Category Opinion

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• October 8, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

BMW breaking the 8, JM ditching the 8, and the GH politics of ‘ways and means’

When we were kids playing football, we saw our coaches and team managers do some juju or voodoo gimmicks before and after ‘colts or under 18 and 20 football matches.

At Primary and Elementary school levels, however, we saw a few teachers do that. But, again, it wasn’t a practice like we had in community football up to organised football in the Greater Accra Region and for an endowed football club like Future Internationals, which played teams outside Accra, into the Eastern and Central regions, including the Swedru All Blacks Park.

At SHS, you hardly saw that, because the PE Master didn’t or wouldn’t do it – educated as he was. Again, you didn’t find that in netball or volley or hockey and athletics.

In the case of boxing, we would hear that Sulley Shitu, an aspiring world title holder, would be complaining that he never saw blows coming. All he saw was that it had hit him hard. He was a Muslim. He ended up quitting, despite his potential.

As for the national league, juju or voodoo was a healthy practice, and that was why Kofi Bruce in a match with Eleven Wise would target Sanni Abdulai and snatch his leather necklace that was suspected to be voodoo and a charm against the ball entering Sanni Abdulai’s net.

PNDC

We heard about Nkrumah and the Kankan Nyame. We cannot tell whether that was fact or fiction. And, we heard about Kotoka and Ankrah as well as Major Adekunle who when you thought you had killed him during the civil war in Nigeria appeared at another battle.

As for the PNDC, ‘ways and means’ was ten amulets a cedi. That was why the regime had a prayer leader and Prophet who was traditional and another a Roman Catholic dissident who loved pouring libation. Intriguingly, when both men died, the NDC and the PNDC were nowhere to be seen during the funeral.

In the case of Osofo Komfo Damuah, it was because his spiritual activities were something else, away from the regular. He ended up using his trade to hijack space at the former Association International before court litigation recovered the space for original owners.

Samuel K. Obeng, retired police detective and Prophet, would continue his ministry faithfully, advising JA Kufuor, Otumfuo and a few notable and eminent citizens pro bono. He resigned not a rich person, living in a modest Madina Estate with tight living rooms and surroundings.

He also advised Prof JEA Mills, though JEA would later begin dodging Tugya, who became my friend when I was at The Chronicle. But, by and large, politicians seeking divine support and direction is African and European, including almighty Nigeria. What is wrong or has been wrong in the case of Africa is that most of such prophets have been controversial.

Hero and villain

As far as I know, Ghana’s current credible prophets, after Tugya and Enoch Agbozo – don’t know where Enoch is – are Duncan Williams, Adom Kyei Dua, Yaw Annor and this indigenous Ga and Ukraine-trained Economist Dr Lawrence Tetteh.

There must certainly be others, but these have been around for quite long.

Unfortunately, being a prophet is not only a thankless job from biblical times; it is also a controversial and, sometimes, intriguing trade. Today, you are hallowed and hailed; the next moment you are vilified, like the PNDC and NDC did to my old pal Tugya.

That, I suspect, is the case of Prophet Owusu Bempah. And I am not surprised that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South, Samuel Atta Akyea, has put him down, and downplayed recent prophecies made by Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah, head pastor of the Glorious Word Power Ministries International, regarding the upcoming December 7 elections.

According to Atta Akyea, these predictions should be viewed as mere human projections, rather than divine certainty.

On October 1, Rev. Owusu Bempah prophesied that John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), would emerge victorious in the 2024 elections.

During a prayer session in Accra for Mr Mahama, the pastor claimed that God had elected to give Mahama another opportunity to lead the nation, praising him as a man with a good heart. Despite these claims, Atta Akyea, in an interview with AsaasePa FM on October 2, cautioned against placing too much importance on such prophecies.

He stated that while many people may hold different religious or spiritual beliefs, elections are ultimately decided by the will of the people through the ballot box, not supernatural predictions.

The MP stressed the importance of focusing on the issues at hand, and allowing voters to make informed decisions based on policies and leadership qualities rather than relying on prophecies.

Owusu Bempah made history when, alone in Rome, he openly fought the NDC from 2016 till 2020.

He was viewed as a sympathiser of the NPP after he made similar prophecies in the past, and even prayed for Nana Akufo-Addo prior to him becoming the President. Only God knows what may hurt Owusu Bempah in covering the NPP and its presidential fortunes – when not quite long ago, he openly prayed Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in as God’s anointed President for 2024. Something may have changed in Mahama’s stars as well as that of Dr Bawumia, one, for good and the other for ill…

According to the defection story, when the group laid hands on the former President, the prayers were sealed by Rev. Owusu-Bempah.

“This is whom you ELOHIM have elected to lead Ghana at a time like this. No power can stop it. It is through you that this country will see development,” the preacher prayed.

The founder and leader of Royal House Chapel International, Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church, Rev. Dr. Stephen Yenusom Wengam, Rev Kwaku Agyei Antwi, popularly known as Rev. Obofour, among others were present.

That marked the first major meeting of this kind by the NDC flagbearer with members of the clergy ahead of the December 7 polls.

Break the 8; Ditch the 8

Eight is a number that theologians refer to Abrahamic. It means trailblazing as sign. That covenant, the theologians insist, was consummated on the eight day. That deal – sealed by a blood sacrifice – would birth Isaac and Israel’s ultimate blessings jibe that strongman Bibi keep throwing at Hezbollah, Houthi, Hamas and the goons in Iran.

So, analysing the “8” that Mahama claims he has already ditched, will he be able to trail blaze – after slipping in 2012 to be saved by the bell; falling KO in 2016 and falling TKO in 2020.

If that is Prophet Owusu’s Bempah’s reading, let us see how it goes with the last cast of the votes and last count and declaration by the EC or another annoying Election Petition with a calculator thrown at the Mischief Mosquito.

I have been listening to propagandists and their street reading of the flagbearer perming by the EC. Some argue that since we have a history of excessive wastes in ballots, the victim might be JM, probably to the benefit of the vociferous BMW.

Looking through the tall bunch of faces with JM not quite as baby face as he was, the propaganda is that he looks victim as voters sweat to look for his face and image among the pile that may have included Red Beret Bernard Monah, but for cousin Adukwei’s ‘mischief.’

As for the BMW, he must be glad for a Numero Uno slot on the list. The propaganda is as massive as has been the anti-government propaganda in galamsey, though the UN advises a common front by stakeholders in effectively fighting galamsey.

That is why I have a gripe with the TUC for making it look like the NDC didn’t benefit from the galamsey fight. The persistence on the strike also makes it look like the TUC has an agenda to do something that ultimately benefits the NDC,  when its flagbearer in 2016 and 2020 was openly egging on illegal miners to perpetuate the illegality, though he JM lost a military officer nephew in the fight against galamsey.

PS

This is December 9 afternoon at 3pm…Party chiefs using their Excel software have tallied up their numbers from Zanlerigu up North to Zongos down South, and from Chuchuriga and Chiana to Chorkor…An eerie quiet has clouded the nation.

The EC and her team of vilified ‘villains’ are seated to announce the figures and declare the verdict…And the winner by 30,000 votes is No…Come see the Zongos…Walahi…Am I a Prophet? No, I only know the Prophets…

By Abena Baawuah

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• October 2, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

The 2024 conversation is still pink sheet and arithmetic, not ‘IT’

We should be relieved if former Chairman of the Electoral Commission Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan has been recently part of the conversation about EC’s processes and elections management into December 2024.

As an important player, deep into the controversial 2012 Election Petition, he must have a relevant contribution to make. Also as a matter of institutional memory and experience, he equally has a contribution that should inform decisions that feed into our elections management space into the future.

In a recent statement, the former EC Chair said, “Persons who commit serious election offences, particularly if they are professional election officials or electronic experts, must be severely punished for attempting to undermine the will of the people…”

“And I am singling out professional election administrators and electronic experts because they know what they are doing,” he stressed.

I don’t, however, believe that is the conversation now because crime is crime.

Infractions are always criminal

“A voter may commit some infraction. An election official, by their training, they know what is the right thing to do. The electronic expert who is tampering with the figures, knows exactly what he is doing and these people, I am suggesting, they should be seriously punished,” Dr Afari Gyan added.

That is fair and square. And the law is plain on that, except that we haven’t seen too many of such infractions reported and concomitant punishment effected – at least from the early days of Afari-Gyan into his own last days and from Charlotte’s till now. Again, according to Dr Afari Gyan, punishing offenders severely will help serve as a deterrence to others who plan to engage in election malpractices. This, too, has been the law.

Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, who was speaking at the Ghana Bar Association’s (GBA) annual conference in Kumasi, stressed that in a democratic election, the voter is pre-eminent, and a valid vote is invaluable for purposes of determining the choices of the people.

For this reason, the seasoned election administrator said any act intended to manipulate or undermine the will of the people, particularly by those employed to oversee the exercise, should be considered as an act of “treason”. This, too, is the law. Indeed, again, any infraction of an electoral law is criminal, and must be investigated as a criminality.

NDC gripe, EC’s finished processes  

The raging conversation, if I am not myself misled or confused, is that the opposition National Democratic Congress is mooting another conversation ostensibly from Mars, without detailing their gripes and what they think are the options for what they consider credibility. And, they are picketing soon about what only they know.

So, when Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan drops another conversation as if the raging one is exhausted, I cannot comprehend the issues he makes about technology and experts taking advantage of technology to steal the verdict.

He says, “I am singling out here professional election administrators and electronic experts because they know exactly what they are doing. A voter may commit some infraction.” And, he advises political parties and various contenders in general elections to obtain the requisite data before going to court to challenge the election results.

But that is exactly where the controversy is, except the reporter misquoted his line of argument and thought.

Elections management is arithmetic. Period!

According to the reporter, Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan urged all who intended to challenge the results of any national elections to ensure they possessed well executed and authentic “pink sheets.” Fact. Indeed, what he said was the fact, except that he was cagey pointing that out to the NDC because technology, in my opinion, and I believe in the opinion of even the experts, doesn’t feature to a point of intrigue and mischief as far as a court is concerned.

As the report outlines, pink sheets are the EC’s official documents used to collate results of elections at polling stations, constituency and regional levels, and are the source documents which the Commission relies on to declare Members of Parliament (MPs) and the President as elected.

“Pink sheets are the most important source documents for reconstructing election results. Please, take it from me that the pink sheets are the most important source documents for the reconstruction of election results,” the former EC Chair said.

“That is what we mean when we say elections are won or lost at the polling station. That is what it means. Those pink sheets, duly executed, authentic and duly executed. So, my friendly advice to you is that if you don’t [have] authentic, duly executed pink sheets, as we say in Ghana, think twice before you go to court,” he added.

NDC demonstration against EC

As I do this piece, the NDC is putting in organizing youth across the country to go on a demonstration. That demonstration is not about election petition or official complaint that Parliament or the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) cannot deal with. But the NDC has deliberately ignored the imperative of processes, including IPAC and Parliament and, for that matter, the courts which have final jurisdictions.

What the NDC appears to be doing is to implicate the EC and the whole fabric of elections management of which they had been a veritable part. In that, I believe, they are implicating the Legislature which consists of their own Minority as well as IPAC of which they are also part.

It is cry-baby tantrum that the NDC must explain to the civil society stakeholders. They cite vote transfers to other constituencies, though every party has privileges under the law in transferring votes. But they make wild claims about the EC skewing the processes for the benefit of a political party, which is the incumbent NPP.

Intriguingly, the NDC hasn’t established and submitted names that they can prove in December 2024 will be voting NPP or came to make the transfers in NPP colours so would be voting NPP at some other constituency.

So, when they ask for audit by an independent body, I ask what basis the independent audit firm or parameters they would be applying to filter the information and draw conclusions.

Polling station mechanism 

As Afari-Gyan has stated, and rightly so, the ultimate decision involving declaration will be made on pink sheet ruling by the vetted work collectively of EC staff, polling agents, collation official doing simple arithmetic and not technology such as Excel because that is for the political parties to do at their levels in monitoring and what input the media, election observers and other stakeholders would be detailing on the space.

At the last layer that Dr Afari-Gyan appears to be referring to, party chiefs, with the data they have assembled, share notes with the EC, and make declarations. If votes don’t tally, it is arithmetic that is employed – not technology.

This is because technology may befuddle the facts as garbage inputted will output garbage. I believe that was why Rojo Mettle-Nunoo and Johnson Asiedu Nketia were given calculators, and not an Excel system spread over the figures, to determine a ruling affirming the declaration by the EC that the NPP, indeed, had won the 2020 presidential elections by some 500,000 votes.

What next, NDC? 

As things stand now, we cannot tell what next the NDC would do as a frontal jibe at the EC, though the avenues for redress and engagement aren’t closed, by any stretch of the imagination.

Barely three months into the general elections, the mischief that the NDC believe it can do to stir acceptability is agitate, stampede and throw tantrums. That was the tactic for 2008 and 16 years later, for today 2024. Only God knows where this cycle would take them. Particularly when they know they know deep inside that they haven’t, under JM, a history and catalogue of achievements that match those of the NPP, we may understand them, if they do what they are best at…

In all of that, they should be reminded of Dr Afar-Gyan’s eternal pink sheet rule he now refers to here – the famous requirement that stunted the deep-seated NDC stealing machine within the corridors of the EC. Thank God for the subsequent 2012 Election Petition reforms that continue to expose the NDC as experts in evading pink sheet arguments.

PS

These notwithstanding, we may have the demonstrations. Only let’s be cool about them, even if the next 90 or so days will be picketing. As for the elections, Insha Allahu, it will come and go as if nothing has happened – with one winner and one loser.  

By Abena Baawuah

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• August 25, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 3 minutes Read

A Tale of two men

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• August 5, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

Trotting On Into 2024 With the Hezbollahs, Houthis and Hamases

Four months into what we have often tended to describe as ‘critical’ or ‘crucial’ elections, as if no election in Ghana is crucial and critical, the temperature of the politician and their political parties continue to up in frenzied contest, but also unfriendly jibes.

From the law courts of the country, through the flagbearers’ engagements of constituencies in the Savannah,  and down to irritating flashpoints in Mahama Ayariga’s Bawku and conflict-riddled Lukula, the sparks and barbs pervade the atmosphere – with noises that are not only prankish, but sometimes loose-ended and infantile.

Particularly, since Hawa Yakubu tutored us about the issues, and helped introduce niche messages that Jake and Oboshie Sai-Cofie would be jingling to the discomfort of the Jerry Rawlings corner, all we are seeing today, generally, is plenty of twaddle that crowds out the deft digitisation and 24-hour economy messages from the two flagbearers. But that is the nature of the ‘madding crowd’ politics that we love to offer the madding, unlettered electorate, Okada economy actors and jobless youth interested more in seeking greener pastures as cleaners and house-helps in Dubai than being mechanics and plumbers in Ghana.

Unfortunately as a nation, we may not have done modestly enough, in creating jobs that the politician himself would be proud of. But that has been because, by their long mouths, they pretend to know how to do anything, when the Constitution stipulates only a few, manageable things for them.

If they had not altogether been too satisfactory at creating jobs, it was because they themselves failed to appreciate that job creation comes essentially from competence, capacity and ability to generate frameworks, systems and structures to facilitate and accelerate job creation naturally. But that is the cross they have elected to bear…So, let them bear it, while we hassle them for being ‘ambitious’ and ‘magnanimous.’

Invitation to more noise

While we filter the ambitious and the magnanimous from the naked twaddle, the Electoral Commission (EC), sounding more and more democratic and inclusive, has, with the knowledge and consent of the political parties, decided that from September 9 to September 13, this year, it will receive nominations for the elections of President and Members of Parliament (MPs).

This decision is pursuant to Regulations 6, 7 and 8 of the Public Elections Regulations, 2020 (C.I. 127). The EC, however, has generously maintained that filing fees are same as that for the last 2020 elections, affirming that presidential candidates will pay GH¢100,000 and parliamentary GH¢10,000, despite inflation levels and rising costs of providing services.

Deputy Chairman in-charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey, said interested candidates were required to download the nomination forms from the EC’s website at https://ec.gov.gh/forms pronto. All prospective candidates should therefore contact the Commission for a passcode.

PNC Red Beret kid’s bid

So murky will be the terrain, with mavericks such as PNC’s Bernard Monah seeking space to fly the PNC flag as a presidential candidate. But that’s democracy. Very soon, my Assemblyman from Adobetor Electoral Area will also be wigging through the crowd like a Zacchaeus seeking recognition to become a disciple in the days that being Jew and a proxy of the Roman Empire was a passport to safety.

So, we would, like last year, be fielding a dozen or so presidential candidates, probably with Akua Donkor and the other known and unknown quantities clowning and clamouring for space and the hearts, souls and ears of the junkies at Adabraka, Kinbu and Asylum Down, the haven of 24-hour economy in drug abuse and black market activity.

Bernard launched his nokofioo bid to become a presidential candidate of the party whose presidential candidate dazzled Jerry Rawlings in 1996, though the charismatic Nkrumaist and medical practitioner would fizzle out prematurely as a politician or merit, after spurning an invitation earlier from the NPP to become JAK’s running mate – with massive prospects of becoming a President in 2008.

Monah’s vision 

In a feuding political team that represents your country of the blind and one-eyed men, Bernard Mornah will be launching that bid to lead PNC for Dec. 7 polls to offer some magic. His vision will be to “create a Ghana where everyone, including the youth and women, can achieve their full potential.” He may be right. This is Ghana, where everything is possible.

Says he: “I aim to provide decent work opportunities, both in private and public sectors, and ensure that Ghanaians do not feel the need to seek opportunities abroad.” He, Bernard, is committed to honesty, discipline and excellence as personal values.

His ‘rich’ credentials include being the national youth organiser and General Secretary. Priorities are addressing high levels of unemployment, inflation, exchange rate crisis, corruption, gross mismanagement of the economy, the double-track system in public schools and abuse of office by the incumbent government as some of the problems facing the country, which should encourage voters to seek change.

When a General beats a retreat.

As the grounds generate bubble upon bubble, lawyers for a former Auditor-General, Prof Dua Agyeman, are on the heels of the NDC’s General now elevated to National Chairman of the opposition NDC in the GH¢20m defamation case against Johnson Asiedu Nketiah.

According to the lawyers of the aggrieved and angry former Auditor-General, despite claims and an official excuse, that the General was medically indisposed and couldn’t be present in court to defend himself against a defamation case, he had been spotted still doing his things on NDC campaign platforms.

Also cited in the case were Neat FM and your authoritative Daily Graphic, who we never thought would ‘dabble’ in such stories by their conservative and defensive tradition.

Professor Dua Agyeman has sued Mr Nketiah for claiming that he (Prof. Agyeman) generated fake audit reports resulting in him being sacked by the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana.

Remember Asiedu Nketia of 2008. He accused JAK of everything,  probably including attempting to incinerate the throne of Almighty God. Nobody took him to court. It was an allowable campaign cacophony. He got away with it, and the NDC made enough capital from it to win the elections, without Rambo Gbevlo-Lartey prosecuting successfully one cat or mouse, after the NDC came to power.

But the retreating General reminds of Kojo Sardine, and an episode between him and an uncle mine. Kojo was eccentric businessman Nii Yemo’s dad. Nii Yemo was a buddy of Jake and Jake was a buddy of my buddy Mike Soussoudis, Papa J’s cousin.

It was only Nii Yemo from La who successfully made nonsense of Jerry Rawlings confiscation spree by dragging the regime to court to nullify charges against the dad and retrieve his assets while sons and daughters of known Kwahu and Ashanti business captains hid and whined and bolted into exile.

But this my uncle had a penchant for embarrassing businessman Kojo Sardine anytime he saw him on his way to work in his three-seater Mercedes: they are no longer in town, but in the 60s into the early 70s, only a few rode in that classy toy. Every rich man is a thief in Ghana…That was my uncle’s verdict.

And my uncle would shout Kojo Julor – until one day, he got out of the toy, and chassed my paternal uncle to my maternal grandmothers compound – while my uncle, agitated, got drenched in sweat, desperately seeking asylum between my grandmother’s laps.

Possessed by Lawyer Ayikoi Otoo’s gbeshie, the spirit that turns fingerlings into giants, Asiedu Nketia would do to the former Auditor-General what he did to JAK and got away with it. And now, the court is after him.

But the judge says nyet. You have to prove that Asiedu Nketia is not only sick, but that you actually have evidence that he is out there seeking safety in the NDC flagbearer’s laps like my caged uncle did. It is not enough to allege…“Bring the evidence of him hopping from one NDC rally to the other…”

Fortunately for Asiedu Nketia, the defamation law today is no longer what we had under his benefactor Jerry Rawlings under which poor George Naykene got arrested, jailed and subsequently died, after his release – with Major Mensah Gbedemah as witness threatening to blow Ndebugre’s head with a pistol in court, and got away with it…

That is why both the General and the plaintiff’s lawyers must play by the rules, and prove their respective points.

By Abena Baawuah

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• July 15, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 7 minutes Read

Napo’s uppercut that made Otumfuo’s jaws drop

If we think politicians cannot play the prank, we are being simply naïve…And if Adam could not protect himself in the Garden of Eden setting, what would a wooden head son do? So, the animal in Cain, father of the Chinese, showed.

That animal retorted in the face of God: Am I my brother’s keeper?

Earlier, God had warned him, saying “Cain, evil is at your door”. He laughed. “What is evil?” In that, he pirated Pilate, who asked Jesus: “What is Truth?”

Jesus would later warn Judas: “You, you will sell me for Roman coins…”

But Judas, like Cain, ignored the import of the message.

But my gripe this week is not about Cain, Judas, Pilate or pirates; or, for that matter, Napo and Emperor Napoleon, who responded, in clenched fists, to his inquiring Ministers when he was asked to put the State first in a matter about his craze for war.

“The state?” Napoleon had retorted: “I am the State.” “L’état? C’est moi” That’s the French version, for those of you who decided to dodge French classes because it sounded like romance between a Romeo and Juliet. But that has been the sin of the sons of Adam, particularly the African politician.

It is in our blood

If we blame Napo for the uppercut on the chin of the Otumfuo, we must go back to the Bible, and start from KA Busia, through Kutu Acheampong to Rawlings, JAK, JM, Old Boy Billy…I won’t smack JEAM, however, over his Dze W Fie Asem because we know this was a poor, harmless “sad, old padre” engaging in humour.

When Lawyer Nii Ayikoi Otoo told Justices of the Supreme Court during the infamous Election 2012 Petition that there is a demone [feminine French for demon] in every politician, the ace Ga lawyer knew exactly what he was saying, though it was no excuse for his political fingerling and Journalist, for that matter, to poke a Justices of the Supreme Court.

It appears that from entertainment, including football and boxing, to administration and conduct in business life, everything for the Ghanaian, even including taking penalties, has been sweat. The grace of people or personalities conducting or completing or committing to excellence in public state organizational and personal lives is becoming a missing link in our aspiration and desire for excellence.

That’s how come we have military officers just graduating hallucinating about being Presidents in April 1967. But that was also why we had a team that had worked out programmes with the British Colonial government being jettisoned by one man’s plot to become head of the pack when a beautiful cooperation was already in place for national independence. But, again, that is an academic argument.

So, we came to have Assemblymen and Assemblywomen who saw nothing wrong with attempting to fight MPs already ensconced in their constituencies, just to leap to the next stage – lettered or unlettered. On and on, we began to have MMDCEs also plotting to remove MPs – both in the opposition party or the ruling administration in all the tenures.

It has been a whole cycle of stress, sweat, attrition, dog eat dog and crabs-in-a-bucket culture…for us as a nation.

Records

Again, I won’t touch Kwame Nkrumah. As a cornered rat, he must have had reason for skewing political power for political profit. Being in a situation that a cat finds itself from a cat-eating community, he must be awake 24 hours a day in a 24-hour state economy and other businesses of state to perform and enjoy his tenure…He had hopped atop a tiger, and he must evermore live with that risk.

And I suspect he knew, like Idi Amin or Sanni ‘The Butcher’ Abatcha, that it could not be forever in Flagstaff House or Aso Rock.

So, we would be also having Methodist, Christian, educated academic Dr KA Busia. And the records are that he was so vehement over previous appointees that he became infamous for his verbal excesses in a case that he lost in the Supreme Court called Apollo Koomini…

He was strident and shrill over that urge to defrock Kwame Nkrumah’s bureaucrats and technocrats.

It was as if those people had raped his mother. Yet, there were raging issues that should have drawn more sweat and stress for the cameras and GBC, VOA or BBC and Deutsche Welle newsrooms.

Kutu, too, who griped during KA Busia’s tenure would be ignoring calls from the Bar Association and Professional Bodies Association of Ghana to throw jibes at students who parents in rural communities were educating from palm oil sales.

Hilla Limann was one of the most harmless Presidents Ghana would ever had; and to think that he was chosen tactically by the People’s National Party (PNP) as a compromise candidate in uniting the nation with a Parliament that would be Ghanaian and alive to its duties…

But, what about cousins Jerry Rawlings and Courage Quarshigah doing it to themselves and the Panins and Kakra Essamuahs; or Sekondi lawyers from NPP and NDC calling each other names, with the NDC chap citing the then NPP opposition as rats. Kusie…It is, I insist, in our genes…Everything irrelevance is in our genes, otherwise we would not be going endlessly to the IMF…

ET Mensah…Rest in Peace…. At Teshie, he would be referring to any Ga who voted for JA Kufour as odonkpo (donkey) or ugly beast. Josiah Aryeh’s GaDangme jibes before he was trapped by a GaDangme chieftain, with Rawlings almost excusing him because, in his very informed opinion, there were others in the NDC who were worse than jailbirds.

JAK himself, just like Limann, hit the roof against ET Mensah, I suppose in political retaliation over the Odonkpo jibe in an indigenous Ga community. That was during the inauguration of a bridge between Prampram and Ningo, the twin fishing communities bordering Ada. Again, it is in our genes, as Ayikoi Otoo lamented in attempting to save the angry MP aspirant for Okai Koi North claiming to go independent.

Sparing Napo, tackling the issues

If Napo is considering committing suicide for offending Otumfuo, like Judas did, he should pardon himself, because even Mahama, like JA Kufour, reacting to a demonstration that the NPP professionals and GUTA Boys would be embarking on later, called for a Sledge Hammer that, indeed, came up from the nozzles of a state police to break heads and break one eye into the head.

So, NPP or NDC; propaganda or facts, what is more compelling is the issues, not the braggadocio and tumbling from the fingerling.

How today’s Nkrumaists vote 

I may not have to blame Napo because if the researchers are on top of their jobs and research is going into communication, the Research Team would have known and communicated to Napo that Nkrumaists in Greater Accra and up inti the Northern Regions vote more for the NPP than NDC. Ask Nana Akomea, who must be familiar with the voting trend at Kaneshie-Awudome, Mpamplo neighbourhoods…the children of the Nkrumaists have since 1996 been voting for NPP.

Awudome Estates housed Kwane Nkrumah’s security personnel and other party apparatchiki. Ask IC Quaye and he would tell you that from Kokomlemle though New Town and Abavana Juction and Alajo to Kotobabi, the children and grandchildren of the Nkrumaists largely vote NPP. Check the Caantonments, North and South Labone…Third generation CPPists are voting NPP…

It is the same pattern in Adabraka, Ringway Estates and Nyaneba named after Kwame Nkrumah’s mother. But, it is also the same in South La Estates. Yet, I won’t see coins from the Research Fund coming my way. Should I blame it therefore on Dan Botwe or the Communication Minister? Or take the Research Team to School in grassroots communication which twaddle the loony Russian Communists have since been calling propaganda?

This is AD 2024 and a Breaking of the Eight. It is the year of rising and falling of kingdoms as the theologians insist.

That means developing fighting – not noise-making – strategies. Jericho fell long ago. What we have today is Hamas. The battle is not against Nkrumah; it is against JM and all that he and his men represent from 1992 till date.     

By Abena Bawuaah

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• July 11, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

Thank God NDC Has Abandoned Ny3bro, Anti-Ashanti and GaDangme Politrics

Gradually, the National Democratic Congress is shifting from its Neanderthal stance in party politicking and ultra-leftist tendencies, and adopting friendlier tactics. All of a sudden, somehow, by the grace of God, the ethnicity propaganda that held the North and the Volta as well as the indigenous communities of Ga, with Kofi Awoonor and buddy, Dr Josiah Nii Armah Ayeh, is fizzling.

Maybe, a day might come when another generation of hardliners will hit the ground mouthing such excretions. But, as the tables stand today, courtesy the invasion of Dr Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, the noise about who comes from where has drastically shifted to which of the Norther-ners is competent, capable and commit himself to Ghana without the SADA and NDA nuisances that haunt both political parties.

I recall NDC kingpins like distant cousin Enoch Teye Mensah, VR in-law  Prof Kofi Awoonor and Jerry Rawlings being several times caught in it. As I do this piece, there is a strong grassroots Dangme activist chasing Abena for something no NDC person can do for him. But that is life…As the sages have said, a sheep will always lay the whitest part of its wool where [part of ground] it loves most.

But I similarly recall noises – indeed, ugly noises – made by some top party gurus in the NDC adding to the ethnicity jibes; and to think that these are educated persons irritate me. We can understand it, if those persons were just ordinary political persons seeking to live perpetually on politics money. But some of these were from academia and other professional bodies.

I am glad Harry Sawyer never did that nor did Obed Yao Asamoah and Kwabena Adjei. But  I am sad that pal Josiah Aryeh got embroiled in that. Sad that, in the end, he exited this life like the poor Reverend Father Osofo Komfo Damuah did. Not an NDC fly was at his funeral officially. Worse, he died with NDC girls attempting to loot his property – though they had nothing to show that they were married to him. That’s how bad we can degrade education. Fare thee well, Nii Armah. Even exiled in academia, the NDC made sure he struggled to attain his professorial. I should have said he almost because he had made too many enemies even in academia where his boss was…That’s how they packed academia with their favourites and how I further recall that a couple of VR lecturers sought to portray that Ewes number 63 per cent of Ghana’s population.

Well, now, it is Baba versus Baba vying for the prized position of the president  – the Zongos in Accra through the mosques in the Central Region to the millet granaries and livestock kraals in the Savannah. That is a huge population about to be split into two, but also Andanis and Abudus; Mamprusis and Gonjas and Kusasis and Kooominis… dividing the NDC presidential votes. Ay3 huhuuhu

Keta Sea Defence Project

The evil about ethnicity politics, in my opinion, is manifested in how indigenes in the Volta Region bastardised, degraded and disdained the invaluable project. It was meat for the good of ordinary citizens and protection of ordinary communities.

Well, since JAK, little has been added to it. Little wonder, we would be seeing the effects of our collective folly in flooding that could have been avoided had we considered that this was government resources intended to arrest a dire situation. I recall hearing at some Church of Pentecost convention at Tesshie when I was a kid at the military barracks. The lay preacher, a female, made quite some jolly good noise about Old Noah calling his community to penitence, and warning of a flood.

“They ignored Noah, just like you may be ignoring me today…They even defecated in the boat…But the more they defecated into it, the more the boat became cleaner because, at some point, they slipped and fell into the mess, resulting in their traditional long garbs absorbing the human faeces.”

While that may be a comical illustration, it tells a story about how we joke with very critical matters till we are caught naked in misery – like the criminal who joked with a passport gratis to Paradise. He had told Jesus to save himself and them [two criminals] if “He were truly the Son of God.” Stupid to have missed an opportunity, with his whole being already in Hell.

So, the rains came in the Volta Region several times. But the sae also got angry because boys and girls squatted opposite looking back to back and doing into the sea what they should have done in the traditional atonko cabin or pit latrine. Gradually that attack on nature began affecting catch in the Volta and in the sea. That’s the fruit of ethnicity politics. Worse was when the floods and, not even the rains, began attacking shrines and the dead in graves.

But there is also this phenomenon their male and female kids in Accra and Kumasi are getting into. Male Ewe graduates marrying Ashanti girls is becoming fashionable. The other day I asked an agro scientist I did a project with why she went to the VR.

“That means nothing; we are both from the same Church…” she said.

When I asked how his folks would react back home, he said the guys parents have been lost in Accra for decades. And, I said to myself: “That’s probably why”. But I added a joke that she didn’t understand.

“Take care they don’t foist another wife from home for him”, to which she replied “Over my dead body.”

As my NDC friends would appreciate, these are the socialisation angles we should be humorously discussing” instead of the Kofi Awoonor and Josiah Aryeh or Jerry Rawlings and ET Mensah uppercuts bequeathed to the Fiifi Kweteys of yesteryears.    .

NDC’s Volta Region woes

The NDC’s woes may also open up in the Volta Region like a festering sore; already, by the records, the tightening of the processes and desperation is eating away chunks – even if bits and pieces – of the VR NDC votes. They can no longer steal and push kids to go vote, but also vote multiple, nor can they beat up Jake’s and DI boys on assignment to monitor polls, particularly in the Volta South and Aflao constituencies.

So, Fiifi Fiave Kwetey is agitated and has to change strategy to the “issues.” That the way to go. The issues is what politics is all about, but also which party and government can be trusted to deliver food security, health and education, besides jobs and social protection.

Galamsey, forbidden issue 

As for galamsey, we have all lost the war. So lost it that none of the flagbearers and political parties have said and committed his party or government to a sanitisation of the sector to deliver food security, enhanced cocoa output, job creation, timber production and cleaner waterbodies and greener and enlarged vegetative cover.

That means collective complicity that God will whip us all for, beginning with the former Presidents and flagbearers. As for the little imps still assaulting our collective heritage it is good they are dropping dead in pits in helping fertilise the ground till the days we would wise up and consider food security the basic occupation since Adam. We get that right and everything falls into place. We get that wrong and everything falls apart.

Indeed, we opt for galamsey and with it comes deficits in food security targets or boom in Anloga Junction activity and we lose our timber reserves to illegal lumber operators. Again, what we may also have is danger to the tourism sector and threat to aquaculture and shellfish down to Samuel Ablakwa Okudzeto’s and original Sam Okudzeto’s Tongu constituencies…

Fiifi Kwetey’s ‘Zero Election Petition’ Epistle

So, with NDC General Secretary Fiifi F Kweteys epistle in mind, I think am in good company. That means we are all in good company as NDC and NPP.

It also means we are back to the issues. l have always held that if the NPP administration jails the NDC and the NDC returns to power and begins jailing bad boys in the NPP, corruption will be minimised. Welcome Fiifi to the party.

That how we should be growing our democracy till all the animals get behind bars, like wolves and hyenas in a zoo, so that society eventually is rid of the dog breeds.

By Abena Baawuah

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• July 4, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

Using mobile money to buy and sell across Africa – A fast track to economic integration

For over sixty decades, from the Mali Empire through to the OAU Summit of May 1963 and incrementally to date, African unity has remained but a collective dream. One that has been sustained more by a recognition of its essence rather than a conviction for its manifestation. In 2021, with the coming into being of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Africa began taking clear, deliberate steps of greater conviction towards building the world’s largest single market, in terms of member states. The challenges are, of course, many and varied.

But, if there is one practical instrument that can now ensure that the desire to bring our 55 nations and 1.4 billion people together, then that should be our telecommunication handset. By that, I mean, the exponential heights of financial inclusion to which the technology of mobile money has taken Africa. In short, Africa has, at long last, discovered a fast track to unification and that is the digital economy.

Africa is witnessing a remarkable digital revolution in current times, particularly in the financial sector. Mobile money, a service that allows people to transfer money and make payments using their mobile phones, has become a necessity of daily life for millions of Africans. As of 2023, over 500 million consumers registered for mobile money across the continent, and the value of mobile money transactions reached $834 billion in 2022, according to AfDB.

Interoperability across different digital platforms (across mobile network providers and between telcos and financial institutions) within country has largely contributed to this astonishing growth. But imagine, how huge these transactions volumes can get if we have cross-border interoperability up and down the continent?

Interoperability in mobile money means that users can send and receive money seamlessly across different mobile networks and financial services providers. That has been largely achieved; albeit, in country. Our focus now is how to make it regional and continental, dismantling the old colonial borders of divide and rule.

This is not just a technical upgrade—it offers a game-changer of a shift to driving economic integration, reducing transaction costs, incentivising investments in transport and logistics and enhancing the efficiency and density of cross-border trade.

It will mean opening up a market of 1.4 billion consumers to businesses in Africa, particularly micro-small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs). It will create millions of job opportunities for young people in Africa. The single market offers a vital key to spreading opportunities and prosperity across Africa for Africans.

And, the ability for hundreds of millions of Africans to participate in this massive market via the mere ease of one’s hand-held device will be truly revolutionary. That is why African leaders struggling with the growing youth bulge should embrace this cutting edge solution to what young Africans see as limited opportunities on our continent.

The technology to make it happen exists. The supply and demand matrix to make it work is already with us. What is required is the political will among African leaders and the courage among central bank governors, especially, to make it happen.

Imagine a trader in Accra effortlessly receiving payments in her local currency from a buyer in Nairobi, who paid with his own local currency using his mobile wallet? Or, Moroccan entrepreneurs sourcing goods from South Africa with just a few taps on their mobile phone. This vision is not far-fetched; it is within reach and the mission is to get us there.

You may wonder, what is the use in buying a product in Africa if the logistics to get it from seller to buyer from state to state is not there? The answer is obviously in ensuring greater investments in cross-border transport infrastructures.

But, investors require incentives and there can be no greater incentive to an investor than the huge demand that can be created for African goods and services for African consumers with the facilitation of cross-border mobile interoperability. Where there is supply and demand, investor money will follow.

The AfCFTA’s digital trade protocol recognises the immense opportunity of interoperability in achieving its goals. Therefore, through harmonising regulations and collaboration among member states, and with clear statements of intent from leadership, the existing protocol can facilitate an integrated digital marketplace. This is crucial for boosting intra-African trade, which currently stands at a mere 15% compared to Europe’s 68% and Asia’s 59%, according to the Afreximbank.

Several initiatives are already underway. For example, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), launched by Afreximbank, aims to facilitate instant cross-border payments in local currencies across Africa. This system, if fully adopted, could significantly reduce the reliance on foreign currencies for intra-African trade, lowering transaction costs and mitigating exchange rate risks.

Also essential is the creation of sector-specific technical and operational standards. These standards will ensure that different mobile money platforms can communicate effectively and securely. Such standardisation can be driven by a coalition of stakeholders, including telecom operators, financial institutions, and regulatory bodies.

Setting clear guidelines can pave the way for an integrated and efficient mobile money ecosystem. This can support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the backbone of African economies, by providing them with more accessible and affordable financial services.

Collaboration is another key factor. Encouraging different sectors to share best practices and learnings from interoperability initiatives can accelerate progress. For instance, the success stories from the agricultural sector can inform strategies in the retail sector, creating a ripple effect of innovation and improvement. Customised interoperability solutions tailored to different sectors can also enhance usability and adoption.

Each sector has unique requirements and challenges, and a one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective. Developing solutions that address the specific needs of each sector can ensure that interoperability initiatives are practical and impactful.

Finally, implementing feedback mechanisms is essential for continuous improvement. Interoperability is not a one-time achievement but an ongoing process. Achieving full interoperability requires concerted efforts from decision-makers and various stakeholders, including governments, regulators, mobile network operators, fintech and financial institutions.

Policymakers must create an enabling environment for cross-border mobile money interoperability by developing and enforcing regulations that promote free market, enhances national security, promotes both economic growth and stability and protect consumer interests. Mobile network operators and fintech companies must invest in the needed technology and infrastructure, while also ensuring that their services are secure and user-friendly.

Scaling up interoperability in mobile money transactions across Africa can address this imbalance by democratising financial access, enabling more inclusive economic participation, and fostering intra-continental trade. Facilitating seamless transactions and reducing barriers to commerce, mobile money interoperability empowers young and enterprising Africans, especially, to harness their economic potential, access the wider market, retain more value within their communities, and reduce dependency on exploitative external systems.

This digital financial integration can be a powerful tool in promoting equitable growth and shared prosperity across the continent. This is the motivation that underpins the symposium that is being held on Friday, 5 July 2024 at the Labadi Beach Hotel Accra, Ghana, under the theme: “Scaling Up Interoperability — Using Mobile Money to Buy and Sell Across Africa”. The symposium is a useful step towards unlocking the full potential of the AfCFTA.

Perhaps even more critical after the Accra Symposium, is the African Union’s Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in Accra, also to be held this month. This year’s AU Mid-Year Summit has an agenda item promoted by the Champion of the African Union Financial Institutions and President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

President Akufo-Addo, in February 2024 championed the push for continent-wide mobile money interoperability at the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, when he presented the ‘Peduase Action Compact 2024’ from the Africa Prosperity Dialogues (APD) 2024 held last January, to his colleague heads of state and government in Addis Ababa.

Again, at the maiden 3i Africa Summit 2024 held in Accra last May, we once again saw a palpable desire among speakers and participants for individuals and businesses to have the freedom and ability to make and receive payments across the African continent.

All these underscore the growing commitment of Africa’s political and business leaders to deepen financial inclusion and intra-African trade. As a critical milestone towards a digitally and economically integrated Africa, the upcoming Mobile Interoperability Symposium on Friday July 5 will culminate in an outcome document to be presented at the AU Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in Accra on 21-22 June 2024.

The Africa Prosperity Network is calling on policymakers, industry leaders, all stakeholders, especially Africa’s large pool of MSMEs and all Pan-Africanists to join forces in the advocacy to realise what will effectively be Africa’s common currency for transactions: a continent-wide single payment system, as facilitated by mobile money interoperability.

Together we can unlock the full potential of mobile money and deepen development and prosperity across the continent. The time to act is now, and with concerted efforts, we can build a more inclusive and prosperous Africa.

The author is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Africa Prosperity Network, (the organisers of the annual Africa Prosperity Dialogues), dedicated to providing a platform for Africa’s political, business and thought leaders to work together with urgency to realise the single market agenda in Africa and as a necessary pathway to promoting opportunities and prosperity across Africa for all Africans.

By Gabby Otchere-Darko

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• July 2, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

The ‘defiant’ African president vs the ‘angry’ protester

Kenya nearly hit the roof. It was intriguing that when the nation has a serious food security issue that has to be addressed by a ‘Kenya First’ Parliament, the nation should be divided, with Parliament, which ought to be the voice of the people, regardless of Counties or Constituencies, almost sitting aloof till the alarm bells sounded. According to an earlier BBC report, President William Ruto, in clamping down on unrest, decided to go to the streets in response to street action by street people with Parliament acting ‘street’. Ruto ordered a crackdown on anti-Finance Bill protesters, terming the protests “treasonous.” In his warped and wart opinion, that was the opposition and criminal elements in action. Addressing a press briefing at State House, Nairobi over the incident, the Kenyan President said “dangerous people” were behind the demonstrations that saw Parliament breached by protesters. He said he would unleash security agencies on “planners and financiers” of the demos, who he accused of planning to destabilise the nation, saying they would not go “scot-free”. “It is unfortunate that this (Finance Bill) conversation has been hijacked by dangerous people who have caused us the kind of loss witnessed today,” said Ruto, pointing out the storming of Parliament as “a desecration of Kenya’s emblems and institutions”. Where are Parliament and Caucuses? The BBC report did not state that the Minority or Majority had engaged and that it yielded or didn’t yield any consensus in finding a cure for raising the revenue levels that would be helping manage inflation and make Kenya credible in the eyes of the International Monetary Fund or, for that matter, the global trade and development community. But we must appreciate that once the Bill was before Parliament, yet to be passed, some modicum of tolerance was needed by the angry crowd. Crowds believe in street action. Particularly when they are pushed by an opposition, overtly or covertly, that action can be explosive in our part of Black Africa – from the South of Sudan to the South of Africa and through the West African sub-region into the Congo and eastwards to Kenya and Somalia. Ruto’ s remarks about using state force instead of diplomacy and consensus with the Minority, came an hour after Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said he had deployed the Kenya Defence Forces to help the National Police Service counter anti-tax protesters, calling the nationwide protests a “security emergency”. Ruto said the protests were an affront to constitutionalism and the rule of law calling the protesters criminals. In his putdown words and reading of the Kenya Riot Act, he said “The government will therefore uphold its constitutional mandate to secure our nation and its development and shall treat every threat to national security and the integrity of our state as an existential danger to our republic. Accordingly, I assure Kenyans that we shall provide a full, effective and expeditious response to today’s treasonous actions,” said the president, who added he was willing to dialogue with the youth over their issues, promising to include them in the development of its policies. He congratulated the police for their conduct during the protests, saying they acted “to the best of their ability”. He ignored concerns about brutality meted on initially peaceful protesters, which degenerated into indiscriminate shooting of demonstrators outside Parliament. Crying wolf Similarly, he avoided the subject of abductions of pro-demonstration Kenyans, which has earned criticism from rights groups. For a better part of last evening, there were fears of State reprisal, amid reports that KDF officers had been dispatched to the Nairobi Central Business District. There were concerns of media and internet shutdowns. Many Kenyans reported low internet speeds, with network providers saying the situation was caused by damage to two underwater fibre optic cables. ‘Criminal protests’ On a few occasions in Ghana, we have had demonstrations in which the state had employed excesses in deploying state security personnel. Even the colonialist did that in protecting itself from unarmed and defenceless Second World War veterans. So, we may appreciate the pressure on tottering post-colonial administrations with leaders whose hands and feet are clay to make mistakes. Jerry Rawlings did it on Kume Preko; John Mahama did it on NPP protestors over SADA, SUBAH, RLG, Bus Branding and koomini. Since then, it had been better, even under Asiedu Nketia captainship, with the police in Ghana more tolerant, though party boys carry pistols on them during demonstration and defy police over agreed routes, aside of disrupting economic activities and abusing the rights of economic actors in CBDs and along streets and lorry parks in fighting for their rights. In one incident, the police didn’t even fight back when a female police officer was pelted with stones. The mischief chiefs in the media have not bothered to check the condition of that female police officer, and whether some compensation has been paid her by the Ghana Police Service or the Government. The good thing about Ghana is that loony demo boys, while they may act macho, know when the police are angry and breaking heads and eyes. Even in the crazy North in Bawku, the crazy Bawku Boys sobered when the security agencies they sought to bully returned with fire, with the Tema Boys also sobering when they dared tread on dangerous grounds. I don’t know when Ghana turned into Palestine and stones became Shepherd Boy David’s weapons of war for us here. I have always told my kids not to fight policemen and women or soldiers because their authorities will stand behind them while your NHIS Card will not replace your eyes or missing teeth. In the days when The Chronicle was The Chronicle, and Kabral’s Independent was The Independent and Chris and Egbert Faibille Jnr managed The Ghanaian Observer, a follow story on the injured police woman would have been effected by reporters. I don’t know how the Editors groom the kids in the newsrooms or how the Journalism lecturers are training the kids in the lecture halls. They come into the newsrooms, and cannot write the. Yet, they come with First Class and Second Class Honours grading, though most of them I have encountered cannot do simple stories…Another story for another day, anyway. Managing crisis Kenya, like Ghana, is under an IMF Programme. They have a leaky purse and they must show they can manage their budgets by raising enough revenue to plug the holes and fall in step with global development agendas in education, health, weight of currency, trade surpluses, infrastructural development and formalisation levels. That’s basic civilisation and good marks of good governance. That is why we have an Executive and we have a Parliament that works hand in hand in applies constitutional processes to arrive at reasonable plans to address issues. Yes, the streets may fill because the laws allow them, but also we must ensure that the streets filling up will not prevent Parliament from doing its constitutional duties or Majority and Minority engaging for the benefit of larger Ghana and immediate and future good of the country. Errant MPs, Executive Agents Far too often, the Rutos of this world, together with the wings-flapping, tumbling, inflated MPs ignore this fact and join the street actors to do what their kids and cousins would not do. When we had a problem with the E-Levy, consensus resolved it. When we had issues with LBGTQ+, we sustained and continue to sustain the conversation while the LBGTQ+ disciples continued to plaster their anuses and injure their anatomy. Five months into the elections, we will be having issues and conversations. That makes us human beings with abilities to find answers to challenges. The UK, Denmark, Finland and Greenland, where Ghanaians run for economic refuge were built by leaders who elected to resolve critical national issues about job creation, welfare programmes for the citizenry, health and education and business generation to make their economies resilient. More importantly, unlike us, they long ago held that it takes taxes to run a country. Thankfully, Ruto has eaten humble pie and gotten back to engage. That is a lesson we here in Ghana need to consider. So, Ruto may be right in striving to rush through his programme for making Kenya look responsible as an emerging economy. But that should earlier have been done, with a Parliament that is united and committed to transforming their economy. Incumbent or opposition, unless we black Africans became tax complaint, we are finished. We would be eternally beggars and consumed in eating our blessings because we loathe giving to the state for national development purposes. As for those eat from the Consolidated Fund, I do not understand why some of them join the chorus when the Fund must be full to enable them even take double salaries without the Executives holding them accountable. But does that mean we should waste our resources through corruption and systemic graft? That is the responsibility of the Executive and Parliament to work at. But that is also the responsibility of institutions of accountability to deal with – unless they themselves are complicit and mired. By Abena Baawuah

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• June 27, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

Coming out of the hotels

When it comes to what subjects I write on in my column, it is often as the spirit moves me, always with the understanding that I am not the type of person to write on Ian Smith and Rhodesia on the day that three former heads of state are executed in Ghana.

Sometimes I do choose to wait out the noise on some subjects and then get onto it when I can see a different path from what had been trodden bare.

Four Mondays ago, I sent this message to the Editor of the Graphic: “I’m unable to write a column this week. All my instincts are to write about the brouhaha that has started about SSNIT and the hotels.

Since I chair the SSNIT Board, I feel inhibited, not because I have nothing to say but because I am not clear in my mind about the rules and conventions on going public with Board matters.

But then, I also don’t really want to write about any other subject and give the impression I am running away from the subject that is dominating discussions. So, I am afraid I am not offering a column this week.”

I have now gone for three weeks without offering any script for the column, and I am thinking that my continuing silence might be interpreted as disrespect or guilt of whatever I am being accused of.

Plus, last Friday, I went to the launch of a book, written by one of my favourite people and I really want to write about the book, and I can hardly launch myself back into the column without addressing the subject matter that took me off in the first place. So, here goes.

When the Board I chair was inaugurated in August 2021, the Director-General I met often said that SSNIT was like the Black Stars in the sentiments of Ghanaians, all 34 million of us have a view on it and with SSNIT, he thought the widespread interest was legitimate because even if you don’t contribute to the scheme yourself, your uncle, or niece or friend does and their tomorrows are at stake. We both agreed that pension funds are sacred.

Front page

My constant refrain with my Board of Trustees is we should have at the back of our minds that every step we take and every decision we make, could end up on the front page of the Daily Graphic and we should be comfortable with the ensuing headline. I would then add my own personal credo that I had brought with me to the Board.

We met lots of outstanding matters that had been unresolved for years. I announced at every opportunity that I was not prepared to kick any problem down the road for the next set of people to resolve.

We would take decisions and try to resolve issues that come up. Maybe we would make some mistakes and if that is shown up, I would take responsibility, but I would not be paralysed into inaction by the fear of displeasing some people.

I did not imagine that my theories would be played out so graphically and tested in real time so soon. I am afraid I have not followed, as keenly as I should have, the discussions that have been going on since the Honourable Member for North Tongu started his campaign against what he has variously described as the SSNIT Board and management’s disregard for due process, abuse of power, corruption, lack of transparency, deception, procurement breaches etc. etc. etc.

From what I can work out, there are a number of issues that are being raised about the decision to divest a 60 per cent stake in the shares of the six hotels owned by SSNIT: an ideological resistance to the idea of divesting shares in the hotels to a strategic investor, especially since some of the hotels are said to be profitable; the process through which the preferred bidder, Rock City Limited, was chosen, was corrupt; the owner of Rock City, Bryan Acheampong, is a Minister of State and should therefore not be able to bid for a state asset.

There are other side issues that come up depending on who is talking and the person’s individual idiosyncrasies. I will not try to lay out the arguments here for the need to divest shares in the ownership of the hotels, I will simply say that I was persuaded by the decision that the SSNIT Board had taken back in 2018 and I determined to make it a reality.

I am able to say with the utmost certainty that the process that led to the selection of Rock City as the Preferred Bidder was clean, above board and met every rule and regulation and can withstand every scrutiny.

Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa claims to have God and Ghana on the side of his campaign, and I would hope all of God’s Angels and Ghana’s investigative agencies, temporal and spiritual, would examine the process and tell the world if they find any irregularity or trace of corrupt practice. Indeed, if they should find any evidence of corruption, I will assume and accept responsibility and expect to be prosecuted.

Political colouration

I accept that this being an election year, everything takes on a political colouration and Bryan Acheampong being the owner of Rock City is obviously the main reason the decibel level of the discussions has gone so high.

By all means, let us have a discussion about a company belonging to a Minister of State winning an open, competitive bid, no matter how fairly; but surely that is a different argument from whether SSNIT can, or is allowed to find private sector investment for its hotels and any of its other wholly or majority-owned investments.

Quite a number of things baffle me, but I will mention two: the suggestion that this was some secret thing being done that has been discovered and the sordid details are being exposed by a Member of Parliament and secondly, the suggestion that the President of the Republic, and by extension, the government took the decision and was in some way, in charge of the divestiture process of the shares in the hotels owned by SSNIT.

If you want to do something in secret, it would be very strange to announce your intentions with advertisements in the Daily Graphic, the Ghanaian Times and the Economist. And yet, that is exactly what SSNIT did when its Board of Trustees took the decision to seek a strategic investor to take a 60 per cent stake in the six hotels it owns.

The advertisements were followed by various public statements by SSNIT executives at various stages, once the process got going. Indeed, the last two times that SSNIT appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, the subject of trying to find a strategic investor in the hotels came up and SSNIT was urged to hurry with the process and conclude what it was doing.

Strategic investor

So, one can safely say that some people in Parliament, at the very least, the members of the Public Accounts Committee were aware that SSNIT was seeking to divest 60 per cent of its stake in the hotels and the members did not sound like they thought it was such a terrible idea, nor that something untoward was going on.

Suddenly, Ghanaians are being urged to think and believe that getting a strategic investor to take a stake in the hotels amounts to a sordid crime. I am at a total loss to understand how the President and the government got into this.

Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa appears to know something I don’t. The Board of Trustees certainly did not go to get permission or even inform the President of the Republic or any Minister about the decision to seek a strategic investor to take a stake in the hotels.

The Board did not need such permission, was not obliged to inform the government and did not do so. I have seen no evidence in the records of past Boards going to the government or the President to get permission to make an investment decision.

The Board did not involve the President, nor the Minister, nor the government in the process. The Act that governs SSNIT makes no such provision and I had thought it was in everyone’s interest that the pension fund is kept away from government interference.

Obviously, a demonstration is more sexy when it ends at Jubilee House, but I assure the Honourable Member for North Tongu he was out by a long shot.

By Elizabeth Ohene

• goldcoastnewsline@gmail.com
• June 24, 2024
• 0 Comments
• 8 minutes Read

Of Religion, Opiates, Sanitisers; ‘Goro’ Boys, Delegates, Pilgrims and ‘Martyrs’

The world’s leading news networks carried a few days ago a story saying that the death toll from this year’s Hajj had exceeded 1,000, with more than half of the victims being unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia.

According to the reports, new deaths reported days ago included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of 658 Egyptians who died, 630 were unregistered pilgrims.

About 10 countries have reported 1,081 deaths during the pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam which all Muslims with the means must complete, at least, once.

The Hajj, whose timing is determined by the lunar Islamic calendar, fell again this year during the oven-like Saudi summer, with the national meteorological centre reporting a high of 51.8C (125F) this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Rising temperatures, rising poverty 

A Saudi study published last month said temperatures in the area were rising by 0.4C each decade. And, we are told that each year, tens of thousands of pilgrims try to join the Hajj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly official permits.

Saudi authorities reported clearing hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca this month, but it appears many still participated in the main rites which began last Friday. This group was more vulnerable, because without official permits, they could not access air-conditioned spaces provided for the 1.8 million authorised pilgrims to cool down.

“People were tired after being chased by security forces before Arafat day. They were exhausted,” one Arab diplomat said on Thursday about Saturday’s day-long outdoor prayers that marked the climax of the Hajj.

The diplomat said the main cause of death among Egyptian pilgrims was the heat, which triggered complications related to high blood pressure and other problems. The report added that Egyptian officials were visiting hospitals to obtain information, and help Egyptian pilgrims receive medical care.

Intriguingly, there are large numbers of Egyptian citizens who are not registered in Hajj databases, which requires double the effort and a longer time to search for missing persons and find their relatives.

In the welter of confusion, Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has ordered that a crisis management team headed by the Prime Minister follow up on the deaths of the country’s pilgrims.

Sisi stressed “the need for immediate coordination with the Saudi authorities to facilitate receiving the bodies of the deceased and streamline the process.

East Asia 

Pakistan and Indonesia also confirmed more deaths on Thursday. Out of about 150,000 pilgrims, Pakistan had so far recorded 58 deaths, a diplomat said. “I think given the number of people, given the weather, this is just natural,” the diplomat said. This was a diplomat speaking. Over 50 deaths was normal – all because such deaths was considered martyrdom – dying for one’s faith, without even knowing which side of your anatomy you would be landing on beyond the grave…

Indonesia, which had about 240,000 pilgrims, reported its death toll to be 183. Last year, its Religious Affairs Ministry said, they recorded 313 deaths.

Deaths have also been confirmed by Malaysia, India, Jordan, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, Sudan and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. In many cases, authorities have not specified the cause.

Frenzied relatives

Friends and relatives have been searching for missing pilgrims, scouting hospitals and pleading online for news, fearing the worst.

Two diplomats said last week that Saudi authorities had begun the burial process for dead pilgrims, cleaning the bodies and putting them in white burial cloth and taking them to be interred.

“The burial is done by the Saudi authorities. They have their own system so we just follow that,” said one diplomat, who said his country was working to notify loved ones as best it could. We haven’t had or heard any in the case of Ghana.

Another diplomat, apparently used to the ritual of burying dead bodies as a state duty, said it would be impossible to notify many families ahead of time, especially in Egypt, which accounts for so many of the dead.

Religious graveyard

Saudi Arabia has not provided information on deaths, though it reported more than 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone. Last year, various countries reported more than 300 deaths during the Hajj, mostly Indonesians.

The timing of the hajj moves back about 11 days each year in the Gregorian calendar, meaning that next year it will take place earlier in June, potentially in cooler conditions.

A 2019 study by the journal Geophysical Research Letters said because of the climate crisis, heat stress for Hajj pilgrims would exceed the “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052 and 2079 to 2086, “with increasing frequency and intensity as the century progresses”.

That is interesting, with the Saudi authorities and neighbouring Egypt being saddled with the onerous responsibility of playing host to funerals, without families being in attendance. The carnage, however, goes on.

Hajj preparations

In Ghana, preparations for the pilgrimage have been taken over by the politicians. They have hijacked it from the Muslim clerics and traditional bodies that arrange the event.

The hijack started from Jerry Rawlings and succeeding political parties found capital in that. It has been the same for traditional durbars – with the pouring of libation being now considered part of the ritual of our state protocol chiefs.

But there are also those who make capital from it by organising flights and related hospitalities. One eye on the money and another on the opportunity for gain. So, at a time, we had multiple organising bodies that had to be unified for political purposes as the political animal also inserted political names into a protocol list.

So far, so good

So far, so good, if all that culminates in socio-economic wellbeing, law and order, and enhanced moral rectitude that touches public and community life. Unfortunately, it is a NO.

But what should be worrying the host nation and countries like Egypt is why those nations whose citizens stridently break the law to be part of the sacred event are the very countries that have their sons and daughters breaking laws to enter greener Europe and oily Saudi. Each time I have had opportunity to scan the big networks, I visit websites to check the pulse of the migrant landscape.

More and more people dying have not been deterrent enough for the poor and wretched who nonetheless finds money to trek through the Savannah or Sahel’ or the Congo through Mozambique to the Americas and Europe. His pals in travel are packs of bread and gallons of water.

Goro Boys and Boats

The world is full of Goro Boys. From our lorry parks and markets like Abossey Okai and Katamanto or Kejetia to Asafo, they know where every item is sold, except that they don’t know how to find the money to buy and sell those fast-moving items. What they intriguingly haven’t got is the courage of competing or living out their personal dream responsibly and independently.

These boats and their owners that pop up, and trucks that ferry migrants across the space, knowing they do not have licenses or that they are not seaworthy…not much difference between them and bandits. Yet, they all are religious

They are like a certain shellfish species that uses some other shell covers, besides their own. Call them party delegates for bookmen or ushers in churches or deaconesses who only know how to get people dress well, without ensuring that her house and kids are in order.

But that’s how some of our politicians behave: they won’t chase out the boat owners who commit acts of ferrying these pilgrims through dense forests or snake and bandits infested terrains, in offering services that they know are criminal.

It is holy activity burying dead pilgrims. It is holy activity performing the rituals and claiming they died as martyrs just like the animals called HAMAS and other extremist dunces are doing in parts of the Middle East into Africa south of the Sahara. Worse still, that thinking is akin to ignoring the woes and plight of vulnerable citizens and pretending to love them, while we sleep over the relevant and vibrant policies that would be relieving them from the pressures that push them to sell family property and decide to go through silly risks to South America, Italy, Spain or Haiti.

I am glad Christians here in Ghana or Togo or Nigeria do not make noise over forced trips to Bethlehem or Galilee. In terms of sheer numbers, that would be mouthful for the politician. Thank God, we know that beyond the rituals in religion, there is a deep yearning of the heart and soul and spirit that overshadows the Alleluia and Allah Akbar. That day cannot be a crowd thing. It is an individual search.

by Abena Baawuah