2.5m Internet Users In Ghana

THERE has been significant improvement in the communication sector with growth being registered in key areas.

Statistics collated this year reveal that, total phone subscriptions went up from 11,570,430 in 2008 to `15,318,225 while internet users climbed from as low as 45,000 last year to 2,500,000 this year.

This was made known by the Minister of Communication, Haruna Iddrisu when he took his turn at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra yesterday to touch on issues to do with the Ministry.

He said in respect of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the World Summit on the Information Society established a minimum penetration level of 25 per cent for the telecommunication industry and that going by such a growth rate what we accomplished this January was nearly 67 per cent.

Our resolve however, is to strive to secure a ubiquitous availability of telecommunication services that will enable the rural areas activity participate in the digital economy?, he said.

Mr Iddrisu said with the availability of broadband and expectant reduction of bandwidth prices in the country, the internet is now poised for its explosion.

He said though Ghana was among the leading internet countries in Africa, its growth had been sacrificed by the continuing reliance on voice telephony thereby suppressing the growth of the internet.

Mr Iddrisu said the Ministry along with other stakeholders has begun the reorganization of the management of Ghana Network Information Centre (ghNIC) to manage the internet.

The present exercise will give it a multi-sectoral participation in its management and allow the Ghana Network Information Centre to exercise its mandate provided under section 63 of the Electronic Transaction Act, Act 722 of 2008? he said.

Mr Iddrisu said to support internet development, the Ministry has further granted approval to the National Communication Authority (NCA) to prepare the guidelines for the auctioning of licences in the 2.5 GHz to 2-69 GHz frequency band to provide wireless nationwide broadband connectivity to subscribers excluding voice applications.

He said the Ministry is also facilitating negotiations between the Ghana Internet Service Providers and Vodafone for rebates on the lease of capacities on the SAT-3 cable to enable them provide affordable internet services.

Mr Iddrisu said government is alive to its responsibility to intervene where appropriate, to correct market failures, maintain fair competition, attract investment to enhance development and maximize economic and social benefits to serve national priorities.

?Conscious of the enormous responsibility to develop the communication sector, I want to say, that over the past year, government has empowered the governing institutions to perform the supervisory duties in open, fair and transparent manner.

Touching on other programmes undertaken by the Ministry, He said, the Ministry has commenced the implementation of an e-government infrastructure project that will provide a national network for networking Ministries and Departments to local government area structures.

He said the Ministry of Communication in conjunction with the Finance Ministry is facilitating the automation of the operations of the revenue agencies including the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Registrar-Generals Department through a Public Private Partnership arrangement.

Mr Iddrisu said with the recent spate of fire outbreaks and loss of vital national information, the Ministry is proceeding with the construction of a National Data Centre to which the national portal will be linked.

He said the Ministry is collaborating with the Ghana Standard Board to establish a comprehensive industry standard and quality assurance and certification for the software industry in Ghana.

Mr Iddrisu indicated that projects such as Community Information Centres, Provision of Universal Access Common Telecom facilities and Development of Standards and Accreditation in ICT skills are all on course and being pursued with keen interest by the Ministry.

He said the Ministry of Communication is facilitating the existence of a resilient and advanced technology platform upon which solute ions and strategies will be delivered to expand and improve education, governance, health delivery, facilitate commerce, finance and banking and support agricultural and environmental monitoring to stimulate growth in the economy.

Voice from Afar: Ghana must be resurrected

Author: K.B. Asante My people of Kwahu are right in celebrating Easter with more gusto than they mark Christmas. Birth with all its mysteries leads to life. Can death then wipe out this great life into oblivion by one gasp of breath? As we bring the Easter festivities to an end, therefore, let us maintain our vision of the life eternal and abandon that existence which begins and ends with self. Let us promote the good life through our offspring, those around us and humanity at large by rescuing our country from the unfortunate depths to which it has sunk. Ghana must be resurrected! At Achimota I was fascinated by the South Pacific volcanic eruption of Easter Island when the art master dwelt briefly on the islanders’ burial platforms and their surrounding statutes. The islanders appeared to take death and burial as seriously as we take them in Ghana. I then read about Christmas Island but became unhappy. The island was said to be discovered by a Dutch admiral on Easter Sunday in 1722, hence the name. I asked myself: “Did not the island exist before western adventurers?” I was not surprised about what I subsequently learnt because if you discover or find something out of the blue, you use it as you like. And this was precisely what happened. Easter Island was annexed by Chile in 1888 after the inhabitants had been converted to Christianity. Thereafter, the natives of the island were confined to one village where they had 5,000 acres of land for subsistence farming. The rest of the island with 30,000 acres of grass-covered land was leased to a company for grazing of sheep and cattle. I was surprised that a country named to commemorate the victory of life over death was bled to oblivion by human greed. Today, I wonder whether our country is not bleeding through the short-sightedness and greed of our own people in high places. It is difficult to understand what is happening. The majority of the country appears to be devout Christians. And our Moslem brothers and sisters are also strong in their faith. Is it that we practise the outward forms of our belief with its rites and shows to the neglect of deeper meaning? I am afraid there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that some priests or religious leaders mislead the people for gain. As life gets burdensome, they promise not only redemption but riches. “The Lord will provide”, they say. “You give and He will replenish what you contribute 10-fold”. Stories about the fleecing of the poor are difficult to believe. It appears that it is not only the little-educated who run away from facts and succumb to the natural characteristic of wishful thinking. One example will suffice. An organisation with many big brains and professionals has started constructing a building. It now appears that it does not have enough funds and has no plans nor capacity for raising the extra money required. Apparently some are relying on faith. “If you have faith it can be done”; “with God everything is possible”, they appear to argue, even if they do not come out explicitly. Yes, we need faith. Yes, we can do a lot with determination and confidence. But you cannot get money out of empty or unwilling pockets. Good analysis and planning are necessary. It is after one has used the brains and hands given by God that one can confidently ask for the blessings of the Almighty. And so let us move forward with the real Easter spirit. Lying, cheating and stealing may lead to abundant life but they kill the soul. Misleading the poor and underprivileged destroys the innocent life. The country is poor, under-developed and appears to be sinking because we favour the immediate and not the future. Ghana has a great future provided we work for it. Ghana must be resurrected! Credit: K.B. Asante/Daily Graphic

Slavery in Africa today

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Although slavery was abolished more than a hundred and forty years ago and all countries in Africa are now politically free, there is a new form of slavery in Africa today which is cruel, harsh and severe like the one which took place about five centuries ago. This new slavery is like unquenchable fire ravaging in a dense but dry forest consuming everything on its path. This new slavery which is consuming Africans and decimating them is poverty.

Despite decades of independence, availability of natural resources and existence of technology to make good these rich resources, Africa is still the poorest continent on earth. Today Africa is a continent where majority of the people live on one or two dollars a day. Africa is a continent where people die for lack of food, potable drinking water, and against common preventable diseases. It is a continent where malnutrition abounds and few children under the age of five survive the menace of the six killer diseases. It is a continent where child mortality is high and life expectancy is low. It is a continent where people walk several miles for water and children have no access to education and medical care.

It is a continent where rural life is nothing but a condemnation to poverty, misery, desperation and hopelessness. It is a place where people live in mud/thatched houses with bamboo/raffia leafs as roofing sheets.

It is a continent full of wars and armed conflicts. It is a continent where democracy and rule of law are a myth.

It is a continent full of dictators and kleptocrats; a continent where corruption is handsomely rewarded and achievement is shunned; a place where entry into public life/service is a means to acquiring wealth.

From Cape Town in South Africa in the south to Tunis in Tunisia in the north the story of poverty is the same. In all these countries there is lack of financial resources and economic opportunities. There is lack of food and potable drinking water; there is lack of health, housing and accommodation facilities; there is the poverty of landlessness and employment. Access to education, health and other basic infrastructures is limited to just a few. In Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Malawi, Mauritania, Sudan and Eritrea people lack basic food and water and are at the mercy of UN food aid. In Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Equatorial Guinea the people lack basic health services and 8 out of ten of the population have not seen a dentist before. People are landless; they have no access to education, employment, housing and accommodation; they live in harsh and unforgiving political environment; they face threat of viruses and diseases such as HIV/AIDS, E.Bola and malaria.

Africa today is the worst place for a child to be born or grow up due to poverty and lack of opportunities. There are many cities, towns and villages where children go to school without food or eat once a day, something unimaginable in Western societies. Due to poverty most children under five are malnourished and underweight. The children are not properly clothed or sheltered. They do not receive much attention from their parents. Due to the pervasive and extreme nature of poverty, children prematurely become adults at the age of ten sometimes even less. They take on the responsibility of adults; scavenge for food and work to bring home income to support the family. As a result absenteeism in schools are high as many students swap their education for income generating activities such as fishing, farming and hawking, an act that continue to fuel and perpetuate the poverty cycle. They suffer many abuses silently in the hands of those who employ them and many are maladjusted. In the villages and in the rural areas kids walk bare footed to school and even to church or mosque. In most rural areas students have to study with lantern because there is no electricity. In the rural areas children have no class rooms and have to study under trees. Today in Sierra Leone as in many places in Africa a child is more likely to die at birth or die before reaching the age of five.

Like their children, the existence of poverty and lack of economic opportunities make parents worry about what they and their family will eat as the evening approaches. Most parents struggle to feed their children and many have to credit food in order to feed their families. Parents are frustrated when they cannot cloth their kids or pay their fees and more agitated when they cannot pay their rents and face ejection. There is nothing so humiliating and insulting than not been able to feed, cloth and provide accommodation for ones family, act which is exacerbated by the culture in Africa.

Life in an African city is a great struggle and a constant battle for both young and old. There are no safety nets like unemployment benefits, council accommodation for homeless people etc. Many workers have no savings, and those without jobs are at the mercy of their distance families, friends and love ones. Slaved to poverty and helpless, these men and women have very few options: commit suicide in their own countries, run away from their children or battle the seas to reach Europe. Many in Europe will now understand why men and women battle dangerous seas for days often without food and water to reach Spain, Malta or Italy to seek employment, something they have been denied by their slave masters in Africa. This also explains why Africans will offer their services for any type of work so far as they are paid. The disturbances that took place in Egypt, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast in 2008 over food shortages and price increases is jut the tip of the iceberg.

There are many things that those in the West take for granted such as undisrupted and constant supply of electricity, water, availability of jobs and affordable food, clothing and council flats. In Africa items such as cars, fridges, flat screen TV, laptops, camcorders, cameras and most electronic gadgets is a luxury. When one does not know where the evening meal is going to come from can he think about buying a TV set? That is how bad the situation is in Africa.

It is not only individuals who are poor but communities, villages, towns and cities as well. In some communities there are no schools and children have to walk several kilometres a every school day in order to attend the nearest school which may be 5 or 10 kilometres away. In some communities you can only travel once a week as the only vehicle in the village leaves and comes once a week. There is no tap water. A town or village is lucky if there is a borehole. In most communities humans and animals share the same unprotected water source. Wells and streams are polluted and because the people have no alternatives they are forced to drink it. As a result water borne diseases are rampant, and deaths from such diseases are daily occurrence.

In some communities there are no hospitals, clinics, health centres or pharmacy and patients have to travel several kilometres to nearby towns before they can receive treatment or medical help. In these communities people always pray that nothing catastrophic happens in the night as that will mean automatic death. In these communities pregnant mothers are always at risk of death as there are no ambulances, and roads are poor and vehicles are scarce. This explains why child mortality is high. In the towns and villages there are no electricity and that means no economic activity that requires electricity can survive in that environment. Farmers have no place to sell their produce as there is no market infrastructure. They therefore rely on the ‘generosity’ of market women from the cities who troop the villages to buy the products at whatever price they want.

In cities where public services (utilities and amenities) are relatively available, there are always shortages of essential medicines, equipments, beds, vehicles and specialised professionals in the hospitals. It is common to find patients sleeping on bed mats on the floor of hospitals while nurses and doctors go about their normal duties. In the big cities it is common to hear news that patients have absconded from the hospitals before they are officially discharged because they are poor and cannot pay their bills. As a result patients are now detained after getting well till they pay their bills. Constant disruption of water and electricity supply is a headache for hospital officials, factories and households. It is common to find waste bins filled to the brim and tipping.

Almost all the open gutters are choked and anytime it rains flood begins to threaten the people. In these cities very few houses have their own toilet facilities as a result majority of the people rely on public toilets which are themselves very few and untidy. Some of these toilets stink so much so that one has to take a bath or shower immediately after use. Due to pressure on these few toilets they are always in poor shape. In Accra lack of toilet facilities especially along the coast have forced people to use the seashore as a place of convenience. A visit to Dutch Hotel in Nungua in the morning, afternoon or evening reveals a large army of men, women and children easing themselves not far from where this beautiful hotel is situated. In Nima, Ashaiman, Nungua and James Town all suburbs of Accra, it is common to find human excreta wrapped in polythene bags and thrown into gutters, bushes and onto the street. In the cities there is the problem of managing waste, sanitation and sewerage. All these impact negatively on the health of the people and explain why life expectancy is very low.

Shortage of accommodation means that people have to pay five times what their counterparts in the villages and towns are paying. People in the big cities always pray that rain does not fall in the evening or in the night as that will mean homeless people and hustlers will have to forfeit their sleep. In Accra, Lagos, Kano, Kampala, Nairobi and other major cities across the continent people live in the woods, sleep in metal containers, kiosks and makeshift structures and slum dwelling is very common.

High unemployment in the cities fuelled by rural-urban migration has forced people onto the street. In Accra you can find hawkers of all kinds taking advantage of the ever present traffic jam to sell bread, chewing gum, ice water, apple and those who have nothing to sell engage in crime, and other social vices. A walk through the major streets of Accra, Lagos, Kumasi, Lome, Conakry, Freetown, Abidjan, Nairobi, and Kampala, Arusha, Monrovia and major cities in South Africa reveal how poverty has forced millions of people to beg for food and money. The problem is very disturbing when one looks at the disabled community. Roughly more than half of the beggars in Accra for instance are people who are disabled.

Who are the slave masters?

The slave masters in Africa today are the politicians, their cronies, the business elite and the well connected. Together they have hijacked and exercise full control over all the resources including land, labour, capital and revenues from all economic activities. They determine who should eat and who should not. They determine who should get a job and who should get sacked. They determine who gets a place to sell in the market and who should be kicked out. They determine who should get a contract and whose certificate should be withdrawn. They decide which roads should be constructed or resurfaced and which one should not. They determine which village or town gets connected to the national electricity grid. They determine which region or district receives funding for projects.

The slave masters determine who should own which business and who should have a share in that business. You cannot get a certificate to operate a business unless you grease the palm of a politician. You cannot get a contract unless you know a politician in the ruling government. You are treated differently if you know the regional minister, the governor or the district chief executive (DCE). As far as one knows a cabinet minister he can do whatever he likes and nobody dares question him. It is always the poor and the have nots who get prosecuted and jailed while the politicians and their cronies who commit atrocious crimes against the state live in their mansions to enjoy their booty. Contractors do substandard works, collect hundreds of millions of dollars, give politicians their share and that is all. So a road whose live span is twenty years has to be resurfaced after just two years. Like the slavery of old, the politicians, their families, the businessmen and the well connected are not hurt by the storm of poverty in the continent but their slaves who make up the majority of the population do. These corrupt politicians and their associates are holding the people captive with their ill-conceived economic policies and programmes thereby giving them no chance to develop. The politicians in Africa call themselves saviour of the people and have names and titles like Junior Jesus, Servants of the Poor, but they are all lies. None of them cares for the poor but their own stomach.

The people are poor because the slave masters have decided they should remain so, as monies meant for their development have been stolen and are sitting in Banks in Switzerland, Luxemburg, Jersey Island, and Britain.

What will you say when people have no access to food, water, electricity; have no access to education and health facilities; cannot pay their rents and fees for their kids; have no jobs and no savings; have no access to toilet facilities and have to put up with horrible smell everyday?

I have witnessed poverty in Africa and although I did not witness the slavery in the Americas, I have learnt enough about it and I can say with confidence that the poverty in Africa today is the modern version of the slavery that took place about five centuries ago.

There is the need for concrete and aggressive poverty reduction strategy and move away from the do-nothing approaches to problem solving to solution driven policies that will actually enable Africans to deliver themselves from the tentacles of poverty.

Editorial:WHO WILL DELIVER GHANA FROM NDC AND NPP?

There is too much poverty in the country: in the cities and in the countryside, two-thirds of Ghanaians live on two dollars a day. That is very bad indeed for a country that has exported gold, diamond, timber and cocoa for decades.

There is too much corruption in the country: in both major political parties NDC and NPP; and in the police and immigration service; at Tema and Takoradi harbours and Kotoka Airport, and at CEPS; importers,exporters and travellers are suffering. In the universities, polytechnics, nursing and teachers’ training colleges sex is traded for grades and money is exchanged for admission. Many female students are victims.

The illiteracy level in the country is very high: Close to 30% of the adult population cannot read and write. Unemployment is very high too. Unofficially it hovers between 25 and 50%. Many of the youth have no jobs and have resorted to activities such as armed robbery, prostitution, hawking and other social vices. Graduates from our universities are without jobs either and many are doing their best to live in poverty.

In many homes basic facilities such as water and toilet are absent. Many people in our cities and towns are without quality and quantity of water. In some communities, residents have to live without water supply for weeks if not months.

In most of our rural areas people live in mud houses, roofed with raffia leaves. They are without electricity, water and social security. In the cities people have no mortgage; they face high renting and utility bills with poor services. Power cuts is everywhere in the country, yet every month the minister of energy receives millions of cedis for not providing the people with the energy thy need.

Farmers have no access to tractors and fertilisers and have to plant using cutlasses and hoes during the planting and harvesting seasons. Even when tractors are imported for them to use the corrupt politicians always hijack them. The farmers have no access to irrigation facilities and if nature fails to provide them with water then they are doomed.

Poverty is driving more and more children into the streets of Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Ho, Tema and many others. Children serving as head potters are visible everywhere in the country. They are selling ice water, coconut, plantain chips and other hawking activities. They are sacrificing their education to find food for themselves. Majority of these kids have no place to call home. They sleep in the street and wherever they can. Some of them were born in the street, have been raised by the street, taught by the street, protected by the street but many of them have been subjected to abuse by the very society that has the responsibility to protect them. The MPs, the president, the vice president and their ministers drive by: some of them even stop to buy the stuff these children are selling without asking question why these children who are supposed to be in school and be trained as future leaders are on the street selling.

There is entropy of infrastructure decay in the country: break down of the rail sector, energy shortages, poor roads, poor and inadequate housing, inadequate water and sanitation delivery systems. There are no proper waste management systems. The traffic jams and pollution in Accra, Kumasi and elsewhere are unbearable.

There is food shortage everywhere and prices are beyond the reach of ordinary Ghanaians as a result malnutrition is increasingly affecting most of the children especially in the rural areas.

Most hospitals are without essential medicines and medical staff is in short supply in most health institutions. Patients sleeping on the floor of hospitals due to inadequate beds are a common feature in our hospitals. The minister of health says there is no money for medicines but every month taxes are paid to his government and we cannot tell where the money goes.

We have been told that Tema Harbour is being raped by men working with the president. Those at the helm of affairs are doing their best to loot as much as they can for themselves leaving Ghanaians to suffer. A case in point is the corruption allegations levelled at members of both the NDC and NPP.

Ghana has not modernized at all. 53 years after independence we still carry things on our head; wash our clothes with our hands and our women still carry babies on their back. They are all signs of where we are as a nation. Quality of life is very low. Life expectancy is just 57. Young men and women are dying from diseases that ought not to kill them. Poverty and the heat from the sun have turned beautiful young ladies into old one. There is walling and gnashing of teeth in every home. Out of sight out of mind a woman has to poison herself and her five children a sign of poverty, desperation, frustration that the NDC and NPP have helped institutionalised in the country. “It has now emerged that Georgina Pipson, the 31-year-old mother suspected of killing her five children at Gomoa Nyanyano near Kasoa in the Central Region, poisoned them with parazone, a powerful, corrosive detergent.
The Children are Kwaku Osae Asante 11, Nana Yaw Asante 9, Angel Akua Asante 6, Kofi Asante 4 and Esi Asante 1.” Source: myjoyonline.com, Tuesday, 05 Jan 2010.

Nothing is manufactured in the country not even bicycles let alone tractors, cars, computers, mobile phones, dish washers and heavy equipments that help nations to develop. We are a nation that depends on what others in Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, and China have used and thrown away. Our economy is littered with used computers, used pants, and used cars things that most Ghanaians cannot do without because of poverty. In all this we have had presidents and their ministers who were paid huge salaries and bonuses to help develop the nation but only ended up impoverishing the people.

NDC and NPP have been promising to build castles in Ghana, yet people are living in mud houses. We cannot even device plans to help our farmers to increase food production. We have not recognised that the cutlasses and hoes they have been using since the time of slavery and colonialism cannot help us to move forward as a nation.

Water pollution and poor sanitation is everywhere in our cities. The people of Teshie and Nungua are using the sea and the coast as places of convenience because they have no access to toilets. In Accra the Korle Lagoon and the Odaw River have been polluted so much so that there are no living organisms in them. The stench in our cities is awful. Illegal dumping of waste is everywhere. Apart from being eyesores these dumps have also become breeding grounds for flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats and mice; and cause odour problems, water pollution from runoff, and air pollution from burning.

In many of the country, for example; Sewerage is almost non-existent, with only a portion of Accra, Tema, Kumasi and few regional capitals enjoying piped sewerage services. There is no centralized wastewater treatment system in most of the cities and households and commercial premises generally have no onsite flush latrines. Within Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tema and most of the cities and towns the absence of waste infrastructures has led to a situation where solid waste sometimes remain uncollected for weeks, and is unhygienically burnt and disposed; indiscriminate dumping of waste is creating health problems.

There are few cities and towns with reliable piped water supply. Many residence of Accra do not have access to frequent supply of good drinking water and many households have to resort to extreme measures to be able to cope. In short, the infrastructures to deliver water to the people are either not existing or their capacities are too small to support the growing demand. The water situation in the rural areas is even worse. In the three northern regions people have to walk several miles in order to get water. As a result, people are not able to live healthy lives due to poor water quality and dwindling accessibility.

Rawlings and his P(NDC) spent 19 years joking with Ghanaians and the problems facing them. For better part of his 19 year reign Rawlings busied himself with celebration of June 4^th and 31^st December anniversaries than the welfare of Ghanaians. There is nothing remarkable in the country that can be associated with his 19 year reign. The SSS now (SHS) that he brought to Ghana has been a failure. Students still do not have access to textbooks close to two decades after it was introduced. Kuffour and his NPP also spent 8 years talking more and doing little.

The NDC and the NPP are toying with Ghana's secondary school system: 3 years for NDC, 4 years for NPP meanwhile they are busy sending their children to be educated abroad leaving Ghanaians to suffer from their selfish and ill thought-out policies. Nkrumah built universities and the current NDC and NPP leadership enjoyed it for free. During their time it was one student to a room, free breakfast, lunch and supper. But go to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana and Cape Coast University and see the condition of our students. Four students are packed in a room meant for a student and that is when a student is even lucky to have his/her name short listed by the authorities. Students in these institutions are studying without electricity and other academic facilities that produce high quality of graduates. As for the University of Development Studies the little I say about it the better. The neglect of Ghana’s tertiary institutions is illustrated in a news report by Ghanaian Times headlined: “Water Shortage: Experts Coming from S. Africa" which reported that:

"Experts from Ballest-Nedam, the Dutch company that installed the control panel at the intake pump station of the Weija Headworks are expected in Ghana on Thursday morning from South Africa to help repair the machine. This follows the inability of local experts to get the damaged electronic equipment fixed for the pump to function again”, Source: Ghanaian Times, 09-Feb-2010.

Another news item reads: "Straight-talking Charles Kofi Wayo has poured scorn on engineers working at the gutted Tema Oil Refinery, asking if they qualify to even be called engineers when they cannot manufacture common bolts and have to wait for three months for foreign expertise to fix the minutest of problems. "If you have engineers there why is it that one small bolt you have to wait for a white man two, three months. You can’t even make your own bolts…You can’t even tool anything down there, even gasket - common gasket when it blows, you shut down the RFCC and stuff like that so where are the engineers? Where are the engineers? Source: www.myjoyonline.com, Thursday, 21 January 2010.

The simple truth is that our students are not able to invent neither do our experts able to repair even broken machines. We cannot blame our universities for failing to produce high quality graduates and experts because they have mounting resource problems. The Universities lack well trained lecturers. They lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, projectors, internet facilities, constant energy supply and books. They lack them because the NPP and NDC governments have failed to invest and build the infrastructures needed to deliver 21^st century education. As a result we have to import the equipments and books from countries that have done their home work well and have invested heavily in education notably in science and technology.

Ghana has been a leading gold exporter for decades and we have been selling gold at the international gold market for decades yet ordinary Ghanaians do not know where the proceeds go. Ghanaians cannot even buy products made from gold. No one in Ghana except the corrupt NDC and their equally corrupt NPP rivals who know where the proceeds go. Now they are happy that we have discovered oil and are seriously strategising to steal so Ghanaians will continue to live in poverty again. Ghana is a leading cocoa exporter but where does the money go? Rawlings couldn't give a straight answer when he was asked. Kuffour couldn’t give a straight answer either. Are we able to even buy chocolate for our children in a country which is the world’s biggest exporter of cocoa? We continue to receive grants from rich countries in the global north but the politicians and their business friends are not allowing it to have impact in the country.

Hundreds of loan agreements have been signed and billions of dollars have been received by our governments (Rawlings and Kuffour and now Mills) and we are paying heavy interest fees for it yet Ghanaians cannot trace where the money has gone, how it was spent or the projects it has been used to complete. We only hear of the loan agreements and the interests we are paying but not the money.

For the past 28 years Ghana has been governed by two main parties: the ruling National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party but it is no point arguing that both parties have been the cause of Ghana’s economic demise. For decades they have toyed with Ghana’s economy, its infrastructure needs: energy, roads, rail lines, education, telecommunication and health.

Frustration, hopelessness and desperation can be found in the face of many Ghanaians. Since Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 Ghanaians have been without a true leader. A leader who will provide jobs for the youth; a leader who will provide infrastructure for the economic take off, a leader who will transform Ghana's railway sector into viable transportation industry; a leader who is a problem solver and not just arm-chair president.

Come 2012 NDC and NPP politicians aided by some corrupt media practitioners will come with the same pack of lies, deceits, pledges and promises and with smooth words: vote for us and we will do this and that but once they get to parliament they cannot even put a bill together to solve some of the problems. Once they become ministers they cannot even formulate policies let alone implement one. Ghana is poor today because of NPP and NDC who have no idea how to turn the huge natural resources into goods that will benefit Ghanaians. For 28 years both parties have mismanaged Ghana.

Ghanaians are suffering not because we are poor in terms of natural resources. We are poor because those entrusted with the management of the nation have sought create wealth to benefit themselves at the expense of the poor majority who live in 18^th century conditions. We are poor because we have of bad political leaders who are interested in getting power without using the power to help develop the nation for all to benefit. Those entrusted with the management of the nation are simply visionless. They love to drive in convoy at the expense of the nation yet have no idea how to help Ghana become a food sufficient nation. 53 years after independence we still import rice from China and India and there is no sign that the importation will stop soon.

It is so sad that the leaders who came after Nkrumah have done very little to add to the foundation he laid. I don't know what would have happened to Ghana had Nkrumah not built Akosombo dam. I don't what would have happened to Ghana had Nkrumah not built Tema city and the harbour with all the infrastructures and industries such as VALCO. Nkrumah spent 9 years from 1957 to 1966 doing all these landmark projects, Rawlings and his PNDC spent 19 years selling what Nkrumah built and where did the money go? The Asia Tigers (Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore) took the same 20 years wasted by Rawlings to turn their countries around. Ghanaians would have been better off than they are now if the PNDC/NDC leadership had used the 19 years judiciously.

Rawlings and his P(NDC) couldn't even maintain the things Nkrumah developed let alone adding some to it. Rawlings and his bootlickers had to allow them to decay because they did not have any idea how important those things were to the economy of our country. Kuffour spent 8 years selling Ghana Telecom and he cannot tell us what he used the money for. He thought Mo Ibrahim would give him 5 million dollar reward for managing Ghana to benefit himself and his circle of friends but Mo Ibrahim was smart.

If Nkrumah had been alive he would have turned the oil find into jobs for Ghanaians to enjoy; he would have used it to build houses for the poor in the country; he would have constructed another Akosombo dam to solve the energy crisis facing the nation; he would have developed and modernise the railway sector to ease the congestion facing our cities.

Can Mills save Ghana? Well his style of governance shows that unemployment and many of the woes he came to meet will worsen. He has not shown any clear policy direction as what he wants to do or achieve for Ghana. He would be best remembered for his penchant for silence and dithering when major issues need to be addressed. Can President Mills emulate the extraordinary leadership of Nkrumah and save Ghana from its current economic quandary? I doubt it. President Mills has been in power for over a now year and has not found his feet yet, though his ministers are enjoying tax payers' money, driving Land Cruisers while fishermen have no premix fuel. His government is so pathetic that it has become a laughing stock in the country and even within the NDC. Has Mills been able to practice what he preached during the elections?

Will NPP's Alan Kyeremanteng and Akuffo Addo save Ghana? I don't think so because they are part of the same wagon that has not delivered to Ghanaians. No wonder both of them think the only way they can serve Ghana is to be president and have been quarrelling since the NPP primaries.

NPP and NDC share one common characteristic: both parties rely on lies, deceits, bribery, and corruption to win votes while doing nothing to improve the social and economic situation in the country. That is why for the 28 years that both parties have governed Ghana standard of living continue to fall and every statistics either official or non-official is in the negative. Both parties like to share the nation’s resources among themselves and their peers forgetting the ordinary Ghanaian who stood in the sun to elect them. Rawlings and Kuffour and their NDC and NPP could not use proceeds from gold, timber, bauxite, diamond and cocoa to develop the nation and there is no doubt that both parties have contributed immensely to impoverishing the people with their short sighted, ill conceived and vote buying economic policies. If Ghana is going to be a nation for all her people then there is the need for a leadership that will aggressively implement policies and programmes that will transform the nation from its current economic predicament; a leadership that will mobilize all the resources in the country to develop Ghana for all its citizens to benefit.

Such leadership cannot be found in the NDC and NPP and that is why it is important for Ghanaians to consider voting for independent candidates or parties that have the track record of laying the foundation for Ghana. Ghanaians must sit up and must be cautious of the people they vote for in 2012 otherwise they risk living in poverty for another four years.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

(politicalthinker1@yahoo.com)

Baako accused of benefiting from NPP but he says: 'I Wont Share Poverty'

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Kweku Baako Jnr The Daily Graphic’s night editor, A.B.A. Fuseni, who confessed on Citi Fm yesterday that he is a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has once again churned out wild incriminating allegations against some persons without providing any evidence whatsoever. The Alhaji, perceived as a hatchet-man for the NDC, has told a number of radio stations that he knows the journalists who benefited from an alleged ¢15billion through the Ministry of Information. Alhaji Fuseni, without dropping any of the said names, yesterday told Asempa FM in Accra that ace journalist cum publisher, Malik Kweku Baako, should be probed for having a house and expensive cars because in his estimation, the latter could not have self-acquired that property. The night editor, without providing any evidence, further told Asempa FM that Mr. Baako had collected money to do propaganda when the IFC and CNTI loans became a topical issue in Ghana a couple of years ago. Mr. Baako, in his response, debunked the allegations and dared Alhaji Fuseni to do a more appropriate thing by moving to the security agencies to furnish them with the evidence to substantiate his claims. An obviously vexed Mr. Baako charged: “What he has to do is to go to the security agencies and stop using radio to make unsubstantiated allegations which are not doing justice to anybody. What is he saying? That Kweku Baako has a house; so should I have lived in a hut? That Kweku Baako has a vehicle; so should I ride a bicycle? Or should I share poverty with him or anybody else? “Cowards like them; when they come on air they want to talk alone and when you come to counter, they don’t want you to. This nuisance he represents by churning out allegations should be curtailed by anybody who loves probity and accountability, and challenge A.B.A Fuseni that as soon as possible, he should proceed and provide his evidence that he has to the appropriate agencies for them to start working. “He has done this for the past eight to nine years and we have all tolerated this nuisance, this infantile nonsense, so he is happy because he can come on air and talk and say anything. He sat on radio and accused people of killing Ya Naa the Gizelle Yadzi matter and things without providing any evidence, yet he thinks he is an ethical journalist. This kind of stupidity, excuse my language, should cease.” Interestingly, when the host of the programme asked the Daily Graphic’s night editor to substantiate his allegations, he swerved the issue at stake and launched a very personal and absolutely unrelated attack on Mr. Baako’s person. “In spite of my stupidity, I have been able to rise on the academic ladder to obtain my Masters degree as far back as 1992, when you Kweku Baako cannot even boast of a Middle School Leaving certificate. That is important and that is one of the reason I am saying that we need to purge this profession of charlatans,” Alhaji Fuseni stated. Strangely, Alhaji Fuseni works in the same outfit with the President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Ransford Tetteh, and it is a wonder that he had not been educated that it is unethical and offensive to make such allegations without providing evidence. By Halifax Ansah-Addo