More pressure piles on Tsatsu
¢166m paid to Korle-Bu ‘ghosts’
NDC plans to sabotage Reconciliation Commission
The Crusading Guide
The Economy is in a mess! - Mills
The Flagbearer of the National Democratic
Congress (NDC) in the December 2000 Presidential polls, Professor Evans Atta
Mills has stated that the state of the Ghanaian economy has been disappointing
under the government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) despite their (NPP’s)
promise of Positive Change.
Speaking at a New Year reception for members of
the NDC and a section of the Media held at Osu in Accra last Friday, the former
Vice President submitted that Ghana was still going through a difficult
transition, with the people suffering.
“On the economic front, last year’s Christmas,
by all accounts, had been gloomy for Ghanaian traders and business people had
complained about slow sales and consumers had found it difficult to purchase
their usual Christmas items. Over the first half of last year the people of
Ghana accepted significant increases in petroleum, utility prices and food
prices, without any significant adjustment in salaries and wages,” said Mills.
Prof Atta Mills pointed out that the NPP’s
promises to abolish the cash and carry system, to reduce school fees and to
create hundreds of thousand of new jobs in their first year in office were yet
to be fulfilled.
The laying off of thousands of workers from the
National Mobilisation Programme (NMP), he said, has had a detrimental effect on
the lives of the workers, families and the respective communities the NMP
served.
“Many people continue to live in fear and
insecurity because of the level of armed robberies and burglaries in our towns
and cities. The conflict in Bawku tells all of us of the need to work harder
towards greater national unity and cohesion”.
Mills said that, “some would say that NPP has
been in office for only one year and they deserve a sympathetic appraisal. Let
us remember, however, that the past is a prologue to the future.”
The former Vice President of Ghana was also not
happy with the Government’s position on National Reconciliation. He argued that
the (government) should have listened to the views of the vast majority of
Ghanaians, independent NGOs and international experts who argued that 1957
should have been the starting year for the Commission’s work.
The former Vice President was not also happy
with the recent disagreement in his party.
Present at the programme were top NDC
functionaries such as Mr Kwame Peprah, Dr Tony Aidoo, Hon Doe Adjaho, Mr Ato
Ahwoi, Madam Sherry Ayittey, Mr Totobi Quakyi and ‘Shadow Veep’ Martin Amidu.
Others were Mr Lee Ocran, Sq. Ldr. Clend Sowu,
Alhaji Iddrisu Mahama, Francisca Asiama, Mr Victor Smith, Mr E.T. Mensah, Mrs Cecilia
Johnson, Mrs Edith Haizel, Mr Kwamena Ahwoi and Mr Kenneth Dzirasah.
More…/
In assessing the achievements of the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) in government over the last twelve months, Mr Kwesi Pratt
Jnr., Editor of the Weekly Insight has said that the fundamental and structural
economic policies being pursued by the ruling party are not different from
those pursued by the past NDC government.
“Regarding the economy, the structural policies
being implemented are substantially not different from the NDC’s”, Pratt Jnr.
told Ghana Review International (GRi), a magazine based in London, UK.
According to him, “there is no paradigm shift,” and living conditions remain
the same.
Referring to the much-touted stability of the
cedi, Pratt Jnr. apparently gave the NDC government the credit saying, “the
whole process of the cedi stabilization started in September 2000.”
He said, “the National Economic Planning Team,
sometime in May 2000 or earlier prompted the government to remove any props on
the cedi, which was overvalued leading to its huge fall”. Pratt Jnr. noted that
“as soon as the policy disaster was recognized, stabilization remedies were
adopted and those actions are today’s benefits.”
He asserted, “we can’t therefore talk of the
stability as an NPP achievement”.
Pratt Jnr. acknowledged the tremendous
improvement in Ghana’s relationship with her neighbours. “That’s a plus for the
government,” said he.
But he condemned the NPP government for
worsening the access to tertiary education. According to him, “students going
to do medicine for instance would pay ¢14.7 million per annum. This is
inhibitive and more than 90 per cent of the people including the President,
cannot afford it according to the figures he gave at his maiden press
conference as his legitimate income.”
He chastised the President for his travels,
saying they were too many and seemed not to be yielding any results in terms of
investments, as had been the case with ex-President Rawlings’ era.
GRi…/
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More pressure piles on Tsatsu
Two years ago, Chronicle investigations into
the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), turned up startling
information that the chief executive was roasting the corporation in a
derivatives deal that had gone sour.
Through cyber investigations, the telephone
number of a French Bank, Societe Generale was obtained. It was confirmed that
the legal department of Societe Generale was on the verge of issuing a writ to
recover debts owed them that were nearing the $38 million mark.
Chronicle dispatched a letter to the Chairman
of the Board of GNPC, Dr J.L.S. Abbey, who acceded to our request for a copy of
the audited accounts of GNPC, and confirmation that the derivatives deal that
Tsatsu had engineered had Board approval. No! There was no board approval, thus
making the transaction illegal and improper.
Now Chronicle has gathered that forensic
reports undertaken by PriceWater House Coopers last week confirmed these and
provided one of the basis for a looming criminal prosecution in addition to the
one Tsatsu is already facing - the $1 million Valley Farms matter.
Several Chronicle stories from April 1992 to
1996, when this paper raised an alarm over Tsatsu’s purchase of old, sometimes
unserviceable, oil rigs have also been looked into by forensic auditors. The
conclusion as reported over seven years ago by The Chronicle is that the former
GNPC boss had caused over $20 million dollars in losses in his acquisition and
the subsequent sale of rigs some of which he secretly used as a collateral
guarantee in some of his bizarre, crazy schemes. The loss to the nation and to
the Ghanaian taxpayer stands at a whopping ¢500 billion!
Nearly two weeks ago, after dancing with his
bride at a party thrown by his new brother-in-law Josiah Cobbah, deputy Chief
of Westel, he sought to leave the country for Lagos. At the exit point he was
stopped. A passenger aboard the plane told The Chronicle that they suffered
delays and did not understand it until he heard that there was some encounters
with one big man.
One source familiar with the matter explained
to The Chronicle that once it has been established that he took those decisions
without board approval, it becomes a difficult matter to extricate one’s self
from blame.
More…/
President John Kufuor on Monday openly told
Ghanaians at the first-ever public forum between a sitting president and the
public that he bears no grudge for former President Jerry Rawlings.
The President, who was reacting to a question
from a member of the public at the ‘People’s Assembly’, a forum to mark the 9th
anniversary of the 4th Republic and the one year Positive Change’,
told the gathering that ex-President Rawlings “is a free man living his life
the way he chooses so far as he conforms to the laws of the land.”
According to him, it is unfortunate that time
constraints could not permit him to meet ex-President Rawlings as often as he
would have loved to, adding “everything is normal between us.”
This response by the President came as a
contradiction to the many impressions being created in the public domain that
tend to point out that both men are on unequal terms.
The occasion itself was one of an event that
Ghanaians have never ever thought of as a nation to have its sitting president
wanting to be assessed by the public at a forum of that nature.
The euphoria at the International Conference
Centre where the forum was held was remarkable. It was a moment of excitement
and a mark of freedom as the President offered his administration at the peril
of the nation to be cross-examined.
GRi…/
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Fuel prices may "stay put" if…
Energy Minister, Hon. Kan Dapaah, has assured
the nation, that barring any undue hike in the price of crude oil and a drop in
the exchange rate of the cedi, prices of petroleum products will continue to
remain where they are this year.
But he said, "as I sit here now, my
problem is that OPEC has decided to cut down production. That can have an
effect on petroleum prices. How do I balance it, so it does not go up?"
He said, "we have been able to hold on to
the current prices because as we have consistently said during the NDC time and
during our time, what really drives the prices is not the crude oil price, it
is the exchange rate."
The Energy Minister, who was speaking to the
Ghana Palaver in his office last Friday, said as far as he was concerned, it is
a an excellent achievement for the government to hold fuel prices up at ¢10,500
during the year, when Nigeria, a major oil producer, has increased her prices.
Explaining why the government could not reduce
fuel prices despite a drop in crude oil price and a wind-fall profit made by
TOR last year, he said "I think there was a basic misunderstanding with
what my ministry attempted to do at the restaurant when we invited editors to
explain how the formula works to them.
"At the restaurant, I remember, the papers
we gave out and in fact all the press releases and all the press statements and
all the official comments I made, we have been talking only about a formula for
ex-refinery prices, so when we met at the restaurant the formula that was
presented, was for ex-refinery price and not ex-pump prices".
Ex-refinery price, Mr Dapaah said, is not the
only variable in the determination of the ex-pump price, and asked, “why were
we concentrating on ex-refinery prices?”
"We were concentrating on ex-refinery
prices because we said that we were not going to allow subsidies in the price
of petroleum products. If we were going to do that, we needed to know when the
refinery was under-recovery and when they are over-recovery", he said.
The Minister explained that, when the refinery
is under-recovery, it means there is a hidden subsidy and that was exactly what
happened during the National Democratic Congress (NDC) time.
When they realised that petroleum prices were
going to be too high, they asked the refinery to sell at prices, which were
below the actual cost of either producing or importing petroleum products, he
said, adding, "we wanted to avoid that".
Mr Dapaah said the formula in question, works
out the ex-refinery price and it is also supposed to signal us (the ministry),
if the refinery is over-recovering or under-recovering and this is done on a
monthly basis by the refinery and we go to verify.
But the impression created, according the
Minister, is that we (the government) are holding on to the windfall profit
from TOR and trying to hide it. No, he said.
He said, when Mobil or Shell or Goil buys
petrol, the money is paid into an account, which is held and controlled by the
refinery.
All the money goes there. At the end of the
month, the refinery does the calculation and tells us (the Ministry) how much
they have either under-recovered or over-recovered.
The Ministry, Mr. Dapaah said, then goes to
verify the report and when the refinery has over-recovered, "there is what
we call windfall profit, when they have under-recovered, then there is the
loss".
The first time the government made an official
pronouncement on what it will use the windfall profit for, was during the
mid-year review, when, according to Mr Dapaah, the Minister of Finance, Mr
Osafo Maafo, said, the money would be used to service crude oil debt.
He said, it is important to do that because
"if we are not careful we will destroy the banking system."
Mr Dapaah explained that the primary capital of
all the banks in Ghana- Standard Chartered, Barclays, Ghana Commercial Bank,
SSB. Etc., - all put together, their primary capital plus reserves is ¢1.8
trillion and the Tema Oil Refinery debt alone, owed to the banks, is ¢2.3
trillion, so it is better to use TOR's profit to pay this debt off.
The Minister said, as at the end of October
last year, when the refinery had done their reconciliation, it was realized
that there was a windfall profit of ¢53.00 billion, at the same time, interest
charged on TOR's debt was ¢268 billion.
The windfall, he said, cannot even pay the
interest on the TOR debt. "We also did not think it was good to use it to
reduce petroleum prices when you have this debt waiting to be paid, if we don't
pay it with profit, what is the alternative?" he asked.
The only alternative, Mr Dapaah said, is to pay
it with increase in taxes or suspend some developmental projects, so in
economic terms, the step taken so far is better.
Asked whether he did promise to reduce fuel
prices if there was a reduction in crude oil price, his reply was an emphatic
no.
"We want to be shown any document or
anywhere, where we made that pronouncement.
All our pronouncements were on the ex-refinery price but unfortunately
when all this argument started, people said, the promise was that we were going
to reduce ex-pump price, that certainly was not the case", Mr Dapaah said.
Again, asked whether with all the problems in
the Energy sector, he doesn't think it was time private oil marketing companies
were allowed to come in to do the purchasing of crude and selling petroleum
products, the Minister said that was exactly, what his ministry is heading
towards.
He said, "now that we come to the full
cost recovery of petroleum production, it is possible for the private oil
companies to come in and we have thrown an invitation to them but they have not
found it appropriate to respond at this stage, but if somebody wants to import
crude oil there will be no restrictions".
Answering another question on the fears that
some of the oil companies can sabotage the government in times of difficulties,
Mr. Dapaah said, "if we have no refinery, and our imports were all coming
from the oil marketing companies, it has been suggested that the security of
supplies may not be guaranteed.
"But another way of looking at it is that,
why will the marketing companies do that, why will they try to sabotage us when
it suits them?
The possibility is there and we will take all
these into account. At the moment, our major task is, we want the refinery to
continue to work and anybody who wants to bring in crude can bring it".
GRi…/
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Ex-minister's car retrieved
Four vehicles allocated to the Ministry of
Employment and Social Welfare during the NDC era vanished immediately after the
2000 general elections.
The vehicles, Nissan patrol, GR 6899K, a brown
Toyota Land Cruiser, GR 47731J, a Toyota Corona Salon car, GT 60477B and an
Isuzu Trooper, used by the former Deputy Minister, Mr Austin Gamey, could not
be traced when stock was taken by the new Ministers.
Thereafter, the Ministry of Employment and
Manpower Development mounted a frantic search for the vehicles, and our
information is that three of them have been retrieved.
One of the vehicles, the Nissan Patrol, was
retrieved from Mr Okyere Darko Ababio, head of the Redeployment Management
Committee. According to sources at the Ministry, even though Mr Ababio knew
about efforts to retrieve the cars, he failed to inform the Ministry that the
car was in his possession.
The source said Mr Darko normally parked the car
near the CEPS head office and walked the distance of about 500 metres to his
office, apparently to avoid detection.
When finally he was caught red-handed using the
vehicle and was asked to surrender the keys or be handed over to the police, Mr
Ababio pleaded with the Deputy Minister, Mr J.J. Bennam, to give him some time
to organise himself, but his plea was turned down, and the car was taken away
from him.
The second vehicle, Isuzu Trooper, was also
retrieved from a workshop at Odorna in Accra. It was not immediately known who
sent the car there but according to sources, it was sent there for a checking
of mechanical fault and repairs, which the Ministry disputes.
The Toyota Corona was also believed to have
been parked at a garage at Adabraka, and it had since been sent back to the
Ministry.
When contacted, Mr Bennam confirmed the story,
but declined to comment further, saying, he was still investigating other
similar cases it he Ministry. Mr Isaac Fordjour Obeng, the Transport Officer at
the ministry, when contacted also could not deny or confirm the story.
He said that he could only talk in the presence
of the Chief Director where his narration would be recorded, but the chief
director was not available at that time. A source said it was possible the
ex-Minister did not know anything about the missing vehicles and that some
officials only wanted to be fast.
GRi…/
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¢166m paid to Korle-Bu ‘ghosts’
A preliminary report of an audit of the
accounts of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra, has revealed that 20 per
cent of names on the hospital’s payroll are “ghosts.” It also established that
an amount of ¢166 million was paid to “ghost workers in a month.
The Minister of Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo,
who announced this in Accra, said the government has, therefore, intensified
its war on “ghost workers”, and called for public support to resolve the
problem.
Mr Osafo-Maafo was answering questions about
government expenditure and the economy at the first-ever Peoples' Assembly held
on Monday at the Accra International Conference. The day was to commemorate the
ninth anniversary of the Fourth Republic and one year of the New Patriotic
Party (NPP) administration. It was on the theme, "One Year of Positive
Change, a Good Beginning."
On government expenditure for last year, he
said it was within the target contained in the Appropriation Act. Mr
Osafo-Maafo said out of a total of ¢14.1 trillion, including the payment of
pensions, allocated for spending during the year under review, government spent
only ¢13.7 trillion.
He, therefore, described as unfortunate,
speculations from certain quarters that the government spent more than it was
allocated to it in the Act.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said, "government did not
ask for more and the various ministries will attest to the fact that because of
the austerity measures, they were compelled to spend within their specific
budgets."
He said it is the intention of the government
to spend within its limit to avoid running into debts and challenged any Member
of Parliament who thinks otherwise to debate the issue on the floor of the
House.
On privatization of state-owned companies, the
Finance Minister said many of such companies are on the list, adding that,
government will ensure that local investors are given preferential
treatment."
Mr Osafo-Maafo, who did not mention the number
of companies on the divestiture list, also noted that where necessary, Ghanaian
investors would be made to form partnerships with their foreign counterparts to
take over the divested companies in the country.
He said where the price of a Ghanaian investor
is the same as that of a foreign company, in a bid, the DIC will not hesitate
to give the company to the Ghanaian investor.
Touching on the Development Levy, which is a
special 10 per cent tax imposed on the net profit after tax of financial institutions,
he explained that "the levy was specifically targeted at the banks,
because of the huge profits they make."
He said the government, after considering all
the options available to it, found out that, imposing such a tax on the banks
will have no negative impact on their finances and also prevent government from
taxing from sources where pain and hardship may be felt much.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said although Parliament
approved a two-year period for a levy to be imposed on the financial
institutions, a decision to either extend the time or otherwise, would be taken
before the period expires.
The Finance Minister refuted claims from
sections of the public that it is because the government is not spending, that
it has been able to keep inflation down and also stabilized the cedi against
the major foreign currencies.
He said, for instance that, as against the ¢52
billion released by the previous government in 2000 to the district assemblies
by the previous government in 2000 to the district assemblies, the new
administration released ¢188 billion and will increase it to ¢233 billion by
next week.
Mr Osafo-Maafo also mentioned that as against
the year 2000, the NPP government released more than ¢400 billion from the
Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for educational projects throughout the
country. He also said some payments to road contractors have been deliberately
halted because there is an audit being conducted into the sector.
Mr Osafo-Maafor said even when payments and
awards of contracts commence it will not affect government expenditure because
money will go to the right people for the right work to be done.
Answering a question about the Defence
Ministry, the sector Minister, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, announced that the Burma
Hall at the Burma Camp, Accra, will be reconstructed at the cost of ¢8.5
billion.
He said the 3000 capacity hall will have a
library and a computer centre well-equipped to train personnel of the army to
become computer literate. He said the contract has been awarded to a Chinese
company.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said other military facilities
in Accra, Tamale, Ho, Takoradi and Kumasi will also be rehabilitated, at a cost
of $2.7 million.
On the
provision of affordable housing for the people, the Minister for Private Sector
Development, Mr Kwamena Bartels, who answered for the sector minister, said ¢41
million has been secured from Slovakia for the construction of affordable
two-three bedroom houses and the project will commence soon in Accra.
He said it is the intention of government to
find up to $200 million for similar projects throughout the country, adding
that workers will be made to pay within 10 years from the date of acquisition.
Senior Minister, Mr J.H. Mensah, on his part,
said it is the policy of government to create the enabling environment for the
private sector to realise the full meaning of the "golden age of
business" as promised by the President. He said government needs the
support of all Ghanaians for the attainment of its goals.
The Senior Minister also expressed government's
determination to channel more of its resources into the development of the
vocational and technical fields as a move to develop the human resource base of
the country.
Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), Minister of Food
and Agriculture asked farmers to form cooperatives to attract government
assistance.
He said government cannot control the prices of
farm inputs but can only assist those who are together because that way it
would be easy to retrieve the cost of inputs advanced to them after a
particular harvest.
More…/
Attendance was impressive
Public participation in the first-ever People's
Assembly, held at the Accra International Conference Centre on Monday was very
impressive.
The novelty assembly, which was part of
activities marking the ninth anniversary of the Fourth Republic, had the theme:
"Positive Change, A Good Beginning." The purpose was to provide a
forum for interaction between the President and members of the public.
As early as 8.30 am the main hall of the
conference centre was filled beyond capacity, with many people on their feet.
At a stage, the security officers closed the doors to the main hall, as the
crowd was overwhelming.
Consequently, some members of the public had to
settle in the committee halls, and others under canopies in the forecourt of
the conference centre, to watch proceedings in the main hall live on
television. In all, about 4,000 people turned up for the assembly.
They comprised representatives of 79 civil
society groups, the clergy and representatives of religious groups, government
and non-governmental organisations and corporate groups.
There were also ministers of state, service
commanders, members of the diplomatic corps, representatives of some political
parties, and people from all walks of life. Conspicuously absent were members
of the Minority in Parliament.
As the crowd waited anxiously for the
President, the Police Band provided soul inspiring Methodist and Presbyterian
hymns, while traditional drumming groups entertained the crowd outside. A large
number of food, calendar and souvenir vendors also took advantage of the
occasion and erected stalls on the road in front of the centre to do brisk
business.
When the President finally arrived at 10.50 am
the crowd was thrown into a state of euphoria.
Things took an interesting turn after Nana
Ohene Ntow, the moderator, had announced the procedure for the assembly in
English and Twi, and asked the Minister of Agriculture, Major Courage Quanshigah,
and Minister of Tourism, Madam Hawa Yakubu to take turns to interpret the
messages to the participants in Ewe and Hausa respectively.
President Kufuor, who set the ball rolling, said this year will mark the real
implementation of the government's programmes to create wealth and fight
poverty.
He said the benefits of the HIPC initiative
will also become evident in the year, and urged Ghanaians to resolve to
cooperate with the government in the implementation of development programmes.
On the government's performance in the past
year, President Kufuor referred to the stability of the economy and the drastic
reduction in inflation rates, and said, "we did better than pass
mark".
He said
the end of the serial killing of women in and around Accra, also testify to
government's commitment to the safety of the people.
President Kufuor also gave the assurance that
as a priority, the police will be equipped to perform their duties more
effectively. He warned that criminals will be dealt with according to the law,
"irrespective of their political affiliations".
And just as expected, during the open forum, a
long, meandering queue of members of the public took to the floor to ask
questions, make suggestions and also make criticisms, in respect of policies of
the government.
The questions, contributions and criticisms
touched on sectors such as health, agriculture, judiciary, defence, roads and
other areas of national development.
At various stages, President Kufuor invited
members of his Cabinet to respond to the questions.
During one of such interventions, Nana Akufo
Addo, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, said Fast Track courts will be
established in every regional capital before the end of President Kufuor's term
of office.
The open forum ended at about 1.30 pm with an
assurance from the President that he will make himself available at another
forum to answer more questions from members of the public.
GRi…/
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NDC plans to sabotage Reconciliation Commission
On
Friday, November 23, 2001, NDC MPs staged a theatrical walkout accusing the
Attorney General and Minister of Justice of “arrogant and insulting” behaviour.
However,
after studying the Hansard report of parliamentary debate, many pundits were
left thinking that had the Minister on that occasion congratulated Minority
Leader A.S.K. Bagbin for his strong leadership and smart sense of fashion, NDC
MPs still would have taken offence and proceeded to walk out of the House.
They walked out once again on Friday 21
December after failing to get their way to extend the National Reconciliation
Commission’s period of reference from military regimes to cover all governments
since Independence, notwithstanding the fact that a window has been offered to
anyone with a legitimate case of abuse suffered under civilian rule to freely
approach the commission with it.
Unfortunately, for the minority, that walkout
did not deprive the House of necessary quorum to vote and the Reconciliation
Bill was therefore duly passed. Some observers have argued that it was more by
deliberate design than the weighing of probabilities that NDC MPs walked out
with a prepared press statement in hand on that day.
Their defeated presidential candidate,
Professor Atta Mills recently returned from Vancouver, Canada to add grease to
the wheels of sabotage by spinning belatedly for the period of reference by the
commission to be extended to 1957. Dr Obed Asamoah somewhat responding to his
party members’ fear, told the Statesman that the reconciliation exercise will
not kill the NDC since Ghanaians are already aware of the activities of the
AFRC/PNDC eras, if not in “details”.
The prospective NDC Chairman’s words, perhaps
attests to the determined effort by the party not to make the exercise succeed
for fear that the sins of their political fathers may haunt them out of their
assumed shield of political legitimacy. Dr Tony Aidoo has even preemptively
questioned the “bias” composition of the Commission panel, long before the
members of the commission are even announced!
Some are drawing the conclusion that the NDC
simply has no predilection to make the reconciliation exercise succeed and will
ergo employ any self-preserving measures to sabotage or at least dent the
legitimacy of the Reconciliation Commission by accusing it of bias, charging
that it is set out to destroy the NDC instead of reconciling the nation.
This, The Statesman’s investigation is
revealing, is the ploy of the NDC. A case of “Destroy it before it destroys
you”, so to speak.
After losing the battle legitimately in
Parliament, Bagbin, last week, in an apparent attempt to soil the exercise,
accused the NPP of habouring a “secret agenda”, saying in the Palaver interview
that NPP leaders know “what they are looking for and want to use the Commission
as a value to translate those intentions through”.
Perhaps obvious to the fact that his party had
eight full years to establish a similar exercise, the leader of the
Parliamentary NDC boldly claims that his party is “even more committed to the
reconciliation process” than the NPP, the promoters of reconciliation,
themselves.
“The NDC opposes, and will continue to struggle
against the National Reconciliation Bill passed last year by parliament,”
according to Alban S.K. Bagbin, Minority Leader in parliament, who spoke to The
Statesman last Friday.
“It would be better,” he said, “if there were
no Bill, rather than this one. The people of Ghana will refuse to cooperate
with it,” he postulated, opening greater rifts than already exist in our
fragile society. With this in mind, he said that the NDC is considering
measures to petition the President so that he will veto the bill before it can
become law.
Rather, he said, the model of reconciliation
they would prefer is that of the PNDC/NDC, which they say initiated the calls
for reconciliation year ago. Bagbin pointed out that former President Rawlings
himself apologised “three times” for human rights abuses committed during his
regime. Amnesties were also granted, he said to people who had been enemies of
the PNDC, such as J.H. Mensah.
Thus, through such conciliatory gestures,
Bagbin said, Ghanaians would be encourage to “forgive and forget” past
“excesses” of the Rawlings regime. This may, doubtless, appear to many to be
either myopic or a gross case of moral arrogance. But Bagbin is unrepentant.
“We saw it as a process,” Bagbin said. We would
“heal through time,” he said, “rather than spending the time passing Bills.
Under the PNDC/NDC paradigm, Ghanaians would not need a commission to achieve a
reconciliation, rather it would be an organic process that would allow
Ghanaians to be reconciled to the past.”
Proof, that reconciliation was achieved during
the PNDC/NDC regime, Bagbin claims, lies in the fact that Ghana has held two
successful elections (1996 and 2000) while the NDC was still in power. How
could we have had such peaceful and successful elections if there had not been
reconciliation?” He asked ambiguously.
“Now, though, they say the idea of
reconciliation has gained international currency and is therefore favourable to
Ghanaians.” It became obvious during the cause of the interview that the NDC’s
means meant allowing time to hopefully wash away memories of human atrocities
of the past, whilst ignoring the cries of today’s enduring victims from the
past.
For, the purpose of the NPP-sponsored exercise
is to neutralise the generation-long inbuilt anger and pain that a sector of
the population harbour for the abuses suffered at the hands of military rulers.
By allowing the victims an avenue to ventilate pain and anger and to offer
appropriate compensation under a civilised forum, Ghana can then move forward
in the spirit of forgiveness and oneness.
Time is steadily running out for the Ghana
Railway Corporation (GRC) and the so-called “kings” and “queens” of the
Ashiedu-Keteke Central Market.
They will soon be required to give account of
the huge amount of money they have been collecting from market women over the
past years and for the illegal sale of land to stall owners in the market.
Nii Ayitey Mensah, spokesman for the Korle-We
family who own the lands on which GRC sits and its surrounding areas, said the
GRC has breached the agreement reached between his family and the corporation
(represented by the government).
He said the documents he has in his possession
prove that the GRC acquired the land from his family with the intention of
using it for transport services, a decision which his ancestors accepted
wholeheartedly, because it was in the interest of the country.
However, over the past years, the corporation
has been selling off some of the property meant for transport service to
businessmen at exorbitant fees and pocketing the proceeds without consultation
with the Korle-We family.
In an exclusive interview with The Statesman,
Nii Ayitey Mensah pointed out that many of the Korle-We have been denied access
to their property because of the way GRC has been handling the agreement.
“The man at the centre of the problem is the
area civil engineer of the corporation, Mr Isaac Obeng Adjei,” Nii alleged,
adding that he had gone to the extent of selling off some of the railway lines
to create space for more stalls in the market. He showed The Statesman portions
of the land at the market, where Mr Obeng Adjei had allegedly ordered the
removal of the lines for sale in tonnes.
Nii explained that he confronted Mr Adjei with
evidence of his malpractices but Mr Obeng Adjei denied knowledge of this. Nii
continued that if this continues he will take the matter to the appropriate quarters
for redress.
He told the Statesman that activities of the
market “kings” and “queenmothers” aggravate the problem because they extort
money from the traders in the name of Korle-We.
GRi…/
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A Senior
Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has said that economic
policies pursued by the government this year have achieved positive results and
stressed that the right measures must be implemented to sustain the successes.
Mr Samuel Apea, former Deputy Governor of the
Bank of Ghana, said stability of the cedi, decline in inflation and interest
rates and stability of the macro-economic environment were indicative of some
of the achievements.
“However, the next budget will determine if the
government will outline measures required to sustain economic gains made so
far,” he told the GNA in an interview in Accra.
Mr Apea factors behind the figures recorded
this year were the result of a lot of restraint on the part of government and
sacrifice by the populace. “Government on one hand minimised expenditure and
deferred implementation of developmental projects at the expense of the
populace, some of who faced a certain level of retrenchment and denial of
salary increases.”
Mr Apea said should the government consider
this as short term measures and pursue sustained policies in the medium to long
term periods so that what have been achieved would not be blown off by
agitation and external shocks. “This will increase the gains and make the
national cake bigger for all to share,” Mr Apea said.
The national economic indicators at the
beginning of the year when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government took over
were inflation (40.5 per cent), interest rates (46 per cent), Exchange rate
(one dollar = 6,794 cedis, one pound=10,199 cedis) and the national debt (5.9
billion dollars, about ¢41 trillion)
Currently, inflation is 28.3 percent and the cedi has stabilised against the
major currencies with the dollar trading at ¢7,141 and the pound at ¢10,351.
Government has subscribed to the Highly
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative to address the nation’s indebtedness.
Mr Apea, currently the Chairman of ECOBANK
Development Corporation, said government could consolidate the gains made by
encouraging small companies to merge and the large ones could also enter into
joint partnership with foreign companies.
“What we have now is the compartmentalised sort
of situation where the small companies are not growing out of their small
shells to join the bigger ones,” he said, and cited agriculture, industry, and
services such as hospitality as some areas that required improvement. He said
projections could be made on the international front due to the recession in
major economies, which were trading partners mainly because of the September 11
terrorist attack on the United States.
Mr Apea advised Ghanaian businessmen to take
advantage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which, he said
would benefit the private sector and the nation as a whole. He called on
businessmen to stop operating behind walls and the selling of head loads of
products, to form mergers of about six or more companies working in pavilions
to export products. These, he said, were some of the things that foreign
businessmen look out for.
Touching on the HIPC initiative, Mr Apea said
Ghana was not in the position to pay her debts. “Even if we went for loans, we
had to go through the poor window from the IDA and the African Development
Bank,” he noted, saying that opting for the HIPC initiative was good for the
country.
Mr Apea explained that for years, Ghana had not
been able to discipline her self in spending. Therefore, there was the need to
accept supervision from outside to enable the nation to stand on its feet.
GRi…/
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