Konongo Fordjour 15 January 2010

Part one of this article looked at the first three areas of assessment of our current government – i.e. the economy, inclusiveness, and job creation. We observed that the economy encompasses all areas put together for a synergistic performance. It did NOT STRICTLY hold the Mills Government responsible for the lack of it because the global economic sluggishness has had some kind of effect on Ghana’s. Although a lot more is expected from the Government regarding effective search for experienced personnel to handle the nation’s departments to produce results, its balanced inclusiveness with women, minorities, and the youth is a positive strategy. However the Government’s inexistence of any job creation strategy has shown its weakness in pursuing prudent policies to benefit Ghana.

The Government should consider job creation as its major policy for the next two years for any meaningful assessment by the electorate. I am particularly worried with the increasing number of the unemployed graduate population. The Government should try to create cooperative commercial farming similar to the one created by President Nkrumah. Educated Ghanaian commercial farmers would definitely be advantageous to the Mills administration. Ghana’s contemporary commercial farming, modeled on the Southern African type requires a pick-up truck for each farmer, tractors to till the land, and produce-buying agencies of President Nkrumah’s cocoa shed type to buy the produce should be considered. The Government must inculcate entrepreneurial discipline in the youth to build silos, for instance, for storage and eventual export. Use the crude oil as bait for securing funds and allocate $100,000 each to the young graduates (give a number, say 50,000) to enter into farming in some selected crop production, e.g. corn, millet, sorghum, and so forth.

How does the Government recoup the proposed funds with realized interests and taxes into the state coffers? Many strategies for job creation were revealed to the Mills Government in my previous article titled: “Loans for Economic Resuscitation, Where is the NDC Job Creation Plan?” and the Government should consider them seriously. The Mills Government was rated with a dismal failure in the area of job creation, which does not look all that good for a government proposing to improve on the welfare of her citizens. The President has more time to correct all the anomalies discrediting him. We now proceed with our discussions on the remaining areas of assessment by reproducing our table here as a point of reference:

Area of Assessment Rating The Economy FAIL Inclusiveness PASS Jobs DISMAL FAILURE Security *Electoral Violence, Terrorism, Murders, etc *Drug Trafficking MEDIAN: - Needs Improvement World Affairs PASS Financial and Regional Diplomacy FAIL Education MIXED: Needs Improvement Political Comedy to reduce statutory stress: e.g. Ecomini; Ommama, etc. EXCELLENT Crime Control FAIL Fighting Official Corruption FAIL OVERALL PERCENTAGE RATING 35% FAIL

Security: National security, defining the basic provisions of security against external aggression, internal harassment - emanating from foreigners resident in the country or citizens against citizens - and so forth, to create absolute peace in Ghana over the last 365 days are mixed. Two major sub-areas were carefully selected – violence and drug trafficking.

First, discussions on violence shall comprise electoral violence, political terrorism, murders, and verbal incitements. Acts of intimidation and direct confrontation during voting in Kumasi, Accra, and Akwatia by-elections have proven deadly under the Government’s watch. Our citizens have lost their lives, mostly affecting the opposition, while the Government remained quiet over such atrocious acts. Victims have also been recorded in cases involving local party executive elections. Here again, opposition executive elections, funeral groupings such as Bole-Bamboi, etc. resulted in supporters from the ruling NDC group attacking them with sustained gunshot and cutlass wounds; while the Government remained silent.

Also, violence in Bawku seems to be holding because a soluble family feud has been politicized by the ruling Government. Detailed reports from the local front have implicated Mills’ Interior Minister; yet the president sees no urgency in seeking solution to the problem. The Mills’ Government has a well calculated strategy, inherited from the P/NDC era, to put fear in Ghanaians through political terrorism in order to fulfill its master plan of winning elections in 2012. This is done through verbal incitement such as what has just happened with the Ashanti Regional Minister, DC Opoku-Manu.

It is sad talking about the Honourable Minister because I know this gentleman very well. He hails from Konongo, and I am a friend to his younger brothers and nephews. Konongo felt proud of this second son, after Honourable S K Boafo, respected with a regional governorship. Therefore, for such a revered man to incite crime-related NDC sycophants to attack NPP members is self-evident of what most of us have been writing about. Although DC Opoku-Manu is an embarrassment to Konongo, his behaviour is uncharacteristic of a peaceful Konongo tradition. We have always warned him over his association with the NDC. I think that he had to do that to please and satisfy the blood-letting NDC group founder. Perhaps, a kind of ritual that must be cited periodically to renew his membership.

The second sub-area under drug trafficking shows good job well done by the Government. Earlier in the year, some foreign drug shipments targeting Ghana were quickly spotted by our security forces and were either prevented from entering our territorial waters or simply apprehended. Good job! Armed robbery-linked killings have also gone down; but only in some selected areas. From a broader perspective, however, the Government is doing well against foreign vices; while the local security structure has deliberately been left out for a purpose tomorrow. The Government can solve that problem by dismissing Gwevlo Lartey so that the discipline of our security network is not contaminated by the Gwevlo-Rawlings evil. During the year the Gwevlo faction of the National Security compromised with the Rawlings crap to meet the security capos in the country, which should not happen. Consequently, the Government’s rating in the National Security performance within only one year was given: “Mixed” i.e. it needs extra work there to improve on the security network in the country. National Security and the Interior Ministry do not work well; dismiss them!

World Affairs: Not many global engagements within the year assigned Ghana to solve issues of global importance. However, the president’s statesmanship and professionalism in handling international issues, such as issuing statements on behalf of Ghana, were good. The president undertook some journeys; and many world leaders responded to his invitations to visit. The Government also brilliantly tackled the Yahya Jammeh problem, which appears close to conclude or may have completely solved it. The president should do more to add global roles on his credentials. Good job, Mr. President!

Financial and Regional Diplomacy: This is another area that our Government has failed miserably. Many readers suggested to me that I should have separated finance from regional diplomacy; especially considering the good show of the Government with the Jammeh problem. However, this area looks at attempts made by the Government and failed miserably to conclude to benefit Ghana, such as the failed attempt to secure loans; and the poor diplomacy in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa. It is this that the Jammeh job was recognized under World Affairs.

Relative to seeking for avenues to secure funds to develop the country, the Mills Government pressed faulty buttons that resulted to its failure. World Bank and IMF loans simply happened to be hoax. Did the Mills Administration learn anything from that? I doubt it very much! Nevertheless, the president should reflect over the unfortunate mistakes that caused his losses.

Foremost, the Mills Government deliberately allowed lies and deception to lead it. The Government thought lying on the NPP Government would secure it sympathy from the world financiers. They were wrong! By the way, is the Finance Minister and Economic Planner, the world-class economist Honourable Dr. Kwabena Duffour, still awaiting on our current parliament decision that the Kufuor Government was frugal and used the Millennium Challenge Account judiciously for the national projects before submitting his fourth chance to these bodies for their reconsideration of issuing the loans to Ghana? This Honourable Economic Minister is a funny kind of personality!

The banker turned politician amuses me sometimes with his flip-flopping playing-mantis movement. I am beginning to lose my temper on him! Would the honourable minister consider resigning from his post before October 2010 before I release my worst attacks on his performance? I hate to see a top US school product perform dismally in our national development. The lies that K Duffour survived under P/NDC have been exhibited here again, twenty-five years down the road. Kobby Duffour, the “Kro-hin-ko” economic planner, and his economic team have no clue with economic development in little Ghana. They have no tact in asking for money; and they have no strategy in generating funds within the country itself to develop it. And automatically, that is a dismal failure.

Now listen to me, folks in the Economic Ministry, please do not rely on the IMF and the World Bank anymore. Use our assets to generate funds instead. The USA is fighting hard to reduce its dependence on oil; but not to completely wean itself from its use. Meaning that, the price of crude oil will fall terribly bad in the very near future. Also, remember that the oil wells can also deplete or dry up as well. Qatar, the tiny oil-rich land strip kingdom in the Middle East, is shivering now. The kingdom’s current per capita GDP is $56,000 compared with less than $23,000 of USA. Qatar’s population is small compared with Ghana’s; however, the long-term oil kingdom has highly trained citizens. Qatar is worried because oil is its sole income earner and has forecasted possible depletion of its oil reserves; hence a projected 2030 economic diversification is underway. Qatar is targeting the services sector (please refer to my article on; “Loans for Economic Resuscitation…”) for profitable services sector investments. It is Ghana’s time right now to sell its oil reserves for cash and invest it in its human resources. I believe that is exactly what President Nkrumah may have done to our natural resources; as inferred in the statement by the Minister of Natural Resources under the Kufuor administration in 2007 that Ghana has no control of our Gold, Diamond, etc. anymore.

Perhaps, the inefficiency of successive governments and waste by coup makers must have caused our present economic predicaments. Loans issued to the citizens with projected pay-back period can easily reset the economic scoreboard. I am not impressed with the too much noise built in the hope for the crude oil find. If we are not careful, our crude oil will be lot worse than Biafra and Cabinda enclaves. Look, we need smarter economists to work on Ghana twenty years ahead of its useful time.

The Government also made blunders in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa on the course of the year 2009 involving the president’s participation in the stated countries’ invitations. Bad diplomacy in bypassing His Excellency the Vice-President John Mahama to allow the Gunman Jerry Rawlings to represent the nation in high profile national assignment is not only a diplomatic failure, but also deformed national governance headed by a beleaguered president with memory loss.

Education: Another controversial area of assessment! The Government made some serious decisions that otherwise was not necessary. For example, Honourable Tettey Enyo should have considered increasing school blocks rather than reducing the study time frame. Currently, researched reports point clearly to Ghana’s immediate requisition of at least 8,000 school buildings to put roofs over our children against dust, flies, wind, sun, rain, and unexpected gunshots. The reports show that the northern sectors of the country are severely affected by Tettey Enyo’s faulty prerequisites that completely excluded school infrastructure.

The violent NDC Government also forcibly removed the citizens contracted to provide the school feeding program to benefit our children, just to provide jobs for the unskilled NDC-card carrying sycophants. Tettey Enyo also failed to package Ghana to the Americans during President Barack Obama’s visit to Ghana. I issued FAIL to the Government in this area; but the panelists believed that it needed time to see any meaningfulness of the Government’s strategy, if ever any existed in here.

Stress-Releasing Political Comedy: Initial observation of this seems funny; but any nation that is distressed under poor global economy requires statutory refreshments to counteract the problem. The president’s slips of tongue have done a great deal of national relaxation in times of bad economy. President George Bush of the USA had a similar strategy when the nation went to war. To reduce stress on the nation, the president’s annual White House Press interaction nights during his tenure were filled with laughter involving his imposter. Recall phrases like: “Nuclec-Pre-re-fi-ra-tion”, “I-am-the-decider”, etc.? They are not far from Kwaatta’s “Ecomni“, and “President Omaama“, for instance. A casual assessment on the mental health of 289 world leaders by clinical psychologists observed that leaders who took it easy and made more jokes were more successful and better leaders than those who found fault on other officers, vindictive, and ready to fire subordinate ministers. Good leadership, after all is the ability to delegate duties to the right people to perform; it is not a trait. Good job, Mr. President!

Crime Control and Official Corruption: The rating for these last two areas also gave the Government dismal failure. In fact the crime rate has increased under the NDC Government; and corruption in Government offices has worsened. Stealing, and organized official crimes have increased ten-fold over the last 365 days. For example, NDC sycophants have created high-level stealing ring that snatch cars from the country. Others have used Castle chits to pick up vehicles belonging to citizens and Ghana-bound investors shipped into the country‘s harbour. Some vehicle chassis numbers have been professionally changed and bodies been spray painted to beat detection.

The NDC have brought a new wave of chilling crime network into the country that is serious for a promising democratic nation. They have learnt from their naked robbery that threw them into jail under the previous government; hence they have decided to hit on the soft that demands no documentation to implicate them in the future. Their smartness in thievery has also permeated into the Castle by involving as many people in the top echelon as possible and even the president, if possible, so that any leakage will be so embarrassing that the case will be killed inside before it comes out. These inferior political tactics are reminiscent to Eastern European, North-Korean, and Cuban cheap political trickery that have been copied by Ghana’s NDC and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

Crime control is ineffective as official corruption is high. The dedicated citizens in uniforms, who are committed to protect the nation, have deliberately been relegated to oblivion; and party die-hards been brought to offer their masters services. Shame! The NDC desperados are even planning seriously to win the 2012 elections at all cost; by hook or crook. They are planning massive shifts and changeovers. For example, it is rumoured that the Government plans of polarizing the national security and defence on ethnic grounds. The president must be extremely careful in his judgment on the allegations of polarity and militarism. Ghana is peaceful because we believe in merit and fairness and not inferior sentiments turning superior overnight.

Conclusion: The article has touched several areas of national importance, although not exhaustive. The president’s time on the seat is just a quarter of the whole period offered him. He may make it or break it depending on how he carries himself. Three more years to go; and it is good to draw the president’s awareness to areas of interest to the nation for the good of us all.

What is the world market price of cocoa today? It's approximately GHC4861.00/ton [i.e. US$3472.77/ton and GHC1.40 = US$1.00]. Gold settled at US$1,130/oz; and corn is US$4.00/bu. Good day, Mr. President!

Konongo Fordjour, Boston-USA koafordjour@yahoo.com