Opinions, Features, Ghana news

Complaint To The National Media Commission Of Ghana: CONTINUUING BREACH AND THE QUEST FOR COMPLIANCE

We wish to draw the attention of the National Media Commission (NMC) to a continuing infringement on our rights by the Editor and the Managers of the Daily Graphic, and to seek the intervention of the NMC for the restoration of the rights under infringement in compliance with Article 162(6) of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

"....While the detractors of African independence are predicting that the continent will revert to the jungles once it is left on its own people’s rule, Ghana is wasting no time refuting that “prophecy”.... Instead, with its own financial and manpower resources and technical and financial aid from the U.S. and other nations around the world, it is toiling around the clock, building an industrial economy the likes of which colonial Africa had never seen....[ Dear Reader, that was precisely the planned industrial take-off for Ghana...By 1964, Nkrumah's development plans had begun to bear fruits for Ghana...Sadly, all of that success and promise, the Take-Off of Ghana's industrial revolution, was stolen from Ghanaians with an aggressive coup d'état...].... " (Ebony Magazine report, May 1964; plus commentary by Prof Lungu, 9 Sep 16-rev).

As far as we are concerned, critics, including those who call themselves "learned", those who will attempt to compare Ghana to Singapore (or Korea, for that matter) looking at the window when Kwame Nkrumah was at the helm of government in Ghana, can never prove their case. In our series "Only mad 60-year olds fault Kwame Nkrumah for Ghana's development quagmire" essays on that topic, we proved that their thesis is false at best, and a fraud, at worst. 

There is no data to support their thesis. Rather, on all important metrics, the data shows that Kwame Nkrumah's performance and leadership of Ghana was superior during that same "window". Fact is, 40 years and counting, none of those critics have ever presented data that actually, fairly, rationally, compared "equal" data precisely for the period Kwame Nkrumah's CPP ruled Ghana, compared to the same period under Lee Kwan Yew, of Singapore. 

In our "Only mad 60-year olds fault Kwame Nkrumah" essays, we proved that in actuality, the objective data that shows that under Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana actually witnessed sharper increases in GDP per capita during 1963-1965, compared to Singapore for the same period; that there was sudden loss of economic performance beginning with the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in February of 1966.

For Ghana, the period 1962-1965 can actually be represented as the beginning of the lift-off of Ghana's Industrial Revolution". That is, until the CIA-sponsored coup d'état in 1966.

Regrettably for Ghanaians and Ghana's "industrial revolution", one of the major reasons documented in official US State Department records for the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah is this:

The Johnson administration and CIA, at the same time they were branding Martin Luther King a communist, positively did not want Kwame Nkrumah to receive any credit, to earn "political capital", in the minds and faces of Ghanaians and Africans for the biggest industrial project in Sub-Sahara Africa. That project, the Akosombo Hydro Electric Dam, was planned as the major driver for Ghana's "Industrial Take-Off". It was officially commissioned 22 January, 1966. Practically 1 month and 2 days later, Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown.

In "There Was No 'Dum-Sor' Under Kwame Nkrumah!", we noted last year that:

"...the comprehensive, integrated "Akosombo Hydo Electric Power-Volta Lake-VALCO" project was the planned industrial, agricultural, and service industry 'take-off' initiative for the fast-track development of Ghana in accordance with the vision of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah..."

We stand by that statement!

Fact is, in all of the 80 plus years the British controlled Gold Coast, the British never bothered to construct an oil refinery in their "Crown Colony." Yet, the same British, in 1936, constructed that massive (54.39 square kilometer (21 square mile)) naval base in Singapore. That project cost the British and its Empire, the Gold Coast included, a whopping £60 million...($3.8 billion in 2016 dollars), cementing Singapore as a major commercial, trading, and industrial port, at that time. (Using Nkrumah's back envelop calculations, the Gold Coast probably contributed 25% of that £60 million). 

On the other hand, per credible sources and data, the cost for the most expensive industrial project the British ever constructed in the Gold Coast, ever, the Takoradi port, probably did not exceed £3 million. 

And all of that, exactly to the penny, was paid for by the People of the Gold Coast. 

As one authority observed 10 years after the overthrow:

"...from 1919 to 1928 because of trade recession after the first world war, he ...(Gordon Guggisberg)... retained the construction of the Port with two other projects namely, 4800 km motor roads construction and the Kumasi/Accra railway line...The funds for the three projects totaling about £12million were generated locally and farmers contributed a great deal of it...".

The Akosombo Hydro Electric Power project was constructed with $324 million. Even now, though poorly managed and maintained over the years, Akosombo still provides enormous benefits to Ghana's industry, service, residential, economic, and social needs.

And so, we thought it was fortuitous when we found an article in the May, 1964 issue of Ebony Magazine, published a mere 2 years before Nkrumah's overthrow. The Ebony magazine article was titled, "Ghana's Industrial Revolution: Nation Toils to Close the Technology Gap." Luckily, Google Books (weblink), has excepts of that Ebony report, also referenced below, #3).

READ EBONY, May, 1964:

"....While the detractors of African independence are predicting that the continent will revert to the jungles once it is left on its own people’s rule, Ghana is wasting no time refuting that “prophecy” with words. Instead, with its own financial and manpower resources and technical and financial aid from the U.S. and other nations around the world, it is toiling around the clock, building an industrial economy the likes of which colonial Africa had never seen....".

Dear reader, that period represented the second year, the beginning actually, of dramatic increase in economic productivity for Ghana: through industry, hard work, and belief by Ghanaians in themselves. 

READ EBONY FURTHER:

"...Key projects in Ghana’s effort to close the technology gap that separates it from the industrial world community are the already completed $81 million Port of Tema and the giant $210 million Volta River dam to be operational in 1966. The Tema harbor and adjacent Tema town, built on a site once occupied by a tiny fishing village, were officially opened early in 1962. Where only a decade ago indigenous fishermen had plied their ancient craft, thousands of Ghanaian men and women work today in ultra-modern industrial plants, live in comfortable homes and spend leisure hours in modern recreation....Ghana’s people know that much work remains yet to be done. But, they are willing to keep up the hectic pace until the last vestiges of their colonial past have been removed. Said one young Ghanaian woman in summing up the spirit of her generation: “We in Ghana have accepted the principal of hard work as the only solution to a better way of life...” (Ebony, May 1964).

Dear Reader, that was precisely the planned industrial take-off for Ghana.

And it did, for Ghana! 

By 1964, Nkrumah's development plans had begun to bear fruits for Ghana as GDP figures confirm. Sadly, all of that success and promise, the Take-Off of Ghana's industrial revolution, was stolen from Ghanaians through that Johnson-CIA-induced coup d'état. That overthrow was fronted by a soldier-police Benedict-Arnold-elite group (Ankrah-Afrifa-Kotoka-Nunoo-Harlley, and rascal Busia), a traitor bunch who lied to Ghana and the entire World. 

Yes, Ankrah-Afrifa-Kotoka-Nunoo-Harlley, and rascal Busia, lied to Ghanaians.

Yes, beginning somewhere is 1963 and ending in February, 1966, they planned and stole Ghana’s "Industrial Revolution" as Ghana, under Kwame Nkrumah, "toiled to close technology gap". 

Tackling Corruption, Poverty, Unemployment and Inequality: Major Challenges Facing any New Government in Ghana.

South Korea went from a poor country devastated by war to an OECD member in 50 years. In the same period of time Ghana went from a country with a high potential for take-off to one that stagnated at best and standards of living declined. Even though Ghana is generally categorized as a lower middle income country, nearly 25 years since the advent of democratic governance, the country still has very high levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The Ghana Journalists Association just completed a glittering celebration of our best journalists. Amongst the awardees were quite a few of my friends-- Alhaji Abu Issa Monnie, Famous, Ms. Adu etc. All the winners were deserving and I congratulate them heartily. Looking at the ceremony and the hoopla surrounding it, one may be tempted to describe it as our golden age of journalism. But it is not. I brought to me the image of people celebrating on the deck of the Titanic as it headed for the ice-berg. While for the most part, this is not the era of persecution of journalists and owners like Kugblenu, Thompson, Haruna, Baako, Pratt and Ephson, it is a dark era. Mark my words.

Folks, you must by now have read or heard news reports about the confrontation between supporters of the NDC and NPP during a public forum in the Odododiodoo constituency in Accra. That event aimed at offering the Parliamentary candidates the opportunity to present their programmes of action to improve the lot of the constituency. 

Among things that keep me breathing is the fresh think thank air in the choking congress polluted governance system.

As a result, anytime I read or hear something from a think tank that sounds congress, I feel like choking.

Sometime ago, it happened with IMANI think tank which said free SHS was not possible.

Today, the same think tank is thinking one district one factory (a building or group of buildings where goods are made’) is not possible.

I think, think tanks are so vital to our development that they cannot afford to be lazy. I could somehow understand IMANI’s ideological contention with free, except when the free is paired with market into free market which then pleases its eyes and ears.

No matter how difficult it is, or will be, for it to be thorough, though, it cannot afford but be that.

From Nkrumah’s Ministry of Rural Industries through Busia’s rural development, through Acheampong’s Operation Feed Yourself, it has always been possible for whole development policy to be successfully implemented nationwide contemporaneously.

In 2016, with far advanced technology than any of those periods, if one district one factory cannot be profitably implemented, we would have to forget about ever developing.

I am saying that because in my district, I have identified two profitable factories that can be sited there. What is needed is what is produced ‘in excess’ where and how to coalesce where for processing.

To me, every district is capable of successfully running a small-scale factory.

I am more seriously surprised by the assessment of this particular think tank because I thought it understood sound economics. Because I am not an economist, sound economics is looking round your environment, checking out your resources, determining how those resources can be mobilised and mobilising for marketing.

I do not know any district to which a model like that cannot be applied. My expectation for the think tank would have been to visit every district, or even as many districts as would provide a VALID sample, to do the resource analysis and then come out to tell us what is doable and what is not.

Any produce that rots or decays for want of use is a source for a factory. Any used item that has potential for reuse, and we have lots of them, garbage included, is a source for a factory.

Anything that we are not manufacturing that can be manufactured is a basis for a factory. Let the think tank adopt that approach and make categorical statement pointing out which of the 230 districts cannot host a profitable factory. There is a massive human resource base for conducting credible scientific research in this motherland.

Cohorts of tertiary level (and even in some cases secondary level) jobless youth roam about idling. They could all be trained to be useful data gatherers or play other useful roles in research.

Let’s think that and think that rigorously and begin in earnest to plan, recruit, train and encourage engaging the literate unemployed for functional research. They would be helping build solid research knowledge. In addition to that, they would be developing the sense of the need to research. All this thinking makes me wonder what the mother of all think tanks, the motherland’s own NDPC, wrote as the guiding thoughts for her development. When I heard they were going to write something of a development Bible/Koran for all governments to follow, I said balderdash.

It was that same institution that wrote ‘Vision 2020’ targeting middle-income in 20 years.

Osono people achieved that in seven years, far less than half of the 20. I want to believe its congress member personalities were the principal architects of the Senchi fiasco. Think tank thinking is worthy if it is big. To think one district one factory is not feasible is very, very small thinking.

The last time we strung three ones together (one, nation, one people, one destiny), we grew a debt-free yentua agriculture into food export. With the triad one district one factory, one constituency one million dollars and one village one dam, we would be among the highest income motherlands in maximum eight years.

My compatriots, this is the panacea for our accelerated development. Let’s go for it. It will surely work.

If it’s not impossible, it is doable. If it’s doable it takes a doer to do it. The motherland is a doer. She has always been a doer. There was a time she led many motherlands far beyond Continent Africa. So throw out the proven ‘don’t know how to dos’ and bring in the doers.

Think thanks must put their shoulders to wheel because it is doable; lest they think no development. It’s yes to think tank development or it is think tanking underdevelopment.

We wish to commend the Executive Secretary of the Ghana National Accreditation Board (NAB), Mr. Kwame Dattey, for coming out with a press statement on the issue of accreditation and diploma mills conferring awards on Ghanaians.

I have been listening in absolute dysphoria to President Mahama and his supporters inane argument that the NDC government has put up a number of infrastructural projects, hence they must be given another mandate.

There is currently a lot of noise in Ghana regarding the above. The noise regards who has released one, when and to what extent they matter.

The referendum of June 23, 2016, regarding Britain remaining in or exiting the European Union, through its subversive BREXIT result - the first major, painful defeat for the German control European Union of the banks and multinationals,- undoubtedly shook the dominant British and European political and economic system.

Last month, the newly appointed Vice-Chancellors of two leading public universities in Ghana were inducted into office. Prof Ebenezer Owusu Oduro replaced Prof Ernest Aryeetey as the 12th Vice-Chancellor (VC) of University of Ghana while Prof Obiri-Danso became the new administrative head of KNUST.

Cemeteries are known to be the resting places for deceased beings and so are maintained well so living relations in times of anguish can sit by their lost loved one’s tombstone or grave and find solace without fear of reptiles, thieves or drug users.

Yes! It's time! Ghanaian politicians who avail themselves to every ghetto in the length and breath of this country only when there's an impending elections as in the current state of the nation with less than 85 days left. The Ghanaian politicians take the citizens of Ghana for granted with the stigma of having a short-term retentive memory of our past in relations to punishing the incumbent government when it matters most. They only embark on nationwide tours dubbed "Accounting to the People", only when general elections are around the corner with unrealistic promises fussed with perpetuated lies and deceit. 

 “Ghanaians have a choice to make; if they want their leader to be sharing cars to individuals at the expense of the people or a leader who will create employment opportunities. One leader may prefer one village, one dam; the other may prefer one chief, one car. It is a matter of choices.” Dr. Alhaji Bawumia, Running Mate to Nana Akufo Addo

The 2016 elections will go down in the history of Ghana as an electioneering campaign pregnant with huge and numerous promises. The electioneering campaigns have become promise galore as the two leading political parties – ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) – keep promising voters everywhere they go to canvas for votes.

Folks, I have just come across the news report saying what has really made me wonder what is becoming of the Presidential aspect of the 2016 general elections. Just consider this:

"....Afrobarometer, Africa’s largest public-opinion survey is under threat...In Ghana, Ghana’s police administration first tried to discredit the findings, then publicly blamed the Ghanaian people for corrupting the police... the police administration has yet to seriously address the problem of corruption...The morale is.. Ghana Police could learn a lot from AfroBarometer and people like yours truly, Prof Lungu, to include, liaison with Afrobarometer to "beef up" their analyses and reporting programs so that actions they take in the future have reliable theoretical and practical foundations that would result in better performance and respect by Ghanaians for Ghana Police and their administration...", (Afrobarometer, with commentary by Prof Lungu, 10 Sep 16). 

President John Dramani Mahama spoke last week about his plans for Ghana; where is Akufo-Addo's plan for Ghana?