LORD A. ADUSEI

Martin Amidu: I never begged to be A-G; Kobby Fiagbe says he is even unfit for the office

2012-01-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

From: Ghana l Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com Last Updated: January 12, 2012, 4:30 pm



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A-G, Martin Amidu

Editor of pro-NDC newspaper, the Ghanaian Lens, Mr Kobby Fiagbe, says Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Martin Amidu is unfit for the office of A-G and must thus be sacked with immediate effect.

Mr Fiagbe said he and others did not “hound” former A-G Betty Mould Iddrisu out of office for Mr Amidu to come and do worse.

The A-G, in a press release Wednesday described sections of the pro-government press as “a partisan and rented NDC press group who perceive that I am not performing the duties of my office in their partisan political interests.”

He said “a colleague Minister of State, who perceived that my integrity and professionalism as a lawyer was a threat to the concealment of gargantuan crimes against the people of Ghana…” connived “to unleash the gullible section of the NDC press on me by the leakage of official documents from my ministry through the perverse section of a rented NDC press to the public beginning the 3rd of January 2012.”

But those comments have attracted the fury of Mr Fiagbe who says Mr Amidu cannot continue to hold the high office of A-G when he publicly admits, through his own press statement, that he knows criminals walking the streets of Ghana.

Mr Fiagbe, told Citi FM Thursday that the A-G was a beneficiary of their agitations that led to the removal of Mrs Iddrisu from office and his appointment as the A-G and he should not call them “criminal NDC press.”

He challenged Mr Amidu to arrest and prosecute owners of the press he says are criminal press or forever hold his peace.

Mr Amidu, however, appears unperturbed by the calls for his dismissal having said in his press statement that “As for the section of the rented NDC press calling for my removal or dismissal from office, I wish to assure them that I never begged to be appointed Attorney-General: I opposed it on four separate occasions. That criminal section of the NDC press should be assured that I am ready, able and willing for that eventuality. The inescapable fact is that at the end of the day truth will prevail over falsehood in the Republic of Ghana.”

Below is the full statement as issued by Mr Martin Amidu:

This press release has been necessitated by three telephone calls from Bawku in the Upper East Region, Burma Camp and Tema both in the Greater Accra Region on the 9th January 2012 expressing support and urging caution for my personal safety because of the cowardly, malicious and libelous attacks against my well established reputation and integrity as a lawyer, a politician and the Attorney- General of the Republic of Ghana by a partisan and rented NDC press group who perceive that I am not performing the duties of my office in their partisan political interests.

I wish to assure the members and supporters of the National Democratic Congress who are still unequivocally and resolutely committed to the original ideas of the 31st December revolution of “Freedom, Justice, Probity and Accountability:,” enshrined in the preamble of the 1992 constitution that I remain steadfast to those principles, ideals and commitments as the foundation of the fourth republican constitution. I remember the gallant men and women who laid down their lives in diverse ways that this country must live and serve the cause of the majority of the ordinary people whose sweat has consistently been exploited by the elite and elitist politicians in the name of service to the people.

I appreciate the privilege and recognition accorded my integrity and honesty over the decades when I was invited on the 4th June 2011 to lay the wreath on behalf of the probity, transparency and accountability in memory of our fallen colleagues and heroes.

I have faith and believe in my Ministerial oath of office as a Minister of State and my cabinet oath that requires me to “uphold, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the Republic of the Ghana as by law established…” Consequently, I wish to assure the people of Ghana that I still stand by my promise in spite of the fact that hard core criminals in our society today have made it a habit to hold paid membership cards of major political parties in the republic as an unconstitutional insurance against crime and criminal prosecutions.

I wish core members and supporters of the NDC who cherish the principles and ideas upon which the party was founded to know that the attacks against me which started in the Daily Post publications of the 3rd January 2012 were planned by a colleague Minister of State, who perceived that my integrity and professionalism as a lawyer was a threat to the concealment of gargantuan crimes against the people of Ghana in which they might be implicated. An alibi was consequently created on 30th December 2011 to unleash the gullible section of the NDC press on me by the leakage of official documents from my ministry through the perverse section of a rented NDC press to the pubic beginning the 3rd of January 2012.

That has back fired because the leaked official documents by the Daily Post; the Informer; the National Democrat; the Ghanaian Lens; etc have rather inadvertently supported my honesty and integrity in public office and my call for the prosecution of criminals regardless of their political party colorations or their social status.

I was deputy Attorney-General and Deputy Minister for Justice for upwards of twelve and half years and know it is not proper for an Attorney-General to execute the functions entrusted to him under article 88 of the constitution in the media instead of the courts of justice. I will speak to the media when it is absolutely necessary to do so but I will not discuss people’s rights and cases in the media to prejudice their eventual procedural rights to a fair trial.

The ethics of a legal profession and the Bar, of which I am a leader, are more sacred to me than that of young and inexperienced members of a communication team of the NDC who are absolutely ignorant of the functions of an Attorney-General under the Constitution of Ghana.

I wish to conclude in this press statement by stating that there is not a single criminal docket against any high political operative of the NPP which has been ready for prosecution in the Director of Public Prosecution’s office that I have failed or refused to prosecute as that Minister of State and the gullible NDC press want the whole world to believe. Fairness requires that NDC criminals be prosecuted by me as well, as an independent and impartial Attorney-General, albeit appointed by the NDC Government.

I have sufficient integrity and experience as a Ghanaian and a legal practitioner who has personally conducted several leading cases reported in the Law Reports of Ghana to naively send hearsay and newspaper accusations to the courts of Justice only to lose them as was the practice a few years past.

Cool heads are what are needed in the office of the Attorney-General and not emotions, inexperience and crass incompetence in the practice of the law.

As for the section of the rented NDC press calling for my removal or dismissal from office, I wish to assure them that I never begged to be appointed Attorney-General: I opposed it on four separate occasions. That criminal section of the NDC press should be assured that I am ready, able and willing for that eventuality. The inescapable fact is that at the end of the day truth will prevail over falsehood in the Republic of Ghana.

I do not fear for my personal safety in a cause I have fought for since I was 30 years old. I am now over 60 years and count myself lucky if I pay the ultimate sacrifice which my compatriots paid in 1979 and 1981 belatedly in the regime of the third NDC Government.

When you die you never know you never lived. Destiny can never be changed but the good people of Ghana and those who laid down their lives for them will forever live on.

Ghana as a nation can never and should never be allowed to be intimidated by charlatans in political disguise.

Global Energy Security and Africa's rising Strategic Importance

2012-01-09T00:46:00.000-08:00

Oil and gas are strategic commodities

Thus whether analysed from the perspective of the United States, the European Union or China, there is growing recognition that Africa is on a strategic transition to become a major geostrategic powerhouse for the maintenance of the global economic system. As a matter of fact Africa now features in the international calculus of many of the major global energy importers indicating the growing significance of the continent to maintaining a healthy global economic system.

Africa is emerging as one of the strategic regions with significant contribution for the maintenance of the global energy security architecture. Since 1998, beginning with President Bill Clinton's visit to Africa, a number of high level officials from U.S., China, India, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and the E.U. have visited the continent with most of the visits taking place in oil and gas-rich countries.

President George W. Bush visited the continent twice before the end of his 8 year term. In 2006 President Hu Jintao of

China

, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and China's foreign minister together visited 15 countries in Africa. In 2009 President Obama visited both

Egypt

and

Ghana

. He was quickly followed by Secretary Hilary Clinton who visited 7 countries including

Nigeria

and

Angola

both major oil exporters. These visits are important because oil and gas remain strategic commodities critical to the functioning of the global economic system.

Officially Africa is known to have 10% and 8% share of the proven global oil and gas reserves respectively. According to the 2009 U.S. Energy Information Administration records, Libya is home to Africa's largest oil reserves with about 43.7 billion barrels in total, followed by Nigeria with 36.2 billion barrels, Algeria 12.2 billion barrels and Angola with 9 billion barrels. Other countries like Sudan, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Mozambique, Ghana and Uganda have huge deposits of oil and gas which are either being exported or are being developed for export. Moreover, there is growing recognition among energy experts that Africa may be home to unknown quantities of oil and gas reserves making it what experts refer to as the 'New Gulf' in reference to the oil-rich Persia Gulf. Tapping these reserves is very important for the energy dependent economies of U.S., China, India, and the E.U.

Available information indicate that Africa has overtaken the Middle East as a major oil supplier to the U.S. Data from U.S. Energy Information Administration indicate that in 2010 U.S. total oil import from Africa amounted to 21.7% of U.S. total global oil import. In the same period U.S. oil import from the Middle East was 18.5% of US total global oil import. It is projected that U.S. oil import from Africa will reach 25% in 2015 and will grow even further as Ghana begins to export some of its oil to the country.

Europe's dependence on Africa energy is also growing. Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria in particular have become very important energy suppliers to the European Union. France for instance is the single largest EU importer of Angolan oil. The 27 EU members together buy three-fifths of Algerian Liquefied Natural Gas exports.

Nigeria with its 3% share of global gas reserves, exports nearly two-thirds of its gas to the EU making her the EU's fourth largest major natural gas supplier. A $10 billion Trans-Sahara Pipeline from Nigeria through Niger and to Algeria is expected to boost gas export from Nigeria to the European market and solidify the continent as a major gas exporter to the EU. Similarly the EU is expected to secure about 15% of its power needs from the planed $550 billion solar power project in North Africa dubbed the DESERTEC Project.

New comers in the global energy consumption league including China and India have also focused their attention on Africa. Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, and the Republic of Congo have become China's major oil suppliers providing China with 30% of its annual oil imports. According to Jeffrey Henderson, in 2003 about 41 per cent of Sudan's exports and 23 per cent of Angola's mostly oil went to China. Vivian Foster of the World Bank notes that since 2006 two Chinese companies: China National Oil Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation have committed to invest about $5 billion in Nigeria, $3 billion in Angola and $1.5 billion in Sudan. Jeffrey Henderson notes that in 2005, China's Export–Import Bank had investment portfolio of US$15 billion in Africa mostly in the energy, mining and construction sectors.

Several other factors also buttress Africa's rising strategic importance to the global energy security architecture. They include among other things higher oil prices; the peaking of energy production in the North Sea; the unpredictability of Russia as energy supplier to the EU; climate change; rising energy consumption in China and India and the ensuing competition with U.S. and the EU for the remaining 1,114 trillion barrels of global oil reserves; and the arms race, conflicts and instability in the Middle East which together controls 60% and 41% of global oil and gas reserves respectively.

For example for the United States, due to the arms race, conflicts and instability in the Middle East, now appear to favour energy imports from Africa more than the Middle East. Part of the reason is that there is stability in Africa now than it was in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The internal civil wars that ravaged Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Congo Brazzaville in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s have been resolved and democratic governance is taking shape in a number of the countries, making security of production and transportation less a problem than they used to be.

Additionally, the prospect of major inter-state conflict in Africa involving the use of deadly weapons that could destabilise oil and gas supply looks relatively distant. Few African countries possess the destructive war machines that Middle Eastern countries have acquired over the last 10 to 20 years. In 2010 for example Saudi Arabia purchased $60 billion worth of U.S. military hardware which experts believe is geared towards countering Iran's arms build up. Again most of Africa's oil is located offshore and could be exploited and transported relatively easily with very little contact with the local population. By way of distance the parts of Africa where most of the oil and gas are located is relatively closer to the U.S. making cost of transportation and the security associated with it relatively less expensive. These factors make oil and gas from Africa more reliable than say the Middle East and remain some of the main reasons why Africa's strategic importance is growing among oil and gas importers.

Two things are worth mentioning here about Africa's rising strategic importance. The first is that the growing strategic importance may help Africa to enjoy economic growth, gain diplomatic respect, and secure influence on the global stage. Currently the increased investment from China, India, US and European Union is fuelling growth in energy export economies such as Angola, Ghana and Nigeria. The Economist magazine has predicted that between 2011 and 2015 seven of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world will be found in Africa. This economic growth if well managed may help lift millions of people from poverty i.e. if the growth and the revenue are redistributed.

The growing demand for Africa's energy resources could also increase the bargaining capacity of the governments in Africa vis-à-vis energy buyers. The demand could mean more revenue to the governments which in theory could be used to reduce their dependence on aid and loans from the World Bank and IMF and hence correct the power imbalance between them. In other words the rise in demand for Africa's energy resources if better managed could alter the balance of power between Africans and their international creditors.

The second point is that as African countries become major oil and gas suppliers and as U.S. China, France, Britain, India, Russia, and Brazil increasingly compete with each other for the continent's energy resources, there are fears that the region is becoming a cockpit of superpower rivalry. Observers have indicated that rivalry is slowly leading to militarization of policies by energy importers towards the continent. It is believed that Libya became the first casualty of this rivalry in 2011. Critics of the war argue that the US-EU-NATO invasion was a strategy to scare away their rivals and competitors particularly China. As evidence, they point to the more than 35,000 Chinese oil and construction workers who were forced out of Libya during the invasion.

In 2008 during a meeting with oil and gas multinationals in London, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, then NATO Secretary General announced that NATO would use its air, land and sea capabilities to police and protect the energy security interest of its members. That policy, it is argued, was implemented in Libya where NATO played a key role in overthrowing the Gaddafi government. As another sign of the growing militarisation of the continent, in 2007 President Bush Jr and the Pentagon, launched what they call Africa Command (AFRICOM) a military project which (although denied by U.S. officials) is intended to protect U.S. energy and other interest in Africa. The invasion of Ivory Coast (a small but significant oil exporter) by France in 2011 after the Ivorian electoral dispute also shows the increasing use of the military by foreign powers to achieve their national interest objectives in Africa.

African governments and their peoples need to guide against the superpower competition and the associated rivalries and ensure that the attention the continent is receiving does not lead to exploitation, instabilities and proxy wars but rather opportunities for the masses. Therefore African countries should take a unified and coordinated approach vis-à-vis the major buyers to ensure that Africa's political and economic stability, long term security and prosperity of its citizens are not jeopardised.

Secondly, while African countries deepen partnership with energy multinationals they should formulate and implement policies to influence negotiation outcomes, and get the best commercial deals for their resources, so as to ensure that the people of Africa become the ultimate beneficiaries of their resources .

Finally, there is perception particularly in Europe and America that Africa is both economic and political dwarf that can be manipulated to suit their interests. That perception ought to be corrected. Therefore, Africa should use its revenue to build economic and political power to influence and shape the current world order to its advantage. In other words Africa should harness its growing strategic importance to pursue agenda relevant to its interest.

The governments in Africa, the oil and gas industry, the academia, the media, civil society, and the think tanks all have a role to play in making Africa benefit from its growing strategic importance.

By Lord Aikins Adusei. politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

Oil and Gas at Ghana-Ivorian border: conflict or cooperation?

2012-01-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

Oil and gas resources at Ghana-Ivorian border: conflict or cooperation?

However, if both countries choose to war-war instead of jaw-jaw then it is important to point out to them the ramifications of having to engage in a dangerously competitive and ruthlessly conflictual exercise. For example such conflictual exercise has potential to send West Africa back to the days of low investment, low economic growth, high inflation, huge external debts, human displacements and poverty.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

The West African sub region and indeed the African continent is no stranger to conflicts and disputes over natural resources. The diamond conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s and the recent Niger Delta oil and gas conflicts in Nigeria are few examples of how resources have fuelled conflicts in the sub-region.

In the 1980s and 1990s Nigeria and Cameroon clashed several times over oil and gas resources in the Bakassi Peninsula. The conflict was later settled by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but not after several people have been killed. The conflict over gas and oil resources emanated from among other things the need by both countries to keep their territorial sovereignty intact, ensure energy and human security, economic survival including the need to benefit financially from the sale of the resources.

Recently in Ghana the media have reported that Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), which shares maritime border with Ghana, is making claims to parts of the sea where Ghana has recently discovered oil. The report saw Ghanaians pouring in on online chat rooms and radio discussions in solidarity of their country. They condemned the Ivorian claims as opportunistic.

Mr. Collins Dauda, Ghana's Lands and Natural Resources Minister buttressing the point that Ivorians are being opportunistic argued that there was no maritime dispute between Ghana and Ivory Coast, and that both countries had always respected the median line until oil and gas was found in the Ghana part of the maritime border. “All of a sudden, with the oil find, Ivory Coast is making a claim that is disrespecting this median line we have all respected. In which case we would be affected or the oil find will be affected” the Minister claimed.

Mr. Dauda was right about his 'no maritime dispute' statement. Ghana and Ivory Coast have been good neighbours ever since both countries gained independence. Both nations are trading partners. There is no memory of a major armed confrontation between the two sister nations. In 2011 Ghana even torpedoed efforts by regional bloc ECOWAS to invade Ivory Coast after the disputed elections. The government of Ghana argued at that time that war was not necessary and that dialogue should be used to settle the electoral dispute. When conflict finally erupted after France and UN joined the Alassan Quattara forces, Ghana became home to Ivorians who fled the conflict. Recently when I visited Sekondi-Takoradi, I was told stories of Ghanaians and Ivorians refugees dining and drinking together, confirming that both countries are like one big family.

Yet the recent discovery of oil and gas (both vital strategic commodities essential for the well-being of the global economy) is raising voices in both countries. Some of the hawkish voices are encouraging their governments to protect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and the national interest of their countries using every possible means including the use of the armed forces.

However, I believe that those with moderate voices should let their voices be heard. Of course moderation does not mean that Ivory Coast and Ghana should ignore their national interests. Far from that, however, I believe that such national interests can be pursued democratically and diplomatically without agonising the populations in both countries and endangering the fragile peace in the sub-region.

Fortunately, both Ivory Coast and Ghana are leading and respected members of ECOWAS as well as the Africa Union and could use these regional institutions to peacefully settle any disputes they may have.

Additionally there is international framework of rules, regulations, conventions, laws and institutions which determine who is entitled to which asset on land and on the sea bed. Such regulations and framework also provide clear rules and guidelines as to how disputes could be determined or settled in international courts. I am sure both Ivory Coast and Ghana are signatory to some of these international conventions and should use them to address their concerns.

Aside using diplomacy and international legal system, both countries can choose cooperation: joint exploration, joint development and joint management of the disputed area(s) for the benefit of their countries. There are many examples of such cooperation and joint management around the world including that of China and Japan, and the European Union.

In fact the current European Union was born out of the need to cooperate in pooling and sharing energy and other resources together. In May 1950 Robert Schuman, as French Foreign Minister, proposed that to perpetually eliminate devastating wars from Europe, archrivals France and Germany should pool their coal and steel production together and place it under one High Authority for the benefit of both countries and the rest of Europe. That proposal and its adoption have brought 60 years of political stability and economic prosperity to members of the European Union. Prior to the formation of EU, European countries fought several wars over resources including two world wars which were partly fought over access to resources.

The West Africa Power Pool and the West Africa Gas Pipeline coming from Nigeria to Togo, to Benin and to Ghana also serve as good examples on how the countries can share resources for their common good. There is nothing that prevents Ghana and Ivory Coast to follow these examples of cooperating to share resources for their own good.

In other words no matter the scale of the maritime boundary dispute, it can be settled by means of arbitration, negotiation or cooperation.

Besides, Ivory Coast and Ghana live in an interdependent region with common non-traditional security threats including militancy, piracy, drug and human trafficking, terrorist attacks, poverty, food and health insecurity, environmental pollution, climate change, and deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS. These problems demand a common, unified response and should make war between the two countries undesirable.

Ivorians and Ghanaians must remember that resources do not necessary bring conflict, people do and the people who advocate for conflict do so because of their interests. Much of the effort to solve the dispute will depend on the political and the military leadership as well as other groups (companies and individuals) with interest in the oil and gas resources in the area.

Therefore the leadership of both countries must demonstrate mutual political trust. They must show their commitment to dialogue and respect for international law and political structures within their countries and the sub-region; and they must discard any realist zero-sum perceptions they may have and approach the border dispute with openness, fairness and mutual respect.

One critical element vital to avoiding any conflict or preventing conflict from escalating is communication. Ghana and Ivory Coast must establish communication at the ministerial and possibly at the presidential level. Similar communication and hotlines should be established at the military level and between the military chiefs of both countries so that should any skirmishes accidentally happen between the armies at the border the confidence could quickly be restored.

The citizens in Ghana and Ivory Coast also have a major role to play. While they may be the ultimate beneficiary of the resources, they may also be victims should the dispute become confrontational. Therefore the citizens must encourage their political leaders to use the available international laws, conventions and channels to resolve the differences peacefully. In short both countries need not waste vital human and material resources to engage in conflicts that can be resolved diplomatically or through arbitration and cooperation.

However, if both countries choose to war-war instead of to jaw-jaw then it is important to point out to them the ramifications of having to engage in a dangerously competitive and ruthlessly conflictual exercise. For example such conflictual exercise has potential to send West Africa back to the days of low investment, low economic growth, high inflation, huge external debts, human displacements and poverty.

Unnecessary military adventure will not only lead to human casualties, but also lead to huge military expenditure which will be a drain on the economy and may lead to huge external debts whose payment will have negative impact on the performance of both economies.

From a regional perspective a war between the two countries will have a strong adverse effect on economic performance of the entire sub-region, particularly the neighbouring landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which rely on the transportation systems of Ghana and Ivory Coast for most of their export and imports. In other words regional trade, economic growth and stability could be disrupted and might take the region decades to recover.

This is why dialogue, diplomacy, arbitration and cooperation should be seriously considered.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Africa's Strategic Interest in the 21st Century. What is it?

2012-01-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

President Mills and Africa Strategic Interest

There is a black hole in Nigeria and other African countries' economy because for decades the leadership in these countries have deferred their countries' interest to entities such as multinational corporations and foreign governments as is in the case of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

There are many strategic thinkers who believe that Africa's underdog position in the world stems from the fact majority if not all the countries do not pursue policies that put the interest of their countries and people first. That is each of the countries in Africa does not work for the interest of its people by putting the interest of the nation and its people ahead of all other interests.

There is a consensus among policymakers that if each African country should work for its own interest while coordinating with other countries in the continent on issues such as free trade, energy and human security, and political stability among others there will be more successful economies in Africa than we have seen over the past 50 years. The lack of 'Africa first' as both an ideology and as a strategy has been one major factor that has delayed the continent's development.

Every country in the world works for the interest of its people. US, China, Russia, Britain, Germany, Korea all work to develop their economies for their citizens to benefit and these countries do not care what means they use to achieve those interests. But here in Africa governments sell resources and don't account to the people. Politicians only campaign for votes but not for development. There is complete lack of policies that articulate the concerns and interests of the countries and their citizens. In the 1980s and 1990s many national assets were sold under Structural Adjustment Program to foreign entities without considering the interest of the countries and their citizens. Today there are countries in Africa where multinational corporations have major shares in mining, oil, and timber, firms while the nations and their peoples who own the natural resources get very little.

Africans are quick to sell raw materials to countries in Europe, North America and Asia without asking what they could do with those natural resources themselves. It looks as if African governments do not have any specific interest in the world. They have not projected themselves as nations that matter in any sectors of the world affairs. It is not that these countries do not know what they must do; the problem is that the leaders have often tended to serve the interest of other nations rather than their own.

The governments always give their support to countries trying to get a platform in the world and seeking their interest in Africa and some have done so even to the detriment of their own countries. One clear example is the announcement by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and President of Liberia that her country is willing to host AFRICOM even though she has not consulted her people or the countries in the West African sub-region.

In her article published by allAfrica.com titled “AFRICOM Can Help Governments Willing To Help Themselves,” Ellen Johnson Sirleaf horned AFRICOM as a Marshall plan for Africa's development and encouraged African nations to 'work with Africom to achieve their own development and security goals'. This attitude is part of the reason why nations like Liberia and Nigeria have not developed. There is no collective national interest, neither is there any effort to do so rather they tend to support others whose interest is to exploit the continent to benefit their citizens.

The Guardian newspaper in Nigeria quoted Sanusi Lamido, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria as saying: “As an economist, I have done and looked at the input and output content of the Nigerian economy, and I have never seen an economy with a kind of black hole like that of Nigeria. We produced cotton, yet our textile plants are not working; we produce crude oil, we import petroleum products; we produce gas and export, yet we don't have power plant. We have iron ore, we don't have steel plant; and we have hide and skin, we don't have leader products”.

In 2009, US, China, Russia, France, Britain, Iran, and Israel all sent presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and other powerful government officials to Africa to pursue their interests. United States has been urged by the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies and Africa Oil Policy Initiative Group to declare the Gulf of Guinea a strategic interest and US under AFRICOM is seriously lobbying African governments to allow her to establish military bases so as to achieve her strategic goals.

A declassified document of the US Defence Department regarding the strategic importance of West Africa states that: 'West Africa is a swing production region that allows oil companies to leverage production capabilities to meet the fluctuating world demands.. . .West African oil is of high quality, is easily accessed offshore, and is well positioned to supply the North American market. Production in two major oil producing states (Nigeria and Angola) is expected to double or triple in the next 5-10 years. Already Nigeria and Angola provide as much oil to the U.S. as Venezuela or Mexico, making it of strategic importance.

Walter Kansteiner, the US assistant secretary of State for Africa speaking about what Africa oil means to his country said: “African oil is of national strategic interest to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward.”

The United States is not hiding her strategic ambition in Africa, however, I am yet to see Nigeria or Ghana or Senegal, Angola, and Namibia saying wait a minute what is our strategic interest in the Gulf of Guinea, how do we want to see the oil wealth in the Gulf of Guinea exploited and utilised to benefit our peoples and how do we contain the powers that are seeking to exploit the region's vast mineral wealth.

How do we coordinate to ensure that our peoples get the lion share from the oil deals; or how do we work together to strengthen security and prevent terrorists from getting foothold in West Africa? Such issues as the economy, energy security, political stability and infrastructure do not appear on the radars of the countries in Africa. There are few role model countries in Africa where the rest can learn from. The kind of competition that we saw in Asia that led to the industrialisation of countries like Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, which has given them a sense of national pride has not occurred in Africa. I am yet to see the foreign policy of Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, DRC, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya that put the interest of their people first. To me it looks as if each of these countries does not have interest that has to be articulated through their foreign policies.

Nations around the world are launching satellites to strengthen their economies, boost their communication capabilities and to police their countries, others are building a new generation of technologies to help propel and give their nations good footing in the increasingly competitive global economy. You don't see such aggressive efforts in Africa. Nigeria is sleeping, Angola is still reeling from decades of war, DRC lacks a strong central government to formulate and implement any policy at all. The end result is that a vacuum has been created which is being filled strategically by the United States as in the case of her military base Djibouti.

The lack of strategic interest on the part of African nations means that they will have to rely on countries like US, Britain, France, and China for their security and economic needs, but for how long? How will they win the fight against poverty, hunger, diseases and illiteracy if they do not champion their own interest and how are they expected to be taken serious if they continue to champion the strategic interest of others rather than their own?

Exploring Africa's green energy potential

2011-12-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

Solar, hydro, wind, hold key to Africa's future

Renewable energy must be the way because it has the potential to help African countries invigorate their economies, wean themselves from dependence on fossil fuel and reduce the debt burden associated with oil importation. It also has the potential to meet Africa's energy security needs; protect the environment; reduce natural resource conflicts (e.g. firewood collection); slow down rural-urban migration and associated urbanisation; and reduce carbon emissions and hence the negative impact of climate change.

Lord Aikins Adusei

Oil Import and Debts
Historically oil, gas and coal have been the mainstay of the economies of European, American, Japanese and other members of Organisation of the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These energy resources, particularly oil, enabled them to reach and maintain their current levels of development and lifestyle. Many countries wishing to transform their economies and societies have tended to go the line of fossil fuel.

However, many energy experts agree that the current oil driven development is unsustainable due to several factors including dwindling global reserves, impact of fossil fuel consumption on the planet (global warming and climate change), cost and security associated with production and transportation of fossil energy.

The transportation and industrial sectors of many African countries rely on oil import. These countries including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Kenya, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia spend huge percentage of their GDP on oil import. This has led to huge debts being incurred with serious ramification for the performance of their economies. For example the debt incurred by Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in Ghana made it difficult for the company to import crude oil leading to several shutdowns which affected economic activities in the country. Government of Ghana was forced to settle the arrears before TOR could lift crude into the country. These debts are linked to high global oil prices. The high prices mean that oil importing African countries will have to use their limited foreign exchange to compete with the likes of United States and China.

With China's demand for oil expected to grow from 8 million barrels a day in 2010 to 17.5 million barrels a day by 2030, coupled with demand from Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey, and the OECD countries the competition for access to the remaining global oil reserve will increase. The increase in demand will undoubtedly have impact on energy prices worldwide which will adversely affect African economies currently struggling to remain competitive.

Energy Poverty

Africa in general and Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) in particular remains one of the energy poor regions in the world. It accounts for more than a quarter of the 2.5 billion people globally who are without access to convenient, reliable, efficient and modern cooking technologies that can help meet their basic needs and support economic development. It also account for the larger share of the 1.6 billion people globally who are without electricity.

In 2008 a report by Anton Eberhard noted that Africa's electricity infrastructure capacity remains the lowest in the world. In the study Eberhard noted that the 48 Sub Saharan African countries with a combined population of more than 800 million produced about 68 gigawatt of electricity, almost the same amount of electricity generated by Spain with her population of 45 million people. When South Africa is taken out of the equation, the total power generated fell to 28 GW, equivalent to the installed capacity of Argentina.

Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) report authored by Vivian Foster, studied business activities and energy infrastructure in 26 countries in SSA and found that “for an important subset of countries, power emerges as by far the most limiting factor, being cited by more than half of firms in more than half of countries as a major business obstacle”. The firms reported losing 5 percent of their sales as a result of frequent power outages. The figure rises to 20 percent for informal sector firms unable to afford backup generators. TaTEDO, a Tanzanian non-governmental organisation, points out that more than 40 percent of agricultural products go waste due to post harvest losses and lack of appropriate energy to process or preserve it. However, it is not only businesses that face energy challenges, households are also confronted with electricity problems.

Studies show that only Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo Republic, Cote D'Ivoire, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have national electricity coverage of 20 percent or more with huge gap between rural and urban areas.

In Tanzania for instance while about 12 percent of households in the country have electricity coverage, only 2 percent of those in rural areas have access to electricity. That is 98 percent of rural households constituting 75 per cent of the population have no access to electricity. Ethiopia also has 12 percent national coverage and 2 percent and 86 percent for rural and urban areas respectively. The picture is no different from what pertains in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Niger, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia.

The IEA's 2010 Energy Development Index which tracks progress in a country or a region's transition to the use of modern fuels shows that SSA countries are not moving fast enough to tackle energy poverty and to increase the use of modern fuels. According to the World Bank the more than 580 million Africans who are without access to modern forms of energy spend more than 10 billion dollars annually buying low quality energy services such as kerosene, candles and firewood. Figures from the World Health Organisation indicate that death associated with the use of these services in Africa runs into four-hundred thousand annually.

Firewood and Charcoal as main Energy Sources

The lack of electricity and other forms of modern energy mean that firewood and charcoal for cooking and kerosene and candles for lighting remain the primary source of energy in most households and there is every indication that the dependence on low forms of energy is growing. For instance in 1986 about 66 percent of energy used in Zambia came from woodfuel, however by 2010 the figure had risen to 76 percent. In Democratic Republic of Congo, 92 percent of energy used annually comes from biomass especially from woodfuel.

The Minister of Energy in Ghana, Dr. Oteng Adjei, acknowledged in November, 2010 that 65 percent of energy use in the country annually comes from woodfuel with oil and hydroelectricity providing the remaining 35 percent. In Tanzania woodfuel is the main source of energy in the country accounting for over 90 per cent of the 15 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) of energy used in the country annually. In 2008 about 92 percent of the 32 million (toe) of energy consumed in Ethiopia came from combustible and waste materials specifically from woodfuel in the form of charcoal and dry wood while Kenya has about 78 per cent of energy use based on biomass.

The use of charcoal, firewood, candles and kerosene as the dominant source of energy effectively classifies Africa as one of the least energy intensive economic regions, heavily constrained by both low quality of fuel type and low per capita energy.

The Renewable Energy potential

While globally, attention is being focused on developing renewable energy resources (such as hydro, bioenergy, solar, wind and thermal among others) as a way to promote sustainable development and contain the threat posed by climate change to the planet, progress at developing the abundant renewable energy resources found in Africa as a viable alternative to fossil fuel has been slow. About 93 percent of Africa's hydro power potential remains undeveloped. Ethiopia for instance still spends millions of dollars importing oil each year despite the fact that she and Democratic Republic of Congo possess about 61 percent of Africa's untapped hydro power potentials.

But given the global demand and competition for fossil fuel coupled with the associated price increase and debt burden for oil importing African countries, it is obvious that Africa cannot take the development path driven by fossil energy. Renewable energy must be the way because it has the potential to help African countries invigorate their economies, wean themselves from dependence on fossil fuel and reduce the debt burden associated with oil importation. Renewable energy can also help increase households access to modern energy services; reduce energy poverty; improve the livelihood of the people; empower women; improve performance of students in schools; create jobs and bridge urban-rural inequality. It also has the potential to meet Africa's energy security needs; protect the environment; reduce natural resource conflicts (e.g. firewood collection); slow down rural-urban migration and associated urbanisation; and reduce carbon emissions and hence the negative impact of climate change.

The influential global energy outlook report prepared by British Petroleum in 2011 shows that the contribution of renewables to global energy growth will increase from 5 percent (1990-2010) to 18 percent (2010-2030) but Africa's share in terms of production and consumption of this growth is very small. There is therefore the need for African governments to begin to work seriously with the private sector and other relevant bodies/agencies to aggressively develop the necessary policies, institutions, and infrastructures to take advantage of Africa's huge renewable energy resources. Effort must also focus on addressing the human, financial and management capacity challenges associated with the renewable energy sector so as to make sector a catalyst for achieving economic growth, development and prosperity in Africa.

By Lord Aikins Aduse

Ghana 2012 elections: There can be politics without violence

2011-11-24T13:32:00.000-08:00

…The 2012 campaign must be based on policies

By Lord Aikins Adusei

The year 2012 will be another year for elections in Ghana. Leading candidates of the two main dominant parties i.e. the ruling National Democratic Congress and the opposition New Patriotic Parties are mobilising their supporters, issuing statements and making pronouncements. The President is alleged to have said that he would hand over the reign of government in 2017 prompting his critics and chiefly the opposition NPP to suggest that the President intends to stay in office irrespective of the outcome of the 2012 elections. The NDC on their part have argued that the NPP is willing and intends to use violence to achieve victory at all cost. They point to statement made by Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo the flagbearer in which he is reported to have used the phrase “all die be die” suggesting that nothing but a win will calm him and his supporters. Nana Addo has been accused by his critics and opponents particularly the NDC and their supporters of playing the ethnic card by using the word “Akan” which is the name of Ghana's largest ethnic group.

The recent brouhaha surrounding the use of biometric voting and the NPP insistence that there cannot be biometric voting without verification has added another twist to the fuel being poured into the upcoming 2012 elections.

These accusations and counter accusations are a semblance of the suspicion, mistrust and election violence that characterise elections in Africa in particular and the developing world in general. However, violent as elections in Africa may have been, there is enough evidence that Ghana has been a nation which has defied the odds in Africa and has maintained a positive reputation and standard that her African contemporaries are struggling to match. It is this reputation as a stable, peaceful, violence-free democratic country that Ghanaians must be happy and be proud to protect in the 2012 elections.

Students of politics and indeed politicians know too well that in politics wining and losing are things of reality and Ghanaian politicians must begin to educate and prepare their supporters on these realities so as to offset any negative event(s) that will emanate as result of the elections. One message that must be made clear is that so far as the 2012 presidential election is concerned there can be only one winner. That winner could be President Mills, Nana Addo or any of the presidential candidates of PNC and CPP. Since there is going to be only one winner and several losers, whoever emerges as the winner should quickly show maturity and leadership and avoid statements that will be interpreted negatively by the losing candidates. The losers on their part must accept the outcome of the election as being the people's verdict, congratulate the winner and assure their supporters that there will be another opportunity in 2017. In short every effort must be made to prevent the 2012 elections from going the Ivorian or the Kenyan way. Indeed it is the view of the author that there can be politics without violence and Ghana must not burn because of candidates losing or wining elections.

Campaign based on Policies

Each of the parties must have a clear campaign message and tell Ghanaians why they want them to vote for them. That is the political parties must talk more about their policies both domestic and foreign and take time to explain these policies to the people. For example domestically it is extremely important that the parties let Ghanaians know what policies they have on these specific issues: internet access and telecommunication in rural areas; quality education for all Ghanaians; financing tertiary education; financing and providing quality healthcare for all Ghanaians; employment and skill training for the youth; water delivery in cities and villages; quality and affordable rural housing; and promoting industrialisation, research and development.

Other policy areas could be ensuring energy security for businesses and fighting energy poverty in Ghana i.e. reducing Ghanaians' dependence on firewood, charcoal, kerosene and candles and increasing access to modern energy facilities. Other policies could also focus on ensuring that Ghanaians fully benefit from the proceeds of the oil, and other minerals in the country; providing irrigation, tractors and machinery for farmers and to ensuring that goods produced will not be left in the bush for lack of good roads. Voters may want to know what the parties' policies will be on combating climate change and desertification; addressing the problem of Kayayo and child streetism; providing efficient, reliable rail transport network; revamping Ghana urban road transportation system; fighting corruption and keeping Ghanaians safe at all time.

The campaign must move away from the shallow politics that addresses none of the major problems facing the country to substantive and critical issues such as how do we connect the south of the country to the north by fast train network so that we do not have all our goods and passengers move by road thereby creating congestion and unnecessary fatal accidents. Thus the critical question political parties and Ghanaians must ask and answer is what do we do as a nation to come out from the economic quagmire, poverty and deprivation that we continue to find ourselves in and how do we solve our numerous problems. The question of what we must do and how we must do it must be central to the campaign. In short the focus of the campaign must be economic and political stability; peace and prosperity; unity and love; economic and social equality; national security; and protecting our national interest.

Faith in the Electoral System

All political parties must have faith in the electoral system, the Electoral Commission and its chairman Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan. Judging from their previous experience and performance in organizing elections there can be no doubt that Dr. Afari Gyan and his team members have what it takes to organise the elections. In the past the Commission has shown itself to be a credible institution that operates without favouritism. In fact throughout country, the Commission has come to symbolise independence, transparency, accountability, fair play, honesty, integrity, openness, objectivity and strong leadership and is idolised by many institutions in Ghana and Africa. This notwithstanding, it is important that the Commission continues to work hard to erode any misconception that it is favouring or might be favouring one political party against the other. All peace loving Ghanaians must continue to support the Commission to deliver a credible, free and fair election which will make all of us proud.

Language use

Each of the parties must assemble their best election strategists to craft messages that will catch the attention of voters. The campaign strategist and managers must develop and come up with policies that Ghanaians can identify themselves with. The party that sells well will win at the end of the day. The parties must commit themselves to run clean, free and fair campaign devoid of any acrimony. These would help to avoid the mayhem and destruction that characterised the elections in Ivory Coast, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.

Language used by politicians and their agents must be civil, polite and full of respect and be devoid of the insults, tribal and ethnic rhetoric that has come to define the Ghanaian political landscape. Politicians must stop using abusive, inflammable language and avoid utterances that will not auger well for the wellbeing of the country. They must use sound argument to criticize their opponent(s) without the usual insults. Political leaders must quickly condemn irresponsible statements that will put the peace and stability of the country in danger and bring the nation into international ridicule and disrepute.

Each of the political parties and NDC and NPP in particular must educate their members on how to conduct themselves during the elections. The parties must reign in their supporters; suspend wayward members and distance themselves from anyone who will soil their reputation.

Every soul we lose and every property we destroy will be a cost to our common identity as Ghanaians. Therefore, circumspection must be exercised by moderators of radio and television programmes. The Ghana Peace Council, the media, universities, National Union of Ghana Students, the Christian Council, Catholic Bishops' Conference, and other faith based groups, non-governmental organisations and the international community must play their role to ensure that Ghana will once again go through another successful election without violence. Ghana is a constitutionally governed country and anyone who tries to disturb the peace of the land must be dealt with according to the laws of the land. Therefore the police and the judiciary must be allowed to work independently without pressure from any quarters.

Every prosperous nation is built with the sweat of all its citizens and politics is just one of the wheels by which a prosperous nation is built. But the politics must not be violent before we can build a prosperous nation. Indeed the politics can be conducted without unnecessary violence, loss of life and destruction of properties. Ghana is our home and the only country we have and doing politics based on policies and not violence must be our primary aim and concern.

Lord Aikins Adusei is an activist and anti-corruption campaigner. He blogs at www.ghanapundit.blogspot.com and can be contacted at politicalthinker1@yahoo.com.

France: A vampire and a deposit box for Africa's looted funds?

2011-11-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

Nicolas Sarkozy, French President

Thus when corrupt African dictators, public officials and top civil servants dishonestly empty the treasuries of their poor countries they find western allies who are willing and cooperative to hide the looted funds. ...The Bongos also showered French business elites with business contracts in Gabon, and as if that was not enough Omar Bongo also showered French politicians with financial gifts that only came to light after his death.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

On June 21st 2010 Ms. Christine Lagarde, former French Finance Minister and current IMF Chief and Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister of Nigeria and former World Bank Group's Managing Director wrote an article which was posted on Project Syndicate website captioned 'No Safe Havens for Dirty Money'. In their article they argued that tax havens, looted funds, bribery, and corruption hurt poor countries more and that the global financial crisis has served to show that there is little tolerance for people who cheat. To them both high income and particularly low income countries will benefit if everyone plays by the rules adding that 'Corruption – under any form or circumstance – is a cancer that cripples developed and developing economies alike. It undermines economic growth. It is a crime that produces particularly damaging consequences in the developing world'. “Everyone must play by the rules” in order to save the world from the current difficult economic and financial situation.

The people in low income countries, according to Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala, want to see an end to the corrupt financial havens that allow corrupt officials to steal public money and stash it abroad. They submitted that the impunity for this type of global crime can no longer be tolerated: 'Abuse of public authority for private gain is not acceptable'. They added that there is the urgent need to foster openness and transparency in financial transactions and to ensure accountability at the global level.

In March 2010 Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington based anti corruption group published a report titled “Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development”. The report estimated that between 1970 and 2008 Africa lost about $854 billion through trade mispricing. The GFI report added that the figure of the illicit financial outflows could have gone as high as 1.8 trillion dollars if components such as mispricing of services and smuggling had been included.

Global Financial Integrity has argued that a large portion of this massive illicit money leaving Africa finds its way into Europe and North America through a network of opaque global financial system comprising tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, disguised corporations, anonymous trust accounts, fake foundations, trade mispricing, and money laundering techniques. A key component of this huge illegal money transfers is the stealing of public money by corrupt officials. These public monies, usually proceeds from sale of natural resources, loans contracted from World Bank, IMF and grants are meant to help the poor countries fight and end human suffering, end poverty; put children in school; end energy poverty; build hospitals; provide potable water; promote food security and provide badly needed retroviral drugs to people living with HIV and AIDS.

The stolen monies are welcomed by the banks in Europe notably those in France, Switzerland, Britain,and Luxemburg. In most cases little or no due diligence is followed and most of the banks appear to advise and encourage their so called clients on how to invest their monies in order to avoid being detected. The Levin Report of 2010 prepared by a committe of the the US Senate revealed that Britain, Switzerland, United States and France are known to be major recipients of these stolen public monies from Africa. These rich countries have been seriously involved in shady deals with Africa's political elite who are amassing wealth at the expense of the welfare of their populations. The conditions of secrecy created in countries such as France, Switzerland, Britain and Luxemburg enable African leaders to steal with impunity and deposit their ill-gotten wealth in these jurisdictions. Thus when corrupt African dictators, public officials and top civil servants dishonestly empty the treasuries of their poor countries they find western allies who are willing and cooperative to hide the looted funds.

The case of Alpine nation of Switzerland as a safe haven for Africa's looted funds is known worldwide. Switzerland has been described as a parasite feeding on poor African and Third World countries because for more than half a century it has 'built a reputation as the world's centre for tax evasion, fraud accounting, money laundering, racketeering and a staunch ally of corrupt third world leaders and a great beneficiary of third world corruption'. Over the last six decades or more various categories of persons including presidents, popes, prime ministers, corrupt dictators, wealthy business men, and drug dealers have all used and benefited from the banking secrecy laws of Switzerland'.

However, when it comes to France very little is known about how it has successfully milked African countries and created massive poverty in its former colonies. Very little is known because of the eagerness of the French media and the judiciary to protect illegal financial operations of French politicians and members of the business fraternity. The French media, the French prosecution office and the judiciary have all turned a blind eye to the adulterous relationship between French politicians and French business leaders on one hand and the political entities in Africa on the other. Since the 1960s France has connived, aided and abetted African leaders to plunder the treasuries of their countries for safe keeping in France and to buy luxurious properties in French cities thereby turning the former colonies into a miserable land of poverty.

This corrupt behaviour of the French establishment is what makes the article by Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala on 'No Safe Havens for Dirty Money' is interesting. It is interesting in sense that while the content of the article and its conclusion are in the right direction it is also laden with hypocrisy, double standards and pretence on the part of the authors and the entities they represent. For example in their article Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala praised France and the United States for pushing G-20 countries to adopt tougher financial regulation, and for promoting governance, and accountability aim at safeguarding the world's economy. However, while praising France Lagarde and Okonjo-Iweala failed to tell the world about how France has encouraged corruption and mismanegement in Africa and continues to do so despite the fact that such corrupt activities are hurting the poor in Africa.

Christine Lagarde for instance was the Minister of Finance in France and a key cabinet member in the President Nicolas Sarkozy's government. As a Finance Minister she was in a powerful position to fight corruption and bribery and end the practice where her country has become a safe haven for Africa's looted assets, but she and her government did nothing to stop France from becoming the deposit box of Africa's dirty money. French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised in 2006 to change the adulterous relationship between France and her former colonies in Africa so as to bring an end to the massive corruption and dictatorship sometimes engineered and supported by the French state, but almost four years after taking office he has done little if not nothing to follow through his campaign promise.

France continues to serve as a haven for looted African resources with the encouragement of French politicians, businessmen and banking officials. They continue to encourage corrupt African leaders to steal from their poor countries and hide their loot in French Banks. France continues to serve as a paradise for corrupt African leaders where they enjoy their loot after leaving office and the French authorities are quick and too willing to entertain them despite the growing call for France to take action against them.

France and the Bongos of Gabon

The most important discussion on how France has served as Africa's angel of death devouring African economies and turning rich resource countries into pariah states could be seen from Gabon. The late Omar Bongo of Gabon who ruled his country for 41 years was considered one of the corrupt African leaders and was known worldwide to have used his country's oil wealth to buy mansions and other properties in France and to buy political influence and favour from the French ruling class. In 2009 French police investigation uncovered a huge number of properties that were bought by Bongo and his family. In all 33 mansions and other luxurious properties were uncovered. One of the mansions a 21,528 sq ft is located at Rue de la Baume near to the Elysee Palace the home of the French presidency. According to the Sunday Times in UK, the investigation also uncovered nine other properties in Paris, four of which are on the exclusive Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe. Bongo was also reported to have a further seven properties in Nice, including four villas, one of which has a swimming pool. The late Edith and wife of Omar Bongo, until her death still had two flats near the Eiffel Tower and another property in Nice.

Omar Bongo together with his family had 70 bank accounts in France from which several properties worth millions of dollars were bought from. Omar Bongo and his relatives also bought a fleet of limousines, including a £308,823 Maybach for Edith. Payment of some of the cars was directly taken from the treasury of Gabon. The Sunday Times in UK reported that until her death Edith had over 75 million dollars stashed in banks in French Monaco. The same Edith used a cheque drawn on an account owned by Gabon treasury to buy the £308,823 Maybach in February 2004. “Bongo's daughter Pascaline, 52, used a cheque from the same account for a part-payment of £29,497 towards a £60,000 Mercedes two years later. Bongo bought himself a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti F1 in October 2004 for £153,000, while his son Ali Bongo (now Gabon president) acquired a Ferrari 456 M GT in June 2001 for £156,000”. French police investigations indicate that this lifestyle of profligacy was supported by leading French banks.

The current President of Gabon Ali Bongo, son of Omar Bongo has continued the corrupt empire his father created with French politicians and the business elite. Canard Enchainé, a French satiric newspaper reported on the eve of the 2010 France-Afrique conference in Paris that Ali Bongo had purchased a hundred million euro property in Paris. The property located on the University street has been described as "one of the most beautiful" in the heart of Paris. Canard Enchainé noted that the building covers a space of 4,500 square metres with the garden covering 3,700 square metres. "The 100 million euros does not include other expenditure to be made for the renovation and maintenance work which could take a third of Gabon's GDP".

The sad thing is that major investigations uncovering huge financial irregularities in France on the part of the Bongos have been shelved. The investigations have been shelved because French authorities believe that if they move against the Bongos they (the Bongos) may retaliate by punishing French businesses in Gabon and deny them access to the lucrative oil deals. Till today not a penny of the millions of dollars of Gabonese money believed to have been stolen by Bongo and hiding in French banks has been returned. This is what brings the hypocrisy of French politicians like Lagarde out clearly. While shouting 'No safe havens for dirty money' at the same time they are keeping billions of such monies in their banks with no indication that they are ever going to return them.

One of the most notable quotes of Omar Bongo was: “Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel”. That is how Bongo saw the corrupt relationship that existed between him and his international friends in France.

Apart from directly stealing money meant for the development of Gabon and stashing it in French banks with full knowledge and support of French elites, the Bongos also showered French business elites with business contracts in Gabon, and as if that was not enough Omar Bongo also showered French politicians with financial gifts that only came to light after his death. Bongo is believed to have used proceeds from his country's oil to finance the election campaign of a number of French politicians and then used those politicians to help him secure his dictatorship in Gabon and also to protect his stolen assets in France. According to Henry Samuel of the Telegraph newspaper in the UK, former French Presidents Jacque Chirac and François Mitterrand are among a host of French politicians who are alleged to have received illegal payments from Bongo. According to former French president Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, the late Omar Bongo spent years building up a very questionable financial network with politicians in France. This financial network deprived the people of Gabon access to the basic necessities of life including food, water, housing, electricity, health and education.

In 2001 Pierre Mario, former head of French intelligence acknowledged that Bongo used money stolen from his poverty stricken country to pay subsidies to French political parties and politicians. He noted that "the subsidies of Bongo serve everyone at the time of French elections and create a sort of backward colonialism". The irony of the situation is that while Omar Bongo saw nothing wrong with how he mismanaged Gabon oil revenue to enrich himself and his cronies, France also saw nothing wrong on how a president of its former colony squandered money on properties and on politicians in France.

To achieve their so called foreign policy objectives French politicians and business elite encouraged Bongo to amass wealth meant for the development of his country. France also used the entire arsenal available to her (including military and intelligence) to make sure her so called national interest was not threatened. France offered military, political and other support to Omar Bongo which effectively enabled him to remain a dominant figure for 42 years in Gabon. The French military base in Gabon for instance was not used only to protect the Bongos but was also used to gather intelligence which France used to effect regime change in her former colonies.

Thus despite his reputation as a corrupt dictator, French politicians routinely entertained and openly showered praises on Bongo for his enthusiastic support for French dubious policies towards Africa most importantly the encouragement of African tyrants to loot and deposit their dirty money in French banks.

Mike Jocktane former aide to Omar Bongo will on Thursday 24th November 2011 publish a book titled "The Scandal of the Ill-gotten Gains". The yet to be published book contains details of how Omar Bongo sent briefcases full of money to Nicolas Sarkozy to help his presidential bid in 2007. According to Mike Jocktane "Omar Bongo helped finance Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign” and provided him money after the 2007 elections. The financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign by Bongo underscores why Nicolas Sarkozy, current French President, made Gabon his first point of call in Africa apparently to thank Omar Bongo for his financial support. Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy described Bongo as a 'great and loyal friend of France' but he (Bongo) has been denounced for working for, himself, his family, France and local elites and not for Gabon and its poor people. Eva Joly, European Union Member of Parliament and a former French investigating magistrate who investigated the Elf corruption scandal has argued that Omar Bongo represented only himself and the interest of his associates in France and not the people of Gabon. “He (Bongo) was a president who didn't care about his citizens. He served France's interests and French politicians well. The oil boom did not benefit the Gabonese. It benefited us (French citizens). France has a great debt toward Gabon for having kept Bongo in power all these years”. According to Eva Joly despite an oil-led GDP per capita which was equivalent to that of Portugal's GDP, Gabon built only 5 km of freeway a year and still had one of the world's highest infant mortality rates by the time of his death in 2009.

France and other African dictators

However, it is not only the Bongos in Gabon who have used France as a safe haven for their ill gotten wealth and who are being protected by the French state. Paul Biya of Cameroon, Dos Santos of Angola, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Republic, Blaise Campore of Burkina Faso and Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea have made headlines in recent years for using France as a fortress for their corrupt dealings. For example Denis Sassou Nguesso, according to French police investigation has 24 properties, one hundred and twelve (112) bank accounts and fleet of cars in France. It is believed that these numerous bank accounts contain hundreds of millions of dollars of money siphoned from the coffers of his resource rich but economically impoverished country.

In 2011 French police seized 11 luxurious cars worth $5 million from the home of spoil-child Obiang Mangue son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator Obiang Nguema. The point is that there are so many stolen African assets hidden in France if when returned to the countries of origin could make some of them the richest countries on the planet.

Like Switzerland, France has carved a name for herself as a protector and supporter of corrupt African dictators and a beneficiary of their illicit activities. However, unlike Switzerland which has embarked on a journey of image rehabilitation by repatriating some of the money deposited in her crook banks, France has shown no interest in doing such a thing. The military support France usually provide her client dictators in Africa has not only promoted dictatorships, human rights abuse, conflicts and corruption but has also undermined democracy, good governance, rule of law, economic development, food security and poverty reduction. Thus France's obscure and deadly African policies have produced a situation where the people of Africa have been deprived of resources that could have enabled the citizens to enjoy good standard of living.

Through the actions of its military, the courts, politicians and business leaders, France indirectly and directly has encouraged dictators in Africa to loot the coffers of their poor countries and deposit the loot in French banks. French cities are washed with properties bought by corrupt African leaders using monies they have stolen from their impoverished countries. French political and business leaders consider these African leaders as friends and allies. The corrupt French political and business establishment annually throw lavish parties at the French presidency for their African friends while the corrupt African leaders reciprocate with banquets during which African resources are auctioned to French corporations without a price. France has been a willing accomplice to the day light robbery taking place in Gabon, Cameroon, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, Mali, Guinea, Chad, and many parts of French-speaking Africa and has become a deposit box for dirty money and assets stolen from the African people.

Therefore the chorus 'No Safe Havens for Dirty Money' being sung by Christine Lagarde of the IMF and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala must be played to French politicians, business elites, the banks, the property sector and the corporations, for charity they say begins at home.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
The author is a political activist and anti corruption campaigner

Africa's military must be a force for stability, peace, prosperity and positive change

2011-11-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

Captain Moussa Camara, chief of the ruling junta whose officers massacred 157 Guineans in September 2009

A reflection of the role of the army in the past
The Arab Uprising in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya as well as the recent deadly civil war in Ivory Coast has shown the paradoxes within the Africa military establishment. The uprising and wars have brought to the to fore how the military in Africa can be a force for peace, stability and prosperity and at the same time a force destabilization, chaos, mayhem and destruction. In Egypt the army won the respect of not only Egyptians but also the entire world when they refused to slaughter their countrymen in their thousands in support of the Mubarak dictatorship. They realised that it will be sensible for Hosni Mubarak and his sons to leave the throne of power rather than butcher thousands of their own people. In Libya and Ivory Coast on the other hand the army chose to side with the powers that be and subjected their own people to extreme brutalities.

When the military in Africa is critically examined not too many positive things can be associated with it.

The role of the military everywhere, Africa included, is to secure the democratic institutions and protect the territorial integrity of their nations and prevent outside predators from preying them.

Unfortunately in Africa the armies have ignored their traditional mandate of safeguarding the territorial integrity of their nations and have adopted positions that have been detrimental to Africa's development and progress. Like the German army that raped, tortured and killed six million Jews in the 1940s, the armies in Africa have been associated with extreme barbarity, massacre, rape, torture, genocide, summary executions, economic sabotage, infringement of civil liberty, dictatorship, corruption, pillage, force imprisonment, social havoc, brute force, political instability, usurpation of constitutions, reversal of democratic values including the overthrow of constitutionally elected governments. According to Patrick J. McGowan of the Arizona State University, between January 1956 and December 2001 the African military carried out more than 80 successful coups, another 108 failed coups, and 139 attempted and reported coup plots.

Civilians always bear the brunt of military excesses in Africa

It is difficult to find a single country in Africa where the armed forces and the security institutions have not had excesses against the country and the civilian population. From Algeria to Zimbabwe, the militaries in Africa have become a destabilising force preventing Africa from catching up with the rest of the world. In South Africa and Namibia where apartheid was brutally and religiously enforced by the white minority governments, the armed forces were the enforcing power. The genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 which resulted in the death of some 800,000 people could not have taken place without the strategic involvement of the armed forces. The horrors of the Biafra war in which tens of thousands of Nigerians especially Igbos died was made possible by the incursion of the military into civilian rule.

Throughout the continent the military sees itself as alternative to civilian rule, a wrong notion that has had profound and devastated impact on Africa's development and progress.

Immediately after independence many of the armies in Africa joined forces with American and European intelligence agencies to forcefully overthrow governments that they were mandated to protect. Throughout the 1960s,1970s, 1980s and even 1990s the armies in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, DRC and Algeria among others took their countries hostage and reversed decades of economic, social and political progress. In Ghana despite the massive economic and social infrastructural projects carried out by Kwame Nkrumah's government the military connived with Western imperialists and abruptly stopped Nkrumah's effort to industrialise the country. In the process they helped to reverse the many successes that were chalked under Nkrumah's presidency. Ghana today is still struggling to attain a middle income status while her contemporaries like South Korea and Malaysia enjoy one of the best standards of living in the world.

Since Egypt became a republic in 1953 the army has been in power most of the time with Gen Hosni Mubarak in charge for 30 years until the people's revolution swept him aside in 2011. During his 30 year reign Egypt, its leadership and its institutions became more corrupt, and inequality between the people and the ruling elite and their cronies widened exponentially. In the early years of her independence the Egyptian army adhered to its original role and fought aggressively against British, French and Israeli invasion but after Mubarak came to power the army as they have done everywhere on the continent, increasingly turned its attention to its citizens treating them as if though they were an invasion force. Although there appears to be a revolution in Egypt that effectively ended the dictatorship of Mubarak, but a closer look at the country suggests that there has not been any revolution at all. The army headed by Field Marshal Tantawi, a longtime ally of Mubarak is still in charge and there are reports that the number of civilians tried in military courts has increased under the supposed revolution, which is a clear indication that the army's disregard for civil institutions and impunity is still in operation.

The Nigerian armed forces have done more harm than good to their country. The harm which begun in January 1966 ushered in a period of brutalities, assassinations, coups, counter coups, civil war, official corruption, human right violation, economic decline, and impunity that the country has still not recovered from. Dubbed Africa's sleeping giant because of her economic and political potential, Nigeria is often ridiculed in international circles and is now considered a failed state thanks to the role of its military. Since independence in 1960 there have been six major coups in the country with most of the country's 50 years of independence being ruled by corrupt military dictators. By metamorphosing and constituting itself into civil and political power and entrenching corruption and impunity the armed forces of Nigeria helped to lay the foundation for what has become a hopeless and desperate security situation in the country. Since oil was discovered, the armed forces have backed corrupt multinational corporations like Royal Shell that are destroying Nigeria's environment and endangering the livelihoods of millions of people in the Niger Delta region. The threat of the military taking over power was heightened when Omaru Yar'Dua died and even the current administration lives in fear of the armed forces as is indicated by a recent speech by Nigeria's vice President. In the speech he pleaded with the army to respect the constitution and remain loyal to the government.

Col Al Gaddafi of Libya toiled for 42 years to develop Libya into the Switzerland of Africa but used seven months to destroy what he painstakingly helped to build. Despite the good works he did in Africa he also supervised a government based on terror, fear, intimidation, torture, imprisonment, assassinations, terrorism and killings. In the spring of 2011 the Libyan army under the command of Gaddafi and his sons were in fact ready to slaughter their own citizens in order to maintain their grip on power until they were crashed by the rebels but not until 25,000 Libyans have been sacrificed. In Ivory Coast, Gen Robert Gay and Laurent Gbagbo both used the military to achieve their political ambitions and succeeded in plunging one of Africa's successful economies into civil war that killed about 3000 people and shattered the economic successes of the country.

The security forces in the Horn of Africa remain one of the feared armies on the continent. Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isaiah Afeweki of Eritrea and their security architecture continue to engage in wars, kidnapping, assassination, torture and imprisonment of people critical of their regime. Many Eritreans and Ethiopians are freeing their countries in their thousands to escape the brutalities of the forces. In Cameroon the feared military unit called Jean Damme has been used by Paul Biya to intimidate and terrorise the civilian population rather than protecting them from the dictatorship of Biya.

Uganda's Iddi Amin and his henchmen seized power and begun deporting Asian business owners destroyed the country's economy. Museve's 25 year dictatorship has not helped to place the country on the path of economic prosperity, social cohesion and cultural advancement. In Ethiopia Mengistu and his army officers succeeded in turning the country into a country of hunger, famine and total destitution. The sad story of Somalia where a brutal civil war is still ongoing was the making of Siad Barre and his military dictatorship that begun in 1969 and ended in 1991.

The military in Togo and Guinea have had their faire share of the atrocities suffered by Africa and her citizens. The military in both countries have engaged in repression, massacre, corruption, and reversal of freedoms. In Guinea for example Lansana Conte and his bunch of military officers ruled the country as their personal fiefdom for more than two decades and succeeded in reducing the country to a beggar state despite being rich in gold, bauxite and other minerals. In September 2009 the Captain Moussa Camara military government that took over power when Lansana Conte died succeeded in shooting, stabbing, assaulting, raping women and massacring 157 innocent members of their own population. In Togo also Gen Eyadema retarded the country's development for 32 years until his death in 2005. The army quickly installed his son as his successor to ensure that the legacy of corruption of the father continues.

Gen Mobutu Sese Seku's Zaire (now DRC) suffered the same fate as any of the African countries mentioned above. Backed by his country's armed forces, the United States and her European allies, Gen Mobutu made poverty and corruption one of the entrenched symbols of his country. For 32 years he led the armed forces to turn their guns on Zairians killing as many as he could and stealing billions of dollars worth of DRC assets and stacking them in American and European banks. The DRC army has been accused of rape, extortion of money from civilians and killing them. The DRC armed forces are considered one of the most indisciplined armies in the whole of Africa. Since the late 1990s more than five million Congolese have perished in the hands of the military, the various rebel groups, and Rwanda and Uganda armed forces.

A soldier stripping a woman naked during the 2009 army massacre of 157 unarmed opposition protest

The brutal and dictatorial regimes of Blaise Campore of Burkina Faso, Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Dos Santos of Angola, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Republic; their abysmal economic performance; and the inability of the people to raise their voice have been made possible through their alliance with the military who have been used as war dogs to pounce on the populace and deny them economic, political, social and cultural freedom. The so called strong men of Africa have been able to bring Africa to economic and political standstill because of their use of the armed forces and other security institutions to instill fear in the population. Today Africa remains the only continent where military dictatorship and dictatorial regimes backed by the army is still dominant. In other words the military in Africa have been largely a distracting force. In the name of national security which can be interpreted as regime protection these military governments implemented oppressive dictatorial laws that turned their own citizens into slaves without rights.

Surrounded by their kind these army officers like Sani Abacha, Ibrahim Babangida, Hosni Mubarak, Gaddafi, Jerry Rawlings, Iddi Amin, were never and have never been concerned about the welfare of the people but rather their stomach and there is enough evidence to proof it. The evidence about how Africa has suffered in the hands of the military is clear when countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Libya are considered. From Sani Abacha who stole more than 3 billion dollars in five years, to Mobutu who bankrupt Zaire, to Hosni Mubarak whose ill-gotten wealth was pegged at 75 billion dollars, to Omar Bongo who stole Gabon's money to financed French political parties, to Obiang Nguema, Paul Biya, Blaise Campore, Denis Nguesso, Omar Bongo and Dos Santos accused by civil society organisations of corrupt, flamboyant and extravagance lifestyle the evidence of why Africa is a paralysed continent is clear.

Some of the periods in which the army took over power remain one of the darkest and wasted years in Africa's effort to fight illiteracy, poverty, hunger and diseases. In many of these military takeovers many businessmen and women lost their investments as businesses were confiscated, sold or given to their cronies. In countries like Ghana state owned businesses were sold to cronies and allies of the regime. In Nigeria for instance Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha among others succeeded in draining the country's coffers by using money meant for electricity, education, health, water, roads to buy expensive military machines for their own protection. Gaddafi for example bought several billions of dollars worth of weapons from France and the United Kingdom while cities such as Benghazi were crying for infrastructure.

In most of the countries like Ghana the armed forces have never fought external aggressor rather they have often been used as instrument through which external aggressors (particularly Belgium, Britain, France and United States) get their hold on Africa's resources and their people. The armies in Algeria, Gabon, Egypt, Rwanda, Tunisia and Uganda have been the main instrument through which countries like United States, France, Belgium, have achieved their foreign policy objectives in Africa. France for instance used her troops stationed in Gabon and Senegal to gather intelligence and used the armies in Africa to carry out more than 40 coups against the people of the continent. The billions of dollars that Egyptian armed forces receive from the US annually is the main reason why the armed forces protected the regime of Hosni Mubarak for 30 years because he was seen as useful weapon and counter force against Iran and Iraq.

From a closer look one can easily see why and how Africa (one of the resource endowed continent in the world) has been reduced to a beggar and a desperate hopeless continent. The Armed forces incursion into civil power destroyed economic progress that was made in the early periods of independence. Political, economic and social institutions were destroyed as the armed regimes implemented policies without thinking about their impact. The army backing of the dictatorial regimes such as those in Zimbabwe, Algeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola has endangered Africa's economic growth as well as her social and political progress.

Wind of Change

There is no doubt Hosni Mubarak and his sons would have been in power and amassing wealth to the detriment of the Egyptian masses if the armed forces had chosen to back them. Unlike Libya where an estimated 25000 souls have perished, the refusal of the armed forces in Egypt to kill protesters at Tahir's Square helped to avoid a possible bloodbath. The armed forces' refusal is a sign of how the army can be a force for good, a force peace, stability and positive change. In Ghana the armed forces are seeking a different role that will not only contribute to improving the overall security situation but also the economic development of the nation. The armed forces in Ghana are considering entering into business ventures. This new concept is an indication of the positive thinking that is emerging in the African security command. These ambitions by the army should be nurtured as it has the potential of helping the armed forces to generate extra money outside the traditional sources. In Rwanda and Uganda the United States is helping the armed forces with training and reorganisation. Though many doubts the real intentions of the United States, it is hoped that such training will inculcate a sense of discipline and professionalism in the psyche of the army and help protect the countries from the instability that have come to defined them.

Conclusion

The 21st Century has come with new security challenges that demand new strategies and tactics. These challenges also demand an army which is well trained and well resourced to respond to the threats and challenges. The emergence of Boko Haram in Bauchi and Borno States in Nigeria, Al Shabaab in Somalia; the threats posed by pirates in West, East and Southern Africa and its impact on the safety of international maritime transport all demands that the army in Africa undergo serious transformation and reorganisation to respond to these emerging threats.

Therefore many of the armies in Africa need reforming to reflect their role in this 21st century and also to respond to the emerging security threats such as piracy and terrorism. Democratic values, human rights, and respect for contitutional order must be at the centre of any training offered to the men and women in uniform. This will help them to understand the need not to derail the wheel of democracy and economic progress being made in Africa. It will help them to be on the side of the people always and not back dictators and power hungry individuals who seek to perpetuate their rule through violence and intimidation.

Rather than seeing itself as an alternative to civil power, the army in Africa must work closely with other security agencies to protect the institutions of governance, democracy, civil liberty and rule of law. Therefore they must not allow themselves to be used by unscrupulous politicians to the detriment of the security and wellbeing of their countries. And they must adhere to their mandate as the protector of the territorial infrastructures of the countries and refrain from acts that destroy the very nations they are supposed to protect. The military must do more to improve their relationship with the citizens of their respect countries. It is not in the interest of the army that they are feared rather than respected by the people. The 21st century global security arrangement demands that the armed forces become more professional, less power hungry and ready to protect the interest of their countries.Africa is bigger than any single individual and the armed forces must ensure that they will not be a bastion for insecurity, but rather a force for political stability, peace, prosperity and positive change.

By Lord Aikins Adusei
politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

NDC, NPP and the Ghanaian Journalist: A Critical Rebuke

2011-04-02T23:20:00.001-07:00

*By Lord Aikins Adusei

Many Ghanaians are dismayed and horror-struck at the kind of journalism being practiced in today's Ghana. There is no doubt the NDC and NPP are the two leading political parties in Ghana and to replace them with a third party is unthinkable for now. But for journalists to defend their lies, their corrupt cocaine ridden behaviours, their ill-conceived economic policies, and their mismanagement of state resources, is something that the people of Ghana cannot understand. Almost all the journalists in Ghana appear to be either speaking for the NPP or the NDC. There is nothing to show that the journalists in Ghana write and talk as journalists. Ghanaians are looking for independent and neutral mind, but they cannot find any. There is no independent or middle voice. There is no voice speaking for mother Ghana and her children. There is no voice speaking for Ghana and the millions of Ghanaians who are languishing in poverty, without jobs, without electricity, whose houses have no water and who lack basic sanitation, not to talk about good roads, better housing and hospital facilities.

The old colonial and tribal mentality that has characterised Ghana's politics has been transferred to the field of journalism. This has resulted in three sets of journalists and three groups of media outlets in Ghana. One of them belongs to the NDC including The Ghana Palaver, The Ghanaian Lens, The Daily Democrat, The True Democrat, The Crystal Clear Lens, The Weekly Standard, The Informer and The Ghanaian. Another group belongs to the NPP including, Daily Searchlight, The New Punch, The Mail (Formerly Accra Daily Mail), and Daily Guide. The third one is owned and controlled by the NPP or the NDC depending on who is in charge of government. I am referring to the so called state media (GBC and its cohort). Each of these media houses spews nothing but propaganda messages devoid of truth and matters that are at the heart of the people. When I was growing up as teenager I used to respect The Ghanaian Chronicle a lot. There was another paper called The Free Press. I would not rest if I did not read these two papers. That was in the 1980s and 1990s. These papers were committed to informing Ghanaians about the state of our nation: the poverty in the rural areas, the corruption that was so rampant in the country, the human rights abuses and the military brutalities that defined the politics at the time. Today that is all gone with Anas Aremeyaw Anas being the only journalist who appears to care about the well-being of Ghana.

When NPP tells lies and NDC does the same the only body that can rightly inform the people is the media. But what happens when the journalist is in bed with the very politician telling the lies? Thanks to the media everything in the country has been reduced to NDC and NPP, nothing more nothing less. The poor nature of our roads is not discussed with the same intensity in which the media houses defend their clients (NDC and NPP). The corruption at the Accountant General's Department and in the ministries of education, finance, health, roads is not exposed because the journalists are busy defending the lies of NDC and NPP. The poverty in the rural areas is ignored completely in our discussions because the journalists are interested in writing lies. We hear the names NPP and NDC more than we do about unemployment. We do not hear about poverty in the rural areas unless they are talking about NDC. Where is their sense of patriotism? Where is our love for mother Ghana? Do we have to blindly follow NDC and NPP and speak for them? Do we have to defend their politics of insults, their politics of lies and their corrupt cocaine lifestyle?

In the 1980s and 1990s The Daily Graphic, Times and the GBC were singing praises to government officials and ignoring the poverty that was swallowing the masses because the journalists and editors there were interested in nothing but their stomach. Has anything changed since then? No. Today because of the competition from the private media the practise of singing praises to officials in order to secure their jobs has become even more intense. The Graphic and Times are always full of images showing Ministers commissioning toilets. I mean toilets. Editors in both media outlets see toilets as so important that they have to devote pages to report them and even have images spread inside their papers. I wish the editors there will have the opportunity to read the New York Times, the Guardian in UK and the Washington or Jerusalem Post to check what they usually report.

Publishing toilets is nothing but propaganda designed to deceive the people that something substantial is being done to help them while the issues so close to their heart are completely ignored. But that propaganda has brought us nothing but misery, poverty, and hardship. People have to sell on pavements and in the streets of Accra, Kumasi in order to make a living. Children are dropping out of school in the northern part of Ghana in order to become kayayos and street vendors in Accra and in Kumasi and all journalists are quiet. Who should write to defend the homeless and the voiceless when the journalist trained to do so is busy telling and defending lies spewed by corrupt and cocaine mafias masquerading as politicians?

There is no doubt that every human has his or her own biases but when the biases are taken too extreme it produces effects that cripple progress and development and that is exactly what is happening in the field of journalism in Ghana today. The biases of the journalists and the media houses in the country have been carried too extreme to the point that they are not able to speak or write the truth anymore. Take for example the damning cocaine revelation captured in the US Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks. Anyone who critically read the cables can tell for sure that the operatives of the NDC and the NPP have been deeply involved in the cocaine trade. The inglorious revelations show that both the NDC and NPP politicians have succeeded in making Ghana a hot bed for and epicentre of cocaine smuggling in West Africa. When the revelations were made public instead of journalists asking questions like why has Ghana become the epicentre; who is involve; what method do the perpetrators use; and what can be done to eliminate the cocaine threat, the discussion and the analyses that followed were quickly reduced to the usual NDC and NPP politics by journalists who should have asked critical questions and put those failing to protect Ghana from the menace of the drug trade on their toes. The media spent a lot of time apportioning blames to NDC and NPP without any serious analysis as to what can be done. As I write the damage of the cocaine revelation is being felt by law-abiding Ghanaians travelling abroad as they have become target and suspect of drug and law enforcement agencies in Europe. The nation's reputation and its image internationally have been severely battered thanks to NDC and NPP politicians and their uncritical media friends. I have been forced to ask where the Kofi Coomsons and the Haruna Attas have all gone.

We are slowly moving towards a situation where Ghanaians get to know the truth about what is happening in their own country not through local journalists/media but through revelation by foreign media. We have come to this situation because the biases of the local journalists have blinded them from practicing any serious journalism. If journalists want to be politicians they should leave the field and go into politics. It is unacceptable that they claim to be journalists while in fact they are bidding for NDC and NPP politicians, the same people who have made Ghanaians slaves of poverty. I have a serious problem when journalists write and speak like politicians; I also have a problem when they defend political corruption and when they ignore the plight of the poor.

What kind of journalism is being practiced by the Ghanaian Democrat and Palava that sees everything in the NDC as good and everything in the NPP as bad? What kind of journalism is practiced by the Daily Guide when everything is black for NDC and white for NPP? If you want to hear favourable messages about the NDC listen to Radio Gold. If you want to hear anything negative about NPP listen to Radio Gold. Is that how we want to develop Ghana? Is that how we want to build fast railways networks, build high quality houses, provide affordable healthcare and jobs for our people?

Over the last couple of months I have been listening to Asempa FM. There is a programme hosted by one Nana Kwabena Bobie Ansah. I do not know if the programme is a comedy show or not. I cannot take the programme and its host any serious because there is nothing about Ghana's current economic quagmire that is discussed. His programme is more about personalities, whipping tribal and ethnic sentiments and making disparaging remarks about women than about Ghana's total development. Nothing close to the heart of Ghanaians is discussed except politicians making hate and tribally charged statements and spewing their usual lies and the journalists who blindly support them. There is no civility and decorum on Mr. Bobie Ansah's programme. The panellists engage in verbal insults with each other when that is not enough for them they proceed to exchange blows as happened on Wednesday 9 February 2011. They frequently interrupt one another and shout on top of their voice as if they are talking to people standing thousands of miles away. The worse thing is that the analyses are often shallow, uncritical, not-balanced and most of the issues discussed are without substance. At the same time the language used on the programme is raw and undiplomatic. I ask myself whose interest is Mr. Bobie Mensah serving, is it that of Ghanaians? Does he and his cohorts watch or listen to Dateline London on BBC; Fareed Zakaria's GPS on CNN or Fault Lines, Empire and Inside Story on Aljazeera and can he contrast the atmosphere on these programmes with his usually confused and ill-moderated programme?

But Nana Kwabena Bobie Ansah is not the only one whose work in my opinion is out of touch with ordinary Ghanaians. In January 2011, after Mills government increased fuel prices, Mr. Kwesi Pratt is reported to have said that the current hardship in the country is too much and it is like the NDC government stopped thinking a long time ago. Well the truth is that Mr. Pratt also stopped thinking so many years ago. What does he expect when he focuses all his effort defending the government and not the plight of Ghana and Ghanaians? I see Mr. Ametor Kwame, Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Mr. Kwaku Baako and their colleagues in journalism as part of the machinery that is producing the sickening poverty situation and deprivation in Ghana. I say so because their pronouncements indicate that they speak for NDC and NPP rather than Ghana and Ghanaians. Most of Mr. Pratt's debates have been to defend the NDC and to criticise the NPP. Likewise Mr. Kwaku Baako has most of the time defended the NPP and criticised the NDC all to the disadvantage of the country and its people. Ghanaians are really suffering but the message of the senior journalists has often tended to show that everything in the country is fine when in fact everything is bad. The consequence is that Ghana's development is being sacrificed for the same politics that has brought us nothing but misery.

The politics of insults which has come to replace government policies to fight cholera, poverty and water shortage in our cities, towns and villages couldn't have gotten worse without the media playing a role. Hannah Bissiw and Ursula Owusu couldn't have gone far with their foul-language politics if the media were critical. Koku Anyidoho and his cohorts in the NDC and the NPP would have refined their language and their thinking if the media had been critical. Visit www.ghanaweb.com and experience the kind of language that the editors and moderators there allow users to use there: Ghanaians are literally tearing one another apart with words, language and insults some of which are too appalling to be described yet the editors at Ghanaweb see nothing wrong with that. Where is their sense of responsibility?

In some countries that I know, it is journalists who set agenda for governments. Some of the journalists are so specialised in their field that they are able to speak authoritatively on issues affecting their countries. The reports and stories they run put fear in politicians and make governments shiver and run for cover. Those journalists are on the side of the people ready to inform the people what their governments, parliamentarians and political appointees are doing in their name. Do I see that in Ghana? No.

Am I disappointed? Yes. I am very disappointed that those who are given the platform to speak in favour of Ghana's development have betrayed the country and its people by siding with NDC, NPP and their corrupt representatives who for decades have been impoverishing the people, milking the country while asking the people to keep tightening their belts. Members of Parliament are asking for 7000 new Ghanaian cedis as salaries, but how many people in the country earn even half of that? And who is to inform the ordinary Ghanaian about the kind of rape that is happening to their country? The NDC and NPP politicians keep spending money on themselves building presidential palaces and buying presidential jets while ignoring the people's cry for water, for electricity, for food, for better housing, better education, and employment. As I write there are communities in Accra that have not received a drop of water for three years yet all that the media could do is to bring Hannah Bissiw the so called Minister for Water on air to engage in politics of insult.

I am not the only one who is disappointed and dissatisfied with the work of our journalists and the media in general. I recently read a book authored by Ivor Agyemang-Duah (2008) titled 'An economic history of Ghana: Reflections on a Half-Century of Challenges and Progress'. In the book Dr. Nii Moi Thompson also expressed his unhappiness about the lack of critical and objective analysis of economic and social issues in the country as well as the willingness of the media to publish things without questioning and without checking their accuracy or authenticity. He made reference to some statements made by some politicians prior to the 2008 elections to buttress his point. “One of the presidential candidates for the December 2008 elections recently launched his campaign and the statistics he had in there were just flat-out false! It just didn't make sense; they actually indict his government. But no one questioned it. The main opposition party didn't question it. The media, well they are somewhere else. Anything you give them they will publish. No one has a critical mind as to say wait a minute, these numbers don't make sense” Agyemang-Duah (2008, p.64). “Whenever I go on radio or talk to journalists, I remind them that they have a professional responsibility and a patriotic duty to ensure that this democratic infrastructure is actually preserved by watching or editing the kind of language people use. I tell them they need to avoid things like this is a do or die election.” This good advice was offered in 2008 by Dr. Nii Moi Thompson but in 2011 we have the media playing over and over again a statement purported to have been made by Nana Addo in which he is reported to have said 'all die be die'. That is what is called irresponsible journalism indicating that the media has neither been rational, critical, objective, patriotic nor observant.

Reverend Mensah Otabil in a recent comment published by Joy Online on Friday, 25 March 2011 also registered his unhappiness with the way the media focus time and energy to debate unnecessary issues in the country while issues that need attention are ignored completely. He said: “Can't we see the damage we are doing to ourselves? We are a third world nation; we have a development deficit of 250 years, our cities are chocking with filth, educational standards are [low], infectious diseases are killing us, our highways are unsafe for passengers, our water bodies are polluted, our forest cover is gone, industries are dying, homes are breaking up, the gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening, yet when you listen to our parliamentary debate, read our newspaper headlines, listen to radio or watch television for a whole month, you will not come across any sustained intelligent discussion offering responses”.

The journalists in the country are trading the dignity of their profession for peanuts, ignoring the people they were trained to serve. It is because of their behaviour that is why the NDC and NPP have taken Ghanaians for a ride, not addressing the unemployment problem in the country and not doing anything to improve the lot of Ghanaians who are facing poverty, and hunger. Think about how many patients would die if doctors and nurses were to trade their profession for political lies.

So what do Ghanaians want to see? They want to see critical, objective and balanced position being taking by all the media houses and the people professing the profession of journalism. Ghanaians want to see journalists asking critical questions and putting politicians and other officials on the spot to extract from them information that the public need to know. They want to see the politics of insults be removed from our national debates. They want the media to focus on the education sector and ask critical questions as to why Ghanaian universities did not make it to the top 100 of the recently published university ranking. Ghanaians want to see the cocaine debate highlighted and policies fashion out to remove its threat from the country. They want the problems of unemployment, water shortages, sanitation, waste management, and electricity be placed within our national dialogue. They want the problems of gender inequality, child labour, kayayo, teenage pregnancy be brought into our national discussion. They want a national development dialogue that will focus on how to build roads, rail networks, and telecommunication infrastructures to increase broadband access and internet speed in all parts of the country. They want national resources to be devoted to develop the rural areas and reduce the rural-urban migration that is contributing to governance problems in our cities. And finally they want the media to play its watch-dog role to police the oil revenue that is beginning to flow into the coffers of government so that the NDC and the NPP politicians will not steal it and mismanage the rest as they have done with proceeds from gold, cocoa and other valuable resources of the country.

There is so much to be done in Ghana to make it a better place for all its citizens and we must do it with critical mind, with critical eye and with critical ears, and with a sense of patriotism without the parody that has come to dominate our media landscape.

*The author is a political activist and anti-corruption campaigner. E-mail: politicalthinker1@yahoo.com

Sustainable energy access for Africa: a win-win solution for climate and development

2011-04-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

*By Fiona Lambe and Patricia Tella

A woman cooks using firewood ^{Photo courtesy}

Supporting developing countries to scale-up access to sustainable energy for cooking will not only bring positive effects for climate change; it will improve the health and economy of the world’s most vulnerable households. What’s more, the cost of achieving universal energy access in the coming decades is surprisingly low.

It is difficult to imagine, but right now approximately two billion people, one third of humanity, do not have access to energy for their most basic needs such as cooking, lighting and heating. Not coincidently, this is the same one third that is currently living in extreme poverty. Access to clean and safe energy for cooking is essential for human development. No country in modern times has managed to reduce poverty and achieve economic development without increasing access to modern forms of energy. Without a massive scale up in access to clean and safe energy, the world’s poorest regions will remain trapped in poverty.

For most Swedes, cooking is an enjoyable pastime and something that is normally taken for granted. We just flip a switch; turn a knob, and the stove turns own. However, for two thirds of the worlds’ population, this fundamental task is both a tiresome burden and a major health risk.

In Sub Saharan Africa, four out of five households do all their cooking over an open fire or using an inefficient wood or charcoal burning stove which exposes them to high levels of smoke and health damaging chemicals. They cook this way because they have very limited choice. Electricity is either unavailable - only 28% of SSA (excluding South Africa) is electrified - or unaffordable. Since the task of cooking usually falls to women and girls, it is they who face daily exposure to levels of pollution which are estimated to be the equivalent of consuming two packets of cigarettes a day (WHO, 2006).

The health impact of this exposure is devastating. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) smoke from domestic fires kills nearly two million people each year and sickens millions more. This is more than three people per minute. It is a death toll almost as great as that caused by dirty water and poor sanitation and AIDS, and greater than malaria. Without systematic changes, household biomass use will result in an estimated 8.1 million Lower Respiratory Infection (LRI) deaths among young children in sub-Saharan Africa alone between 2000 and 2030 (Bailis, Ezzati, Kammen, 2007, p 6).

These are indeed startling figures. So why isn’t more being done to tackle this problem? If indoor air pollution is responsible for more deaths globally than malaria each year, why don’t we see a global push for energy access similar in profile and funding to the global anti-malaria campaigns?

One answer is that until recently, there has been a marked lack of political will to acknowledge and tackle this glaring problem. This was made blatantly clear in September 2000 when heads of state from all over the world met to agree on eight specific targets for combating poverty, disease, illiteracy, hunger and environmental degradation. The deadline for achieving these eight ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is 2015 - just five years from now, but we are far from on track to meeting these targets. A major reason for this is that Energy Access was completely left out of the picture. Amazingly, there is no Millennium Development Goal on Energy, despite the fact that lack of access to clean and safe energy, especially for cooking, is a major impediment to meeting every one of the MDGs.

Now, with just over five years to go, we are beginning to see some momentum and a new global push to get energy access firmly on the development agenda. One major reason for this about turn is recognition of the enormous potential for so called “co-benefits”– additional or “bonus” opportunities for tackling climate change through projects designed to address the household energy problem in developing countries.

Cooking stoves and climate change

The same tiny particles from cooking fires that are linked to more than two million deaths annually are also contributing to climate change. Black carbon or soot is thought to be the second biggest contributor to global warming after CO2, and although dirty diesel engines, power plants and other more advanced technologies also produce black carbon, cooking fires appear to be the largest source of soot in developing nations. Several studies have indicated that reducing black carbon emissions may be among the most accessible, quick and cost effective actions to mitigate climate warming over the coming decades (e.g. Hansen et al.; Jacobson, 2002; Bond and Sun, 2005).

CleanCook photo showing an Addis Ababa woman cooking on her two-burner CleanCook. On the right, she is using a traditionally rounded pot which is now held sturdily by the pot support.

Replacing inefficient cooking devices with cleaner stoves and fuels, while immediately improving the health and well being of the users, could also have a significant positive impact on global warming in a relatively short time frame. This is because, unlike carbon dioxide which can remain in the atmosphere for many decades, black carbon particles generally fall from the sky in days or weeks.

A wide range of new and improved cooking stoves, as well as cleaner fuels are currently being field tested – many of these show great potential for addressing the climate and health problems. One success story is that of the ethanol fuelled “CleanCook” stove, originally Swedish technology, in Ethiopia. Ethiopian NGO, Gaia Association has pilot tested these stoves in households in Addis Ababa and in a number of refugee camps with very positive results. Households are ready to switch completely to ethanol (which is locally produced from sugar cane residues) and the project will soon enter a commercial phase where the Swedish stoves will be produced and sold locally.

Although a global effort to roll out improved household energy programmes poses a number of challenges, relatively speaking, it is not an expensive project. The IEA, in its recently published World Energy Outlook estimated that universal access to clean cooking facilities could be achieved through additional cumulative investment on $56 million in 210-2030 (IEA, 2010). This investment is equivalent to 0.2% of the total projected global energy investment to 2030.

There is now widespread consensus among policy makers and the development community that addressing the energy access problem is a matter of urgency. In September 2010, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves was officially launched by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. This is a $60 million dollar public-private partnership to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s goal is for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.

2010 also saw the launch of the Energy for All 2030 Project, an EU-wide initiative aimed at raising policy and public awareness about the issue of energy access for meeting the MDGs in SSA. In Sweden, Energy for All 2030 is being led by the Stockholm Environment Institute which is playing a leading role in highlighting these issues for Swedish and European Policy makers and supporting a platform for dialogue between African and European civil society. The SEI, together with UK partner, Practical Action recently met with the EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to push for more policy focus and financing at the EU level for the goal of universal energy access. This political momentum is set to continue over the coming years and particularly in the run up to 2015 and the deadline for meeting the MDGs.

It remains to be seen if the energy access targets can be met within the given timeframes. But there is hope. Prioritizing energy access as a key driver of social and economic development is undoubtedly the first step towards achieving universal energy access and there, at least, we have agreement. Now we need to see this consensus and support translate into action for the worlds’ poorest.

Energy for all 2030 is a Europe-wide project calling for more and better funding from the European Commission for energy access projects in Sub Saharan Africa. Support the Energy for All 2030 Project. Go to http://practicalaction.org/energy-advocacy/makethecall and pledge your support to make universal energy access a reality by 2030.

*The authors are Associate Researchers at Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in Stockholm-Sweden. They can be contacted through their e-mails: Fiona Lambe (Fiona.lambe@sei.se) and Patricia Tella (patricia.tella@sei.se)

Ghana can industrialise with the right leadership, right policy and the political will

2011-03-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

Addressing the closing ceremony of a workshop organized for NPP researchers from the ten regions Wednesday, Nana Addo, the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party according to the NPP Communications Directorate is reported to have stated that “his party is preparing a comprehensive programme of industrialization and modernization that can transform Ghana’s economy in a matter of one decade.”

Itemizing the many natural resources such as gold, land, and now oil in addition to cocoa Nana Addo said:

“This newfound wealth presents an additional opportunity for a visionary leader with a programme to take critical steps to transform our economy. If we continued on the old path to rely on crude oil exports, we would end up getting the same low value economy that we have gotten from gold and cocoa over the last century. This must change.”
Drawing inspiration from Lula de Silva of Brazil Nana Addo added “With the right programme in place, in the next ten years, Ghana can become a self-sustainable, confident economy, in many ways, with an extensive, modern agricultural industry that will feed our neighbours and beyond.”
According to the NPP Communications Directorate Nana Addo told the cheering crowd that “Ghana has the landmass, natural resources, human resource, political stability, economic freedoms and individual freedoms that can be consciously optimized to transform our economy and bring prosperity to every Ghanaian door step. We must get going. We need that can-do leadership vim to get us going and fast,”

I do not doubt Ghana's ability to industrialize. What has been lacking since 1966 is the lack of leadership, policy and the political will to implement the needed policies. If Nkrumah could let it happen in Tema, Aboadze, Akosombo, Takoradi, Kumasi and Accra, I do not see why it cannot be done in Ho, Wa, and Tamale. What is needed is the political will. I thought the leaders who came after Nkrumah could do it but they simply lack the courage and the will to do it. No nation has ever solved her unemployment problem, built schools, roads, and houses or sent a man to the moon based on agriculture economy. From China to Hong Kong, to Malaysia to Singapore, South Korea to Taiwan the evidence is clear. It has been industrialization through technology acquisition and human capacity building. Ghana needs to do the same. Now that we have recognized that we need to industrialize we need to develop the strategies that will let it happen.

Lord Adusei

We are slowly moving towards a nuclear armageddon

2011-03-08T15:25:00.001-08:00

The monumental weapon build up across the world does not only poses great danger to the world but will completely annihilate mankind from the face of the earth if activated. We have militarized the earth and now we are doing the same in space. There is a new arms race in Asia, and in the Middle East. Russia announced this month that it will spend 600 billion dollars updating its nuclear and submarine fleet. China's newly unveiled stealth bombers – 'Xian H-8 Stealth Bomber' have sent shockwaves to United States. I mean we have enough deadly weapons to destroy the entire human race. No one will be left if we activate all the deadly weapons.

After the 3rd world war there will be no human left to fight a 4th world war. While sections of the world's population wallow in poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and HIV/AIDS, cancers, Alzheimers, parkinson decimate the young and old the goverments around the world are building and storing up arms whose relevance to world peace is doutful. We are indeed slowly moving towards a nuclear armageddon.

Dictators on the run

2011-03-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the "Third Industrial Revolution” which according to Joseph Nye is based on rapid technological advances in computers, communications, software", smart phones, and advanced transportation systems poltical activists world wide are making illegitimate, undemocratic, and corrupt regimes highly uncomfortable and most of the dicators like Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Gaddafi of Libya are on the run. Countless anti-democratic governments in the Middle East have been forced to think twice and many have began to implement policies that will benefit their citizens.

That is how virtual power has done to our world.

Debating the Africa Union

2011-03-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

As the divided Africa Union struggles to find solutions to the crises in Ivory Coast, Somalia, and DRC and remains completely silent over the crises in Libya, Tunisia,and Egypt, the questions many are asking are whether the AU will ever be counted upon as a body that should be taken serious at all and whether the AU can redeem its battered image?

Will Africa ever forge a common identity and defence policy? Can Africa recognise its strategic importance and can it ever take advantage of that strategic importance? Can the AU be made more democratic, more relevant and be more responsive to the needs of its citizens? What will be required to make Africa the next engine of global development?

The crises in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt have exposed the hollow in the Africa Union as a continental body that can respond to the challenges of the 21st Century and has created doubts in many who once believed in its capability to provide solutions to the problems facing the continent.

Lord Adusei

Ghana: Our destiny is not poverty

2011-03-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

On 6th March 2011 during the independence celebration I spoke to many Ghanaians and everyone has something to say about the poor state of the economy, the lack of effective leadership, the poor delivery of public services, the lack of unity among the youth, the corruption at CEPS, the begging mentality of the politicians, the sycophancy of our ministers etc.

Someone asked "When are we going to stand up and say enough is enough? So there is no one in the ruling NDC who is visionary enough to lead the party and take advantage of the huge benefit Ghana is getting from the sale of gold, cocoa, and oil?"

Another also asked"So there is no one in the NPP who shares the visions that led Dr. Nkrumah to build Tema City, Akosombo dam, KNUST, Cape Coast University, and the factories that employed many Ghanaians?"

One also asked "Why do we mine gold yet we beg for silver? Why do we produce cocoa yet we beg for chocolate?"

Another poignantly asked "Is poverty our destiny?"

My answer is: No. Our destiny is not poverty.
Our major problem is: Leadership!!! We are poor because of leadership. Leadership has affected the way we think as Ghanaians. It has affected the way we see ourselves now as Ghanaians and even the future as Ghanaians. It has affected the way we craft economic and education policies. It has affected the way we embark on infrastructure development. It has affected the way we fight poverty and corruption, and the way we embark on industrial development. Nations and institutions blossom when there is effective leadership. I saw it in Nkrumah. I have seen it in Kofi Annan and in Dr. Afari Gyan of Ghana's Electoral Commission.

Let us get a visionary leader like Nkrumah and there will be another Akosombo dam, another Tema city, several secondary schools, and several factories for our unemployed youth to work. Let us get a visionary leader and the children selling ice water in Accra, Kumasi, Tema and Takoradi will be in the classroom learning. As of last month Akuffo Addo was talking about Akans instead of Ghanaians. That is how our leaders think.

It is our duty to train the next generation of leaders who will truly love Ghana and develop it for all its citizens.
You can be the next effective leader of our dear Republic only and only if you do not see Ghana in terms of tribes, in terms of party politics, in terms of north and south, east and west, in terms of language and in terms of ...You can be the next leader if you see Ghana in terms of its total development i.e. building its roads, schools, industries, telecommunication infrastructure, housing, health, and making the benefits trickle down to all its citizens irrespective of where ones live.

How would you have managed Ghana if you were President Mills? Would you have used our gold, our oil, our rich land, the sea and rivers to develop Ghana? Would you have built another factory to process the tomatoes that get rotten anytime there is bumper harvest? Would you have improved the railway infrastructure in Accra, Kumasi, Tamale, and in Wa etc to take care of the congestion in our cities? Would you have worked hard to get another Akosombo dam to take care of our growing demand for electricity? Would you have exported raw gold to London or would you have added value to it before export? How about Cocoa would you have exported the raw beans to Holland? What would you have done if you were President Mills? Would you have appointed all your ministers from the NDC?

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Social Movements versus Corporate Greed

2011-02-27T22:13:00.000-08:00

The power of Social Movements is growing and it is putting governments,corporations,global institutions (IMF,World Bank,WTO) and market systems (capitalism:free market, globalisation) on their toes. The Social Movements are serving as the antibodies of our threatened world. They are protecting the earth from toxins of globalisation,corporate greed, unfair trade, huge subsidies in the global north, carbon emission and environmental degradation that is wiping off livelihoods of the poor in the global south.

Thanks to Global Witness, Global Financial Integrity, Transparency International, Green Peace, Friends of the Earth and many indigenous movements in Africa, Asia and Larin America the corporations are accounting for the pollution they cause around the world.

Supporting Democracy in Africa

2011-02-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

Democracy is not just a word. It is the wheel through which both the poor and the rich are given the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives including education, jobs, electricity, housing, transportation, and all the freedoms known to mankind. But recent developments in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Cameroon, Gabon, Ethiopia, Gambia and Ivory indicate that achieving democracy always come with a price. Since January protests have rocked the North African states of Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya. Similar protests have taken place in Gabon and Cameroon. The protesters have embraced jet fighters, helicopter gunships, armoured carrier assaults, water cannons, camel charge, tear gas and police brutalities.

Thousands have died. But we cannot remain aloof while thousands are massacred for demanding the right to elect their leaders, to speak their mind freely and to have access to basic necessities of life. Our silent means victory for the autocratic regimes littered across the continent. The people of Libya need our support. They need our prayers, and our encouragement. Let's us support them. Join Africa for Democracy now and let the world know how you feel about it.

Globalisation and the poor in the Global South

2011-02-26T02:11:00.000-08:00

According to Joseph Nye of Kennedy School of Government there are many components of globalization including social globalization (fast information), environmental globalization (global warming/climate change), military/security and finally economic globalization.

Joseph Nye notes that “What economic globalization does is it tends to create a good deal of inequality. Some people get ahead while others don't get ahead as quickly or at all.”

In the advanced countries those who don’t get ahead as quickly as possible or those that don’t get ahead at all are protected by the state through programmes such as social security, unemployment benefits, health insurance, disability benefit, study stipends, fuel/energy allowance and other safety nets. These programmes help to reduce the negative and destructive impact of globalization on their lives. On the other hand such safety nets do not exist in the global south including Africa and therefore people are more exposed to the destructive impact of economic globalization.

This is what worries many anti-poverty activists. The demonstrations in North Africa and the Middle East and its impact on fuel prices show that the world cannot ignore the inequalities that come with economic globalisation especially its devastating impact on people in the global south.

The question is: How do we protect those in the global south that do not benefit from the wealth that economic globalization creates so that they do not react negatively to offset the wheel of globalisation? How do we create opportunities and avenues for the poor to fully participate in the game of globalisation? What role can governments, corporations and civil society play to ensure that the poor are not left behind?

By Lord Adusei

Facebook activists are two steps ahead of world Intelligence Agencies

2011-02-24T18:47:00.001-08:00

It is understatement to say that the recent revolutions and uprisings taking place in North Africa and the Middle East caught the intelligence community and their political masters off guard. The intelligence community is asking why they didn’t get to know that the poor were planning to overthrow the allies of our governments in North Africa and the Middle East. They wish they had known the intensions of the poor so they could inform the corrupt, insensitive and autocratic regimes to erect firewalls around themselves.

French General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) had no idea how poverty and corruption were uniting to overthrow their friend in Tunisia. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had no clue what the Egyptian poor were up to regarding the $1.3bn given to Mubarak to buy his cooperation and likewise the Italian Agency for External Information and Security (AISE) had no idea what was going to happen to their friend in Libya.

While Al Qaeda and the Taliban were on the radar screen of many of the intelligence agencies, it appears the Yasmin revolution planned and executed on Facebook caught the spy agencies by surprise. Facebook activists it appears have been steps ahead of the world's finest spy agencies.

It will be no news if we hear tomorrow that the corrupt and autocratic regimes in Angola, Cameroon, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Uganda and Zimbabwe have been toppled without the spy agencies having a clue.

By Lord Adusei

Land: The New International Strategic Asset. How Africa is losing big time

2011-02-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

The focus on biofuel as alternative to oil, gas and coal has put new and unrealistic demand on land, and it is on record to make land the most strategic commodity in the 21st Century.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

There are credible reports that big multinational corporations like Biofuel Africa Ltd in cahoots with corrupt politicians and traditional leaders and with the backing of global financial institutions are buying large tracts of land in parts of Africa, under bizarre circumstances, displacing rural farmers, destabilising rural communities and slowly building up chaos that is further aggravating the poverty situation in Africa.

The international craze for a reduction of carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuel guzzling cars and industries has led to an intense focus on biofuel as the solution to the pollution and associated global warming. But the production of biofuel is not taking place in the sky, it is taking place on land and is leading to a new social cancer that is slowly beginning to emerge. The focus on biofuel as alternative to oil, gas and coal has put new and unrealistic demand on land, and it is on record to make land the most strategic commodity in the 21st Century. The history of land as a strategic asset dates back to the 18th Century. During that period Physiocrats considered land the ultimate source value and all attempt was made to secure it. However, in the 19th Century labour became the most important factor of production as new factories competed aggressively for that resource. Then the importance of labour as the most important factor of production was replaced by capital in the 20th Century. Access to money was considered the ultimate source of value in production. However, in the 21st Century land is coming back as the most strategic asset.Evidence of this can be seen in the scramble for land not only in Africa but also in Latin America and Russia [1]

Driven largely by a global cartel of land speculators, many energy and agro-multinational corporations are strategically acquiring agricultural lands in poor countries of the global south particularly Africa at a rate never anticipated by land economists. The 2007 and 2008 food crisis and its associated price hikes have forced rich but food insecure countries in the Middle East and the Gulf Region to scrounge for lands in Africa further complicating matters. Meanwhile the belief in some countries in Africa like Sudan and Ethiopia that heavy injections of foreign capital will enhance agricultural technology, boost local employment, revitalize sagging agricultural sectors, and ultimately improve agricultural yields has given the corporations a field day with serious social, economic, political and environmental consequences, [2]

The land grabbing statistics worldwide and Africa in particular is not only overwhelming but is also extraordinary shocking. According to International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) a US-based policy think thank, since 2006 between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farmland around the world have been secured for biofuel and grain production, while between US$20bn and US$30bn has gone into investment [3].

In Africa the past five years has seen more rich agricultural lands being taken over by food insecure but rich countries in the Middle East and rich multinational firms in Europe, US, and Asia particularly China, Korea and India. Some of the land acquisitions have occurred under bizarre and non-transparent circumstances making experts to warn of the consequences if the practice is not stopped. In Mozambique for example China has US$800 million investment to expand 100,000 to 500,000 metric tons of rice production in the country and Skebab (Sweden) and Sun Biofuels (UK) have acquired more than 100, 000 hectares of land for biofuel production in the country. In Ethiopia, a country noted internationally for its food insecurity and its dependence on handout from the World Food Programme, the government has set aside around three million hectares of farm land to be used to produce grain and biofuel for export. Flora EcoPower (Germany) has acquired 13,000 hectares for bio-crop production while India is investing US$4 billion in agriculture, flower growing and sugar estates in that country. In Tanzania Sun Biofuels (UK) has acquired 5,500 hectares of land for sorghum (biofuel) production while the Chinese firm Chongqing See Corp has secured 300 hectares of farm lands for rice production. In the same Tanzania the Gulf State of Saudi Arabia has requested a lease of 500,000 hectares of land. In Southern Sudan Jarch Capital (USA) has signed a 400, 000 hectare deal with a local army commander while the Middle East and Gulf States of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt together have about 1.045m hectares under their thumb in that country. In the same Sudan, South Korea is running away with 690,000 hectares of farmland secured for wheat production. In Nigeria, Trans4mation Agrictech Ltd (UK) has secured 10,000 hectares of land. In Angola, Lornho (UK) has 25,000 hectares leased to her for rice cultivation and is negotiating for a further 125,000 hectares in Malawi and Mali. China has requested 2 million hectares for jatropha production in Zambia; and in Democratic Republic of Congo the Chinese firm ZTE International has secured 2.8 million hectares for biofuel oil palm plantation [4].

These figures do not only reflect the unequal power relations between rich multinational corporations and governments of rich countries on one hand and poor African countries on the other, but it also reflects the vulnerability of African countries to the predatory activities of rich multinational corporations and governments of these rich countries. It has been argued elsewhere that the global assault on Africa has the tendency to produce the same negative effects that colonialism has had on the continent.

A major problem is that many of the corruption-ridden governments in Africa are rushing to make land deals with multinationals without proper consultation with the people and without proper studies as to the economic, social and environmental cost of such deals. Another issue is that the lands being giving to corporations by the nonchalance governments in Africa are not empty lands. They are lands that rural farmers farm on and depend on for their livelihoods. That means the farmers whose lands have been taken over by the multinationals are being denied the opportunity to make a living. They are being dispossessed of the only asset that helps put food on their tables.The lands of the poor farmers are being handed over to rich multinationals to meet the needs of populations elsewhere to the detriment of the local farmers. The local farmers are being pushed away by multinationals that are increasingly seeing land as strategic asset that must be acquired at all cost to meet their own greedy, selfish and opportunistic ambitions.

Many who support corporate land grab efforts in Africa point to Asian-style Green Revolution. Their argument is that allowing the land grabbing to go on will allow benefits such as revenue, employment, and technology transfer to be bequeathed to countries in Africa. But there are many unanswered questions regarding the so called benefits of land investments in Africa. For example what happens to displaced farmers whose lands are taken for food production to feed populations abroad? What happens to food production and food security in countries where agriculture lands are being auctioned to produce biofuel and food to feed economies elsewhere? In some of the countries where land is being taken for food and energy production people already spend between 60-75% of their income on food so what per cent of income of these poor people will be spent on food when it becomes unavailable in the local market? Most importantly what happens to communities when scarce water and other scarce resources that they depend on and which are currently being channeled into food and energy production for export abroad are depleted? What happens to farmlands that are degraded after the food is produced and exported? What happens to the polluted environment after the food and biofuels have been shipped abroad? Little is known of the environmental implications of committing hundreds of thousands of hectares of farm lands into jatropha production. New pests and diseases may emerge to confront poor farmers, who may not have benefited from the jatropha production with serious consequences. For example the use of chemicals to process the jatropha into biofuel may not only lead to contamination of soil, but also the poisoning of shallow groundwater with serious health repercussions for both humans and animals.

As Hornborg (2009) notes: "Generally speaking, social scientists will probably not get too involved in discussions about ethanol with all those engineers, agronomists, and economists who are committed to keeping the global technomass going by feeding it with corn or sugar cane. But we can listen attentively to the debate. We are told, for instance, that the conditions of people harvesting sugar cane for ethanol production in Brazil are appalling. We are told that ethanol production might in fact generate more greenhouse gases than the combustion of fossil fuels. We are told that it will accelerate tropical deforestation and loss of biodiversity. We are told that it will probably yield less horsepower per hectare than just simply growing fodder for horses. And what undoubtedly worries us the most, we are told that it is making food more expensive and contributing to malnutrition and starvation among the global poor" [5].

In Ghana for instance while the Ministry of Agriculture has allowed over 20 companies from around the world, including Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Norway and The Netherlands, to acquire land to produce biofuels, the ministry has not conducted any study to establish the social, economic and food security implications of such land deals to Ghana as a whole and the affected farmers and the communities in particular.

Current estimates by the World Food Programme (WFP) put the number of people in Ghana who are food insecure to 1.2 million; almost half the number is people living in the Northern Region of the country where the corporate land grabbing is taking place. In a paper presented during the World Bank Annual Bank conference on Land Policy and Administration in Washington, DC, April 26 and 27, 2010,Kwesi Ahoi, Ghana's Minister of Food and Agriculture admitted that on the whole Ghana remain food insecure. He stated that "Ghana is self-sufficient only in roots and tubers but deficient in cereals where it produces 51% of its needs, fish, 60% of its requirements, meat 50% of requirements and less than 30% of the raw materials needed for agro-based industries. The output of vegetables such as tomatoes and onions, the most widely used, is rather erratic and vacillates between scarcity, sufficiency and glut depending on the vagaries of the weather". [6] Yet, in spite of the food insecurity in the country, Kwesi Ahoi and his ministry are busy supervising the handing over of the same land that could make Ghana food sufficient to non-food producing multinationals.

The acquisition of 23,700 hectares of Ghanaian land by Biofuel Africa Ltd in the northern part of the country has already forced the inhabitants of seven villages that depend on the land for their livelihoods to move to Tamale, the regional capital in search of non existing jobs. These 23,700 hectares of land were taken away from the people without adequate compensation and without viable alternatives. For example Steinar Kolnes, Biofeul Africa Ltd chief executive officer (CEO) in Ghana admitted that the company did not pay compensation to farmers whose land his corporation has seized. "We don't pay compensation...We gave the farmers two options: To stay and farm their crops alongside the jetropha or leave to other more fertile lands we had provided for them" [7] The question is if there are fertile lands as the chief executive claims why doesn't he use it for his jatropha business? Why is he seizing the poor farmers' land and not use his so called rich land for his jatropha business?

The findings of an in-depth study sponsored by the World Bank on the impact of corporate land grabbing in Ghana have implicated the biofuel corporations in the country. According to the World Bank study published in 2010 [8] "The most direct and immediate impact of biofuels relates to land loss… Some 70 households from three communities were involuntarily vacated from their lands, without any form of restitution, following the harvest of yam (the primary cash crop) from the 2008 growing season. For two of the villages this equated to between 40 and 50 percent of households. Of those households that lost land, on average nearly 60 percent of their total landholdings were acquired by the company. Only 20 percent of households were able to obtain some replacement land, with most households unsuccessful in recovering both the quantity and quality of land lost to the plantation. These households cited increasing land scarcity and land quality concerns as key obstacles."

The World Bank study concludes: "In all the plantations assessed households were required to relinquish landholdings for the purpose of plantation development. At the majority of plantations, directly affected households were not consulted by the company, nor did they formally acquiesce to transferring their land. With the exception of one company that promised to pay approximately US$ 1 per acre per year to those losing land, no formal compensation measures have been proposed by other companies or by the relevant Traditional Authorities" [9]. These findings which corroborate Steinar Kolnes' statement that his company does not pay compensation show that the corporations are paying close to nothing for their robbery. The question is how many Europeans, Americans, and Koreans will accept approximately US$ 1 per acre per year as compensation for not farming on a land that acts as the source of livelihood? Instead of Africans benefiting from the new international status of land they are being handed peanuts by the corporations who have are making money the crudest way by dispossessing the farmers without compensation.

Meanwhile similar reports of people losing their livelihoods are being reported in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mali, Zambia and war ravaged Sudan. Thus the commodification of land is threatening rural farmers whose lands are being seized by these greedy multinationals acting in cahoots with local politicians and traditional leaders. The consequence of such blind land grabbing by bio-multinationals is that food security efforts of a continent frequently scarred by food shortages, hunger and starvation is being compromised. Such acts are creating unnecessary tension and chaos in many farming societies and helping to destabilise the cohesiveness of rural communities. The peace and stability that many communities have enjoyed for decades are being breached as a result of the land grabs especially in communities where farmers have been left without compensation and without alternatives. The danger is that the carving up of rich arable farmlands for production of non-food commodities such as biofuel if not checked will worsen the continent's food security efforts and force already poor people into hunger and starvation. That warning has been issued already in the GRAIN Report of 2008.

The Report by the Spain based NGO-GRAIN states that: "Food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land is becoming increasingly privatised and concentrated. If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming, and rural livelihoods, in numerous places around the world". [10]

The true value of that warning cannot be underestimated because the danger is already appearing. That is the leasing of these lands to multinationals under circumstances that leave much to be desired, as indicated by Ghana's example is forcing many rural farmers to move into the cities and towns in search of non-existing jobs. That is the commodification of land is pushing already poor farmers out of farming and into cities that have little to offer them. These cities are already overburdened with populations and face major problems as discussed by Mike Davis in his book the "Planet of Slums" [11]. In effect the seizing of the poor farmers' land is destroying their only hope of survival on earth.

Governments in Africa that think major agro-multinationals securing large tracts of land under dubious means could help initiate Asian-style Green Revolution in Africa must know and understand that in Asia the Green Revolution was largely successful because of the role played by smallholders [12]. These smallholders who played pivotal role in making Asia economies food sufficient are the very people being displaced by the multinationals and the rich countries and their hedge fund managers. Such displacements will produce nothing but a backlash with serious economic and political consequences.

Dangerous consequences are always in the pipeline when corporate interests coincide with that of corrupt and insensitive governments as we have seen between oil giant Shell and the corrupt federal government in Nigeria. Niger Delta crisis was largely created when the interest of Royal Shell Corporation coincided with that of the corrupt regimes that ruled the country since 1966. Thus the accumulation by dispossession currently underway in Africa will definitely produce its consequences not only for people being robbed of their lands but also the corporations acting in cahoots with the indifference governments in Africa. Rich governments securing lands in Africa may altogether lose their investments when landless farmers and hungry communities begin to make claims to what has been unjustly taken away from them.

The political ramifications of outsourcing lands to multinational have had its first casualty in Madagascar. The toppling of the government in Madagascar after 1.3 million hectares of land was sold to the Korean firm Daewoo and another 465,000 hectares to Varun International of India demonstrates the political cost such non-transparent land arrangement poses to the security and stability of governments in Africa. Lesson should be learnt from that and it must serve as an eye opener to all those scrounging for lands in Africa and in the process helping to destabilise the people and their communities.

When foods being produced by the multinationals and rich governments are exported the shortages that will be created and the associated price hikes will produce devastating and undesirable effects. Avoiding the shortages and its undesirable effects through the implementation of policies that give first priority to smallholders and local farmers producing food for local consumption must be the objective of governments in Africa.

Reference

[1] Hornborg, A. 2009. Zero-Sum World Challenges in Conceptualizing Environmental Load Displacement and Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the World-System. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. SAGE Publications.

[2] Kugelman, M. and Levenstein, S. L (eds).2009. LAND GRAB? The Race for the World's Farmland. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.

[3] IFPRI 2009 cited in the Economist "Outsourcing's Third Wave," Economist, May 21, 2009, available from http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13692889.

[4] Hornborg, A. 2009. Zero-Sum World Challenges in Conceptualizing Environmental Load Displacement and Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the World-System. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. SAGE Publications.

[5] Von Braun, J. and Meinzen-Dick, R. 2009. "Land Grabbing" by Foreign Investors in Developing countries: Risks and Opportunities. IFPRI Policy Brief. April 2009.

[6]World Bank, 2010 Annual Bank conference on land policy and administration Washington, DC April 26 and 27, 2010. Government's Role in Attracting Viable Agricultural Investment: Experiences from Ghana
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTARD/Resources/336681-1236436879081/Ahwoi.pdf

[7] IRIN, 2009. Ghana: Land grabs force hundreds off farms, growers say. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86044

[8] Schoneveld, G. C. et al. 2010. Towards Sustainable Biofuel Development: Assessing the Local Impacts of Large-Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions in Ghana. World Bank.

[9] Schoneveld, G. C. et al. 2010. Towards Sustainable Biofuel Development: Assessing the Local Impacts of Large-Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions in Ghana. World Bank.

[10] GRAIN, 2008 Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial

[11] Davis, M.2006. Planet of Slums. Published by Verso.

[12] Jirström et al. 2005. Addressing Food Crisis in Africa - What Can Sub-Saharan Africa learn from Asian experiences in Addressing Food Crisis ITS? CIDA Report

Libya and the silence in US and Europe

2011-02-22T23:39:00.000-08:00

There are report of horrendous atrocities being committed against the Libyan people by Gaddafi and his agents. While the reports make me sick it is the near-silence coming from Europe and America that rattles me. I must say without hesitation that I am deeply and horror-struck at the silent in Washington and Europe regarding the atrocities being carried out by the Libyan regime against the innocent and good people of Libya. The silence is another proof of the corrupt relationship between Gaddafi and European and American leadership. We are witnessing another Rwanda in Libya yet because of oil the US, Europe and Security Council in which they control are quiet.

The African Union has not said anything. The US is only rambling. The European Union has proven once again how irrelevant and ineffective it has become in shaping global events. The Arab League is as useless as it has ever been.

This is why Europe and America won't take action against Gaddafi. 79% of Libya's oil goes to Europe. Out of the 79% Italy gets 32%; Germany 14%; France 10% and the rest of Europe 23%. US also get about 5% of her oil from Libya. Oil is the key factor here. For US and Europe oil is important than democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to choose ones leader. Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi is known to be a close friend and a key ally of Gaddafi. In August 2009, because of a 500 million dollar oil contract between Gaddafi and British Petroleum, Britain released from prison Mr. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan Lockerbie bomber who blew Pan Am aircraft Flight PA 103 over Scotland in 1988 that killed 270 people most of them Americans. Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair was instrumental in ending Libya's international isolation. It is because of oil that Europe and America do not want to antagonise Gaddafi.

That is the world in which we live in.But like Rwanda the remnants of the Libyan atrocities will rebuild the country after the people have prevailed.

By Lord Adusei

It is over for Mubarak, Ben Ali and soon it will be over for Gaddafi

2011-02-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

I have been following the development in north Africa. I have spent a lot of time arguing for the people to claim back their countries and I am glad the people have finally risen up to redeem their country from the autocrats.

Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gaddafi thought they were in control of their police states. They called for jet fighters, helicopter gunships, armoured carriers, water cannons, and tear gas and used it against their own people but the people refused to budge.They thought the people would not revolt. They thought the people would continue to accept their corrupt and illegitimate leadership.They were dead wrong. When they realised it was over for them and their cohorts they pleaded for mercy and promised their children would not succeed them, but the people refused to listen. They were given 2 options by the people: flee or we would crash you and your regimes. Eventually they took the best of the 2 options: they fled.

It is not over yet but I believe the people are on course to redeem themselves from the internal slavery and internal colonialism imposed on them by their so called leaders.

I can see the leaders in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Uganda, Angola, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, and Republic of Congo panicking because like the leaders in North Africa they know they too have failed their people.

by Lord Adusei

The enemy within: The challenges of transformation in a corrupt society

2011-02-09T13:08:00.000-08:00

An unemployed university graduate allegedly operating an unlicensed fruit stand in Tunis was harassed by a corrupt policeman for trying to eke out an honest living under an autocratic regime. In desperation, he set himself on fire. This suicide set off demonstrations which culminated in Ben Ali’s rapid flight from Tunis. This achievement has given birth to hope for true freedom in North Africa and the Middle East. The speed of internet communication has contributed to the emerging outcome of these events in many countries.

Egypt

has been under continuous military rule since Nasser’s coup of 1952. It has a 40% unemployment rate. If the internet existed in 1974 when students of

Ghana

’s 3 major universities first marched against the Acheampong regime,

Ghana

’s history would have been remarkably different.

In the 60’s it was said that “Winds of Change” were sweeping across Africa. These changes ushered in a period of euphoria fuelling dreams of a better tomorrow for generations of Africans to come. Unfortunately, many countries fell to persistent military rule and civilian regimes built around a culture of personality cults. Sixty years later, while Egyptians have now found a voice to demand basic rights which we take for granted in

Ghana, we all share a basic problem which retards Africa’s progress as a continent.

All these teetering regimes in

Tunisia,

Egypt,

Algeria,

Jordan,

Sudan

and

Yemen

have been propped up by dictatorial corrupt individuals and systems. In the end they deny their citizens basic needs and rights through a well choreographed mix of brutality, fear and corruption. After five progressively free and fair elections in Ghana, our democracy is growing steadily but we still have not met the promise of democracy for the vast majority of our people. The main reason for this failure is the enemy within – the Ghanaian Citizen.

President Mills confronted this enemy at the Tema Harbour this past week and laid out—in very simple and clear terms—why corruption is literally depriving citizens of health care, education and infrastructural development. The revelations from the Anas Armeyaw video are not a surprise to anyone but children under the age of 6 in Ghana. Even some of them may not be surprised but their very future is at stake.

Somehow the CEPS and police officials fingered by Anas for smuggling cocoa on the Ivorian border in July 2010 have not been prosecuted because reportedly on two occasions, the prosecution did not show up and the judge was obliged to discharge the suspects. These are some of the systemic problems President Mills faces in combating corruption in Ghana. His words were direct, honest and fair. His outrage was justified and reassuring but the next step is setting up a covert government structure with prosecutorial powers to implement lasting interventions to address this plague.

The president is correct to warn all agencies of the state that he will “descend on them” but it must portend the beginning of an implementation phase in this year of action. We must begin to see a wave of firings, arrests and prosecutions because the problem is woven so deeply into the fabric of the society that corrupt officials in all agencies operate with impunity and are well known. This is not news.

The president is at the threshold of a major transformation in Ghanaian society which will be resisted by many but leadership requires courage to bring about change so we expect Prof. Mills to do better than Kwame Nkrumah who also acknowledged corruption to the nation publicly but could not proceed from the identification phase to the implementation phase of the solution.

Investors are truly turned off by this daily extortion which is not only in government agencies but across the country in a manner that has also clouded land tenure in

Ghana

. Chiefs are particularly notorious for frustrating investors by coming back under all sorts of pretexts to nullify previously concluded land lease transactions so they can resell already sold lands to others or absurdly to original buyers. They are aided by some members of the legal profession in collecting what has now become institutionalized as “re-entry” fees when buyers begin their projects. The judiciary should frown on these schemes which are all over the country. These unscrupulous chiefs are robbing their communities of development opportunities and should be halted in their tracks.

While I applaud the president for his bold signal to corrupt officials, I recall his visit to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital last year, which also followed an Anas exposé. The mental health bill has still not been passed and psychiatric patients are still being cared for in 19^th century conditions. A new modern Neuroscience facility needs to be built on part of the grounds of the outdated current hospital. Mental illnesses account for over 30% of total disease burden, whether we recognize this fact or not. With this in mind, it is extremely disappointing that a returning Ghanaian expert psychiatrist like Dr. X has been received the “go and come” treatment the president talked about. After a year in the country, Dr. X has returned to the US. We have 1 psychiatrist for 2.4 million citizens but this still goes on.

Service to ordinary citizens is a duty that must guide the actions of all public servants. The president has struck the right tone by the practice of confrontation and verification of facts. It is conservatively estimated that corruption costs Africa $300bn per year, accounting for over 25% of our GDP. This is the central issue of this era of our development as a nation. If we use technology to eliminate human interfaces leading to corruption and apply persistent enforcement, we will not need donor countries. We may be ready to lead Africa again in ridding our nation of the greatest cause of revenue loss and hence failed development.

There are those cynical and short-sighted individuals who will have partisan responses to the president’s recent actions but any problem that sucks away about 25% of GDP should transcend narrow emotional responses that do not come with proposed solutions. In Ghana the hemorrhage amounts to an estimated $4.5bn/ year on average. The NPP had 8 years to address this problem and saw to it that appropriate legislation was passed but President Kufuor’s leadership on this issue was subpar. He simply declared zero tolerance and asked the public to bring problems to his attention. Their 8 years was a missed opportunity.

The president’s address to the CEPS officers has gone viral on YouTube. We should remember that the internet has brought down Ben Ali and will bring down Mubarak but Mills may well use it as a tool for advancing leadership with integrity and grappling with corruption in our homeland Ghana.

Prof. T. P. Manus Ulzen

tulzen@yahoo.com

February 6, 2011

Corruption in Africa: Where Does the Buck Stop?

2011-02-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

*By Lord Aikins Adusei

Corruption is an endemic cancer that has devastated African societies and impoverished millions. According to the Africa Union (AU) around $148 billion are stolen from the continent by its leaders and civil servants every year. The 2006 Forbes' list of most corrupt nations had 9 out of the first 16 countries coming from Africa. According to Global Financial Integrity (GFI) a US based anti-corruption group, the continent of Africa has lost more than 854 billion dollars in illicit financial outflows between 1970 and 2008. GFI director Raymond Baker says the amount of money that has been drained out of Africa—hundreds of billions decade after decade—is far in excess of the official development assistance going into African countries.

The illicit flow of such huge amount of money is not the work of African leaders and their associates alone but also that of multinational corporations from Europe, America and Asia doing business in Africa. It is no secrete multinational corporations with investments in Africa understate their profits and falsify profit documents in order to cheat poor African countries of money due them. The corporations also undervalue their goods, indulge in smuggling, theft and the falsification of invoicing and non-payment of taxes, as well as employing kickbacks and bribes to public officials. They also overprice projects; provide safe havens for looted funds, all of which affect the financial capability of countries in Africa to fight poverty. A 2002 UN Report into the war in Congo Kinshasa found multinational corporations working in that country to be engaging in some of the dubious practices mentioned above.

In 2002, Halliburton, a US company, was accused of establishing $180m flush fund with the intent of using it to bribe Nigeria officials in order to secure a $6billion Liquefied Gas Plant contract in Nigeria. The company fired Mr. Albert Jack Stanley, its executive. A report by the company later named a British called Jeffrey Tesler as the middleman behind the bribery. In 2010 Nigerian authorities brought charges against former US Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton for their role in the bribery scandal. The charges were settled out of court after the defendants agreed to pay 35 million dollars. On 17th September 2002 for example, a Canadian Engineering company called Acres International was convicted by a High Court in Lesotho for paying $260,000 bribe to secure an $8 billion dam contract in Lesotho. Achair Partners, a Swiss company and Progresso, an Italian company have been accused of bribing Somali Transition Government officials in order to secure contracts to deposit highly toxic industrial waste in the waters of Somalia.

But the corporations and foreign politicians and business executives are not the only ones in the game. The governments in Africa have been doing their best to loot their countries' coffers with impunity. The recently released US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks indicate how corruption has become part and parcel of President Ben Ali's family and his government in Tunisia. And the worse thing is that it is getting worse by the day. Part of the cable states that: “corruption in Tunisia is getting worse. Whether it is cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your yacht, President Ben Ali's family is rumoured to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants. President Ben Ali's extended family is often cited as the nexus of Tunisian corruption. Often referred to as a quasi-mafia, an oblique mention of "the Family" is enough to indicate which family you mean. Seemingly half of the Tunisian business community can claim a Ben Ali connection through marriage, and many of these relations are reported to have made the most of their lineage. Ben Ali's wife, Leila Ben Ali, and her extended family -- the Trabelsis -- provoke the greatest ire from Tunisians."

The Cables point out that the corruption at the presidency has trickled down to all aspect of Tunisian society. “Beyond the stories of the First Family's shady dealings, Tunisians report encountering low-level corruption as well in interactions with the police, customs, and a variety of government ministries. When a contact was asked about whether he thought corruption was better, worse, or the same, he exclaimed in exasperation “Of course it's getting worse!" He stated that corruption could not but increase as the culprits (Ben Ali and his cohorts) looked for more and more opportunities. Joking about Tunisia's rising inflation, he said that even the cost of bribes was up. "A traffic stop used to cost you 20 dinars and now it's up to 40 or 50!" The economic impact is clear, with Tunisian investors -- fearing the long-arm of "the Family" -- forgoing new investments [abroad and] keeping domestic investment rates low.” Tunisians openly talk about how corruption is destroying their country and bemoan the lack of effort by the authorities to tackle it. “Corruption is the elephant in the room; it is the problem everyone knows about, but no one can publicly acknowledge. The lack of transparency and accountability that characterize Tunisia's political system similarly plague the economy, damaging the investment climate and fueling the culture of corruption” says the Cable.

Despite years of exports of oil, gold, diamond, bauxite, tin, coltan, uranium, manganese timber and other minerals, the continent is ranked the poorest. Revenue from the minerals finds its way into the bank accounts of corrupt government officials, civil servants and their allies.

Nigeria has consistently featured in the top 1% of the most corrupt nation on the planet. The nation has also featured on the Foreign Policy Failed States Index. The index shows that Nigeria has featured consecutively over the last four years among the top 20 failed states on earth. Since oil was first discovered in Nigeria about 50 years ago, over $400 billion have been realised from its sale but today more than 70% of Nigerians continue to live in abject poverty. The country has nothing to show for its petro-dollars except poverty, corruption, and recently violence and anarchy. Only corrupt the politicians and the big oil companies such as Shell, Mobil, BP, and Chevron have benefited. As a result, able men and women are battling dangerous seas to enter Europe and try their luck. Others have resorted to 419, a popular scam used to trick people into giving out their money and valuables. A visit to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria shows that majority of the people especially the youth are unemployed. According to Nigeria's National Population Commission 2000 about 44% of young men between the ages of 20 and 24 are unemployed. The Niger Delta region which produces about 90% of the total 2.2 million barrels produce everyday, but over the past 30 years, poverty rate has been rising steadily and living conditions remain one of the poorest in the country. Life expectancy, literacy, and infant mortality all compare unfavourably with the national average. According to Okechukwu Ibeanu only about 27 per cent of households in the Niger Delta have access to safe drinking water. At the same time only 30 per cent have access to electricity and both are below the national average. There are 82,000 people per doctor rising to 132,000 in some areas more than three times the national average of 40,000. While 76 per cent of Nigerian children attend primary school only 30-40 do so in parts of the delta. Thus despite being the goose that lays the golden egg, the Niger Delta remains one of the most deprived areas in Nigeria.

In 2010 Sanusi Lamido, governor of Nigeria's Central Bank lamented over the corruption and economic mismanagement in his country saying:

“As an economist, I have done and looked at the input and output content of the Nigerian economy, and I have never seen an economy with a kind of black hole like that of Nigeria. We produced cotton, yet our textile plants are not working; we produce crude oil, we import petroleum products; we produce gas and export, yet we don't have power plant. We have iron ore, we don't have steel plant; and we have hide and skin, we don't have leader products”.

Sanusi was right. According to Paul Collier of Oxford University's Centre for the Study of African Economies, past and present leaders in Nigeria have managed to steal about 280 billion dollars of the country's oil proceeds, stashing it in abroad with the help of financial firms like, Barclays, Lloyds, and UBS. Between 2005 and 2007, several state governors and their immediate families were arrested by Scotland Yard in London on corruption and money laundering charges. Among them are James Ibori of oil rich Delta State and his wife Theresa who had their $35m asset frozen by the English court. Mr. Ibori earns about a thousand dollars a month but during his eight years as a state governor, he acquired wealth to the tune of $35m, and was able to finance the election campaign of late President Umaru Yar'Dua. He also owns a private jet and a lavish London home.

Another corrupt governor is Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of oil-rich state of Bayelsa who was also arrested in London for money laundering. When Police conducted a search in his London home, they found one million pounds worth of cash. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been linked to a corruption scandal involving former US Congressman William Jefferson who is serving terms in prison in US. In 2007 Atiku Abubakar was accused of diverting $125m from Petroleum Development Trust Fund into his personal businesses. Okey Ibeanu and Robin Luckham note that a mechanism that was devised by Nigerian leaders for stealing oil revenue included: “diversion into special funds controlled by the president; bribes or taxation paid on oil contracts; extensive smuggling across Nigeria's borders called bunkering; as well secrete account held by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) (six such accounts were uncovered in 1997)”.

Years of oil spills have made the soil unfit for any agricultural activity. Their streams and wells are polluted and the people have no access to basic necessities of life because their leaders have enriched themselves with the money. In the 1990s, abject poverty and destruction of the environment forced the people of Ogoniland in Nigeria to demand a say in Shell operations but the Abacha regime repulsed them and had Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni activists executed. According to available data, Abacha stole between $3 and $4 billion of Nigeria's oil money and stashed it in several secret bank accounts in Switzerland, Britain, Luxemburg, Jersey Island and Liechtenstein.

Effort by the people of Niger Delta to get the Nigerian government to develop the oil rich areas fell on death ears until the unemployed youth took up arms against the government and the oil companies, kidnapping foreign oil workers; demanding ransom and disrupting oil production. Eventually, the companies had to reduce their output by 25% in 2007-8. These disruptions seriously affected supply of oil on the world market forcing the price to skyrocket to $140 a barrel in the summer of 2008. The situation has not changed much.

In Equatorial Guinea for example oil export has earned the country billions of dollars since 1990 yet most of the 600,000 people living in the country continue to live in poverty while Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his cronies continue to siphon the oil revenue with no accountability. His looting of Equatorial Guinea's assets became public when it was discovered that the US banking firm Riggs had written to him encouraging him to loot his oil rich but economically impoverished country. Teodoro Nguema Obiang, son of Teodoro Obiang Nguema has made news headlines about how he and his associates steal and misuse E. Guinea's oil funds.

Obiang Jr (the son) once hired Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen's 300-foot yacht Tatoosh for $700,000. His property portfolio includes a $35m estate in Malibu, California, purchased with cash, as well as a couple of estates in Cape Town, South Africa. His fleet of cars includes Bentley and a Lamborghini. The New York Times reports that "the boy king" also owns a Gulfstream V jet. Riggs Bank a US based bank is known to have helped the Obiangs steal their country's oil proceeds and hid it in US. A 2004 US Senate investigation into the activities of Riggs Bank found that President Obiang's family had received huge payments from US oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Amerada Hess and laundered the money in US.

In 2004, President Bush Jr issued Presidential Proclamation 7750, barring corrupt leaders and their associates from entering the US but the Obiangs have been able to travel freely to the United States in spite of their massive corruption. John Bennett, the United States former ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from 1991 to 1994, told the New York Times that "Washington has turned a blind eye to the Obiangs' corruption because of US dependence on the country for natural resources".

One might think that given the history of corruption, poverty, instability and violence in oil producing countries (like Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo and Cameroon), incoming oil producing nations like Uganda would take time to make sure there is complete transparency and zero tolerance for corruption in the oil sector. If what is happening in Uganda's young oil sector continues unchecked then there is no doubt that the country will end up being labelled another resource curse country. The US diplomatic cables released by Wikilieaks indicate that the country's leaders are engaging in massive corruption and back door dealings that are slowly adding to the dire corruption situation in the country. One case involves Security Minister and National Resistance Movement (NRM) Secretary General Amama Mbabazi and Energy and Mineral Development Minister Hilary Onek who the report says have “benefited from the sale of production rights by Heritage Oil and Gas to Italian oil giant ENI”. Security Minister Mbabazi and Energy Minister Onek “received payments from Heritage and/or ENI in exchange for their support”. According to the diplomatic cable the Italian multinational firm “ENI created a shell company in London called TKL Holdings - through Mark Christian and Moses Seruje (who acted as frontmen) to funnel money to Mbabazi.

In Ghana, officials illegally charge 15 and 150 Ghana cedis for a birth certificate and a passport respectively. Police officers openly solicit bribes from bus and taxi drivers before they are allowed to cross mounted road blocks. Customs officials adopt all manner of tactics in order to collect money from importers and exporters before their goods are allowed to leave the ports.

Africa's political parties pledge to combat corruption with deadly force but when elected, change nothing. Ghana's former president John Kuffour pledged "zero tolerance for corruption" in his government but his party lost power for failure to tame corrupt officials.

In South Africa, Jacob Zuma battled it out for his part in the multi-billion arms deal in South Africa in 2001 until he was cleared by the court on the grounds of technicalities. In 2006, former president of Malawi Bakili Muluzi was arrested for pocketing $12m donated to his country by foreign governments. Former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba was arrested and charged with 11 counts of stealing money meant for the Zambia's development.

Guinea has large deposits of gold diamond, iron, nickel and uranium yet poverty is so severe that the country was ranked among the top 1% of most corrupt countries in Africa and 160th out of 177 in the UN's Development scale.

Gabon and Angola are no different. The late Omar Bongo of Gabon is known in the world for the way he and his family looted Gabon's oil revenue and used the proceeds to buy expensive and luxury properties in France. French Police investigation into the Bongo's illegal looting of Gabon's oil revenue established that the Bongo have 39 expensive apartment, fleet of luxury cars and owned 70 bank accounts in France. Similarly Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Brazzaville also has 112 bank accounts in France with hundreds of millions of euros stashed in them. He also has mansions and fleet of cars similar to his father-in-law (Omar Bongo) all with the full knowledge of French authorities.

On Friday 31, 2007, the Guardian newspaper in Britain published a report by Kroll, an international risk consultancy firm, that Daniel Arap Moi, Kenya's former president and his family banked £1 billion in 28 countries including Britain. The family used shell Companies, secret trusts, front men and his entourage to siphon the money away. Moi's family also bought multimillion pound properties in London, New York, South Africa including 10,000-hectare ranch in Australia.

In Sudan the recently released US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks show that Omar Al Bashir has been able to loot 9 billion dollars of the country's oil proceeds and stashed it in UK and other jurisdictions with the help of British banks especially the Lloyds Banking Group. According to the US cable leaked by Wikileaks Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor contemplated going public with Bashir's loots which has turned Sudan into a desert of poverty. "Ocampo reported Lloyds bank in London may be holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money".

In Egypt for instance there are reports that over the 30 year period in which Mubarak has been president, Mubarak, his wife, Suzanne, and his two sons (Gamal and Alaa) have amassed wealth to the tune of $70bn. Swiss Bank UBS and the Bank of Scotland in Britain are reputed to be hosting much of the money they have acquired, while New York, London, Los Angeles also play host to the many properties owned by the family, not to mention the countless properties they own in Egypt itself including lands and hotels in Alexandra,Cairo, Sharm el-Sheikh and Suez.

Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East politics at Durham University, told the Guardian newspaper in UK that "Much of Mubarak's money is in Swiss bank accounts and London property. These are the favourites of Middle Eastern leaders and there is no reason to think Mubarak is any different. Gamal's Wilton Place home in London is likely to be the tip of the iceberg." Meanwhile there are one million children roaming the streets of Cairo and other cities without home, education and future.

In countries such as Cameroon, The Gambia and Libya, a kleptocracy class of people have replaced anything democracy. Leaders amass wealth at the expense of their poor countries and continue to mismanage whatever remains of their corrupt activities. Because most of the leaders are former military officers or former rebels with no grasp of economics and management, they are unable to formulate any good economic policies that will transform and grow their economies hence poverty has become a part of the people but their leaders know not what poverty is.

In DR Congo it is estimated that gold and diamond deposits alone could fetch the country 23 trillion dollars not to mention the abundance of timber and other several minerals that are found in large quantities such as columbo-tantalite (coltan) and cassiterite (tin ore) yet years of corruption, mismanagement, conflicts and foreign involvement have made this resource rich nation one of the poorest in the world. Western nations cannot maintain their current level of lifestyle without Congo. Most corporations in the west can easily go bust without Congo. If Congo is the bloodline of the west and the west is rich because of Congo, why is Congo so poor?

Where are the billions of dollars from the sale of these minerals? The answer lies in the history of the nation which is endemic corruption, armed conflict and foreign involvement. Mobutu in his 32 year reign is believed to have taken several billions of dollars from the treasury and deposited it in his numerous Swiss bank accounts.

Everyday in Walikale, about 16 aircraft fly out of the city with loads of minerals bound for Rwanda. These stolen minerals further find their way in the western mineral markets in London and Switzerland. The proceeds are shared by the Generals, politicians, western companies the businessmen in Rwanda, the warlords in Congo who use part of their share to acquire weapons that are used to terrorise the people and prolong the war.

Western governments are quick to preach good governance to Africa but they fail to preach the same message to their banks who act as save havens for these corrupt leaders. Even though these countries like to portray themselves as civilised and cultured, they have failed to recognise that keeping monies that are dishonestly obtained from the poor people on earth taints whatever reputation they might have. How can a continent develop when monies meant for her development are stolen by her leaders and kept by countries who praise themselves as civilised, cultured, loving and democratic?

Africa is poor today because Swiss and other western banks collude with African kleptocrats to loot the continent. Corruption is rife on the continent because those who steal the money never lack a place to hide it. The dictators are able to steal so much because Western governments particularly France, Britain, Switzerland and the United States often turn a blind eye to the adulterous relationship between their governments, MNCs and the dictators in Africa. On 21 June 2010 Christine Lagarde, French Finance Minister and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of World Bank wrote an article titled “No Safe Havens for Dirty Money”. In their article they urged all countries to play by the rules, fight corruption and end safe haven practices. They argued for “better regulation, good governance, and accountability. “No safe havens for tax evasion. No safe havens for money laundering and terrorism financing, and no safe havens for cozy financial regulation” so they wrote but Ms Lagarde and her government have done little if not nothing to practice what they preach. Ben Ali of Tunisia, the Bongos in Gabon, Paul Biya of Cameroon, Nguesso and Dos Santos have become very corrupt because of their closeness with successive French governments, politicians and the business elite in France.

The impact of the large scale rampant corruption is that people who should not live in poverty are living in poverty. Roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and other social and economic infrastructures that should be provided with the money are never provided. Children die because of lack of food and lack of essential medicine in the hospitals. Unemployment becomes high because money does not circulate for people to have access to loans that could be used to establish their own businesses. Inflation becomes high and prices of food are put beyond the limit of the ordinary people. In the end the entire economy suffers. People harbouring grievances are no longer willing to sit quietly. Their frustration turned into despair and demonstration and sometimes violence uprising become the order of the day as current situation in the Niger Delta shows with consequences for everyone. Vandalism and looting of properties built with the stolen money becomes the target of the people who have been denied the opportunity to benefit from the economy.

Fighting corruption should not be left to the poor countries alone. Western countries have a duty to stop their nations being used as safe havens for stolen monies from the African continent. They should return all looted money put there by corrupt African leaders to the African people. There must be an international coalition dedicated to tracking all stolen monies on the face of the earth with Africa given to priority.

*The author is anti-corruption campaigner and the author of "Switzerland: A parasite feeding on poor African and Third World countries?"

CEPS and Corruption in Ghana: Where Does the Buck Stop?

2011-02-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

Recent revelations by Anas Amereyaw Anas showing how the Tema harbour has been turned into a house of thieves is no news to many Ghanaians. The only people who seem to have no idea is President Mills and his ministers who are paid with the tax payers' money to protect and defend the country and yet have failed to lead the country and act decisively when it comes to matters of national importance.

President Mills and his ministers paid with the tax payers' money are claiming ignorance about the massive corruption that exist at the harbour and indeed in many of the institutions in the country. The corruption revealed by Anas is just a tip of the iceberg if one considers in totality what is going on in the country. The culture of corruption in the country begins right from the Castle (the Seat of Government). There are people who use the office of the president to solicit favour from the public. There are ministers who are using their offices for financial and material gain at the cost of the nation. Carl Wilson and many of his cohorts are still going around with guns terrorising the people after it became known that he was using his association with Alex Segbefia (presidential aide) to steal cars from Tema Harbour.

Corruption at Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) runs deep from the head to the bottom. The head of the commission of CEPS is corrupt.There are custom officers who own 13 cars and 5 houses in Koforidua, Accra, Tema, Ho, Aflao. The police is the same.

Take the Accountant General's department for example where people who have gone on pension are made to pay thousands of cedis before their money is released to them. Those who are not able to pay money to the accountants sometimes die and leave their money behind.

It is no secrete that the Lands Commission and the Town and Country planning are one of the corrupt institutions in the country. The many land disputes scattered all over the country have come about because of the corrupt officers who in cahoots with some traditional leaders are making millions of cedis at the expense of the people of Ghana.

At the Immigration Headquarters there are people who have turned their office into money making jackpot. I can give the example of one officer called George who after going to University of Sheffield in Britain to study learnt nothing but how to take bribe. This George (a senior officer) is teamed up with one officer called Victor and are making money using their office. Nobody goes to the Immigration Office without paying money. The officers there use tactics that force people to give them money.

Does anyone know any institution in Ghana that is not corrupt? I am struggling to find one.

It is not the existence of corruption that make people unhappy and angry, it is the lack of effort by the President, his ministers and the institutions to fight corruption with the potency it needs that makes people angry. There is the tendency for people accused of corruption to be allowed to continue their corrupt activities without any penalties. Take the Elubo corruption case revealed by Anas for example. The Attorney General's office has shown no interest to prosecute CEPS and other officers who were caught on tape aiding and abetting smuggling. Take the Osu Children's Home saga also revealed by Anas in which officers were caught manhandling children, and food and items donated to them systematically stolen by the officials. No one got punished, no one got sacked. The same people who were stealing and beating the orphans are still in charge doing as usual what they have been caught on tape doing: stealing items and abusing the children.

Take the other classic revelation by Anas i.e. the Accra Psychiatry investigation. The nurses and officer who were caught abusing inmates, and selling food and other items are still in charge doing their old stuff.

This is what makes we the people of Ghana angry. We have leaders who cannot take action. We have leaders who are happy milking nation and failing to protect the interest of the people. We have a president who is always preaching and yet failing to practice what he preaches. We are slowly documenting all these crimes one day the people of Ghana will take the law into our own hands and give ourselves justice: justice that will make sure that CEPS officers stealing, aiding and abetting smuggling; police officers taking money from drivers; accountants failing to pay pensioners; immigration officers taking money from travelers.

We know the government is on the side of the corrupt and the powerful that is why nothing is being done to prosecute and punish the corrupt and the greedy in the country. But we know our day will come.

One day all will account to us. We the people will deliver instant justice to make the poor and the powerless strong and happy. The Sipa Yankey's and their cohorts will account to us. We shall take away from them all that they have stolen from the poor people of Ghana.

A day will come in which those turning Ghana into the epicentre of international cocaine business will answer to the people of Ghana. A day will come in which we will deliver justice to the people of Ghana and restore true democracy, freedom, development. A day is coming in which we will rescue the nation from the wolves, and vampires in the country; from the corrupt CEPS, police, accountants and immigration officers and restore dignity to our dear nation.

We are watching and following closely what our North African brothers and sisters in Tunisia and Egypt are doing; their effort to defeat corruption, cronyism, nepotism, poverty and restore hope to the people. We are watching their effort to demand accountability, probity and justice from those entrusted with the responsibility to manage the resources of their countries.

Our day will come very soon.

By Lord. A. Adusei

Tunisia: Opportunity for United States to Begin a New Chapter

2011-01-26T02:09:00.000-08:00

"Today the entire Arab World is full of leaders who have built the foundation of their totalitarian regimes on arms and weapons supplied to them by the United States and her allies in Europe."

*By Lord Aikins Adusei

The events in Tunisia offer a real opportunity for United States and her European allies to take a critical look at the way they have used the so called national interests to protect autocratic regimes in the Middle East and Africa and put them on collision with the people. For decades United States of America and her European allies have openly supported the corrupt and despotic governments in the Middle East and Africa whose only interest is to maintain their grip on power without offering the people any hope of economic, political and social development. These regimes have suppressed and continue to suppress freedom and democratic ideals cherished and enjoyed by Americans and Europeans with the full support of Western governments.

Today the entire Arab World is full of leaders who have built the foundation of their totalitarian regimes on arms and weapons supplied to them by the United States and her allies in Europe. The security forces usually deployed by the regimes to terrorise, maim and kill the people have been financed, trained and armed by France, the US, Britain and their cohorts. Egypt for instance receives about $1.3bn annually from the US despite the fact that the country's autocratic leaders continue to suppress freedom of speech, assembly and the right of Egyptians to freely elect their leaders. The regime in Saudi Arabia has maintained its grip on power through arms sold to it by the United States. Last year for instance (September 2010), the State Department said that United States was selling arms worth about $60 billion to Saudi Arabia.

According to the website www.warisbusiness.com between 1987 and 2009 the United States government signed $349 million worth of arms deal with Tunisia's ousted dictator Ben Ali that enabled him to maintain his grip on power. In Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait and Morocco weapons built by European and American firms are constantly used to harass people with legitimate grievances over unemployment, poverty, high inflation, high prices of food and other concerns.

The behaviour of Western governments abroad, the support they give to regimes that abuse the rights of their citizens, directly contradict what they do at home. There are many monarchies in Europe (Britain, Holland, Spain and Sweden) yet we do not see the citizens in these countries being arrested, detained, tortured and summarily executed. On the contrary the countries in Europe with established monarchies are some of the open and freest societies on earth. However, the monarchies and autocratic regimes in the Middle East with Western support frown on anything called democracy, freedom and human rights and their citizens are some of the most repressed on earth.

From Bahrain in the Persia Gulf to Morocco in the Mediterranean no dissent is tolerated. People are arrested, detained, tortured and summarily executed for voicing for the right to speak their mind freely. William H. Lewis of the Atlantic Council notes that in Libya: “Qaddafi remains in tight control of domestic developments. Public criticism of government policies is not countenanced; the press is carefully monitored and labor organizations are restricted. Any political opposition is intimidated, imprisoned, or forced into exile. In short, there are no viable pathways for political reform in Libya.” Annual Reports publish by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other right organisations contain tales of torture, and inhuman treatment carried out by the governments with weapons sold to them by US authorities. The US which pride itself as the leader of the Free World has not given its support to the progressive forces in these regions fighting for change, instead it has aligned more and more with the brutal regimes.

The unflinching support the leaders receive from the West has helped to alienate them from their citizenry. Instead of building a society which is more tolerant and inclusive, the opposite is the situation. Large sections of the population in these countries have been marginalised socially, economically and politically. Everyday the people in the Middle East and Africa see the huge wealth being created from oil, gas, gold, diamond and other precious metals yet they are not allow to benefit. In Tunisia, the recently leaked US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks talk about massive corruption and nepotism at the presidency. Ben Ali is reported to have asked for a fifty per cent share of a business deal. His wife Leila Ben Trabelsi is spoken off as a corrupt queen grabbing by force anything that she sets her eyes on. Leila's brother Belhassen Trabelsi is known in Tunisia as the most notorious of the Trabelsi clan. His corrupt activities extend from banking, to real estate, tourism, information technology and airline. Imed and Moaz Trabelsi, President Ben Ali's nephews, are reported to have stolen a yacht belonging to Bruno Roger, a well-known French businessman and Chairman of Lazard Paris, a prominent firm with interest in banking and asset management.

Ben Ali, Leila Trabelsi and their associates in Tunisia are no different from the rulers in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Over the years these corrupt leaders have signed huge arms, oil and other business contracts with American and European firms and siphoned what should have gone to the people into their private bank accounts in America, France, Britain and Switzerland with the full knowledge of American and European political establishments. The series of corrupt deals involving members of the Saudi Royal family and British defence, security and aerospace company (BAE Systems) are a case in point. Billions of dollars worth of arms sold to Saudi Arabia by BAE Systems had their prices inflated and the proceeds diverted to Switzerland by members of the Saudi Royal family and Prince Bandar in particular. Then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair ordered Lord Goldsmith and the Serious Fraud Office to stop investigating the BAE deals saying the investigations were harming British interests. In the same vane the media reported in August 2009 that Britain freed Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the jailed 1988 Lockerbie bomber, because of a $500 million oil deal between Gaddafi and British Petroleum.

In French speaking Africa, France is more interested in protecting her business and other interests in Gabon, Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville than ensuring that citizens in those countries enjoy political and economic freedom. A November 2009 article in the New York Times written by Adam Nossiter titled “Ill will grows in former colonial region” tells a sad story of French leaders pulling the strings in Africa, supporting dictators, siding with leaders who rig elections and actively promoting FrenchAfrique in contrast with assertions by Nicolas Sarkozy that France was ending its opaque and corruption ridden policies in its former African colonies. The US and Europe it seems are more interested in protecting their interests than making sure the freedom, democracy and respect for human rights they preach is practised by their friends and allies in the regions.

While the shady deals have continued unabated and have helped to shape US and European policies in the Middle East and Africa, the shady deals have also created a situation where the leaders have remained largely unaccountable; worked to ensure the survival of their regimes; and preserve US and European interests rather than that of their people and countries.

As unemployment, inflation and prices of basic commodities soar, the leaders who live in securitised palaces continue to act in business as usual fashion. They continue to remain detached from their people, most of whom have become frustrated, depressed and live in fear of their leaders. In Egypt many people have sought to solve their problems by committing suicide. The same is true in other countries as the case in Tunisia shows, where Bouazizi Mohamed, a young graduate unemployed youth set himself ablaze and in the process triggering the violence that toppled Ben Ali.

But the frustration, depression and suicides are not the only consequences. The detachment of the leaders from the people has created a wide and deep crater (vacuum) that has been exploited by Al Qaeda and other Jihadists' groups. The support Al Qaeda and its affiliate organisations enjoy in the Middle East and the Sahel region of Africa shows that there is a strong link between the growth of terrorism on one hand and political repression, economic and social marginalisation on the other. The growth of terrorism and terrorists' attacks against American and European targets also show that poor and marginalised people without jobs will find solace in extremism as a way to express their frustration and to challenge the existing order.

The 9/11 and 7/7 attacks should have led the US and Europe to assess and examine their foreign policies especially their relationship with the corrupt regimes in these countries. The attacks should have encouraged the United States to push for economic and political reform in these countries and to distant itself from the corrupt and repressive regimes that would not reform. The US and Europe after the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks should have made their policies towards the regions more transparent and build allies based on the tenets of democracy, respect for rule of law and economic and social freedoms.

But this was never to happen. Instead the assessment that was made after 9/11 rather led to a closer collaboration between the hated regimes and the United States and her allies. The 'War on Terror' declared by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks has been seen as a gold mine by Ben Ali and his cohorts in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen among others. These leaders have used the 'War on Terror' as an excuse to further curtail the few rights and freedoms that previously existed. The 'War on Terror' has been used to silence critics of the regimes to the point that anything associated with rights and freedoms is quickly linked to extremism and terrorism and brutally crashed. It was therefore no surprise that the Tunisian Interior Minister, in the wake of the demonstrations, sought to link the genuine protests over poverty, unemployment, high inflation and high food prices to extremists groups. Linking the protests to terrorism was a ploy not only to win the sympathy and support of American and European governments but also to use it as an excuse to brutally smash the demonstration.

The leaked cables indicate that United States has been aware of the harassments, the human right abuses and the massive corruption, that largely defined Ben Ali's government. A statement from one of the cables reads: “Tunisia is a police state, with little freedom of expression or association and serious human rights problems”. Another cable also notes that President Ben Ali's extended family is the nexus of Tunisian corruption. The Cable concludes: “Corruption is the elephant in the room; it is the problem everyone knows about, but no one can publicly acknowledge. The lack of transparency and accountability that characterize Tunisia's political system similarly plague the economy, damaging the investment climate and fueling the culture of corruption”.

In spite of having full knowledge of the massive corruption perpetrated by Ben Ali, his family and members of his government the US did little publicly to call for a paradigm shift in a way the country's economy was being raped and mismanaged until the violent demonstrations took place. And even while the demonstrations were underway the US and her European allies were reluctant in condemning Ben Ali and his security forces. For instance in the wake of the uprising in Tunisia, Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of States was asked during her visit to Middle East about the situation in Tunisia. Her response was: “We can't take sides”.

Secretary Clinton should have stood with the people of Tunisia and demanded change, a position that was later taken by President Obama when he spoke condemning the police crackdown on the protesters. A statement released by the White House quoted President Obama as saying:

“I condemn and deplore the use of violence against citizens peacefully voicing their opinion in Tunisia, and I applaud the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people. The United States stands with the entire international community in bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle for the universal rights that we must all uphold, and we will long remember the images of the Tunisian people seeking to make their voices heard”.

By the time the above statement was released more than fifty-five Tunisians had perished, shot dead by Ben Ali's US and French backed security forces. Additional twenty three were to die later, bringing the total to seventy-eight. The seventy-eight people who died as a result of police brutalities could have been saved if the US and France had spoken out and had been more vocal against corruption, and the impunity of Ben Ali and his henchmen.

History has shown that the American people love justice and fairness; they love rule of law, respect for human rights, economic opportunities for all and they have been supporting many humanitarian programmes around the world. At the same time they hate the misuse of their taxes for activities that undermine development and human progress elsewhere. Therefore why should their taxes be used to support autocratic regimes who are hell bent on denying their people the very opportunities that are the symbol of American power and progress? Why should their taxes be used to train security forces that perpetrate violence and atrocities against their own people with the support of the American government?

This is why I believe US should seize the opportunity brought by Tunisia revolution and push for radical reform in the Middle East and also in Africa, that is reforms that will open up the countries that have been turned into prisons by the corrupt leaders.

US and her allies in Europe should begin to realise that their policies in the Middle East and Africa are not working and need serious evaluation. The policies are breeding more extremists than Bin Laden could have achieved on his own. It is alienating the governments from the people, and moving them closely to radical ideologies spewed by those who hate America and her ideals.

I cannot see the US and her allies winning the 'War on Terror' either now or in the near future while large section of the populations in the Middle East and Africa are excluded from the economy, and while they remain poor and marginalised. The war against extremism and terrorism will not be won and the influence of Bin Laden and his organisation will not wane unless United States and Europe push for a more inclusive, democratic, transparent and corruption free governments that respect not only human rights and freedom of speech but also allow a vibrant civil society to develop.

Therefore the United States and her allies must stop being quiet while great injustices are being committed against innocent people in the name of 'War on Terror'. The men, women, children, the poor and the unemployed youth in these countries would want to know openly whether the United States government and the American people are with them or are with their autocratic governments. The US must say openly what it says to the leaders in private to reassure the people that the world's great democracy is behind them.

In Egypt for example US could use the $1.3bn annual aid it gives to the country as a leverage to push for democratic and economic reform that will enable the people to actively participate in the political and economic development of their country. That huge aid could be used as a leverage to empower the people so they can openly criticise their government without being arrested. Therefore it may be wise for United States to cut off funding to regimes that will not reform and use the funds to support progressive forces and engage those marginalised by US policies in these countries

Additionally, the regimes must be encouraged to lift the censorship on media, allow private media to operate freely and grant more licenses to others. If Americans can express their opinion freely on CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, why should Saudis, Egyptians, Moroccans and Algerians have to go to jail for doing the same?

It is important to promote and protect US economic and other interests in these countries but what is the gain when fifty year old economic interests are destroyed within a twinkle of an eye as the situation in Tunisia has shown? What is the use when diplomats and their dependants are put at great risk in these countries? What is the gain when US and European citizens are kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by extremists as recent cold blood murder of two Frenchmen in Niger shows? Must the US national interests supersede our common humanity? That is not to say US and her allies should stop promoting their interests in these countries but the interests must be pursued in open and transparent manner devoid of the corruption, hypocrisy and double standards. In short the interests must not be pursued against the sufferings of the people.

The recommendation offered by the US Ambassador in Tunis contained in the leaked cables published by Wikileaks could not be more clear. The ambassador recommended that US should:

“keep a strong focus on democratic reform and respect for human rights, but shift the way we promote these goals; -- seek to engage the Government of Tunisia in a dialogue on issues of mutual interest, including trade and investment, Middle East peace, and greater Maghreb integration; -- offer Tunisians (with an emphasis on youth) more English-language training, educational exchanges, and cultural programs; -- move our military assistance away from FMF, but look for new ways to build security and intelligence cooperation”.

The above is what United States and her European allies should have done before and after 9/11. However it is not too late. US and her allies should quickly embrace the opportunity the Tunisian revolution offers, engage the governments and the people in the region and usher in a new chapter that places emphasis on inclusion of all citizens in decision making, democracy, respect for human dignity, and freedom to live a life of their choice.

*The author is a political activist and anti-corruption campaigner. He is the author of "Switzerland: A parasite feeding on poor African and Third World Countries?"

Ivory Coast: President Mills over spoke, but was right not to go to war

2011-01-26T01:27:00.000-08:00

Laurent Gbagbo

It also appears that President Mills' decision is also based on frank assessment of the situation both in Ghana and in Ivory Coast...The frank assessment was based on whether or not Ghana has the capability to wage a sustained war against its neighbour. It was also based on the question of whether or not Cote D'Ivoire has the capability to fight back should an all out invasion occurs. The judgement was also made based on the question of whether or not peace can be maintained after the overthrow of Laurent Gbagbo.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Many pundits, commentators and analysts have subjected the recent comments made by President John Atta Mills to serious criticisms. During his meeting with Editors of Ghana's media establishments, the Commander-in-Chief, Armed Forces of Republic of Ghana is reported to have said Ghana would not contribute soldiers should the leadership in West Africa (and Africa Union) decide to use military force to remove Laurent Gbagbo. He said: “As Commander in Chief, I consulted with my Military High Command and they advised that they could not release troops to join any ECOWAS contingent to take military action in Cote d'Ivoire”. He concluded his statement by saying Ghana would rather mind his own business rather than those of others. What the president said has become a serious debate both in local as well as the international media.

Some members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and some pundits in Ghana have jumped to the defence of the president, but the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Ghana is accusing the president of undermining efforts by regional leaders to let Gbagbo hand over power. Hackman Owusu Agyemang, former Foreign Minister of the NPP said President Mills "Is now seen to be breaking ranks with ECOWAS. We must take the moral high ground".

A recent BBC discussion of the matter had some contributors saying the president's public pronouncement was unwise, forcing Mohammed Mumuni, the Foreign Minister to accuse the BBC of unfairness. “The BBC has been unfair and unjust because it took that proverb totally out of context and presented it and it clearly gave a certain impression, it portrayed president Mills as a person who is uncaring for others, as a selfish person, an inward-looking president who is only concerned about his own internal affairs and does not care a hoot about what is happening in La Cote d'Ivoire.”

The point is that regardless of what regional leaders, foreign powers, opposition parties, or local commentators say or think, as a commander-in-Chief President Mills reserves the right to decide where and how Ghana Armed Forces should conduct their operations. The right to declare war or peace as vested in the President ought to be respected by those criticising the him because the president is the one who will take full responsibility should the outcome to declare war or peace does not go in the nation's favour.

The President is refusing to go to war knowing very well the outcome of any military involvement can be costly to Ghana both in human and in financial terms. Apart from its potential financial and human consequences and wider security implications, a decision to go to war could also destroy the political career of those who unwisely take their nations to war. The ongoing Inquiry in the United Kingdom in which Tony Blair and his Ministers are being questioned for their decision to take Britain to war in Iraq attests to this fact. Again the 2008 US presidential elections in which President Bush's Republican Party lost to the Democrats also add weight to the importance of not playing ball when it comes to declaring war. Tony Blair lost his post as British Prime Minister and George Bush Jr became the most unpopular president in recent US history largely because of their decision to invade Iraq despite international outcry. In our world full of extremism and terrorism decision to go to war can make a country highly susceptible to attacks from enemies within and outside the country. Several assessments made by security think thanks indicate that the decision to overthrow Saddam has poisoned the security of the world and United States and Europe in particular. Saddam's overthrow has not only worsened the security situation in Iraq but has also made US, Britain and their allies targets of suicide bombers. While Mills' lack of interest in seeing Laurent Gbagbo toppled by military means is inherent in his belief that peaceful settlement of disputes is better than confrontation, the above unforeseen problems have played a part in his decision not to go to war.

It also appears that President Mills' decision is also based on frank assessment of the situation both in Ghana and in Ivory Coast. Available information indicate that President Mills was in fact being honest and frank with Ghanaians when he said Ghana won't commit troops to Ivory Coast. Though President Mills did not elaborate when he said Ghana's armed forces was overstretched, sources inside the military have confirmed that the armed forces after assessing its role in other theatres around the world decided to inform the President to shelve any idea to contribute troops should ECOWAS and its military wing (ECOMOG) decides to invade Ivory Coast.

The frank assessment was based on whether or not Ghana has the capability to wage a sustained war against its neighbour. It was also based on the question of whether or not Cote D'Ivoire has the capability to fight back should an all out invasion occurs. The judgement was also made based on the question of whether or not peace can be maintained after the overthrow of Laurent Gbagbo. In other words if Gbagbo's forces decide to retreat to the forests of Ivory Coast and wage a guerrilla war do we have the capability to defeat them. What happens if Gbagbo's forces decide to launch attacks in villages inside Ghana along the Ghana-Ivorian border?

Of all the issues that informed the President to arrive at the conclusion not to invade Cote D'Ivoire the question of capability was very prominent.

To begin with in 2009 Pieter D. Wezeman authored a document titled “Arms transfers to Central, North and West Africa”. It was published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent security think thank that tracks military spending world wide. According to the document, between 2003 and 2007 Cote D'Ivoire's total military expenditure stood at US$1.27 billion, representing an average of US$253.8 million per annum. During the same period, (2003-2007) Ghana's total military expenditure was US$381.3 million representing an annual average expenditure of US$76.26 million. That is Ghana's expenditure for the period represented only a third (about 30%) of Cote D'Ivoire.

All things being equal, it is not difficult to predict the outcome of a war between two countries one spending US$1.27 billion, the other spending US$381.3 million. That is giving their expenditure a confrontation between the two neighbours will in no doubt be in favour of Cote D'Ivoire. Weapons are very important because weapons and its technology can determine the outcome of a battle. In any military confrontation with an enemy one would want to know the enemy's capability, the weapons the enemy is using, its troop numbers, the combat experience of the enemy forces etc. As Israelis used to say “to beat your enemy you must know the weapons your enemy is using” therefore giving the level of expenditure of Ghana and Ivory Coast, it can be concluded that it is the capabilities of both countries: weapons and arsenals in possession, as well as available number of soldiers ready to be involved in a combat operation which actually informed the President not to go to war.

Other factors such as the power of the Ghanaian economy to support a war in Cote D'Ivoire also informed the President to refuse to go to war. Analysis of Cote D'Ivoire's economy indicates that by West Africa standard Cote d'Ivoire is relatively a rich country; its military is well resourced and is probably one of the best in West Africa (a fact that also reflect in its military spending). The huge funding available to the Ivorian military means that it is better equipped than its Ghanaian counterpart. In addition, Ivorian soldiers appear to be better remunerated than their Ghanaian counterparts which mean all things being equal, morale and the will to fight favour Ivory Coast than Ghana. That means any invasion will be tough and costly in human and financial terms and Ghana does not want to be involved in a long battle with with a powerful neighbour. President Mills after careful analysis of the strength of Ghana's economy and the capabilities of its military concluded that a war with militarily strong neighbour with an over stretched army is in nobody's interest.

But there is even a bigger problem. At the ECOWAS meeting of Heads of governments, it was discussed that any invasion force was to be made up of soldiers from West Africa and some other countries. That means Ghana's weak position could be strengthened with that of Nigeria which according to Pieter D. Wezeman leads military spending in West Africa, spending US$3.7bn between 2003 and 2007. The problem however is that very few of the French-speaking countries in West Africa (though they form the bulk of ECOWAS) are prepared to contribute soldiers and logistics to the invasion. It became apparent that the cost of any invasion would fall on Ghana and Nigeria, echoing the memory of the Liberian civil war where Ghana and Nigeria footed most of the bill and contributed most of the soldiers who helped to restore peace in the country. The failure of French-speaking West Africa to show interest in military build up against Gbagbo forced Mills and his military Generals to conclude that a war against Gbagbo will drain Ghana's resources and therefore will not be in the interest of the nation.

There is no indication to suggest that president Mills erred when he spoke about the invasion. He was very right in his judgement and was in fact telling Ghanaians the truth. There is nothing wrong with the President announcing that he met with his Generals who advised him against going to war to remove Laurent Gbagbo. So the decision not to go to war was a wise and smart move intended to protect the one million Ghanaians living in Ivory Coast.

In my candid opinion, the President's only fault is that he over spoke (over stepped the diplomatic cordon) when he answered the question of Ghana not sending troops to Cote d'Ivoire. His assertion that Ghana should 'mind her own business' ('Dzi wu fie asem') shows his lack of understanding of the strategic importance of Ghana as a key player in regional affairs. Whether President Mills likes it or not Ghana is a major player that cannot be ignored when it comes to regional issues whether it is security or economics. For Mills to say that Ghana will mind its own business shows that he does not appreciate (or understand) the importance of Ghana to influence decisions in the sub region.

The import of his statement also has a wider implication for any decision regarding the impasse in La Cote D'Ivoire. First of all, his statement that Ghana's military is overstretched has the effect of weakening Ghana's influence in the sub-region because nations (within out and inside the sub-region) that count on Ghana's ability to project power and influence key events in the sub-region will begin to have doubts.

Secondly, President Mills' unconditional public statement has the potential to torpedo effort by regional leaders to let Gbagbo go peacefully. Mills unilateral action is being interpreted by Gbagbo as a support from Ghana and Gbagbo is using it to advance his hold on power. Watching how events are unfolding in Cote D'Ivoire suggest that President Mills' statement has in fact emboldened Laurent Gbagbo. We could see Gbagbo's emboldened position in a recent visit by the AU mediator, Raila Odinga where Gbagbo failed to recognise or cooperate with him. We could also see it in Gbagbo's statement praising President Mills. Speaking on TV Africa's The Bare Facts, hosted by one of Ghana's ace journalists Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr. Gbagbo said of President Mills: “He is a wise man; he has taken a very good decision that his country intervention in Cote D'Ivoire. This is in the spirit of the creation of the Organisation of African Unity in the 1960s and the African Union (AU) in 2000".

The unfortunate aspect of President Mills' statement is that it has the effect of producing the same problems he is trying to avoid: the status of the one million Ghanaians living in Cote D'Ivoire. Whereas Gbagbo may see Ghana as an ally and will not harm Ghanaians living in Abidjan and other cities controlled by his forces, the same cannot be said of Alassane Ouattara. Ouatarra forces may interpret the President's decision as a declaration of support for Gbagbo and they may vent their anger on Ghanaians living in the areas controlled by them with very serious consequences.

Although it is wise decision not to go to war, but declaring it publicly is a complete diplomatic blunder. The diplomatic blunder however, is a symptom of a larger problem within the ruling NDC. It was caused because of the fact that most of the president's inner circles are people who appear to be learning politics: little foreign policy experience. So far within the NDC Ambassador James Victor Gbeho is the most experienced foreign policy expert with the acumen and credentials to advice Mills on major foreign policy issues such as the one the NDC is confronted with in Cote D'Ivoire. Ambassador Gbeho's appointment as President of ECOWAS has left the NDC with few individuals who could offer the President the kind of advice he needs to pursue a well articulated foreign policy.

So far as Ivory Coast is concerned President Mills was right not to go to war, but he over spoke. It would have been very right if he had kept quiet and done his bidding behind the scene rather than going public. The impact of Mills public pronouncement is that it will help keep Laurent Gbagbo in power, but will end up making Ghana lose credibility in the eyes of our allies. Ghana may altogether lose some allies within and outside the West Africa sub-region, but in this era of global interdependence losing many allies for the sake of one country however is not a good decision.

The Ivorian Crisis where does Ghana stand?

2011-01-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

The government of Ghana seem confused as to what it should do regarding the impasse going on in Cote D'Ivoire between Gbagbo and Ouattara. There are news reports that the government of Ghana moving closer to endorse Gbagbo or at least accept the legitimacy of his government. When such news paper reports are subjected to further scrutiny the facts do not stand. There are no shred of truth in such reports.

The question however is whether Ghana will be prepared to implement ECOWAS policies should a decision to unseat Gbagbo by force is taken and whether Ghana is prepared to accept and enforce the legitimacy of Ouattara's election victory. There is no doubt that as a neighbour Ghana needs to be careful on what it does publicly regarding the Ivorian saga but it is also important for Ghana to be seen to work to enforce international policies, and agreement. Walking between this thin line is the nightmare Mills and his government are facing: to stand with her neighbour or to support the international action to unseat Gbagbo. Very nightmarish indeed.

L. A. Adusei

Land: The New International Strategic Asset. How Africa is losing big time

2010-12-28T23:13:00.001-08:00

By Lord Aikins Adusei

There are credible reports that big multinational corporations like Biofuel Africa Ltd in cahoots with corrupt politicians and traditional leaders and with the backing of global financial institutions are buying large tracts of land in parts of Africa, under bizarre circumstances, displacing rural farmers, destabilising rural communities and slowly building up chaos that is further aggravating the poverty situation in Africa.

The international craze for a reduction of carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuel guzzling cars and industries has led to an intense focus on biofuel as the solution to the pollution and associated global warming. But the production of biofuel is not taking place in the sky, it is taking place on land and is leading to a new social cancer that is slowly beginning to emerge. The focus on biofuel as alternative to oil, gas and coal has put new and unrealistic demand on land, and it is on record to make land the most strategic commodity in the 21st Century. The history of land as a strategic asset dates back to the 18th Century. During that period Physiocrats considered land the ultimate source value and all attempt was made to secure it. However, in the 19th Century labour became the most important factor of production as new factories competed aggressively for that resource. Then the importance of labour as the most important factor of production was replaced by capital in the 20th Century. Access to money was considered the ultimate source of value in production. However, in the 21st Century land is coming back as the most strategic asset.Evidence of this can be seen in the scramble for land not only in Africa but also in Latin America and Russia [1]

Driven largely by a global cartel of land speculators, many energy and agro-multinational corporations are strategically acquiring agricultural lands in poor countries of the global south particularly Africa at a rate never anticipated by land economists. The 2007 and 2008 food crisis and its associated price hikes have forced rich but food insecure countries in the Middle East and the Gulf Region to scrounge for lands in Africa further complicating matters. Meanwhile the belief in some countries in Africa like Sudan and Ethiopia that heavy injections of foreign capital will enhance agricultural technology, boost local employment, revitalize sagging agricultural sectors, and ultimately improve agricultural yields has given the corporations a field day with serious social, economic, political and environmental consequences, [2]

The land grabbing statistics worldwide and Africa in particular is not only overwhelming but is also extraordinary shocking. According to International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) a US-based policy think thank, since 2006 between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farmland around the world have been secured for biofuel and grain production, while between US$20bn and US$30bn has gone investment [3].

In Africa the past five years has seen more rich agricultural lands being taken over by food insecure but rich countries in the Middle East and rich multinational firms in Europe, US, and Asia particularly China, Korea and India. Some of the land acquisitions have occurred under bizarre and non-transparent circumstances making experts to warn of the consequences if the practice is not stopped. In Mozambique for example China has US$800 million investment to expand 100,000 to 500,000 metric tons of rice production in the country and Skebab (Sweden) and Sun Biofuels (UK) have acquired more than 100, 000 hectares of land for biofuel production in the country. In Ethiopia, a country noted internationally for its food insecurity and its dependence on handout from the World Food Programme, the government has set aside around three million hectares of farm land to be used to produce grain and biofuel for export. Flora EcoPower (Germany) has acquired 13,000 hectares for bio-crop production while India is investing US$4 billion in agriculture, flower growing and sugar estates in that country. In Tanzania Sun Biofuels (UK) has acquired 5,500 hectares of land for sorghum (biofuel) production while the Chinese firm Chongqing See Corp has secured 300 hectares of farm lands for rice production. In the same Tanzania the Gulf State of Saudi Arabia has requested a lease of 500,000 hectares of land. In Southern Sudan Jarch Capital (USA) has signed a 400, 000 hectare deal with a local army commander while the Middle East and Gulf States of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt together have about 1.045m hectares under their thumb in that country. In the same Sudan, South Korea is running away with 690,000 hectares of farmland secured for wheat production. In Nigeria, Trans4mation Agrictech Ltd (UK) has secured 10,000 hectares of land. In Angola, Lornho (UK) has 25,000 hectares leased to her for rice cultivation and is negotiating for a further 125,000 hectares in Malawi and Mali. China has requested 2 million hectares for jatropha production in Zambia; and in Democratic Republic of Congo the Chinese firm ZTE International has secured 2.8 million hectares for biofuel oil palm plantation [4].

These figures do not only reflect the unequal power relations between rich multinational corporations and governments of rich countries on one hand and poor African countries on the other, but it also reflects the vulnerability of African countries to the predatory activities of rich multinational corporations and governments of these rich countries. This global assault on Africa has the tendency to produce the same negative effects that colonialism has had on the continent.

A major problem is that many of the corruption-ridden governments in Africa are rushing to make land deals with multinationals without proper consultation with the people and without proper studies as to the economic, social and environmental cost of such deals. Another issue is that the lands being giving to corporations by the nonchalance governments in Africa are not empty lands. They are lands that rural farmers farm on and depend on for their livelihoods. That means the farmers whose lands have been taken over by the multinationals are being denied the opportunity to make a living. They are being robbed of the only asset that helps put food on their tables.The lands of the poor farmers are being handed over to rich multinationals to meet the needs of populations elsewhere to the detriment of the local farmers. They are being pushed away by multinationals that are increasingly seeing land as strategic asset that must be acquired at all cost to meet their own greedy, selfish and opportunistic ambitions.

Many who support corporate land grab efforts in Africa point to Asian-style Green Revolution. Their argument is that allowing land grabbing to go will allow benefits such as revenue, employment, and technology transfer to be bequeathed to countries in Africa. But there are many unanswered questions regarding the so called benefits of land investments in Africa. For example what happens to displaced farmers whose lands are taken for food production to feed populations abroad? What happens to food production and food security in countries where agriculture lands are auctioned to produce biofuel and food to feed economies elsewhere? In some of the countries where land is being taken for food and energy production people already spend between 60-75% of their income on food so what per cent of income of these poor people will be spent on food when it becomes unavailable in the local market? Most importantly what happens to communities when scarce water and other scarce resources that they depend on and which are currently being channeled into food and energy production for export abroad are depleted? What happens to farmlands that are degraded after the food is produced and exported? What happens to the polluted environment after the food and biofuels have been shipped abroad? Little is known of the environmental implications of committing hundreds of thousands of hectares of farm lands into jatropha production. New pests and diseases may emerge to confront poor farmers, who may not have benefited from the jatropha production with serious consequences. For example the use of chemicals to process the jatropha into biofuel may not only lead to contamination of soil, but also the poisoning of shallow groundwater with serious health repercussions for both humans and animals.

As Hornborg (2009) notes: "Generally speaking, social scientists will probably not get too involved in discussions about ethanol with all those engineers, agronomists, and economists who are committed to keeping the global technomass going by feeding it with corn or sugar cane. But we can listen attentively to the debate. We are told, for instance, that the conditions of people harvesting sugar cane for ethanol production in Brazil are appalling. We are told that ethanol production might in fact generate more greenhouse gases than the combustion of fossil fuels. We are told that it will accelerate tropical deforestation and loss of biodiversity. We are told that it will probably yield less horsepower per hectare than just simply growing fodder for horses. And what undoubtedly worries us the most, we are told that it is making food more expensive and contributing to malnutrition and starvation among the global poor" [5].

In Ghana for instance while the Ministry of Agriculture has allowed over 20 companies from around the world, including Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Norway and The Netherlands, to acquire land to produce biofuels, the ministry has not conducted any study to establish the social, economic and food insecurity implications of such land deals to Ghana as a whole and the affected farmers and the communities in particular.

Current estimates by the World Food Programme (WFP) put the number of people in Ghana who are food insecure to 1.2 million; almost half are people living in the Northern Region of the country where the corporate land grabbing is taking place. In a paper presented during the World Bank Annual Bank conference on Land Policy and Administration in Washington, DC, April 26 and 27, 2010,Kwesi Ahoi, Ghana's Minister of Food and Agriculture admitted that on the whole Ghana remain food insecure. He stated that "Ghana is self-sufficient only in roots and tubers but deficient in cereals where it produces 51% of its needs, fish, 60% of its requirements, meat 50% of requirements and less than 30% of the raw materials needed for agro-based industries. The output of vegetables such as tomatoes and onions, the most widely used, is rather erratic and vacillates between scarcity, sufficiency and glut depending on the vagaries of the weather". [6] Yet, in spite of the food insecurity in the country, Kwesi Ahoi and his ministry are busy supervising the handing over of the same land that could make Ghana food sufficient to non-food producing multinationals.

The acquisition of 23,700 hectares of Ghanaian land by Biofuel Africa Ltd in the northern part of the country has already forced the inhabitants of seven villages that depend on the land for their livelihoods to move to Tamale, the regional capital in search of non existing jobs. These 23,700 hectares of land were taken away from the people without adequate compensation and without viable alternatives. For example Steinar Kolnes, Biofeul Africa Ltd chief executive officer (CEO) in Ghana admitted that the company offered the farmers just options and not compensation: "We don't pay compensation...We gave the farmers two options: To stay and farm their crops alongside the jetropha or leave to other more fertile lands we had provided for them" [7] The question is if there are fertile lands as the chief executive claims why doesn't he use it for his jatropha business? Why is he seizing the poor farmers' land and not use his so called rich land for his jatropha business?

The findings of an in-depth study sponsored by the World Bank on the impact of corporate land grabbing in Ghana have implicated the biofuel corporations in the country. According to the World Bank study published in 2010 [8] "The most direct and immediate impact of biofuels relates to land loss… Some 70 households from three communities were involuntarily vacated from their lands, without any form of restitution, following the harvest of yam (the primary cash crop) from the 2008 growing season. For two of the villages this equated to between 40 and 50 percent of households. Of those households that lost land, on average nearly 60 percent of their total landholdings were acquired by the company. Only 20 percent of households were able to obtain some replacement land, with most households unsuccessful in recovering both the quantity and quality of land lost to the plantation. These households cited increasing land scarcity and land quality concerns as key obstacles."

The World Bank study concluded "In all the plantations assessed households were required to relinquish landholdings for the purpose of plantation development. At the majority of plantations, directly affected households were not consulted by the company, nor did they formally acquiesce to transferring their land. With the exception of one company that promised to pay approximately US$ 1 per acre per year to those losing land, no formal compensation measures have been proposed by other companies or by the relevant Traditional Authorities" [9]. These findings which corroborate Steinar Kolnes' statement that his company does not pay compensation show that the corporations are paying close to nothing for their robbery. The question is how many Europeans, Americans, and Koreans will accept approximately US$ 1 per acre per year as compensation for not farming on a land that acts as the source of livelihood?

Meanwhile similar reports of people loosing their livelihoods are being reported in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mali, Zambia and war ravaged Sudan. Thus the commodification of land is threatening rural farmers whose lands are being seized by these greedy multinationals acting in cahoots with local politicians and traditional leaders. The consequence of such blind land grabbing by bio-multinationals is that food security efforts of a continent frequently scarred by food shortages, hunger and starvation is being compromised. Such acts are creating unnecessary tension and chaos in many farming societies and helping to destabilise the cohesiveness of rural communities. The peace and stability that many communities have enjoyed for decades are being breached as a result of the land grabs especially in communities where farmers have been left without compensation and without alternatives. The danger is that the carving up of rich arable farmlands for production of non-food commodities such as biofuel if not checked will worsen the continent's food security efforts and force already poor people into hunger and starvation. That warning has been issued already in the GRAIN Report of 2008.

The Report by the Spain based NGO-GRAIN states that: "Food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land is becoming increasingly privatised and concentrated. If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming, and rural livelihoods, in numerous places around the world". [10]

The true value of that warning cannot be underestimated because the danger is already appearing. That is the leasing of these lands to multinationals under circumstances that leave much to be desired, as indicated by Ghana's example is forcing many rural farmers to move into the cities and towns in search of non-existing jobs. That is the commodification of land is pushing already poor farmers out of farming and into cities that have little to offer them. These cities are already overburdened with populations and face major problems as discussed by Mike Davis in his book the "Planet of Slums" [11]. In effect the seizing of the poor farmers' land is destroying their only hope of survival on earth.

Governments in Africa that think major agro-multinationals securing large tracts of land under dubious means could help initiate Asian-style Green Revolution in Africa must know and understand that in Asia the Green Revolution was largely successful because of the role played by smallholders [12]. These smallholders who played pivotal role in making Asia economies food sufficient are the very people being displaced by the multinationals and the rich countries and their hedge fund managers. Such displacements will produce nothing but a backlash with serious economic and political consequences.

Dangerous consequences are always in the pipeline when corporate interests coincide with that of corrupt and insensitive governments as we have seen between oil giant Shell and the corrupt federal government in Nigeria. Niger Delta crisis was largely created when the interest of Royal Shell Corporation coincided with that of the corrupt regimes that ruled the country since 1966. Thus the accumulation by dispossession currently underway in Africa will definitely produce its consequences not only for people being robbed of their lands but also the corporations acting in cahoots with the indifference governments in Africa. Rich governments securing lands in Africa may altogether lose their investments when landless farmers and hungry communities begin to make claims to what has been unjustly taken away from them.

The political ramifications of outsourcing lands to multinational have had its first casualty in Madagascar. The toppling of the government in Madagascar after 1.3 million hectares of land was sold to the Korean firm Daewoo and another 465,000 hectares to Varun International of India demonstrates the political cost such non-transparent land arrangement poses to the security and stability of governments in Africa. Lesson should be learnt from that and it must serve as an eye opener to all those scrounging for lands in Africa and in the process helping to destabilise the people and their communities.

When foods being produced by the multinationals and rich governments are exported the shortages that will be created and the associated price hikes will produce devastating and undesirable effects. Avoiding the shortages and its undesirable effects through the implementation of policies that give first priority to smallholders and local farmers producing food for local consumption must be the objective of governments in Africa.

Reference

[1] Hornborg, A. 2009. Zero-Sum World Challenges in Conceptualizing Environmental Load Displacement and Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the World-System. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. SAGE Publications.

[2] Kugelman, M. and Levenstein, S. L (eds).2009. LAND GRAB? The Race for the World's Farmland. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.

[3] IFPRI 2009 cited in the Economist "Outsourcing's Third Wave," Economist, May 21, 2009, available from http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13692889.

[4] Hornborg, A. 2009. Zero-Sum World Challenges in Conceptualizing Environmental Load Displacement and Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the World-System. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. SAGE Publications.

[5] Von Braun, J. and Meinzen-Dick, R. 2009. "Land Grabbing" by Foreign Investors in Developing countries: Risks and Opportunities. IFPRI Policy Brief. April 2009.

[6]World Bank, 2010 Annual Bank conference on land policy and administration Washington, DC April 26 and 27, 2010. Government's Role in Attracting Viable Agricultural Investment: Experiences from Ghana
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTARD/Resources/336681-1236436879081/Ahwoi.pdf

[7] IRIN, 2009. Ghana: Land grabs force hundreds off farms, growers say. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86044

[8] Schoneveld, G. C. et al. 2010. Towards Sustainable Biofuel Development: Assessing the Local Impacts of Large-Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions in Ghana. World Bank.

[9] Schoneveld, G. C. et al. 2010. Towards Sustainable Biofuel Development: Assessing the Local Impacts of Large-Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions in Ghana. World Bank.

[10] GRAIN, 2008 Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial

[11] Davis, M.2006. Planet of Slums. Published by Verso.

[12] Jirström et al. 2006. Addressing Food Crisis in Africa - What Can Sub-Saharan Africa learn from Asian experiences in Addressing Food Crisis ITS? CIDA Report