversing the military coup, ought to be a non-negotiable fact-on-the-ground.
We must not allow the freedoms of the Malian people to be hijacked by rebellious soldiers - and at all costs, Malian democracy must not be truncated.
The outrageous sight of soldiers with guns, and obviously drunk, careering around the streets of Bomako in pick-up trucks, after overthrowing the democratically elected civilian president, is intolerable.
We must not wait for an occurrence similar in nature, to the horrific events in the Conakry stadium, where Guinean soldiers went on the rampage - and ended up murdering over 100 Guinean civilians and injured scores more - to take place, before taking belated action to end military rule in Mali.
Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria must move quickly to get the coup condemned and declared illegal - by the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU).
And together with the governments of France and the U.S., work swiftly to impose sanctions on the military leaders behind the coup and members of their immediate families.
Nothing, by way of exports and imports, especially oil and petroleum products, must be allowed in or out of the territory of landlocked Mali, in the meantime - and all flights in and out of Mali, by international carriers, must be banned immediately.
Above all, until the coup is reversed, Mali must be denied international aid and access to loans from the African Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
A joint AU and ECOWAS delegation must be quickly dispatched to Bomako to make it absolutely clear to the coup-makers that their coup is unacceptable, and that they must return to barracks and restore the constitution and allow the elected civilian regime to deal with their grievances, on a priority basis.
If need be, the leaders of the coup can be detained and tried outside Mali - if that will make it amenable for them to accept a reversal of the coup: but punished, they must be.
Finally, under no circumstances must the Mali coup be allowed to succeed - and Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria must work together to ensure that it does not do so. An economic blockade, swiftly imposed by the ECOWAS, is a necessary first step. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
A return to constitutional rule by reversing the military coup, ought to be a non-negotiable fact-on-the-ground.
We must not allow the freedoms of the Malian people to be hijacked by rebellious soldiers - and at all costs, Malian democracy must not be truncated.
The outrageous sight of soldiers with guns, and obviously drunk, careering around the streets of Bomako in pick-up trucks, after overthrowing the democratically elected civilian president, is intolerable.
We must not wait for an occurrence similar in nature, to the horrific events in the Conakry stadium, where Guinean soldiers went on the rampage - and ended up murdering over 100 Guinean civilians and injured scores more - to take place, before taking belated action to end military rule in Mali.
Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria must move quickly to get the coup condemned and declared illegal - by the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU).
And together with the governments of France and the U.S., work swiftly to impose sanctions on the military leaders behind the coup and members of their immediate families.
Nothing, by way of exports and imports, especially oil and petroleum products, must be allowed in or out of the territory of landlocked Mali, in the meantime - and all flights in and out of Mali, by international carriers, must be banned immediately.
Above all, until the coup is reversed, Mali must be denied international aid and access to loans from the African Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
A joint AU and ECOWAS delegation must be quickly dispatched to Bomako to make it absolutely clear to the coup-makers that their coup is unacceptable, and that they must return to barracks and restore the constitution and allow the elected civilian regime to deal with their grievances, on a priority basis.
If need be, the leaders of the coup can be detained and tried outside Mali - if that will make it amenable for them to accept a reversal of the coup: but punished, they must be.
Finally, under no circumstances must the Mali coup be allowed to succeed - and Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria must work together to ensure that it does not do so. An economic blockade, swiftly imposed by the ECOWAS, is a necessary first step. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
THEY KILL IN GOD'S NAME - A FREE-VERSE POEM ON WORLD POETRY DAY BY KOFI THOMPSON
O Supreme One
Almighty
Omnipotent
Why do puny human beings take it upon themselves to kill sinners on your behalf?
Yet it is only those without sin you so permit
The list of the blasphemers is long
And their abominations unspeakable
Fanatical Jihadist Muslims
Fanatical Fundamentalist Christians
Fanatical Orthodox Jews
And every one of them full of sin themselves
So how can they to judge others?
How dare they kill in your name?
Almighty
Omnipotent
Why do puny human beings take it upon themselves to kill sinners on your behalf?
Yet it is only those without sin you so permit
The list of the blasphemers is long
And their abominations unspeakable
Fanatical Jihadist Muslims
Fanatical Fundamentalist Christians
Fanatical Orthodox Jews
And every one of them full of sin themselves
So how can they to judge others?
How dare they kill in your name?
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
RECOVERING ALLEGED FRAUDULENT MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR PAYMENTS TO CONSTRUCTION PIONEERS & WATERVILLE: WHY NOT SEEK HELP OF THE GERMAN & ITALIAN MEDIA?
If we were a more positive people who thought outside the box, and proffered positive solutions to our problems, instead of the endless negativity and criticism that we see and hear daily in the media, perhaps we would find ways of getting the owners of Waterville and Construction Pioneers (CP) to pay our nation back the vast sums, which apparently should never have been paid them.
That Ghana is in dire need of a more positive national discourse, is not in doubt. A cursory look at the political and media landscapes, reveals a most depressing picture.
An unfortunate characteristic of Ghanaian politics, is the fact that the national discourse (particularly in the media), is almost devoid of offered solutions to Ghana's myriad of problems.
Indeed, as a result of that, incredibly, the biggest party opposing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime in power today, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), might actually be able to win power again - on a diet of never ending negative propaganda: and not one alternative policy offered Ghanaians in place of what it sees wrong with government policy. Amazing.
And it will do so by smartly stepping into the power void created in the wake of the tsunami-of-endless-criticism, of the government of the day, unleashed by its propaganda machine - without ever really offering solutions to the many things it criticises so freely (to repeat for emphasis).
Yet, as any discerning and independent-minded patriot knows, and even Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo admits, the transformation of our country will take at least ten years.
Perhaps that is also why it should not come as a surprise to anyone in Ghana today, that the presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, instead of seizing the opportunity presented him, in a recent BBC Hard Talk interview, to show the world just how well-prepared he and his party are to lead Ghana, wriggled out of telling his worldwide audience, precisely how an NPP government under him would fund its free secondary education policy - with the lame excuse that he preferred to tell Ghanaians first.
And as a wag I know said to me, derisively, in reference to Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo's BBC Hard Talk interview: "Talk about a sodden cop-out, Kofi. It is typical of those who run and benefit the most, from our largely dysfunctional system."
Perhaps that is why Ghana's airwaves and the columns of our ghastly and biased newspapers, are so full of criticisms of the government of the day - mostly by opposition NPP politicians and their lackeys in the media, almost all of whom are being allowed to get away with blitzing their way to power - by waging a ruthless propaganda war, which actually offers no detailed solutions (thus far, at least) to the many problems confronting the ordinary people, of our homeland Ghana.
So, just as some of his opponents have said, it might actually be true that the real reason why Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo did not tell the world, during his Hard Talk BBC interview, precisely how the NPP proposes to fund free secondary education in Ghana, was simply because it is yet another example of the NPP's usual vote-buying pro-poor "social intervention" wheezes.
The question is: Are we to believe the cynics amongst us, who insist that just as was the case during the eight long years the NPP were in power for, and came up with poorly thought through pro-poor policies, the free secondary education policy is yet another example of the party's on-the-hoof policy making - the political equivalent of a veritable sleight of hand, whose sources of funding won't add up, if scrutinised closely, and, like the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) started during the NPP's tenure, won't actually be sustainable in the long-term, when initiated?
Is it any wonder then, dear reader, that under such circumstances, it has not yet occurred to any of the usual talking-heads and bright sparks we see on television and hear on our nation's airwaves, that both CP and Waterville, could actually be shamed into returning the huge sums they are said to have defrauded Ghana of?
Well, for what it is worth, here is my humble two-pesewa contribution, to a more positive national conversation: As a people, might we not end up with positive outcomes, in both cases, dear reader, were a campaign seeking that end, to be launched by civil society groups, as well as concerned and patriotic individuals in Ghana - such as Martin Amidu and the Citizen Vigilante group he has proposed be set up by patriotic individuals?
And if they were to ask the help of the German and Italian media, could they not positively influence public opinion in Germany and Italy through them - alerting the public in both nations of the fact that vast sums, which could make a real difference to millions of the poor in Ghana, have been pocketed by the German and Italian owners of the two companies, all of whom are said to have obtained those sums through fraudulent means?
Would millions of Germans and Italians not be aghast at such perfidy by their fellow-citizens - in a poor developing nation with aspirations - and shame both CP and Waterville into refunding those vast sums, which they should never have received in the first place, I ask? A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
That Ghana is in dire need of a more positive national discourse, is not in doubt. A cursory look at the political and media landscapes, reveals a most depressing picture.
An unfortunate characteristic of Ghanaian politics, is the fact that the national discourse (particularly in the media), is almost devoid of offered solutions to Ghana's myriad of problems.
Indeed, as a result of that, incredibly, the biggest party opposing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime in power today, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), might actually be able to win power again - on a diet of never ending negative propaganda: and not one alternative policy offered Ghanaians in place of what it sees wrong with government policy. Amazing.
And it will do so by smartly stepping into the power void created in the wake of the tsunami-of-endless-criticism, of the government of the day, unleashed by its propaganda machine - without ever really offering solutions to the many things it criticises so freely (to repeat for emphasis).
Yet, as any discerning and independent-minded patriot knows, and even Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo admits, the transformation of our country will take at least ten years.
Perhaps that is also why it should not come as a surprise to anyone in Ghana today, that the presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, instead of seizing the opportunity presented him, in a recent BBC Hard Talk interview, to show the world just how well-prepared he and his party are to lead Ghana, wriggled out of telling his worldwide audience, precisely how an NPP government under him would fund its free secondary education policy - with the lame excuse that he preferred to tell Ghanaians first.
And as a wag I know said to me, derisively, in reference to Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo's BBC Hard Talk interview: "Talk about a sodden cop-out, Kofi. It is typical of those who run and benefit the most, from our largely dysfunctional system."
Perhaps that is why Ghana's airwaves and the columns of our ghastly and biased newspapers, are so full of criticisms of the government of the day - mostly by opposition NPP politicians and their lackeys in the media, almost all of whom are being allowed to get away with blitzing their way to power - by waging a ruthless propaganda war, which actually offers no detailed solutions (thus far, at least) to the many problems confronting the ordinary people, of our homeland Ghana.
So, just as some of his opponents have said, it might actually be true that the real reason why Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo did not tell the world, during his Hard Talk BBC interview, precisely how the NPP proposes to fund free secondary education in Ghana, was simply because it is yet another example of the NPP's usual vote-buying pro-poor "social intervention" wheezes.
The question is: Are we to believe the cynics amongst us, who insist that just as was the case during the eight long years the NPP were in power for, and came up with poorly thought through pro-poor policies, the free secondary education policy is yet another example of the party's on-the-hoof policy making - the political equivalent of a veritable sleight of hand, whose sources of funding won't add up, if scrutinised closely, and, like the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) started during the NPP's tenure, won't actually be sustainable in the long-term, when initiated?
Is it any wonder then, dear reader, that under such circumstances, it has not yet occurred to any of the usual talking-heads and bright sparks we see on television and hear on our nation's airwaves, that both CP and Waterville, could actually be shamed into returning the huge sums they are said to have defrauded Ghana of?
Well, for what it is worth, here is my humble two-pesewa contribution, to a more positive national conversation: As a people, might we not end up with positive outcomes, in both cases, dear reader, were a campaign seeking that end, to be launched by civil society groups, as well as concerned and patriotic individuals in Ghana - such as Martin Amidu and the Citizen Vigilante group he has proposed be set up by patriotic individuals?
And if they were to ask the help of the German and Italian media, could they not positively influence public opinion in Germany and Italy through them - alerting the public in both nations of the fact that vast sums, which could make a real difference to millions of the poor in Ghana, have been pocketed by the German and Italian owners of the two companies, all of whom are said to have obtained those sums through fraudulent means?
Would millions of Germans and Italians not be aghast at such perfidy by their fellow-citizens - in a poor developing nation with aspirations - and shame both CP and Waterville into refunding those vast sums, which they should never have received in the first place, I ask? A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
GHANAIAN POLITICIANS: VIOLENCE NOT ACCEPTABLE IN THE POLITICS OF TODAY'S GHANA!
News reports that a meeting being held by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Accra's Odododiodio constituency, last night, was interrupted by some National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters, which apparently resulted in a melee: in which a number of people ended up being injured, if true, is a most disturbing development.
It is most unfortunate that some political parties in Ghana, seem to have failed to understand clearly, the absolute necessity of ensuring that Ghana's international reputation for being an oasis of peace, stability and good governance in Africa, isn't destroyed under any circumstances.
That reputation is priceless, and has been largely responsible for the confidence the international community has had in our nation - which has resulted in a steady increase in the flow of foreign direct investment into Ghana over the years. Above all, the projects they invest in, create jobs for unemployed Ghanaians.
Confidence may be intangible - but it is nonetheless a vital factor, in the mix of factors that investors, both indigenous and foreign, consider, when investing in any territory, Ghana included.
No politician or political party in Ghana must be allowed to declare a no-go area, in which their political opponents cannot organise political activities. That is intolerable in a democracy.
Speaking personally, for example, much as one loathes the New Patriotic Party (NPP), dominated as it is by Kufuor & Co., as a democrat, one will always defend their right to operate freely, in any part of the landmass of the Republic of Ghana. Ditto all the other political parties in Ghana.
It is for that reason that I join those who have condemned the statement said to have been made by Nii Lante Vanderpuije - an aide to the president of Ghana, no less, who really ought to know better - to the effect that he will not allow the NPP to meet in Zongo Junction. That is totally unacceptable.
In condemning Nii Lante Vanderpuije, it is also important to make the point, that it was for the selfsame reason, that during the December 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections, some of us condemned the attempt by certain traditional rulers in parts of the Ashanti Region, to prevent members of Zongo communities in their areas, from casting their votes, in the strongest possible terms.
That outrage too, must not be allowed to occur again, in the December 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections. Ditto the beating up and chasing away of NDC polling station agents and the party's local-level executives in many areas of the Ashanti and Eastern Regions, and, conversely, those of the NPP, in parts of the Volta Region, in the same election year.
It is time Ghana's politicians were made to understand that the nation and people they seek to rule, do not want violence, in any part of Ghana, whatsoever. For their own good, they had better pay heed to that societal reality - as they will pay a high price were they to instigate violence in their quest to win power in the December 2012 polls. Simply put, violence is unacceptable in the politics of today's Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel(Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
It is most unfortunate that some political parties in Ghana, seem to have failed to understand clearly, the absolute necessity of ensuring that Ghana's international reputation for being an oasis of peace, stability and good governance in Africa, isn't destroyed under any circumstances.
That reputation is priceless, and has been largely responsible for the confidence the international community has had in our nation - which has resulted in a steady increase in the flow of foreign direct investment into Ghana over the years. Above all, the projects they invest in, create jobs for unemployed Ghanaians.
Confidence may be intangible - but it is nonetheless a vital factor, in the mix of factors that investors, both indigenous and foreign, consider, when investing in any territory, Ghana included.
No politician or political party in Ghana must be allowed to declare a no-go area, in which their political opponents cannot organise political activities. That is intolerable in a democracy.
Speaking personally, for example, much as one loathes the New Patriotic Party (NPP), dominated as it is by Kufuor & Co., as a democrat, one will always defend their right to operate freely, in any part of the landmass of the Republic of Ghana. Ditto all the other political parties in Ghana.
It is for that reason that I join those who have condemned the statement said to have been made by Nii Lante Vanderpuije - an aide to the president of Ghana, no less, who really ought to know better - to the effect that he will not allow the NPP to meet in Zongo Junction. That is totally unacceptable.
In condemning Nii Lante Vanderpuije, it is also important to make the point, that it was for the selfsame reason, that during the December 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections, some of us condemned the attempt by certain traditional rulers in parts of the Ashanti Region, to prevent members of Zongo communities in their areas, from casting their votes, in the strongest possible terms.
That outrage too, must not be allowed to occur again, in the December 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections. Ditto the beating up and chasing away of NDC polling station agents and the party's local-level executives in many areas of the Ashanti and Eastern Regions, and, conversely, those of the NPP, in parts of the Volta Region, in the same election year.
It is time Ghana's politicians were made to understand that the nation and people they seek to rule, do not want violence, in any part of Ghana, whatsoever. For their own good, they had better pay heed to that societal reality - as they will pay a high price were they to instigate violence in their quest to win power in the December 2012 polls. Simply put, violence is unacceptable in the politics of today's Ghana. A word to the wise...
Tel(Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Monday, 19 March 2012
GREG SMITH'S 14 MARCH 2012 NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED: GIVING HIS REASONS FOR LEAVING GOLDMAN SACHS
On March 14, 2012, South African-born Greg Smith, resigned his position as a Goldman Sachs executive director, and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
I am reproducing his op-ed in the New York Times, in which he gave the reasons why he felt he had to leave the firm, for the benefit of readers of this blog.
What a difference one decent human being can make. Paradoxically, perhaps precisely because of his exposé, Goldman Sachs will survive. Alas, if it continues to be a bastion of such greed and cynicism, with its rip-off culture and utter contempt for its clients, clearly, it won't survive for very long.
Coming nearer home to Ghana, it simply doesn't bear thinking what he would say about the integrity (or, more to the point, lack of it - I dare say) of Ghana's ruling elites - were he to have a fly-on-the-wall view, and be able to listen in, unseen, to their closed-door strategy sessions: particularly those of our politicians (especially the big-fish from both the ruling National Democratic Congress and the biggest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party).
I cringe, when I imagine what he would have to report, after listening in, unseen, to the secret wheeling and dealing between the wealthiest of Ghana's politically well-connected business tycoons - to whom, apparently, virtually all our politicians are beholden, it is said - and the contacts-in-high-places in their personal networks'.
(Incidentally, is it not interesting that despite everything, a "communications team" has sprung up around Mr. Agbesi Woyome - whose money apparently went to politicians in both the NDC and NPP, incidentally - made up of greedy politicos and hacks-without-a-conscience, to paraphrase an old cynic I am acquainted with. Wonders. Whatever happened to professional pride and integrity - at the mention of hacks, I hear someone ask, dear reader? "Some people will do anything for money, I suppose" - to quote a wag I know. But I digress.) Please read on:
"TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.
It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.
But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.
I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.
When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.
Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.
How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.
What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.
Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.
It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.
It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.
These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.
When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.
My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.
I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer."
End of Greg Smith's New York Times op-ed of 14 March 2012.
I am reproducing his op-ed in the New York Times, in which he gave the reasons why he felt he had to leave the firm, for the benefit of readers of this blog.
What a difference one decent human being can make. Paradoxically, perhaps precisely because of his exposé, Goldman Sachs will survive. Alas, if it continues to be a bastion of such greed and cynicism, with its rip-off culture and utter contempt for its clients, clearly, it won't survive for very long.
Coming nearer home to Ghana, it simply doesn't bear thinking what he would say about the integrity (or, more to the point, lack of it - I dare say) of Ghana's ruling elites - were he to have a fly-on-the-wall view, and be able to listen in, unseen, to their closed-door strategy sessions: particularly those of our politicians (especially the big-fish from both the ruling National Democratic Congress and the biggest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party).
I cringe, when I imagine what he would have to report, after listening in, unseen, to the secret wheeling and dealing between the wealthiest of Ghana's politically well-connected business tycoons - to whom, apparently, virtually all our politicians are beholden, it is said - and the contacts-in-high-places in their personal networks'.
(Incidentally, is it not interesting that despite everything, a "communications team" has sprung up around Mr. Agbesi Woyome - whose money apparently went to politicians in both the NDC and NPP, incidentally - made up of greedy politicos and hacks-without-a-conscience, to paraphrase an old cynic I am acquainted with. Wonders. Whatever happened to professional pride and integrity - at the mention of hacks, I hear someone ask, dear reader? "Some people will do anything for money, I suppose" - to quote a wag I know. But I digress.) Please read on:
"TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.
It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.
But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.
I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.
When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.
Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.
How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.
What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.
Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.
It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.
It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.
These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.
When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.
My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.
I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer."
End of Greg Smith's New York Times op-ed of 14 March 2012.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
2012 CHINA DEVELOPMENT FORUM LUNCHEON ADDRESS: BY MS. CHRISTINE LAGARDE, IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR
For those fellow Ghanaians who like to take a global view of things, particularly the place of China in the global economy - and its impact on the economies of nations such as ours - I am reproducing a speech delivered earlier today, in Beijing, at the 2012 China Development Forum, by the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Managing Director, Ms. Christine Largarde.
There are many Ghanaians who see hope for our country in the spectacular achievements of China - in successfully transforming what is the most populous nation on earth, from a poor developing nation, into a wealthy nation that today is the world's second largest economy, within thirty years.
Such patriotic and independent-minded individuals, are discerning enough to understand, that despite what some members of Ghana's political class and its political parties tell ordinary people, as things stand, our nation's economy cannot be transformed to the extent of changing the lives of millions of Ghanaians significantly, in just four short years of the tenure of any government elected to power in our country.
Such patriotic and discerning individuals are realistic enough, to also understand that any such transformation of our national economy, which positively impacts living standards and the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians, will take at least a decade - of producing consistently high GDP growth rate figures - to occur.
For the aforementioned discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians, dear reader, I do hope this Beijing speech by Ms. Lagarde, will be of some interest. Please read on:
Sunday March 18 2012 - Beijing
"Good afternoon. It is a tremendous honor to be invited here to the 2012 China Development Forum. I would like to extend my gratitude to the Forum organizers at the Development Research Center of the State Council. I would also like to pay tribute to the Chair for today’s luncheon, Evan Greenberg, and my fellow speaker — and World Bank ‘neighbor’ — Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
I am delighted to be back in Beijing. There is a vibrancy and dynamism here that makes one believe that anything is possible. And that is a refreshing change when economic difficulties still loom around the world.
Fortunately, I am visiting in global circumstances that are a little more comfortable than they were last November. Then, I referred to the ‘dark clouds’ over the world economy, but today there are signs that those clouds may be beginning to disperse.
There are signs that strong policy actions — especially in Europe — are making a difference. Financial markets have become a little calmer and recent indicators point to an uptick in real economic activity, mostly in the United States.
Yet, we also need to remain cautious. As Luu Mengzheng said, “Like Weather, one's fortune may change by the evening.”
The global economy is not yet out of the danger zone: financial systems are still fragile; public and private debt is still too high; and unemployment is still a major problem. Added to that, the rising price of oil is a new threat that could derail the recovery.
The advanced economies — the European advanced economies in particular — remain the epicenter of many of these pressures. While they are clearly on the right policy path, they must push ahead without delay or diffidence.
However, the emerging economies — particularly global growth leaders like China — also have a special responsibility.
They are far from immune to the weaknesses among the advanced economies. And the possibility of slower growth over the medium term in some emerging economies is another source of risk to the global recovery.
If the emerging markets are to continue to prosper and help keep the global economy afloat, as they did through the depths of the crisis, they too must act. Not just in their own interests, but in the global interest.
I dare not think how bad the global situation might have been if China was not the powerhouse that it is. Yet, it also makes me wonder what more China can achieve — both for the Chinese people and as a global economic leader. I feel that the best is yet to come.
I would like to offer my perspective on three things:
First, a brief reflection on China’s spectacular success.
Second, the immediate challenges for China in navigating the crisis
Third, and perhaps most importantly, how efforts to reinvigorate reform can ensure China’s continued growth and prosperity.
The Path Recently Travelled
Some 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte said, “China is like a sleeping giant. And when she awakes, she shall astonish the world.”
And the facts are exactly that — astonishing. The Chinese economy achieved a remarkable transformation over the span of three decades to become the world’s second largest economy.
This involved growing by an average of 10 percent a year, and doubling in size every seven to eight years. It also resulted in an 18-fold increase in per capita income during a single generation.
The human scale of the achievement is perhaps even more impressive. The improvements involved one-fifth of the world’s population and several hundred million people being lifted out of poverty.
It is important to recall that these remarkable achievements were not the result of happenstance. They were born out of a vision — a far-sighted strategy to open up the Chinese economy, to develop deeper global trade and investment ties, and to connect with the rest of the world. Hand-in-hand with these concerted reform efforts, were years of hard work by the Chinese people.
With many countries embarking on multi-year reform agendas, the wisdom of China’s approach offers guidance to all of us. While the policy measures will necessarily vary from country to country, the effort behind them must not.
Navigating the Crisis
This brings me to my second point: China’s effectiveness in navigating the global crisis.
When the crisis hit, China demonstrated policy commitment and leadership yet again, deftly combating the negative spillovers. I see three main contributing factors.
One, China’s economy was in much better shape than most and had the capacity to respond — thanks to sound policymaking in the preceding years. This reflected prudent fiscal policy, countercyclical monetary policy, as well as structural improvements that had helped boost productivity.
Two, China had so far focused on trade liberalization, deferring financial integration for a later stage in its reform trajectory. As a result, China’s financial system was not exposed to the toxic assets that wreaked havoc on many advanced economies’ financial systems.
Three, policymakers responded quickly and forcefully, with a stimulus package to offset the shock from the collapse in global demand.
This put China in the enviable position of being able to provide a much needed lifeline to global growth and to assume a greater role as a development partner for low-income countries.
China’s global leadership, commensurate with its economic success, shone through.
And, even though China’s economy is now slowing somewhat, that may not be such a bad thing. The decision to refocus not just on the level of growth, but on the quality of growth and on how it can benefit the entire population — as noted in Premier Wen’s recent report and endorsed by the People’s National Congress — is the right one.
The China Yet to Come
Which brings me to my third and final set of thoughts on China’ future; the China that has yet to come.
The weak global environment has intensified the focus — both inside and outside China — on the need to accelerate efforts to transform China’s economic model.
We have seen important progress on this front. China’s external balance has come down considerably —reflecting weaker global demand, a worsening in China’s terms of trade, and very strong domestic investment. The current account surplus has fallen sharply from a record 10 percent of GDP in 2007 to less than 3 percent in 2011.
Attention is now shifting toward the growing internal imbalances and, notably, the persistent and very high levels of investment. Domestic consumption needs now to assume an even larger role in driving growth. And that needs to happen sooner rather than later or tensions in the current growth path will become increasingly evident.
In this context, I very much welcome that China’s 12th Five Year Plan emphasizes the objective of shifting toward consumption-led growth, a point that Premier Wen recently also underscored.
Why is this important? Export and investment-oriented growth may have catapulted China to where it is today, but it is not sufficiently people-centered. Prosperity can only endure when it is shared more broadly among the Chinese people. And the same is true for social stability.
So, what are the policy priorities needed to propel China forward on this journey? Let me talk about three key dimensions.
The first is to boost household incomes and promote inclusiveness.
We know that more equal societies are able to achieve greater economic stability and lasting growth. This challenge is by no means unique to China. But the policies to get there must be uniquely home-grown and customized to the local context.
China has made spectacular progress in reducing poverty. But, for years, the income of ordinary Chinese people —albeit fast growing —has made up a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. Household disposable income has fallen as share of GDP from 65 percent in 2000 to less than 60 percent in 2010.
The government is well on track to tackle this issue, already taking steps to expand social safety nets, and allocate more resources to pensions, healthcare and education. Poverty has fallen and rural development is clearly a priority. Yet, inequality is not something that can be rectified overnight. This is a marathon that will require continued action for years to come.
The second priority is to prepare for the coming demographic challenge.
We have seen through the experiences of many advanced economies, just how costly an aging population can be when the changing needs are left unaddressed.
China’s demographic shift may be several years away, but it should heed this experience. The coming changes are so large that it would be wise to begin preparations today. The share of working age population will start to decline 4-5 years from now, and could fall by 10 percent over just the following 20 years. This will require sweeping changes. Efforts to strengthen healthcare and pension systems will be a key factor.
Equally important will be efforts to enhance productivity and innovation to help prepare for the time when the labor force finally begins to shrink. The government can help lay the foundations by improving labor mobility and investing in human capital, for example, through better education and equal benefits for migrant workers.
And actions to increase competition — particularly in the service sector — will also help the private sector play a role, including in creating more jobs.
The third, and final, priority is financial reform.
The ultimate goal should be to ensure that China’s financial system works to support, not destabilize, growth. It should be open and innovative. It should ensure that everyone has access to credit to help boost consumption, support smaller enterprises, and create jobs. Risks must be scrutinized and managed, so as not to threaten financial stability.
I cannot do justice here to the gamut of financial reforms needed to underpin this transformation of China’s financial system.
So let me sketch out the core elements of a broad roadmap: a stronger and more flexible exchange rate; more effective liquidity and monetary management; high quality supervision and regulation; more well developed financial markets and products; flexible deposit and lending rates, and finally opening up the capital account.
Against this backdrop, I see no reason for the renminbi not to reach the status of an international reserve currency and occupy a position on par with China’s economic size.
Conclusion
The growing footprint of China’s economic progress and global influence is unmistakable.
China’s increasing role in the IMF — as one of our largest shareholders — is a testament to that growing leadership. And each day, I am reminded of the depths of China’s talents working closely with my IMF management colleague, Min Zhu, and other senior Chinese nationals at the IMF.
As other countries are struggling to overcome the crisis and get back on a solid growth path, China stands as a symbol of what can be accomplished.
This Forum is an opportunity to celebrate China’s progress and applaud the many good policy actions behind that progress. And, as we look ahead, the actions and policies underway today provide the key to a more prosperous future for China.
“If you want to know your past - look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions.” ~ Chinese Proverb
So, I am hopeful that current plans for far-reaching policies and reforms will secure Chinese prosperity and leadership for the years ahead.
Thank you."
End of 2012 China Development Forum Beijing speech delivered by IMF Managing Director, Ms. Christine Largarde.
Very interesting speech, dear reader. One hopes that one day in the not too distant future, an IMF managing director will make a similar speech in Ghana, extolling the virtues and achievements of our nation - and holding it out as an example worth emulating by other nations on the continent of Africa.
Clearly, to get to the promised land, so to speak, we need to be a more disciplined people - and to work a tad harder. We also need to ensure that good governance principles become rooted in our national life - in both the business and political spheres.
Above all, if we want to make the sort of progress that China has made, we must deal effectively with endemic corruption in Ghana - which is diverting resources for national development into lining the pockets of wealthy crooks amongst our educated urban elites. If we fail to do so, we won't get very far, alas.
Finally, let us end the monstrosity of a system that unfairly makes poor people constantly pay for their crimes by serving time in jail after being found guilty by the law courts - whiles the rich and powerful, responsible for the corruption that is stunting our development, get away with white-collar crimes that enable them siphon off, and salt away, billions of cedis of taxpayers' money, which they launder with impunity. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
There are many Ghanaians who see hope for our country in the spectacular achievements of China - in successfully transforming what is the most populous nation on earth, from a poor developing nation, into a wealthy nation that today is the world's second largest economy, within thirty years.
Such patriotic and independent-minded individuals, are discerning enough to understand, that despite what some members of Ghana's political class and its political parties tell ordinary people, as things stand, our nation's economy cannot be transformed to the extent of changing the lives of millions of Ghanaians significantly, in just four short years of the tenure of any government elected to power in our country.
Such patriotic and discerning individuals are realistic enough, to also understand that any such transformation of our national economy, which positively impacts living standards and the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians, will take at least a decade - of producing consistently high GDP growth rate figures - to occur.
For the aforementioned discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians, dear reader, I do hope this Beijing speech by Ms. Lagarde, will be of some interest. Please read on:
Sunday March 18 2012 - Beijing
"Good afternoon. It is a tremendous honor to be invited here to the 2012 China Development Forum. I would like to extend my gratitude to the Forum organizers at the Development Research Center of the State Council. I would also like to pay tribute to the Chair for today’s luncheon, Evan Greenberg, and my fellow speaker — and World Bank ‘neighbor’ — Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
I am delighted to be back in Beijing. There is a vibrancy and dynamism here that makes one believe that anything is possible. And that is a refreshing change when economic difficulties still loom around the world.
Fortunately, I am visiting in global circumstances that are a little more comfortable than they were last November. Then, I referred to the ‘dark clouds’ over the world economy, but today there are signs that those clouds may be beginning to disperse.
There are signs that strong policy actions — especially in Europe — are making a difference. Financial markets have become a little calmer and recent indicators point to an uptick in real economic activity, mostly in the United States.
Yet, we also need to remain cautious. As Luu Mengzheng said, “Like Weather, one's fortune may change by the evening.”
The global economy is not yet out of the danger zone: financial systems are still fragile; public and private debt is still too high; and unemployment is still a major problem. Added to that, the rising price of oil is a new threat that could derail the recovery.
The advanced economies — the European advanced economies in particular — remain the epicenter of many of these pressures. While they are clearly on the right policy path, they must push ahead without delay or diffidence.
However, the emerging economies — particularly global growth leaders like China — also have a special responsibility.
They are far from immune to the weaknesses among the advanced economies. And the possibility of slower growth over the medium term in some emerging economies is another source of risk to the global recovery.
If the emerging markets are to continue to prosper and help keep the global economy afloat, as they did through the depths of the crisis, they too must act. Not just in their own interests, but in the global interest.
I dare not think how bad the global situation might have been if China was not the powerhouse that it is. Yet, it also makes me wonder what more China can achieve — both for the Chinese people and as a global economic leader. I feel that the best is yet to come.
I would like to offer my perspective on three things:
First, a brief reflection on China’s spectacular success.
Second, the immediate challenges for China in navigating the crisis
Third, and perhaps most importantly, how efforts to reinvigorate reform can ensure China’s continued growth and prosperity.
The Path Recently Travelled
Some 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte said, “China is like a sleeping giant. And when she awakes, she shall astonish the world.”
And the facts are exactly that — astonishing. The Chinese economy achieved a remarkable transformation over the span of three decades to become the world’s second largest economy.
This involved growing by an average of 10 percent a year, and doubling in size every seven to eight years. It also resulted in an 18-fold increase in per capita income during a single generation.
The human scale of the achievement is perhaps even more impressive. The improvements involved one-fifth of the world’s population and several hundred million people being lifted out of poverty.
It is important to recall that these remarkable achievements were not the result of happenstance. They were born out of a vision — a far-sighted strategy to open up the Chinese economy, to develop deeper global trade and investment ties, and to connect with the rest of the world. Hand-in-hand with these concerted reform efforts, were years of hard work by the Chinese people.
With many countries embarking on multi-year reform agendas, the wisdom of China’s approach offers guidance to all of us. While the policy measures will necessarily vary from country to country, the effort behind them must not.
Navigating the Crisis
This brings me to my second point: China’s effectiveness in navigating the global crisis.
When the crisis hit, China demonstrated policy commitment and leadership yet again, deftly combating the negative spillovers. I see three main contributing factors.
One, China’s economy was in much better shape than most and had the capacity to respond — thanks to sound policymaking in the preceding years. This reflected prudent fiscal policy, countercyclical monetary policy, as well as structural improvements that had helped boost productivity.
Two, China had so far focused on trade liberalization, deferring financial integration for a later stage in its reform trajectory. As a result, China’s financial system was not exposed to the toxic assets that wreaked havoc on many advanced economies’ financial systems.
Three, policymakers responded quickly and forcefully, with a stimulus package to offset the shock from the collapse in global demand.
This put China in the enviable position of being able to provide a much needed lifeline to global growth and to assume a greater role as a development partner for low-income countries.
China’s global leadership, commensurate with its economic success, shone through.
And, even though China’s economy is now slowing somewhat, that may not be such a bad thing. The decision to refocus not just on the level of growth, but on the quality of growth and on how it can benefit the entire population — as noted in Premier Wen’s recent report and endorsed by the People’s National Congress — is the right one.
The China Yet to Come
Which brings me to my third and final set of thoughts on China’ future; the China that has yet to come.
The weak global environment has intensified the focus — both inside and outside China — on the need to accelerate efforts to transform China’s economic model.
We have seen important progress on this front. China’s external balance has come down considerably —reflecting weaker global demand, a worsening in China’s terms of trade, and very strong domestic investment. The current account surplus has fallen sharply from a record 10 percent of GDP in 2007 to less than 3 percent in 2011.
Attention is now shifting toward the growing internal imbalances and, notably, the persistent and very high levels of investment. Domestic consumption needs now to assume an even larger role in driving growth. And that needs to happen sooner rather than later or tensions in the current growth path will become increasingly evident.
In this context, I very much welcome that China’s 12th Five Year Plan emphasizes the objective of shifting toward consumption-led growth, a point that Premier Wen recently also underscored.
Why is this important? Export and investment-oriented growth may have catapulted China to where it is today, but it is not sufficiently people-centered. Prosperity can only endure when it is shared more broadly among the Chinese people. And the same is true for social stability.
So, what are the policy priorities needed to propel China forward on this journey? Let me talk about three key dimensions.
The first is to boost household incomes and promote inclusiveness.
We know that more equal societies are able to achieve greater economic stability and lasting growth. This challenge is by no means unique to China. But the policies to get there must be uniquely home-grown and customized to the local context.
China has made spectacular progress in reducing poverty. But, for years, the income of ordinary Chinese people —albeit fast growing —has made up a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. Household disposable income has fallen as share of GDP from 65 percent in 2000 to less than 60 percent in 2010.
The government is well on track to tackle this issue, already taking steps to expand social safety nets, and allocate more resources to pensions, healthcare and education. Poverty has fallen and rural development is clearly a priority. Yet, inequality is not something that can be rectified overnight. This is a marathon that will require continued action for years to come.
The second priority is to prepare for the coming demographic challenge.
We have seen through the experiences of many advanced economies, just how costly an aging population can be when the changing needs are left unaddressed.
China’s demographic shift may be several years away, but it should heed this experience. The coming changes are so large that it would be wise to begin preparations today. The share of working age population will start to decline 4-5 years from now, and could fall by 10 percent over just the following 20 years. This will require sweeping changes. Efforts to strengthen healthcare and pension systems will be a key factor.
Equally important will be efforts to enhance productivity and innovation to help prepare for the time when the labor force finally begins to shrink. The government can help lay the foundations by improving labor mobility and investing in human capital, for example, through better education and equal benefits for migrant workers.
And actions to increase competition — particularly in the service sector — will also help the private sector play a role, including in creating more jobs.
The third, and final, priority is financial reform.
The ultimate goal should be to ensure that China’s financial system works to support, not destabilize, growth. It should be open and innovative. It should ensure that everyone has access to credit to help boost consumption, support smaller enterprises, and create jobs. Risks must be scrutinized and managed, so as not to threaten financial stability.
I cannot do justice here to the gamut of financial reforms needed to underpin this transformation of China’s financial system.
So let me sketch out the core elements of a broad roadmap: a stronger and more flexible exchange rate; more effective liquidity and monetary management; high quality supervision and regulation; more well developed financial markets and products; flexible deposit and lending rates, and finally opening up the capital account.
Against this backdrop, I see no reason for the renminbi not to reach the status of an international reserve currency and occupy a position on par with China’s economic size.
Conclusion
The growing footprint of China’s economic progress and global influence is unmistakable.
China’s increasing role in the IMF — as one of our largest shareholders — is a testament to that growing leadership. And each day, I am reminded of the depths of China’s talents working closely with my IMF management colleague, Min Zhu, and other senior Chinese nationals at the IMF.
As other countries are struggling to overcome the crisis and get back on a solid growth path, China stands as a symbol of what can be accomplished.
This Forum is an opportunity to celebrate China’s progress and applaud the many good policy actions behind that progress. And, as we look ahead, the actions and policies underway today provide the key to a more prosperous future for China.
“If you want to know your past - look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions.” ~ Chinese Proverb
So, I am hopeful that current plans for far-reaching policies and reforms will secure Chinese prosperity and leadership for the years ahead.
Thank you."
End of 2012 China Development Forum Beijing speech delivered by IMF Managing Director, Ms. Christine Largarde.
Very interesting speech, dear reader. One hopes that one day in the not too distant future, an IMF managing director will make a similar speech in Ghana, extolling the virtues and achievements of our nation - and holding it out as an example worth emulating by other nations on the continent of Africa.
Clearly, to get to the promised land, so to speak, we need to be a more disciplined people - and to work a tad harder. We also need to ensure that good governance principles become rooted in our national life - in both the business and political spheres.
Above all, if we want to make the sort of progress that China has made, we must deal effectively with endemic corruption in Ghana - which is diverting resources for national development into lining the pockets of wealthy crooks amongst our educated urban elites. If we fail to do so, we won't get very far, alas.
Finally, let us end the monstrosity of a system that unfairly makes poor people constantly pay for their crimes by serving time in jail after being found guilty by the law courts - whiles the rich and powerful, responsible for the corruption that is stunting our development, get away with white-collar crimes that enable them siphon off, and salt away, billions of cedis of taxpayers' money, which they launder with impunity. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
GEORGE CLOONEY & MIA FARROW: A BOUNTY OF BILLIONS WILL DELIVER SUDAN'S MURDEROUS LEADER PRESIDENT BASHIR TO THE ICC!
If you are a Sudanese citizen from either Darfur or the disputed areas bordering the Republic of Southern Sudan, who happens to be one of the victim's of the murderous regime of President Bashir, the African Union (AU) is definitely not where you look to, for deliverance, from the hell on earth existence you are forced to endure, on a daily basis.
As presently constituted, the AU is essentially an exclusive club with a membership of powerful individuals, many of whom routinely steal from their national treasuries, and when provoked, can casually order the murder of the most awkward of their political opponents.
Unfortunately, the AU is not the sort of exclusive club whose members have much of an interest in the plight of Africa's teeming masses of the down-trodden and marginalised.
Perhaps that is why to millions of 21st century Africa's unfortunates - those poor souls who happen to be President Bashir's pitiful and helpless victims - concerned and caring foreign celebrities like Mia Farrow and George Clooney, must be like angels sent by God Almighty to offer them hope and salvation.
But Mr. Clooney and Ms. Farrow miss the point entirely, when they think that somehow they can shame mass murderers and shameless swindlers responsible for the suffering and deaths of millions, and who have stolen billions from their people, and have gotten away with it successfully over the years, into changing their ways. It simply won't happen, dear reader.
If they want to bring President Bashir to justice, however, alas, Mr. Clooney and Ms. Farrow must focus on how best to badger the individuals on Forbes' list of the planet Earth's billionaires - and raise billions from them for a bounty to be paid to the party that delivers President Bashir (who incidentally is shame-proof, and leads a bomb-and-bullet-proof existence, on top of that) to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
They will then see just how swiftly President Bashir, whose crimes against humanity are nearly as monstrous and abominable as those of Adolf Hitler, will end up in The Hague - much to the relief of the millions of Sudanese and Southern Sudanese citizens, whose lives he has made a complete misery: and turned upside down in such apocalyptic fashion. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
As presently constituted, the AU is essentially an exclusive club with a membership of powerful individuals, many of whom routinely steal from their national treasuries, and when provoked, can casually order the murder of the most awkward of their political opponents.
Unfortunately, the AU is not the sort of exclusive club whose members have much of an interest in the plight of Africa's teeming masses of the down-trodden and marginalised.
Perhaps that is why to millions of 21st century Africa's unfortunates - those poor souls who happen to be President Bashir's pitiful and helpless victims - concerned and caring foreign celebrities like Mia Farrow and George Clooney, must be like angels sent by God Almighty to offer them hope and salvation.
But Mr. Clooney and Ms. Farrow miss the point entirely, when they think that somehow they can shame mass murderers and shameless swindlers responsible for the suffering and deaths of millions, and who have stolen billions from their people, and have gotten away with it successfully over the years, into changing their ways. It simply won't happen, dear reader.
If they want to bring President Bashir to justice, however, alas, Mr. Clooney and Ms. Farrow must focus on how best to badger the individuals on Forbes' list of the planet Earth's billionaires - and raise billions from them for a bounty to be paid to the party that delivers President Bashir (who incidentally is shame-proof, and leads a bomb-and-bullet-proof existence, on top of that) to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
They will then see just how swiftly President Bashir, whose crimes against humanity are nearly as monstrous and abominable as those of Adolf Hitler, will end up in The Hague - much to the relief of the millions of Sudanese and Southern Sudanese citizens, whose lives he has made a complete misery: and turned upside down in such apocalyptic fashion. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
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