By Kofi Akordor
In the heady days of the 31st December Revolution, the Mother of all Revolutions, people literally went and placed themselves in custody without knowing who invited them. That was when they heard their names mentioned on the radio to report at Gondar Barracks or at the PNDC Information Room near the 37 Military Hospital.
A man recounted his experience of how he responded to such an invitation and reported himself at the PNDC Information Room. The officer at the counter himself was surprised to see him, since so far as he was concerned, he did not know who was responsible for the announcement. All the same in line with the dictates of the day, he was detained for a few days but since no one was coming forward to make any case against him, he was quietly asked to go home. His was a few of the rare cases when people regained their freedom without swollen jaws and broken bones.
Many others were not so lucky. By mere radio announcement, people suffered long-term detention and even imprisonment. Others had to pay the supreme price with their lives even though nothing could be found in the record books as to their crime and which court of competent jurisdiction pronounced sentence after due process of the law.
The 31st December Revolution, for whatever good it has brought to the country, has left deep scars that are taking many years to heal. It also represents the damage all forms of dictatorships, be they civilian or military, have done to the conscience of this country. It, therefore, became no strange matter that after considering all options, the people of this country voted in a referendum in 1992, to operate a constitution, now known as the 1992 Constitution.
We have come a long way. With all its imperfections, the 1992 Constitution has kept this nation together. It can also be argued that the few strides we have been able to make in national development after the Nkrumah era came mainly after the 1992 Constitution came into operation, because we have had governments that were, are, and will be, answerable to the people.
As a nation and as individuals, we have seen the magic of constitutional government work. In 2000, Ghanaians took a decision to sever bonds with a government that had been in power for eight years. Already, that government had roots going back more than 10 years.
Significantly, in 2008, the same Ghanaians decided that whether the 2000 verdict was a wise gamble or not, it was time they redirected their destiny and put it in the hands of fresh people. For this, Ghana won and continues to win respect among the international community. President Barack Obama did not hide this fact when he made it clear that his choice of Ghana on his first major trip to Africa was to give recognition to her democratic credentials.
Apart from addressing the Muslim world from Cairo, the capital of Egypt, earlier in June, 2009, President Obama arrived in Accra on the night of Friday, July 10, 2009, with his wife Michelle and two daughters, Malia and Shasha. The following day, he had a breakfast meeting with the President of Ghana, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, his ministers, members of the diplomatic corps and a cross-section of the public. He then visited the La General Hospital in Accra, addressed Ghana’s Parliament where he made a monumental statement on democracy in Africa and visited the historic Cape Coast Castle.
The Ghana visit, though relatively short, was the longest time President Obama has spent on the continent after his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States of America. Though intangible, it is one of the fruits our democratic governance is bearing and we need to be proud of it.
As a nation, we are benefiting from the knowledge that governments cannot take us for granted and they will be deluding themselves into thinking they can make wild promises on political platforms and go to bed after they get our nod.
As individuals, we are constantly testing the strength of the 1992 Constitution insofar as the protection of our individual rights and freedoms are concerned. Recently, the state security agency, the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), was brought down to its knees through judicial process when its decision to seize passports of persons under investigation was overruled.
In another landmark decision, the Human Rights Division of the High Court in Accra ruled that the BNI cannot invite any citizen for interrogation, detention or ‘friendly chat’ without allowing the person access to counsel as prescribed in the 1992 Constitution.
Mr Justice U.P. Dery in his judgement made reference to Article 14 (2) of the 1992 Constitution which says: “A person who is arrested, restricted or detained shall be informed immediately; in a language that he understands, of the reasons for his arrest, restriction or detention and of his right to a lawyer of his choice.”
There is no need to make political gain out of this judgement. It is not a victory for any individual or political entity. It is victory for our democracy and rule of law which we have committed ourselves to.
It is also not necessary to criminalise or demonise the work of the BNI and for that matter any state institution. It is on record that governments in the past have ignored such rulings from the courts and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). It is, therefore, important that as individuals and as a people, we continue to test the frontiers of the law and see the Constitution as the ultimate refuge in all legal and constitutional matters.
It is good we also remember that the Constitution does not only provide guarantees for rights and freedoms. The Constitution also places some responsibilities on all of us as citizens. That is why there are sanctions or penalties to pay if the interest and security of the state are undermined or placed in jeopardy by any citizen.
The court rulings should also serve as a wake-up call for state institutions to get their act together and make sure the right things are done. The era of impunity is gone. Nobody will walk him/herself into custody by a mere radio announcement or a phone call.
If state institutions fail to do the right thing, it is not only the individual who suffers but the state as well.
State institutions especially the security apparatus have enormous powers under which they can operate effectively to enforce law and order and to safeguard the security of the state. These powers are not even curtailed but merely controlled and regulated to avoid abuse and arbitrariness.
In order not to leave any false impressions in the minds of the people, it is very important we play the game according to the rules so that no room is left for anybody to claim undeserved victories.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogpost.com
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
DOING THINGS THE RIGHT WAY (AUGUST 25, 2009)
FROM hindsight, the directive from the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) to the Bui Power Authority (BPA) to submit an Environmental Management Plan and a Resettlement Action Plan can be said to be a proactive move to avoid the unpleasant aspects of the Akosombo Dam experience.
In the 1960s when the Akosombo Dam was being constructed, many things including a user-friendly resettlement plan were ignored by the authorities.
The resettlement plans for the 52 towns inundated by the dam were drawn with no or very little consultation with the residents of those communities.
The moves by the MEST indicate that as a people we are learning from our mistakes so that we do not inflict pain on communities in the catchment area of the Bui Dam Project.
The fallout from the Akosombo Dam continues to impact negatively on the living conditions of communities in the dam’s catchment area even up to today.
Many families who lost compound houses were compensated with very small structures like hen coops which did not meet their expectations. The farmlands of the people were flooded and few hectares which were spared had their vegetation disturbed to the extent that the farmland could not support any meaningful agriculture.
Quite ironically, the economy of the communities in the dam area were seriously affected by the Akosombo Dam, which was executed to help accelerate the economic development of the country.
Water-borne diseases and other health challenges have also been on the ascendancy thereby aggravating the poor living conditions of the people downstream.
The DAILY GRAPHIC thinks that although the Bui Power Project will accelerate economic development, it should not be carried out at the expense of the daily endeavours of the local people.
Environmentalists raised the red flag when the government decided to revive the Bui Power Project because of their concern for the protection of flora and fauna.
The DAILY GRAPHIC cautions against a repeat of what happened at Akosombo where very rich and resourceful families were reduced to beggars in their own backyards just because a good programme ignored the human touch.
The Bui Power Project holds a lot of promise for the future of the country. This can, however, be attained if the concerns of the people are taken care of by the project management team.
We are encouraged that through civil society activism, the people are wide awake and ready to fight for their rights.
The DAILY GRAPHIC advises the people in the Bui area not to sit on the fence but get actively involved in all the public hearings planned to elicit public reaction and support for the project.
They should participate in all the activities planned by the government to explain the challenges associated with the execution of the project. By their active participation, they will be part of the critical decisions that will be taken to lessen the headaches associated with big ventures like the Bui Dam Project.
The people should voice out their concerns now to avoid the mistakes of Akosombo and guarantee a better standard of living for the people of Bui.
In the 1960s when the Akosombo Dam was being constructed, many things including a user-friendly resettlement plan were ignored by the authorities.
The resettlement plans for the 52 towns inundated by the dam were drawn with no or very little consultation with the residents of those communities.
The moves by the MEST indicate that as a people we are learning from our mistakes so that we do not inflict pain on communities in the catchment area of the Bui Dam Project.
The fallout from the Akosombo Dam continues to impact negatively on the living conditions of communities in the dam’s catchment area even up to today.
Many families who lost compound houses were compensated with very small structures like hen coops which did not meet their expectations. The farmlands of the people were flooded and few hectares which were spared had their vegetation disturbed to the extent that the farmland could not support any meaningful agriculture.
Quite ironically, the economy of the communities in the dam area were seriously affected by the Akosombo Dam, which was executed to help accelerate the economic development of the country.
Water-borne diseases and other health challenges have also been on the ascendancy thereby aggravating the poor living conditions of the people downstream.
The DAILY GRAPHIC thinks that although the Bui Power Project will accelerate economic development, it should not be carried out at the expense of the daily endeavours of the local people.
Environmentalists raised the red flag when the government decided to revive the Bui Power Project because of their concern for the protection of flora and fauna.
The DAILY GRAPHIC cautions against a repeat of what happened at Akosombo where very rich and resourceful families were reduced to beggars in their own backyards just because a good programme ignored the human touch.
The Bui Power Project holds a lot of promise for the future of the country. This can, however, be attained if the concerns of the people are taken care of by the project management team.
We are encouraged that through civil society activism, the people are wide awake and ready to fight for their rights.
The DAILY GRAPHIC advises the people in the Bui area not to sit on the fence but get actively involved in all the public hearings planned to elicit public reaction and support for the project.
They should participate in all the activities planned by the government to explain the challenges associated with the execution of the project. By their active participation, they will be part of the critical decisions that will be taken to lessen the headaches associated with big ventures like the Bui Dam Project.
The people should voice out their concerns now to avoid the mistakes of Akosombo and guarantee a better standard of living for the people of Bui.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Our penal system needs reforms
By Kofi Akordor
Last week, two news items with a common cord came into the public domain, which once again raised serious concerns about our penal system and conditions in our prisons.
In an interview granted a Daily Graphic correspondent, Mr William Kwadwo Asiedu, the Director-General of Prisons, painted a horrid picture of conditions in the country’s prison facilities. Quoting from the 2008 Annual Report of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr Asiedu mentioned overcrowding as a result of increasing prison population, poor facilities for both inmates and service staff and dwindling budgetary allocation.
According to the report, the cumulative prisoner population of 4,867,366 in 2007 increased by 5.9 per cent to 5,170,840 in 2008. The report gave the daily average lock-up figures as 13,335 and 14,128 for 2007 and 2008 respectively.
What the Director-General of Prisons said was no news to those who care to know about the deplorable conditions in the country’s prisons. Perhaps, what might jolt many, is the 5,170,840 figure contained in the 2008 Annual Report on the Ghana Prisons Service as the cumulative annual prisoner population for the year 2008. If this figure is a true reflection of affairs, then it means that at any particular time of the year, almost a quarter of the country’s population was being accommodated in the country’s prisons.
That is quite intriguing and a serious cause for alarm. With the limited resources and poor facilities available, what that means is that most of the prisoners are paying more than enough for their crimes or offences.
The remedy as has always been prescribed is to build more prisons, expand the existing ones and equip them adequately so that they can play their statutory role as reformation and correctional centres.
Mr Cletus Avorka, the Minister of the Interior, as it seemed, sounded like one of those who have not got the true picture of what our prisons look like until he came face to face with reality, when he visited the Ho Central Prisons. He, like many others before him, could not but call for reforms in the country’s penal system, when he saw at first-hand, the degrading, dehumanising and appalling state of the prison, which in all probability, may not be different from the rest in the country.
Mr Avorka might have been overwhelmed by what he saw at the prison and got carried away by anger and emotion when he misdirected his frustration at the police by saying, “The police should promote reconciliation by mediating petty squabbles and not use the courts as a dumping ground of our problems.”
“It was unfair to jail people whose infractions were only misdemeanour, to cram the same prison with hardened criminals when they could do community service,” he said when he observed that there were serious flaws in the country’s penal system. He was, therefore, right to call for the revision of the country’s penal system to ensure effective modern correctional trends. But are the police strong enough to carry the burden of penal transformation alone? Or should they be seen to be the sole culprits in a bad situation such as this national calamity?
Surely I do not think Mr Avorka was expecting the police to set up their own penal system to determine those who go to jail, those who do community service and those who are just cautioned and told to go and sin no more.
What will Mr Avorka and those who share his opinion say, if the police stations become arbitration centres and where offenders and criminals are told to go home and come no more because the courts are full? That means the matter cannot be treated so simply. It goes beyond the police to determine who gets custodial sentence, who gets a fine and who does community service.
What about the courts which fail to exercise their discretionary powers in a reasonable manner as to avoid imposing custodial sentence when a fine could still have applied according to the law?
It is true that there are many men and women parading the streets of our towns and cities not only as free citizens, but as proud, influential and respectable people after embezzling millions of public money or using many criminal means, drug-dealing and money laundering to amass wealth, while a farmer who steals a bunch of plantain from a neighbour’s farm is seen as a criminal who goes to jail for long terms. But that is the society we have created for ourselves in which more value is placed on wealth than substance.
Just imagine that a person who once held public office is called upon to render account for his stewardship, then suddenly he becomes a hero and escorted to the court premises amidst fanfare and chanting of war songs. In the end, a villain is painted as a victim because members of society are not prepared to judge people impartially, but emotionally, through political, ethnic and religious lens. The thief and nation wrecker goes free with his ill-gotten wealth while the poor person who was seen with a fowl hidden under his armpit is condemned by society.
Whatever the case, it is not only just the penal but the whole judicial system which needs to be revisited. Some of the laws and their corresponding sanctions predate the colonial era. We should now be able to determine what constitutes serious crime and what a misdemeanour is. We should be able to determine those who are threats to society and who should be isolated and those who should be given the opportunity to reform and atone for their offences by doing community service.
The judicial system must generally undergo transformation both in terms of physical infrastructure and human resources so that cases are speedily and effectively disposed of to reduce remand cases. Any review without factoring the problems of the police will be an exercise in futility. Take a recent story that there is only one police prosecutor in the whole of the Upper West Region.
Until we bring reforms into the judicial, prisons and police services and until we overhaul the penal system, the police will continue to arrest and process suspected criminals to the courts, because that is part of their responsibilities, and the courts will also exact penalties as prescribed by law, if even they do so capriciously.
As for the prisons, in their state they cannot be anything apart from death camps or concentration camps at best. Due to limited resources and facilities, most of the prisoners do not gain vocational training while serving their sentences and, therefore, come out very wretched or more hardened and go ahead to commit more serious crimes. This is confirmed in the 2008 report under a reference which said that out of the 9,394 convicted prisoners admitted in 2008, 1,806, representing 19.3 per cent, had had one or more previous convictions.
Efforts by the Prisons Service to establish after-care project for ex-convicts to facilitate their smooth re-integration, according to the report, have been hampered by lack of funding. The danger looming is the relatively youthful nature of the prisoner population. Of the 9,394 convicted and imprisoned in 2008, 88.7 per cent were between 18 and 45 years.
As is clearly seen, there is a lot to be done to streamline the penal system to bring it close to an ideal one. There is the need to revamp the prison workshops with modern equipment so that the reformatory and correctional process can be carried out through psychological re-adjustment and vocational training. Facilities in the prisons should be improved to make them more habitable, while the after-care project should be revitalised to support the re-integration process.
The prison officers themselves need redemption. They need better and decent accommodation. There should be a clear distinction between a warder and a prisoner. For now, the warders are only one step ahead of the inmates, and no wonder people refer to them as glorious prisoners. If we go through the records, it will be realised that Mr Avorka is not the first person, and very likely not the last, to express disgust at the prison system. That means it will need more than political rhetoric and expression of outrage to make things change
It is the hope of Ghanaians that in two years’ time, when the Minister of the Interior visits any of the country’s prisons, he will not hold his nose because of the heavy stench of human sweat blending with urine and human waste in a suffocating environment. He will, hopefully, see inmates who are preparing themselves seriously in well-equipped workshops for a new life after their release.
Last week, two news items with a common cord came into the public domain, which once again raised serious concerns about our penal system and conditions in our prisons.
In an interview granted a Daily Graphic correspondent, Mr William Kwadwo Asiedu, the Director-General of Prisons, painted a horrid picture of conditions in the country’s prison facilities. Quoting from the 2008 Annual Report of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr Asiedu mentioned overcrowding as a result of increasing prison population, poor facilities for both inmates and service staff and dwindling budgetary allocation.
According to the report, the cumulative prisoner population of 4,867,366 in 2007 increased by 5.9 per cent to 5,170,840 in 2008. The report gave the daily average lock-up figures as 13,335 and 14,128 for 2007 and 2008 respectively.
What the Director-General of Prisons said was no news to those who care to know about the deplorable conditions in the country’s prisons. Perhaps, what might jolt many, is the 5,170,840 figure contained in the 2008 Annual Report on the Ghana Prisons Service as the cumulative annual prisoner population for the year 2008. If this figure is a true reflection of affairs, then it means that at any particular time of the year, almost a quarter of the country’s population was being accommodated in the country’s prisons.
That is quite intriguing and a serious cause for alarm. With the limited resources and poor facilities available, what that means is that most of the prisoners are paying more than enough for their crimes or offences.
The remedy as has always been prescribed is to build more prisons, expand the existing ones and equip them adequately so that they can play their statutory role as reformation and correctional centres.
Mr Cletus Avorka, the Minister of the Interior, as it seemed, sounded like one of those who have not got the true picture of what our prisons look like until he came face to face with reality, when he visited the Ho Central Prisons. He, like many others before him, could not but call for reforms in the country’s penal system, when he saw at first-hand, the degrading, dehumanising and appalling state of the prison, which in all probability, may not be different from the rest in the country.
Mr Avorka might have been overwhelmed by what he saw at the prison and got carried away by anger and emotion when he misdirected his frustration at the police by saying, “The police should promote reconciliation by mediating petty squabbles and not use the courts as a dumping ground of our problems.”
“It was unfair to jail people whose infractions were only misdemeanour, to cram the same prison with hardened criminals when they could do community service,” he said when he observed that there were serious flaws in the country’s penal system. He was, therefore, right to call for the revision of the country’s penal system to ensure effective modern correctional trends. But are the police strong enough to carry the burden of penal transformation alone? Or should they be seen to be the sole culprits in a bad situation such as this national calamity?
Surely I do not think Mr Avorka was expecting the police to set up their own penal system to determine those who go to jail, those who do community service and those who are just cautioned and told to go and sin no more.
What will Mr Avorka and those who share his opinion say, if the police stations become arbitration centres and where offenders and criminals are told to go home and come no more because the courts are full? That means the matter cannot be treated so simply. It goes beyond the police to determine who gets custodial sentence, who gets a fine and who does community service.
What about the courts which fail to exercise their discretionary powers in a reasonable manner as to avoid imposing custodial sentence when a fine could still have applied according to the law?
It is true that there are many men and women parading the streets of our towns and cities not only as free citizens, but as proud, influential and respectable people after embezzling millions of public money or using many criminal means, drug-dealing and money laundering to amass wealth, while a farmer who steals a bunch of plantain from a neighbour’s farm is seen as a criminal who goes to jail for long terms. But that is the society we have created for ourselves in which more value is placed on wealth than substance.
Just imagine that a person who once held public office is called upon to render account for his stewardship, then suddenly he becomes a hero and escorted to the court premises amidst fanfare and chanting of war songs. In the end, a villain is painted as a victim because members of society are not prepared to judge people impartially, but emotionally, through political, ethnic and religious lens. The thief and nation wrecker goes free with his ill-gotten wealth while the poor person who was seen with a fowl hidden under his armpit is condemned by society.
Whatever the case, it is not only just the penal but the whole judicial system which needs to be revisited. Some of the laws and their corresponding sanctions predate the colonial era. We should now be able to determine what constitutes serious crime and what a misdemeanour is. We should be able to determine those who are threats to society and who should be isolated and those who should be given the opportunity to reform and atone for their offences by doing community service.
The judicial system must generally undergo transformation both in terms of physical infrastructure and human resources so that cases are speedily and effectively disposed of to reduce remand cases. Any review without factoring the problems of the police will be an exercise in futility. Take a recent story that there is only one police prosecutor in the whole of the Upper West Region.
Until we bring reforms into the judicial, prisons and police services and until we overhaul the penal system, the police will continue to arrest and process suspected criminals to the courts, because that is part of their responsibilities, and the courts will also exact penalties as prescribed by law, if even they do so capriciously.
As for the prisons, in their state they cannot be anything apart from death camps or concentration camps at best. Due to limited resources and facilities, most of the prisoners do not gain vocational training while serving their sentences and, therefore, come out very wretched or more hardened and go ahead to commit more serious crimes. This is confirmed in the 2008 report under a reference which said that out of the 9,394 convicted prisoners admitted in 2008, 1,806, representing 19.3 per cent, had had one or more previous convictions.
Efforts by the Prisons Service to establish after-care project for ex-convicts to facilitate their smooth re-integration, according to the report, have been hampered by lack of funding. The danger looming is the relatively youthful nature of the prisoner population. Of the 9,394 convicted and imprisoned in 2008, 88.7 per cent were between 18 and 45 years.
As is clearly seen, there is a lot to be done to streamline the penal system to bring it close to an ideal one. There is the need to revamp the prison workshops with modern equipment so that the reformatory and correctional process can be carried out through psychological re-adjustment and vocational training. Facilities in the prisons should be improved to make them more habitable, while the after-care project should be revitalised to support the re-integration process.
The prison officers themselves need redemption. They need better and decent accommodation. There should be a clear distinction between a warder and a prisoner. For now, the warders are only one step ahead of the inmates, and no wonder people refer to them as glorious prisoners. If we go through the records, it will be realised that Mr Avorka is not the first person, and very likely not the last, to express disgust at the prison system. That means it will need more than political rhetoric and expression of outrage to make things change
It is the hope of Ghanaians that in two years’ time, when the Minister of the Interior visits any of the country’s prisons, he will not hold his nose because of the heavy stench of human sweat blending with urine and human waste in a suffocating environment. He will, hopefully, see inmates who are preparing themselves seriously in well-equipped workshops for a new life after their release.
OUR PENAL SYSTEM NEEDS REFORMS (AUGUST 18, 2009)
Last week, two news items with a common cord came into the public domain, which once again raised serious concerns about our penal system and conditions in our prisons.
In an interview granted the Daily Graphic, the Director-General of Prisons, Mr William Kwadwo Asiedu, painted a horrid picture of conditions in the country’s prison facilities.
Quoting from the 2008 Annual Report of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr Asiedu mentioned overcrowding as a result of increasing prison population, poor facilities for both inmates and service staff and dwindling budgetary allocation.
According to the report, the cumulative prisoner population of 4,867,366 in 2007 increased by 5.9 per cent to 5,170,840 in 2008. The report gave the daily average lock-up figures as 13,335 and 14,128 for 2007 and 2008 respectively.
What the Director-General of Prisons said was no news to those who care to know about the deplorable conditions in the country’s prisons. Perhaps, what might jolt many, is the 5,170,840 figure contained in the 2008 Annual Report on the Ghana Prisons Service as the cumulative annual prisoner population for the year 2008. If this figure is a true reflection of affairs, then it means that at any particular time of the year, almost a quarter of the country’s population was being accommodated in the country’s prisons.
That is quite intriguing and a serious cause for alarm. With the limited resources and poor facilities available, what that means is that most of the prisoners are paying more than enough for their crimes or offences.
The remedy as has always been prescribed is to build more prisons, expand the existing ones and equip them adequately so that they can play their statutory role as reformation and correctional centres.
Mr Cletus Avorka, the Minister of the Interior, as it seemed, sounded like one of those who did not have the true picture of what our prisons looked like until he came face to face with reality, when he visited the Ho Central Prisons.
He, like many others before him, could not but call for reforms in the country’s penal system, when he saw at first-hand, the degrading, dehumanising and appalling state of the prison, which in all probability, may not be different from the rest in the country.
Mr Avorka might have been overwhelmed by what he saw at the prison and got carried away by anger and emotion when he misdirected his frustration at the police by saying, “The police should promote reconciliation by mediating petty squabbles and not use the courts as a dumping ground of our problems.”
“It was unfair to jail people whose infractions were only misdemeanour, to cram the same prison with hardened criminals when they could do community service,” he said when he observed that there were serious flaws in the country’s penal system. He was, therefore, right to call for the revision of the country’s penal system to ensure effective modern correctional trends. But are the police strong enough to carry the burden of penal transformation alone? Or should they be seen to be the sole culprits in a bad situation such as this national calamity?
Surely I do not think Mr Avorka was expecting the police to set up their own penal system to determine those who go to jail, those who do community service and those who are just cautioned and told to go and sin no more.
What will Mr Avorka and those who share his opinion say, if the police stations become arbitration centres and where offenders and criminals are told to go home and come no more because the courts are full? That means the matter cannot be treated so simply. It goes beyond the police to determine who gets custodial sentence, who gets a fine and who does community service.
What about the courts which fail to exercise their discretionary powers in a reasonable manner as to avoid imposing custodial sentence when a fine could still have applied according to the law?
It is true that there are many men and women parading the streets of our towns and cities not only as free citizens, but as proud, influential and respectable people after embezzling millions of public money or using many criminal means, drug-dealing and money laundering to amass wealth, while a farmer who steals a bunch of plantain from a neighbour’s farm is seen as a criminal who goes to jail for long terms. But that is the society we have created for ourselves in which more value is placed on wealth than substance.
Just imagine that a person who once held public office is called upon to render account for his stewardship, then suddenly he becomes a hero and escorted to the court premises amidst fanfare and chanting of war songs.
In the end, a villain is painted as a victim because members of society are not prepared to judge people impartially, but emotionally, through political, ethnic and religious lens. The thief and nation wrecker goes free with his ill-gotten wealth while the poor person who was seen with a fowl hidden under his armpit is condemned by society.
Whatever the case, it is not only just the penal but the whole judicial system which needs to be revisited. Some of the laws and their corresponding sanctions predate the colonial era. We should now be able to determine what constitutes serious crime and what a misdemeanour is. We should be able to determine those who are threats to society and who should be isolated and those who should be given the opportunity to reform and atone for their offences by doing community service.
The judicial system must generally undergo transformation both in terms of physical infrastructure and human resources so that cases are speedily and effectively disposed of to reduce remand cases. Any review without factoring the problems of the police will be an exercise in futility. Take a recent story that there is only one police prosecutor in the whole of the Upper West Region.
Until we bring reforms into the judicial, prisons and police services and until we overhaul the penal system, the police will continue to arrest and process suspected criminals to the courts, because that is part of their responsibilities, and the courts will also exact penalties as prescribed by law, if even they do so capriciously.
As for the prisons, in their state they cannot be anything apart from death camps or concentration camps at best. Due to limited resources and facilities, most of the prisoners do not gain vocational training while serving their sentences and, therefore, come out very wretched or more hardened and go ahead to commit more serious crimes.
This is confirmed in the 2008 report under a reference which said that out of the 9,394 convicted prisoners admitted in 2008, 1,806, representing 19.3 per cent, had had one or more previous convictions.
Efforts by the Prisons Service to establish after-care project for ex-convicts to facilitate their smooth re-integration, according to the report, have been hampered by lack of funding. The danger looming is the relatively youthful nature of the prisoner population. Of the 9,394 convicted and imprisoned in 2008, 88.7 per cent were between 18 and 45 years.
As is clearly seen, there is a lot to be done to streamline the penal system to bring it close to an ideal one. There is the need to revamp the prison workshops with modern equipment so that the reformatory and correctional process can be carried out through psychological re-adjustment and vocational training. Facilities in the prisons should be improved to make them more habitable, while the after-care project should be revitalised to support the re-integration process.
The prison officers themselves need redemption. They need better and decent accommodation. There should be a clear distinction between a warder and a prisoner. For now, the warders are only one step ahead of the inmates, and no wonder people refer to them as glorious prisoners.
If we go through the records, it will be realised that Mr Avorka is not the first person, and very likely not the last, to express disgust at the prison system. That means it will need more than political rhetoric and expression of outrage to make things change
It is the hope of Ghanaians that in two years’ time, when the Minister of the Interior visits any of the country’s prisons, he will not hold his nose because of the heavy stench of human sweat blending with urine and human waste in a suffocating environment. He will, hopefully, see inmates who are preparing themselves seriously in well-equipped workshops for a new life after their release.
PS: I wish to take this opportunity to thank readers of this column for their support over the years.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
In an interview granted the Daily Graphic, the Director-General of Prisons, Mr William Kwadwo Asiedu, painted a horrid picture of conditions in the country’s prison facilities.
Quoting from the 2008 Annual Report of the Ghana Prisons Service, Mr Asiedu mentioned overcrowding as a result of increasing prison population, poor facilities for both inmates and service staff and dwindling budgetary allocation.
According to the report, the cumulative prisoner population of 4,867,366 in 2007 increased by 5.9 per cent to 5,170,840 in 2008. The report gave the daily average lock-up figures as 13,335 and 14,128 for 2007 and 2008 respectively.
What the Director-General of Prisons said was no news to those who care to know about the deplorable conditions in the country’s prisons. Perhaps, what might jolt many, is the 5,170,840 figure contained in the 2008 Annual Report on the Ghana Prisons Service as the cumulative annual prisoner population for the year 2008. If this figure is a true reflection of affairs, then it means that at any particular time of the year, almost a quarter of the country’s population was being accommodated in the country’s prisons.
That is quite intriguing and a serious cause for alarm. With the limited resources and poor facilities available, what that means is that most of the prisoners are paying more than enough for their crimes or offences.
The remedy as has always been prescribed is to build more prisons, expand the existing ones and equip them adequately so that they can play their statutory role as reformation and correctional centres.
Mr Cletus Avorka, the Minister of the Interior, as it seemed, sounded like one of those who did not have the true picture of what our prisons looked like until he came face to face with reality, when he visited the Ho Central Prisons.
He, like many others before him, could not but call for reforms in the country’s penal system, when he saw at first-hand, the degrading, dehumanising and appalling state of the prison, which in all probability, may not be different from the rest in the country.
Mr Avorka might have been overwhelmed by what he saw at the prison and got carried away by anger and emotion when he misdirected his frustration at the police by saying, “The police should promote reconciliation by mediating petty squabbles and not use the courts as a dumping ground of our problems.”
“It was unfair to jail people whose infractions were only misdemeanour, to cram the same prison with hardened criminals when they could do community service,” he said when he observed that there were serious flaws in the country’s penal system. He was, therefore, right to call for the revision of the country’s penal system to ensure effective modern correctional trends. But are the police strong enough to carry the burden of penal transformation alone? Or should they be seen to be the sole culprits in a bad situation such as this national calamity?
Surely I do not think Mr Avorka was expecting the police to set up their own penal system to determine those who go to jail, those who do community service and those who are just cautioned and told to go and sin no more.
What will Mr Avorka and those who share his opinion say, if the police stations become arbitration centres and where offenders and criminals are told to go home and come no more because the courts are full? That means the matter cannot be treated so simply. It goes beyond the police to determine who gets custodial sentence, who gets a fine and who does community service.
What about the courts which fail to exercise their discretionary powers in a reasonable manner as to avoid imposing custodial sentence when a fine could still have applied according to the law?
It is true that there are many men and women parading the streets of our towns and cities not only as free citizens, but as proud, influential and respectable people after embezzling millions of public money or using many criminal means, drug-dealing and money laundering to amass wealth, while a farmer who steals a bunch of plantain from a neighbour’s farm is seen as a criminal who goes to jail for long terms. But that is the society we have created for ourselves in which more value is placed on wealth than substance.
Just imagine that a person who once held public office is called upon to render account for his stewardship, then suddenly he becomes a hero and escorted to the court premises amidst fanfare and chanting of war songs.
In the end, a villain is painted as a victim because members of society are not prepared to judge people impartially, but emotionally, through political, ethnic and religious lens. The thief and nation wrecker goes free with his ill-gotten wealth while the poor person who was seen with a fowl hidden under his armpit is condemned by society.
Whatever the case, it is not only just the penal but the whole judicial system which needs to be revisited. Some of the laws and their corresponding sanctions predate the colonial era. We should now be able to determine what constitutes serious crime and what a misdemeanour is. We should be able to determine those who are threats to society and who should be isolated and those who should be given the opportunity to reform and atone for their offences by doing community service.
The judicial system must generally undergo transformation both in terms of physical infrastructure and human resources so that cases are speedily and effectively disposed of to reduce remand cases. Any review without factoring the problems of the police will be an exercise in futility. Take a recent story that there is only one police prosecutor in the whole of the Upper West Region.
Until we bring reforms into the judicial, prisons and police services and until we overhaul the penal system, the police will continue to arrest and process suspected criminals to the courts, because that is part of their responsibilities, and the courts will also exact penalties as prescribed by law, if even they do so capriciously.
As for the prisons, in their state they cannot be anything apart from death camps or concentration camps at best. Due to limited resources and facilities, most of the prisoners do not gain vocational training while serving their sentences and, therefore, come out very wretched or more hardened and go ahead to commit more serious crimes.
This is confirmed in the 2008 report under a reference which said that out of the 9,394 convicted prisoners admitted in 2008, 1,806, representing 19.3 per cent, had had one or more previous convictions.
Efforts by the Prisons Service to establish after-care project for ex-convicts to facilitate their smooth re-integration, according to the report, have been hampered by lack of funding. The danger looming is the relatively youthful nature of the prisoner population. Of the 9,394 convicted and imprisoned in 2008, 88.7 per cent were between 18 and 45 years.
As is clearly seen, there is a lot to be done to streamline the penal system to bring it close to an ideal one. There is the need to revamp the prison workshops with modern equipment so that the reformatory and correctional process can be carried out through psychological re-adjustment and vocational training. Facilities in the prisons should be improved to make them more habitable, while the after-care project should be revitalised to support the re-integration process.
The prison officers themselves need redemption. They need better and decent accommodation. There should be a clear distinction between a warder and a prisoner. For now, the warders are only one step ahead of the inmates, and no wonder people refer to them as glorious prisoners.
If we go through the records, it will be realised that Mr Avorka is not the first person, and very likely not the last, to express disgust at the prison system. That means it will need more than political rhetoric and expression of outrage to make things change
It is the hope of Ghanaians that in two years’ time, when the Minister of the Interior visits any of the country’s prisons, he will not hold his nose because of the heavy stench of human sweat blending with urine and human waste in a suffocating environment. He will, hopefully, see inmates who are preparing themselves seriously in well-equipped workshops for a new life after their release.
PS: I wish to take this opportunity to thank readers of this column for their support over the years.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Chaos on the airwaves
By Kofi Akordor
One of the glorious things the 1992 Constitution did for us was the way it stripped naked, the myth surrounding freedom of expression and media pluralism and in the process, let loose, the vocal chords of every Ghanaian who wants to express him/herself on any matter agitating his/her mind.
Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution talks extensively about the Freedom and Independence of the Media. Article 162 (1) says: “Freedom and independence of the media are hereby guaranteed”. Article 162 (2) makes clear that: “Subject to this Constitution and any other law not inconsistent with this Constitution, there shall be no censorship in Ghana”.
On private media ownership, Article 162 (3) was quite emphatic: “There shall be no impediments to the establishment of private press or media; and in particular, there shall be no law requiring any person to obtain a licence as a prerequisite to the establishment or operation of a newspaper, journal or other media for mass communication or information.
Of course there is nothing like absolute freedom. So Article 164 of the Constitution reminds us that: “The provision of articles 162 and 163 of this Constitution are subject to laws that are reasonably required in the interest of national security, public order, public morality and for the purpose of protecting the reputations, rights and freedoms of other persons”.
What seems to be some form of restrictions placed on the right of the citizen to freedom of expression have somehow been restored under Article 165, which says: “For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of this Chapter shall not be taken to limit the enjoyment of any of the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed under Chapter Five of this Constitution”.
Chapter Five of the 1992 Constitution in 22 Articles spells out the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all Ghanaians and all those who come under the protection of the Constitution.
To eliminate any doubt about the freedom of any media practice in the country, Article 173 of Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution states clearly that: ”Subject to Article 167 of this Constitution”, (which spells out the functions of the National Media Commission), “the National Media Commission shall not exercise any control or direction over the professional functions of a person engaged in the production of newspapers or other means of communications”.
With all these constitutional freedoms and guarantees, the gates were opened to allow an avalanche of media institutions to flood the media landscape. The monopoly that the state-owned media institutions used to enjoy vanished and the Graphic Corporation, now Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Ghana News Agency have to compete on the media market with private newspapers, radio and television stations for attention and patronage.
Media practitioners generally, especially those working with the state-owned media, could seek protection to a large extent under the provisions of the Constitution to escape from the interference and sanctions which were associated with the practice in the past.
Professional media practitioners who in the past were constrained by job opportunities now have opportunities opened to them as a result of the emergence of many media organisations.
The greatest beneficiaries, however, are the people of Ghana who now have the freedom to choose from a multiplicity of both electronic and print media. They also have access to limitless information which is available from different sources. What was considered secret or guarded information yesterday has become common knowledge today as it is commonly said nobody holds monopoly over any public information any longer.
Governments which manipulated the media in the past and suppressed vital information for obvious reasons have gradually come to the realisation that those days are gone and that the best they could do is to get their explanations ready for a demanding public that is yearning for answers to their queries.
The biggest explosion was witnessed in the field of radio broadcasting which saw a massive invasion of Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations on the country’s airwaves. Radio stations are easier and cheaper to manage and they have a vast audience who do not pay for their services.
In a country where adult illiteracy is still very high, the radio stations which broadcast their programmes in the local languages in addition to the official English language, offer cheap and easily accessible avenues for news and entertainment. That, in addition to the high cost of newspaper production, means the radio stations have competitive urge over the print media in terms of coverage and patronage.
All these are good for the country’s infant democracy. Media freedom especially the proliferation of radio stations also means that information has been demystified. It works both ways. While the government can reach the vast majority of the people simultaneously, the governed can also reach government in no time. In short, a well-informed public is in a better position to confront national issues and articulate their views in a more objective manner. But there is always a price to pay for anything that is freely available.
The media generally has their own problems, ranging from poorly trained personnel to market forces which determine cost and quality. Suffice it to say the radio stations have come with their own loads of problems some of which continue to pose a serious threat to the democracy which brought them to life and which in all their endeavours they will claim they are protecting and defending.
It seems in our zeal to embrace the newly won freedom granted us by the 1992 Constitution, most of the radio stations have shifted greatly from professionalism to commercialism. That might explain why most of the owners do not pay serious attention to those who they employ to work on the stations. A lot of the people who address the Ghanaian public on the airwaves do so simply because they could talk and make noise. Whether in the English language or the local dialects, a lot of us do not know what they are about. Their only passion is to talk and talk all day. A lot do not know the difference between news and commentaries. They do not know when to be serious and when to crack jokes. What could be a private or personal trivia are let loose on listeners who cannot complain.
Those who broadcast in the local languages are on a different wavelength altogether. You cannot tell who they want to impress, but they end up inflicting a combination of Twi and English on poor listeners. To the general public, all these characters are professional broadcast journalists. What a good way to cheapen a noble profession.
With all the good things the radio stations are doing, they still remain a potential source of friction, conflict, confrontation and disintegration if we continue to play the ostrich game and do not streamline the operations of the radio stations.
We are constantly being reminded of the experiences of others, especially the Rwandan genocide case, which is quite fresh, but as usual, we want to believe that we are different from others and, therefore, damn the consequences.
I am making reference to the manner we have turned the radio stations into battle grounds where it is not even ideas that are competing, but emotions, insults and lies that are vying for attention. Most of the owners of the radio stations do not care about professionalism and, therefore, recruit people for their ability to make noise and crack unnecessary jokes to attract attention. As a result, serious programmes which otherwise should have attracted sober discussions by well-informed and knowledgeable people have been turned into campaign platforms for politicians to pollute the air with insults and unfounded allegations.
It is difficult to avoid doing politics, especially in an environment that have been starved for so long of multiparty democracy. But it should still be easy for us to tell what healthy politics is and what the harbingers of national destruction are.
Most of our presenters and commentators in the name of informing, feed their audience with wild allegations, accusations and downright lies packaged as news. The other thing is the way the airwaves are being bombarded with profanities in the name of entertainment.
The phone-in segments which are to serve as feedback mechanism and to encourage audience participation in radio programmes are becoming chaotic and sometimes dangerous. Media freedom just like multiparty democracy has come to stay. Freedom of expression does not only enrich good governance; it sustains all the other freedoms and rights enshrined in the Constitution and so it must be jealously guarded. We do not need to spend the whole day insulting and shouting at one another to yield the benefits of press freedom and freedom of expression.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
One of the glorious things the 1992 Constitution did for us was the way it stripped naked, the myth surrounding freedom of expression and media pluralism and in the process, let loose, the vocal chords of every Ghanaian who wants to express him/herself on any matter agitating his/her mind.
Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution talks extensively about the Freedom and Independence of the Media. Article 162 (1) says: “Freedom and independence of the media are hereby guaranteed”. Article 162 (2) makes clear that: “Subject to this Constitution and any other law not inconsistent with this Constitution, there shall be no censorship in Ghana”.
On private media ownership, Article 162 (3) was quite emphatic: “There shall be no impediments to the establishment of private press or media; and in particular, there shall be no law requiring any person to obtain a licence as a prerequisite to the establishment or operation of a newspaper, journal or other media for mass communication or information.
Of course there is nothing like absolute freedom. So Article 164 of the Constitution reminds us that: “The provision of articles 162 and 163 of this Constitution are subject to laws that are reasonably required in the interest of national security, public order, public morality and for the purpose of protecting the reputations, rights and freedoms of other persons”.
What seems to be some form of restrictions placed on the right of the citizen to freedom of expression have somehow been restored under Article 165, which says: “For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of this Chapter shall not be taken to limit the enjoyment of any of the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed under Chapter Five of this Constitution”.
Chapter Five of the 1992 Constitution in 22 Articles spells out the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all Ghanaians and all those who come under the protection of the Constitution.
To eliminate any doubt about the freedom of any media practice in the country, Article 173 of Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution states clearly that: ”Subject to Article 167 of this Constitution”, (which spells out the functions of the National Media Commission), “the National Media Commission shall not exercise any control or direction over the professional functions of a person engaged in the production of newspapers or other means of communications”.
With all these constitutional freedoms and guarantees, the gates were opened to allow an avalanche of media institutions to flood the media landscape. The monopoly that the state-owned media institutions used to enjoy vanished and the Graphic Corporation, now Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Ghana News Agency have to compete on the media market with private newspapers, radio and television stations for attention and patronage.
Media practitioners generally, especially those working with the state-owned media, could seek protection to a large extent under the provisions of the Constitution to escape from the interference and sanctions which were associated with the practice in the past.
Professional media practitioners who in the past were constrained by job opportunities now have opportunities opened to them as a result of the emergence of many media organisations.
The greatest beneficiaries, however, are the people of Ghana who now have the freedom to choose from a multiplicity of both electronic and print media. They also have access to limitless information which is available from different sources. What was considered secret or guarded information yesterday has become common knowledge today as it is commonly said nobody holds monopoly over any public information any longer.
Governments which manipulated the media in the past and suppressed vital information for obvious reasons have gradually come to the realisation that those days are gone and that the best they could do is to get their explanations ready for a demanding public that is yearning for answers to their queries.
The biggest explosion was witnessed in the field of radio broadcasting which saw a massive invasion of Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations on the country’s airwaves. Radio stations are easier and cheaper to manage and they have a vast audience who do not pay for their services.
In a country where adult illiteracy is still very high, the radio stations which broadcast their programmes in the local languages in addition to the official English language, offer cheap and easily accessible avenues for news and entertainment. That, in addition to the high cost of newspaper production, means the radio stations have competitive urge over the print media in terms of coverage and patronage.
All these are good for the country’s infant democracy. Media freedom especially the proliferation of radio stations also means that information has been demystified. It works both ways. While the government can reach the vast majority of the people simultaneously, the governed can also reach government in no time. In short, a well-informed public is in a better position to confront national issues and articulate their views in a more objective manner. But there is always a price to pay for anything that is freely available.
The media generally has their own problems, ranging from poorly trained personnel to market forces which determine cost and quality. Suffice it to say the radio stations have come with their own loads of problems some of which continue to pose a serious threat to the democracy which brought them to life and which in all their endeavours they will claim they are protecting and defending.
It seems in our zeal to embrace the newly won freedom granted us by the 1992 Constitution, most of the radio stations have shifted greatly from professionalism to commercialism. That might explain why most of the owners do not pay serious attention to those who they employ to work on the stations. A lot of the people who address the Ghanaian public on the airwaves do so simply because they could talk and make noise. Whether in the English language or the local dialects, a lot of us do not know what they are about. Their only passion is to talk and talk all day. A lot do not know the difference between news and commentaries. They do not know when to be serious and when to crack jokes. What could be a private or personal trivia are let loose on listeners who cannot complain.
Those who broadcast in the local languages are on a different wavelength altogether. You cannot tell who they want to impress, but they end up inflicting a combination of Twi and English on poor listeners. To the general public, all these characters are professional broadcast journalists. What a good way to cheapen a noble profession.
With all the good things the radio stations are doing, they still remain a potential source of friction, conflict, confrontation and disintegration if we continue to play the ostrich game and do not streamline the operations of the radio stations.
We are constantly being reminded of the experiences of others, especially the Rwandan genocide case, which is quite fresh, but as usual, we want to believe that we are different from others and, therefore, damn the consequences.
I am making reference to the manner we have turned the radio stations into battle grounds where it is not even ideas that are competing, but emotions, insults and lies that are vying for attention. Most of the owners of the radio stations do not care about professionalism and, therefore, recruit people for their ability to make noise and crack unnecessary jokes to attract attention. As a result, serious programmes which otherwise should have attracted sober discussions by well-informed and knowledgeable people have been turned into campaign platforms for politicians to pollute the air with insults and unfounded allegations.
It is difficult to avoid doing politics, especially in an environment that have been starved for so long of multiparty democracy. But it should still be easy for us to tell what healthy politics is and what the harbingers of national destruction are.
Most of our presenters and commentators in the name of informing, feed their audience with wild allegations, accusations and downright lies packaged as news. The other thing is the way the airwaves are being bombarded with profanities in the name of entertainment.
The phone-in segments which are to serve as feedback mechanism and to encourage audience participation in radio programmes are becoming chaotic and sometimes dangerous. Media freedom just like multiparty democracy has come to stay. Freedom of expression does not only enrich good governance; it sustains all the other freedoms and rights enshrined in the Constitution and so it must be jealously guarded. We do not need to spend the whole day insulting and shouting at one another to yield the benefits of press freedom and freedom of expression.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
CHAOS ON THE AIRWAVES (AUGUST 11, 2009)
One of the glorious things the 1992 Constitution did for us was the way it stripped naked the myth surrounding freedom of expression and media pluralism, and in the process, let loose the vocal chords of every Ghanaian who wants to express him/herself on any matter agitating his/her mind.
Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution talks extensively about the Freedom and Independence of the Media. Article 162 (1) says: “Freedom and independence of the media are hereby guaranteed”. Article 162 (2) makes clear that: “Subject to this Constitution and any other law not inconsistent with this Constitution, there shall be no censorship in Ghana”.
On private media ownership, Article 162 (3) was quite emphatic: “There shall be no impediments to the establishment of private press or media; and in particular, there shall be no law requiring any person to obtain a licence as a prerequisite to the establishment or operation of a newspaper, journal or other media for mass communication or information.
Of course, there is nothing like absolute freedom. So Article 164 of the Constitution reminds us that: “The provision of articles 162 and 163 of this Constitution are subject to laws that are reasonably required in the interest of national security, public order, public morality and for the purpose of protecting the reputations, rights and freedoms of other persons”.
What seems to be some form of restrictions placed on the right of the citizen to freedom of expression have somehow been restored under Article 165, which says: “For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of this Chapter shall not be taken to limit the enjoyment of any of the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed under Chapter Five of this Constitution”.
Chapter Five of the 1992 Constitution in 22 Articles spells out the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all Ghanaians and all those who come under the protection of the Constitution.
To eliminate any doubt about the freedom of any media practice in the country, Article 173 of Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution states clearly that: ”Subject to Article 167 of this Constitution”, (which spells out the functions of the National Media Commission), “the National Media Commission shall not exercise any control or direction over the professional functions of a person engaged in the production of newspapers or other means of communications”.
With all these constitutional freedoms and guarantees, the gates were opened to allow an avalanche of media institutions to flood the media landscape. The monopoly that the state-owned media institutions used to enjoy vanished and the Graphic Corporation, now Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Ghana News Agency have to compete on the media market with private newspapers, radio and television stations for attention and patronage.
Media practitioners generally, especially those working with the state-owned media, could seek protection to a large extent under the provisions of the Constitution to escape from the interference and sanctions which were associated with the practice in the past.
Professional media practitioners, who in the past were constrained by job opportunities, now have opportunities open to them as a result of the emergence of many media organisations.
The greatest beneficiaries, however, are the people of Ghana, who now have the freedom to choose from a multiplicity of both electronic and print media. They also have access to limitless information which is available from different sources. What was considered secret or guarded information yesterday has become common knowledge today, as it is commonly said, nobody holds monopoly over any public information any longer.
Governments which manipulated the media in the past and suppressed vital information for obvious reasons have gradually come to the realisation that those days are gone, and that the best they could do is to get their explanations ready for a demanding public that is yearning for answers to their queries.
The biggest explosion was witnessed in the field of radio broadcasting which saw a massive invasion of Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations on the country’s airwaves. Radio stations are easier and cheaper to manage and they have a vast audience who do not pay for their services.
In a country where adult illiteracy is still very high, the radio stations which broadcast, their programmes in the local languages, in addition to the official English language, offer cheap and easily accessible avenues for news and entertainment. That, in addition to the high cost of newspaper production, means the radio stations have competitive urge over the print media in terms of coverage and patronage.
All these are good for the country’s infant democracy. Media freedom, especially proliferation of radio stations also means that information has been demystified. It works both ways. While the government can reach the vast majority of the people simultaneously, the governed can also reach the government in no time. In short, a well-informed public is in a better position to confront national issues and articulate their views in a more objective manner. But there is always a price to pay for anything that is freely available.
The media generally has their own problems, ranging from poorly trained personnel to market forces which determine cost and quality. Suffice it to say the radio stations have come with their own loads of problems, some of which continue to pose a serious threat to the democracy which brought them to life and which in all their endeavours will claim they are protecting and defending.
It seems in our zeal to embrace the newly won freedom granted us by the 1992 Constitution, most of the radio stations have shifted greatly from professionalism to commercialism. That might explain why most of the owners do not pay serious attention to those who they employ to work on the stations. A lot of the people who address the Ghanaian public on the airwaves do so simply because they could talk and make noise. Whether in the English language or the local dialects, a lot of us do not know what they are about. Their only passion is to talk and talk all day. A lot do not know the difference between news and commentaries. They do not know when to be serious and when to crack jokes. What could be a private or personal trivia are let loose on listeners who cannot complain.
Those who broadcast in the local languages are on a different wavelength altogether. You cannot tell who they want to impress, but they end up inflicting a combination of Twi and English on poor listeners. To the general public, all these characters are professional broadcast journalists! What a good way to cheapen a noble profession.
With all the good things the radio stations are doing, they still remain a potential source of friction, conflict, confrontation and disintegration if we continue to play the ostrich game and do not streamline the operations of the radio stations.
We are constantly being reminded of the experiences of others, especially the Rwandan genocide case, which is quite fresh, but as usual, we want to believe that we are different from others and, therefore, damn the consequences.
I am making reference to the manner we have turned the radio stations into battle grounds where it is not even ideas that are competing, but emotions, insults and lies that are vying for attention. Most of the owners of the radio stations do not care about professionalism and, therefore, recruit people for their ability to make noise and crack unnecessary jokes to attract attention. As a result, serious programmes which otherwise should have attracted sober discussions by well-informed and knowledgeable people have been turned into campaign platforms for politicians to pollute the air with insults and unfounded allegations.
It is difficult to avoid doing politics, especially in an environment that had been starved for so long of multiparty democracy. But it should still be easy for us to tell what healthy politics is and what the harbingers of national destruction are.
Most of our presenters and commentators, in the name of informing, feed their audience with wild allegations, accusations and downright lies packaged as news. The other thing is the way the airwaves are being bombarded with profanities in the name of entertainment.
The phone-in segments which are to serve as feedback mechanism and to encourage audience participation in radio programmes are becoming chaotic and sometimes dangerous. Media freedom, just like multiparty democracy, has come to stay. Freedom of expression does not only enrich good governance, it sustains all the other freedoms and the rights enshrined in the Constitution, and so it must be jealously guarded. We do not need to spend the whole day insulting and shouting at one another to yield the benefits of press freedom and freedom of expression.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution talks extensively about the Freedom and Independence of the Media. Article 162 (1) says: “Freedom and independence of the media are hereby guaranteed”. Article 162 (2) makes clear that: “Subject to this Constitution and any other law not inconsistent with this Constitution, there shall be no censorship in Ghana”.
On private media ownership, Article 162 (3) was quite emphatic: “There shall be no impediments to the establishment of private press or media; and in particular, there shall be no law requiring any person to obtain a licence as a prerequisite to the establishment or operation of a newspaper, journal or other media for mass communication or information.
Of course, there is nothing like absolute freedom. So Article 164 of the Constitution reminds us that: “The provision of articles 162 and 163 of this Constitution are subject to laws that are reasonably required in the interest of national security, public order, public morality and for the purpose of protecting the reputations, rights and freedoms of other persons”.
What seems to be some form of restrictions placed on the right of the citizen to freedom of expression have somehow been restored under Article 165, which says: “For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of this Chapter shall not be taken to limit the enjoyment of any of the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed under Chapter Five of this Constitution”.
Chapter Five of the 1992 Constitution in 22 Articles spells out the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all Ghanaians and all those who come under the protection of the Constitution.
To eliminate any doubt about the freedom of any media practice in the country, Article 173 of Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution states clearly that: ”Subject to Article 167 of this Constitution”, (which spells out the functions of the National Media Commission), “the National Media Commission shall not exercise any control or direction over the professional functions of a person engaged in the production of newspapers or other means of communications”.
With all these constitutional freedoms and guarantees, the gates were opened to allow an avalanche of media institutions to flood the media landscape. The monopoly that the state-owned media institutions used to enjoy vanished and the Graphic Corporation, now Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Ghana News Agency have to compete on the media market with private newspapers, radio and television stations for attention and patronage.
Media practitioners generally, especially those working with the state-owned media, could seek protection to a large extent under the provisions of the Constitution to escape from the interference and sanctions which were associated with the practice in the past.
Professional media practitioners, who in the past were constrained by job opportunities, now have opportunities open to them as a result of the emergence of many media organisations.
The greatest beneficiaries, however, are the people of Ghana, who now have the freedom to choose from a multiplicity of both electronic and print media. They also have access to limitless information which is available from different sources. What was considered secret or guarded information yesterday has become common knowledge today, as it is commonly said, nobody holds monopoly over any public information any longer.
Governments which manipulated the media in the past and suppressed vital information for obvious reasons have gradually come to the realisation that those days are gone, and that the best they could do is to get their explanations ready for a demanding public that is yearning for answers to their queries.
The biggest explosion was witnessed in the field of radio broadcasting which saw a massive invasion of Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations on the country’s airwaves. Radio stations are easier and cheaper to manage and they have a vast audience who do not pay for their services.
In a country where adult illiteracy is still very high, the radio stations which broadcast, their programmes in the local languages, in addition to the official English language, offer cheap and easily accessible avenues for news and entertainment. That, in addition to the high cost of newspaper production, means the radio stations have competitive urge over the print media in terms of coverage and patronage.
All these are good for the country’s infant democracy. Media freedom, especially proliferation of radio stations also means that information has been demystified. It works both ways. While the government can reach the vast majority of the people simultaneously, the governed can also reach the government in no time. In short, a well-informed public is in a better position to confront national issues and articulate their views in a more objective manner. But there is always a price to pay for anything that is freely available.
The media generally has their own problems, ranging from poorly trained personnel to market forces which determine cost and quality. Suffice it to say the radio stations have come with their own loads of problems, some of which continue to pose a serious threat to the democracy which brought them to life and which in all their endeavours will claim they are protecting and defending.
It seems in our zeal to embrace the newly won freedom granted us by the 1992 Constitution, most of the radio stations have shifted greatly from professionalism to commercialism. That might explain why most of the owners do not pay serious attention to those who they employ to work on the stations. A lot of the people who address the Ghanaian public on the airwaves do so simply because they could talk and make noise. Whether in the English language or the local dialects, a lot of us do not know what they are about. Their only passion is to talk and talk all day. A lot do not know the difference between news and commentaries. They do not know when to be serious and when to crack jokes. What could be a private or personal trivia are let loose on listeners who cannot complain.
Those who broadcast in the local languages are on a different wavelength altogether. You cannot tell who they want to impress, but they end up inflicting a combination of Twi and English on poor listeners. To the general public, all these characters are professional broadcast journalists! What a good way to cheapen a noble profession.
With all the good things the radio stations are doing, they still remain a potential source of friction, conflict, confrontation and disintegration if we continue to play the ostrich game and do not streamline the operations of the radio stations.
We are constantly being reminded of the experiences of others, especially the Rwandan genocide case, which is quite fresh, but as usual, we want to believe that we are different from others and, therefore, damn the consequences.
I am making reference to the manner we have turned the radio stations into battle grounds where it is not even ideas that are competing, but emotions, insults and lies that are vying for attention. Most of the owners of the radio stations do not care about professionalism and, therefore, recruit people for their ability to make noise and crack unnecessary jokes to attract attention. As a result, serious programmes which otherwise should have attracted sober discussions by well-informed and knowledgeable people have been turned into campaign platforms for politicians to pollute the air with insults and unfounded allegations.
It is difficult to avoid doing politics, especially in an environment that had been starved for so long of multiparty democracy. But it should still be easy for us to tell what healthy politics is and what the harbingers of national destruction are.
Most of our presenters and commentators, in the name of informing, feed their audience with wild allegations, accusations and downright lies packaged as news. The other thing is the way the airwaves are being bombarded with profanities in the name of entertainment.
The phone-in segments which are to serve as feedback mechanism and to encourage audience participation in radio programmes are becoming chaotic and sometimes dangerous. Media freedom, just like multiparty democracy, has come to stay. Freedom of expression does not only enrich good governance, it sustains all the other freedoms and the rights enshrined in the Constitution, and so it must be jealously guarded. We do not need to spend the whole day insulting and shouting at one another to yield the benefits of press freedom and freedom of expression.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Trade Fair Centre now hawkers’ paradise
By Kofi Akordor
In 1960, and by a Legislative Instrument (LI), the President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, acquired a land measuring 57.8 hectares at La, in the Accra metropolis, to serve as an international fair ground to support and give stimulus to newly independent Ghana’s industrialisation drive. Actual constructional work on the site started in 1962, to prepare the ground for Ghana hosting its first international trade fair in February, 1966.
It was Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s dream to create a platform where local businessmen/women will trade in merchandise with their foreign counterparts to enhance the country’s industrial and commercial development agenda.
The International Trade Fair Centre was also to be part of the government’s massive industrialisation programme after independence with the hope that the fairs would help to expand inter-Africa trade with other continents.
President Nkrumah never lived to see his dream come to fruition. On February 24, 1966, the month and year the first fair was to be held, President Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party (CPP) government was overthrown by soldiers generally believed to have been inspired by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
A year later in February, 1967, Ghana hosted its First International Trade Fair at La in Accra. Since then, the centre has hosted other major fairs and grand sales. But whether the dream of Ghana’s first President to use the fairs as a marketplace to exhibit Ghana’s industrial capabilities has succeeded or not will be a subject of great national debate. What is easy to tell is that the fairs have lost focus and have in the main become markets for people to go and buy and sell mostly foreign goods which have dominated the Ghanaian taste.
It became increasingly sad to observe over the years that the fairs have virtually become monotonous, with foreign goods/products being the dominant exhibits. In effect, the fairs have encouraged importation of more foreign products as against encouraging the exportation of locally manufactured goods. Most of the fairs cannot, therefore, be said to be in favour of local entrepreneurs and industrialists.
The collapse of most of our local industries which were rubbing shoulders with foreign ones in the immediate post-independence era is a clear manifestation of how local industries were squeezed into extinction because of lack of external markets for their products.
As stated earlier, the fairs were instituted mainly to showcase the country’s industrial/manufacturing potential to foreign partners. They were also to offer the opportunity to local entrepreneurs to interact and exchange ideas with their foreign counterparts; serve as fora for technology and know-how transfer and promote product diversification.
In short, the international trade fairs were to provide local manufacturers the opportunity to showcase what Ghana had to offer on the local and international markets.
Unfortunately, there was a shift in focus in succeeding years from promoting local industry to trading activities where foreign goods were in full dominance.
As Made-in-Ghana goods began to take secondary position at the fairs, a new phenomenon also started emerging and became well-established. The trade fairs became more or less food fairs which served the interest of food vendors and drinking bar operators more than the industrialists, manufacturers and entrepreneurs that they were primarily meant for.
On countless occasions, exhibitors complained that they were not able to make any serious business with their trading partners as the fair grounds became a giant eating and drinking spot for the thousands of visitors who thronged the place for the duration of the fair.
Following closely the dwindling fortunes of locally manufactured goods is the deterioration of the physical structures on the land mass which constitutes the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre. Since the facility was built in 1962 to host the first international trade fair, the centre has seen very little renovation. Facilities at the place have not improved and expanded to accommodate changing trends.
The centre, which has come under different managements including the Ghana Trade Fair Authority and the current Ghana Trade Fair Company, is still not fenced and secured against marauders and miscreants who invade the place at will to loot or use part as a place of convenience.
Several promises have been made in the past to upgrade the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, but they are yet to be transformed into real action. Activities at the fair grounds usually come to an abrupt end whenever there is power outage. Some of the exhibitors will tell you water does not flow on regular basis and toilets do not work.
Gradually, the place is losing its international status and can best be described as a hawkers’ market. What was widely advertised as national grand sales turned out mainly to be a gathering of street hawkers who lost space in the Central Business District of Accra as a result of Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s decongestive exercise. There was nothing close to trade fair activities apart from buying and selling of goods from second-hand clothing to anything imaginable.
When Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah acquired the land in 1960 for the construction of the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, the last thing that would ever have crossed his mind, if he were alive, was that one day, we shall descend to the lowest level of turning our international trade fair centre into a market for second-hand goods. The spirit behind the Ghana International Trade Fair is dead and in its place has sprouted the clear signals of national decay.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
In 1960, and by a Legislative Instrument (LI), the President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, acquired a land measuring 57.8 hectares at La, in the Accra metropolis, to serve as an international fair ground to support and give stimulus to newly independent Ghana’s industrialisation drive. Actual constructional work on the site started in 1962, to prepare the ground for Ghana hosting its first international trade fair in February, 1966.
It was Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s dream to create a platform where local businessmen/women will trade in merchandise with their foreign counterparts to enhance the country’s industrial and commercial development agenda.
The International Trade Fair Centre was also to be part of the government’s massive industrialisation programme after independence with the hope that the fairs would help to expand inter-Africa trade with other continents.
President Nkrumah never lived to see his dream come to fruition. On February 24, 1966, the month and year the first fair was to be held, President Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party (CPP) government was overthrown by soldiers generally believed to have been inspired by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
A year later in February, 1967, Ghana hosted its First International Trade Fair at La in Accra. Since then, the centre has hosted other major fairs and grand sales. But whether the dream of Ghana’s first President to use the fairs as a marketplace to exhibit Ghana’s industrial capabilities has succeeded or not will be a subject of great national debate. What is easy to tell is that the fairs have lost focus and have in the main become markets for people to go and buy and sell mostly foreign goods which have dominated the Ghanaian taste.
It became increasingly sad to observe over the years that the fairs have virtually become monotonous, with foreign goods/products being the dominant exhibits. In effect, the fairs have encouraged importation of more foreign products as against encouraging the exportation of locally manufactured goods. Most of the fairs cannot, therefore, be said to be in favour of local entrepreneurs and industrialists.
The collapse of most of our local industries which were rubbing shoulders with foreign ones in the immediate post-independence era is a clear manifestation of how local industries were squeezed into extinction because of lack of external markets for their products.
As stated earlier, the fairs were instituted mainly to showcase the country’s industrial/manufacturing potential to foreign partners. They were also to offer the opportunity to local entrepreneurs to interact and exchange ideas with their foreign counterparts; serve as fora for technology and know-how transfer and promote product diversification.
In short, the international trade fairs were to provide local manufacturers the opportunity to showcase what Ghana had to offer on the local and international markets.
Unfortunately, there was a shift in focus in succeeding years from promoting local industry to trading activities where foreign goods were in full dominance.
As Made-in-Ghana goods began to take secondary position at the fairs, a new phenomenon also started emerging and became well-established. The trade fairs became more or less food fairs which served the interest of food vendors and drinking bar operators more than the industrialists, manufacturers and entrepreneurs that they were primarily meant for.
On countless occasions, exhibitors complained that they were not able to make any serious business with their trading partners as the fair grounds became a giant eating and drinking spot for the thousands of visitors who thronged the place for the duration of the fair.
Following closely the dwindling fortunes of locally manufactured goods is the deterioration of the physical structures on the land mass which constitutes the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre. Since the facility was built in 1962 to host the first international trade fair, the centre has seen very little renovation. Facilities at the place have not improved and expanded to accommodate changing trends.
The centre, which has come under different managements including the Ghana Trade Fair Authority and the current Ghana Trade Fair Company, is still not fenced and secured against marauders and miscreants who invade the place at will to loot or use part as a place of convenience.
Several promises have been made in the past to upgrade the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, but they are yet to be transformed into real action. Activities at the fair grounds usually come to an abrupt end whenever there is power outage. Some of the exhibitors will tell you water does not flow on regular basis and toilets do not work.
Gradually, the place is losing its international status and can best be described as a hawkers’ market. What was widely advertised as national grand sales turned out mainly to be a gathering of street hawkers who lost space in the Central Business District of Accra as a result of Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s decongestive exercise. There was nothing close to trade fair activities apart from buying and selling of goods from second-hand clothing to anything imaginable.
When Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah acquired the land in 1960 for the construction of the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, the last thing that would ever have crossed his mind, if he were alive, was that one day, we shall descend to the lowest level of turning our international trade fair centre into a market for second-hand goods. The spirit behind the Ghana International Trade Fair is dead and in its place has sprouted the clear signals of national decay.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
TRADE FAIR CENTRE OR HAWKERS' PARADISE?
In 1960, and by a Legislative Instrument (LI), the President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, acquired a land measuring 57.8 hectares at La, in the Accra metropolis, to serve as an international fair ground to support and give stimulus to newly independent Ghana’s industrialisation drive.
Actual constructional work on the site started in 1962, to prepare the ground for Ghana hosting its first international trade fair in February, 1966.
It was Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s dream to create a platform where local businessmen/women will trade in merchandise with their foreign counterparts to enhance the country’s industrial and commercial development agenda.
The International Trade Fair Centre was also to be part of the government’s massive industrialisation programme after independence with the hope that the fairs would help to expand inter-Africa trade with other continents.
President Nkrumah never lived to see his dream come to fruition. On February 24, 1966, the month and year the first fair was to be held, President Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party (CPP) government was overthrown by soldiers generally believed to have been inspired by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
A year later in February, 1967, Ghana hosted its First International Trade Fair at La in Accra. Since then, the centre has hosted other major fairs and grand sales. But whether the dream of Ghana’s first President to use the fairs as a marketplace to exhibit Ghana’s industrial capabilities has succeeded or not will be a subject of great national debate.
What is easy to tell is that the fairs have lost focus and have in the main become markets for people to go and buy and sell mostly foreign goods which have dominated the Ghanaian taste.
It became increasingly sad to observe over the years that the fairs have virtually become monotonous, with foreign goods/products being the dominant exhibits. In effect, the fairs have encouraged importation of more foreign products as against encouraging the exportation of locally manufactured goods. Most of the fairs cannot, therefore, be said to be in favour of local entrepreneurs and industrialists.
The collapse of most of our local industries which were rubbing shoulders with foreign ones in the immediate post-independence era is a clear manifestation of how local industries were squeezed into extinction because of lack of external markets for their products.
As stated earlier, the fairs were instituted mainly to showcase the country’s industrial/manufacturing potential to foreign partners. They were also to offer the opportunity to local entrepreneurs to interact and exchange ideas with their foreign counterparts; serve as fora for technology and know-how transfer and promote product diversification.
In short, the international trade fairs were to provide local manufacturers the opportunity to showcase what Ghana had to offer on the local and international markets.
Unfortunately, there was a shift in focus in succeeding years from promoting local industry to trading activities where foreign goods were in full dominance.
As Made-in-Ghana goods began to take secondary position at the fairs, a new phenomenon also started emerging and became well-established. The trade fairs became more or less food fairs which served the interest of food vendors and drinking bar operators more than the industrialists, manufacturers and entrepreneurs that they were primarily meant for.
On countless occasions, exhibitors complained that they were not able to make any serious business with their trading partners as the fair grounds became a giant eating and drinking spot for the thousands of visitors who thronged the place for the duration of the fair.
Following closely the dwindling fortunes of locally manufactured goods is the deterioration of the physical structures on the land mass which constitutes the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre. Since the facility was built in 1962 to host the first international trade fair, the centre has seen very little renovation. Facilities at the place have not improved and expanded to accommodate changing trends.
The centre, which has come under different managements including the Ghana Trade Fair Authority and the current Ghana Trade Fair Company, is still not fenced and secured against marauders and miscreants who invade the place at will to loot or use part as a place of convenience.
Several promises have been made in the past to upgrade the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, but they are yet to be transformed into real action. Activities at the fair grounds usually come to an abrupt end whenever there is power outage. Some of the exhibitors will tell you water does not flow on regular basis and toilets do not work.
Gradually, the place is losing its international status and can best be described as a hawkers’ market. What was widely advertised as national grand sales turned out mainly to be a gathering of street hawkers who lost space in the Central Business District of Accra as a result of Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s decongestive exercise. There was nothing close to trade fair activities apart from buying and selling of goods from second-hand clothing to anything imaginable.
When Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah acquired the land in 1960 for the construction of the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, the last thing that would ever have crossed his mind, if he were alive, was that one day, we shall descend to the lowest level of turning our international trade fair centre into a market for second-hand goods. The spirit behind the Ghana International Trade Fair is dead and in its place has sprouted the clear signals of national decay.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Actual constructional work on the site started in 1962, to prepare the ground for Ghana hosting its first international trade fair in February, 1966.
It was Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s dream to create a platform where local businessmen/women will trade in merchandise with their foreign counterparts to enhance the country’s industrial and commercial development agenda.
The International Trade Fair Centre was also to be part of the government’s massive industrialisation programme after independence with the hope that the fairs would help to expand inter-Africa trade with other continents.
President Nkrumah never lived to see his dream come to fruition. On February 24, 1966, the month and year the first fair was to be held, President Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party (CPP) government was overthrown by soldiers generally believed to have been inspired by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
A year later in February, 1967, Ghana hosted its First International Trade Fair at La in Accra. Since then, the centre has hosted other major fairs and grand sales. But whether the dream of Ghana’s first President to use the fairs as a marketplace to exhibit Ghana’s industrial capabilities has succeeded or not will be a subject of great national debate.
What is easy to tell is that the fairs have lost focus and have in the main become markets for people to go and buy and sell mostly foreign goods which have dominated the Ghanaian taste.
It became increasingly sad to observe over the years that the fairs have virtually become monotonous, with foreign goods/products being the dominant exhibits. In effect, the fairs have encouraged importation of more foreign products as against encouraging the exportation of locally manufactured goods. Most of the fairs cannot, therefore, be said to be in favour of local entrepreneurs and industrialists.
The collapse of most of our local industries which were rubbing shoulders with foreign ones in the immediate post-independence era is a clear manifestation of how local industries were squeezed into extinction because of lack of external markets for their products.
As stated earlier, the fairs were instituted mainly to showcase the country’s industrial/manufacturing potential to foreign partners. They were also to offer the opportunity to local entrepreneurs to interact and exchange ideas with their foreign counterparts; serve as fora for technology and know-how transfer and promote product diversification.
In short, the international trade fairs were to provide local manufacturers the opportunity to showcase what Ghana had to offer on the local and international markets.
Unfortunately, there was a shift in focus in succeeding years from promoting local industry to trading activities where foreign goods were in full dominance.
As Made-in-Ghana goods began to take secondary position at the fairs, a new phenomenon also started emerging and became well-established. The trade fairs became more or less food fairs which served the interest of food vendors and drinking bar operators more than the industrialists, manufacturers and entrepreneurs that they were primarily meant for.
On countless occasions, exhibitors complained that they were not able to make any serious business with their trading partners as the fair grounds became a giant eating and drinking spot for the thousands of visitors who thronged the place for the duration of the fair.
Following closely the dwindling fortunes of locally manufactured goods is the deterioration of the physical structures on the land mass which constitutes the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre. Since the facility was built in 1962 to host the first international trade fair, the centre has seen very little renovation. Facilities at the place have not improved and expanded to accommodate changing trends.
The centre, which has come under different managements including the Ghana Trade Fair Authority and the current Ghana Trade Fair Company, is still not fenced and secured against marauders and miscreants who invade the place at will to loot or use part as a place of convenience.
Several promises have been made in the past to upgrade the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, but they are yet to be transformed into real action. Activities at the fair grounds usually come to an abrupt end whenever there is power outage. Some of the exhibitors will tell you water does not flow on regular basis and toilets do not work.
Gradually, the place is losing its international status and can best be described as a hawkers’ market. What was widely advertised as national grand sales turned out mainly to be a gathering of street hawkers who lost space in the Central Business District of Accra as a result of Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s decongestive exercise. There was nothing close to trade fair activities apart from buying and selling of goods from second-hand clothing to anything imaginable.
When Osagyefo Dr Nkrumah acquired the land in 1960 for the construction of the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre, the last thing that would ever have crossed his mind, if he were alive, was that one day, we shall descend to the lowest level of turning our international trade fair centre into a market for second-hand goods. The spirit behind the Ghana International Trade Fair is dead and in its place has sprouted the clear signals of national decay.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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