By Kofi Akordor
Their politicians sound like missionaries on a humanitarian mission while the excitement in the voice of their media commentators could not be missed.
The United States of America and its allies in the Western world always find excuse to launch military attacks on less powerful nations when it suits them. They are either fending off communism, defending democracy or fighting terrorism. Whatever the excuse, it offers the opportunity for the US and its European allies to test their latest military weapons while unleashing massive destruction on their hapless victims.
As usual, the powerful Western media is available to justify these military operations while downplaying the atrocities, the destruction and the human suffering these wars bring upon the people on whose behalf those operations were being executed.
As far back as August 6, 1945, the US demonstrated how far it could go to use its massive military power to annihilate and humiliate people when it dropped the first nuclear bomb in human history on Hiroshima, a Japanese city. That operation killed an estimated 80,000 people immediately and the casualty figures rose to between 90,000 and 140,000.
Three days later on August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, another Japanese city, killing an estimated 40,000 people immediately, with the death toll going up to 74,000 over time.
Almost 65 years after these devastating atrocities, the Japanese people are still carrying reminders of the nuclear holocaust unleashed on them by the US. It was, therefore, not surprising that the recent powerful earthquake which struck Japan and triggered a nuclear meltdown from their nuclear plants brought back traumatic memories of those Hiroshima and Nagasaki days.
The US justified the deployment of nuclear weapons in those days, claiming they wanted to bring the Second World War to a speedy end when many historians will tell you that the war had virtually come to an end but for a few pockets of resistance and, therefore, eliminating over 200,000 people from the surface of the earth in three days was the most monstrous thing for any self-respecting military to do.
Japan had since come out of that annihilation to become an industrial and economic giant, partially with American support, apparently to purge their conscience and mostly due to the hard work and ingenuity of the Japanese.
One of the primary goals for the formation of the United Nations Organisation after the end of World War II (WW2), was to end all hostilities and avoid wars, especially taking into account the massive devastation which characterised that war.
Unfortunately the UN could not end wars, because the principal movers of the global organisation spearheaded by the US had national and regional interests which they were determined to use all means to defend and in some cases foist on others. That brought in the Cold War when the military balance was between the Eastern socialist bloc led by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Western capitalist bloc led by the US.
All the wars that were fought in the post WW2 era were ideological battles between the West and the East. You can mention the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in the jungles of Laos, Cambodia in south-east Asia and in the Ogaden in the Horn of Africa and forests of Nicaragua, Grenada and Panama and in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Incidentally, the US featured prominently in all these wars either directly or using surrogate forces all in the name of defending democracy or fighting communism.
The bi-polar world did not help Third Countries especially those of Africa, whose leaders took refuge in the ambits of either power depending on the exigencies of the day. That was how many dictators such as Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire, now DR Congo, General Gnasingbe Eyadema of Togo and many others were able to survive on the continent.
The Cold War also cut short the rule of some progressive African leaders whose ideological biases did not conform to the wishes of the US and their allies. But be as it may, the world welcomed the collapse of the Soviet Empire which brought down the Berlin Wall and historically brought to an end the Cold War.
Before the world could settle down to reap the benefits of a world without ideological battles, the US, which emerged as the sole superpower, started picking its own targets especially those that escaped its wrath by seeking protection under the Soviet umbrella during the Cold War era.
In 1992, the US attacked Iraq. Even though the official excuse was to free Kuwait from Iraqi invasion, the hidden ambition to annex the oilfields of Iraq and weaken it militarily on the wishes of Israel were well known to those who follow Middle East politics.
The Operation Desert Storm was never conclusive so the US and its allies were lying in wait for the right time.
In 2001, the US found an excuse to invade Afghanistan, when on September 11, 2001, a group of Arab youth surprised the world by blowing the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York with hijacked aircraft and attacked important buildings in Washington DC.
The attacks were blamed on the Taliban who were ruling in Afghanistan and the US mobilised international forces to invade Afghanistan to chase the Talibans out of office. The war in Afghanistan is still raging and whether the US took a wise decision or not is still being debated.
In 2003, the US mobilised world opinion against President Hussein Saddam, claiming he had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction which were dangerous for the safety and security of the world. Against all voices of moderation, President George W. Bush Jnr managed to get Britain, the traditional ally of the US, and other so-called forces to attack Iraq.
The coalition forces managed to topple and kill Saddam, and also succeeded in destroying the infrastructure of Iraq and reducing a historical civilisation into rubble. No weapons of mass destruction were found.
Everybody knows Col Muammar Gadaffi has overstayed his welcome as leader of Libya. It is also recognised that it is unfair to attack protesters with military might. But can anybody honestly describe as protesters heavily armed men wielding automatic weapons and anti-aircraft missile launchers who are ready to confront the regular army of Libya when peaceful revolutions had taken place in Tunisia and Egypt a few weeks earlier?
As usual, the US and its allies have once again succeeded in hoodwinking the whole world by claiming they want a UN resolution to impose a No Fly Zone over Libyan airspace. They got Resolution 1973 and the rest is another history unfolding.
Those who fought for UN Security Council Resolution 1973 claimed they wanted to protect innocent Libyans from the military attacks of Gaddafi’s army. But who are they protecting now, having unleashed their military might on Libya, destroying everything in sight including oil installations and human settlements?
What would have been the response of the United Kingdom, if some benevolent force were to rally to the protection of the Irish Republican Army which for many years battled the British Armed Forces? What about the Red Brigades of Italy, do they not deserve to be heard? Or the Basque Separatists of Spain. Is their demand for autonomy not a genuine cause which deserves global support?
So why should Libya be destroyed because some of her citizens are justifiably demanding political reforms? How many of those who demonstrated in Tunisia and Egypt used AK-47s, machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons? Only the US, Britain, France, Italy and their allies could tell.
Where next will the war allies move is a wild guess, but the Libyan people and the countries of the Arab League will be making a serious mistake if they think their cause is the prime motive for the calamity befalling Libya from the US and its coalition partners.
If they are still in doubt they should find out why UN Security Resolution 242 passed as far back as 1967, ordering Israel to vacate all Arab lands occupied during the war of that year cannot still be enforced.
The UN, rather than protecting the world against unnecessary aggression and making it a better place for all, has become a tool in the hands of the US and its allies to use as and when they find it convenient to hold the rest of the world to ransom.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Lessons from Cuba
By Kofi Akordor
THE Cuban experience is a well-known story. Cuba is a small island in the Caribbean. Latest estimates show that it has a population of 11 million. In terms of land mass, Cuba is smaller than Ghana, with a size of 110,860sq.km, as against Ghana’s 238,500sq.km.
Cuba’s modern history began in 1959 when Fidel Castro and his 26th of July Movement removed Fulgencio Batista from office in what has become the Cuban Revolution. The revolution witnessed the expropriation of private property with little or no compensation, the naturalisation of public utilities and the closing down of the Mafia-controlled gambling industry.
That development met with stiff resistance from the US, its powerful northern neighbour, resulting in the imposition of trade and diplomatic embargo by the US on Cuba in 1963. The US also launched several covert operations through its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to topple the regime without success. Cuba has survived till today.
Cuba has not only survived after decades of isolation by the US and its Western allies but also chalked up tremendous successes which even its opponents admit are mind-boggling and worthy of commendation and emulation.
Our Vice President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, who last week was the guest of the Cuban government, could not but proclaim that the US blockade notwithstanding, Cuba had made tremendous progress in several fields, especially medicine, that Africa could learn from in moving forward.
Cuba has attained a literacy rate of 99.8 per cent and its infant mortality rate (6.1 per 1,000 births) is lower than that most of developed countries, including the US, whose rate is 6.8/1,000 births.
Cuba’s average life expectancy rate is 78.3, third to Canada and Chile in the Americas, while its doctor/patient ratio is the highest in the world. In fact, Cuba has thousands of doctors serving in over 40 countries worldwide, including Ghana, where Cuban doctors and other health professionals have been rendering services in some of the remotest parts of the country.
Cuba is not an oil-exporting country and derives most of its revenue from the sugar industry, mining and tourism, including medical tourism which brings cash from the export of medical professionals to Europe, Latin America, Canada and America.
Notwithstanding hostility from the US, Cuba had been a friend of Africa’s fight against colonialism and imperialism. Cuban soldiers have fought in the same trenches alongside their African brothers in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and elsewhere in the wars of independence and liberation.
Cuba’s case may not be all rosy, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union when support from the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dried up while the US commercial blockade was still on.
But the Cuban spirit is still worthy of emulation by African countries if they hope to one day be their own masters.
Vice President Mahama did not mince words when he told African envoys in Havana that in order to turn around Africa’s challenges into success stories like Cuba’s, “Africa must stand as a continent that represents itself; we must break down the regulations that tie us to our colonial masters”.
He went on, “Until we break the barriers, all the protocols that we have signed, such as the free movement of persons, will not work.”
We in Ghana particularly have to take a cue from Cuba that nothing comes easy and that it takes a lot of determination to separate one from freedom and bondage. Apart from the Cuban medical brigade consisting of more than 200 health personnel currently in the country, the Cuban government has offered to assist Ghana to train 250 specialist doctors to beef up the resource capacity of the Ghana Health Service (GHS).
These specialist doctors will train our doctors in areas such as anaesthetics, clinical pathology and haematology, internal medicine, general surgery, morbid anatomy and paediatrics and most of these doctors will be deployed in health facilities in most of the deprived areas which most of our doctors see as no-go areas.
In addition to this, Cuba has extended a US$74 million facility to Ghana to enhance the national effort at fighting malaria. The money is to be used to pay for the chemicals that will be used for the anti-malaria project, the technical personnel who will be deployed from Cuba and their Ghanaian counterparts.
As could be seen, the Cuban offer is not free of charge. Already, Cuba is demanding that Ghana should be responsible for the payment and upkeep of the specialist doctors who will be posted to the country.
The question is, for how long are we going to rely on Cuban doctors? Can we learn from Cuba how it has been able to train so many doctors for export and do the same here, instead of continuing to rely on that country’s largesse which will not last forever?
Since the Vice President himself has seen the wisdom in breaking the bonds of colonialism and dependency as the surest way of moving forward, shall we, for once, pledge to ourselves that in the next 10 years or so we shall end the importation of Cuban doctors into the country?
I believe if we end spending money frivolously in certain areas and protect our national revenue more than we are doing now, we should be able to provide for our needs. The difference between Ghana and Cuba is not about the availability of resources, as a cursory glance at the natural resources of the two countries will show that Ghana is far ahead. The difference lies in focus, management and setting a strong national agenda that must be pursued with all vigorousness and seriousness.
If yesterday we saw our salvation in the advanced Western countries and today, after many years of self-rule, we see salvation in countries we share trenches with in the developing world, then we must admit that there is something fundamentally wrong with us and the earlier we recover ourselves, the better.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
THE Cuban experience is a well-known story. Cuba is a small island in the Caribbean. Latest estimates show that it has a population of 11 million. In terms of land mass, Cuba is smaller than Ghana, with a size of 110,860sq.km, as against Ghana’s 238,500sq.km.
Cuba’s modern history began in 1959 when Fidel Castro and his 26th of July Movement removed Fulgencio Batista from office in what has become the Cuban Revolution. The revolution witnessed the expropriation of private property with little or no compensation, the naturalisation of public utilities and the closing down of the Mafia-controlled gambling industry.
That development met with stiff resistance from the US, its powerful northern neighbour, resulting in the imposition of trade and diplomatic embargo by the US on Cuba in 1963. The US also launched several covert operations through its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to topple the regime without success. Cuba has survived till today.
Cuba has not only survived after decades of isolation by the US and its Western allies but also chalked up tremendous successes which even its opponents admit are mind-boggling and worthy of commendation and emulation.
Our Vice President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, who last week was the guest of the Cuban government, could not but proclaim that the US blockade notwithstanding, Cuba had made tremendous progress in several fields, especially medicine, that Africa could learn from in moving forward.
Cuba has attained a literacy rate of 99.8 per cent and its infant mortality rate (6.1 per 1,000 births) is lower than that most of developed countries, including the US, whose rate is 6.8/1,000 births.
Cuba’s average life expectancy rate is 78.3, third to Canada and Chile in the Americas, while its doctor/patient ratio is the highest in the world. In fact, Cuba has thousands of doctors serving in over 40 countries worldwide, including Ghana, where Cuban doctors and other health professionals have been rendering services in some of the remotest parts of the country.
Cuba is not an oil-exporting country and derives most of its revenue from the sugar industry, mining and tourism, including medical tourism which brings cash from the export of medical professionals to Europe, Latin America, Canada and America.
Notwithstanding hostility from the US, Cuba had been a friend of Africa’s fight against colonialism and imperialism. Cuban soldiers have fought in the same trenches alongside their African brothers in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia and elsewhere in the wars of independence and liberation.
Cuba’s case may not be all rosy, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union when support from the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dried up while the US commercial blockade was still on.
But the Cuban spirit is still worthy of emulation by African countries if they hope to one day be their own masters.
Vice President Mahama did not mince words when he told African envoys in Havana that in order to turn around Africa’s challenges into success stories like Cuba’s, “Africa must stand as a continent that represents itself; we must break down the regulations that tie us to our colonial masters”.
He went on, “Until we break the barriers, all the protocols that we have signed, such as the free movement of persons, will not work.”
We in Ghana particularly have to take a cue from Cuba that nothing comes easy and that it takes a lot of determination to separate one from freedom and bondage. Apart from the Cuban medical brigade consisting of more than 200 health personnel currently in the country, the Cuban government has offered to assist Ghana to train 250 specialist doctors to beef up the resource capacity of the Ghana Health Service (GHS).
These specialist doctors will train our doctors in areas such as anaesthetics, clinical pathology and haematology, internal medicine, general surgery, morbid anatomy and paediatrics and most of these doctors will be deployed in health facilities in most of the deprived areas which most of our doctors see as no-go areas.
In addition to this, Cuba has extended a US$74 million facility to Ghana to enhance the national effort at fighting malaria. The money is to be used to pay for the chemicals that will be used for the anti-malaria project, the technical personnel who will be deployed from Cuba and their Ghanaian counterparts.
As could be seen, the Cuban offer is not free of charge. Already, Cuba is demanding that Ghana should be responsible for the payment and upkeep of the specialist doctors who will be posted to the country.
The question is, for how long are we going to rely on Cuban doctors? Can we learn from Cuba how it has been able to train so many doctors for export and do the same here, instead of continuing to rely on that country’s largesse which will not last forever?
Since the Vice President himself has seen the wisdom in breaking the bonds of colonialism and dependency as the surest way of moving forward, shall we, for once, pledge to ourselves that in the next 10 years or so we shall end the importation of Cuban doctors into the country?
I believe if we end spending money frivolously in certain areas and protect our national revenue more than we are doing now, we should be able to provide for our needs. The difference between Ghana and Cuba is not about the availability of resources, as a cursory glance at the natural resources of the two countries will show that Ghana is far ahead. The difference lies in focus, management and setting a strong national agenda that must be pursued with all vigorousness and seriousness.
If yesterday we saw our salvation in the advanced Western countries and today, after many years of self-rule, we see salvation in countries we share trenches with in the developing world, then we must admit that there is something fundamentally wrong with us and the earlier we recover ourselves, the better.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Teachers' uprising and other matters
By Kofi Akordor
IT was the end of the month and teachers, like all salaried workers, trooped to the banks to withdraw what will keep body and soul together for the following 30 or so days. That time, their expectations were very high because their salaries were not going to be the usual thing but something they had been promised would keep them smiling all the way from the bank to the classrooms and, obviously, to their homes.
As we all do when a back pay or some windfall is on its way, the teachers drew lavish budgets against the latest flat screen TV sets and all those modern electronic gadgets that have become the envy of most workers whose incomes could only afford them dreaming about those items.
Many were those who were ready to confront their merciless landlords, for once, with some cynical smile as they doled out wads of notes to pay for rent arrears and possibly pay in advance to cover rent for a month or two.
Nobody should blame the teachers. They had been assured by their leadership and spokespersons for the government that things were going to change dramatically in a positive way after they (teachers) had been migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
Then the unexpected happened. What promised to be a happy pay day became a doomsday. Things did not work out the right way. Salaries, instead of seeing major increases, had been slashed, allowances agreed upon did no reflect in the salaries and, where there had been increases, they were so insignificant that to some it was better they stayed where they were before. The budget has been thrown in disarray. All the expectations had evaporated into thin air. Immediately excitement gave way to exasperation, desperation, frustration and total rejection.
Everybody admitted that serious things had gone wrong. The first buck stopped at the doorstep of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC). Mr George Smith-Graham of the FWSC, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) and the Ghana Education Service (GES), the major employer, quickly downloaded the burden. The leadership of the teachers had been in a rush to join the SSSS and did not allow a test run of the new salaries to allow for the correction of anomalies.
Meanwhile, the leaderships of the various teachers’ groups — the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), which appears to be the most vocal, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) — had their own versions for those who cared to listen.
The SSSS, which was conceived with all good intentions, had run into serious trouble at the crucial hour when it mattered most. The implementation had backfired, putting into jeopardy many months of tireless work.
The government, in anticipation of the backlash, put in place a joint technical committee made up of representatives of NAGRAT, GNAT, TEWU, the GES, the FWSC and the CAGD and tucked it away in the serene environment of Dodowa to deliberate on all the anomalies and come out quickly to solve them.
The teachers, however, would not compromise. All appeals to them to return to the classroom fell on deaf ears. They had suffered for far long and the latest was a slap in the face and so they would not take any excuses short of the right thing being done. At one stage, they saw their leaders as traitors who had sold out to the government. Some even threatened to go the Tunisian or Egyptian way and camp at the Independence Square until all anomalies were rectified and allowances paid.
These allowances include: Professional allowance (15%); Risk (30%); Rent (20%); Transport (10%); Clothing (10%); Stationery (15%); Co-curricular (20%); Marking (25%); Research (15%); Preparation of Lesson notes (5%) and Invigilation (5%).
The more the explanations and appeals, the more resilient the teachers became. Apart from a nation-wide demonstration to press home their case, the teachers threatened to disrupt the 54th Independence anniversary by boycotting the event. Thank God, the celebration went on successfully at the Independence Square.
On Friday, March 11, 2011, when their leaders were locked up in serious negotiations with their employers and government representatives, some teachers were still demonstrating and at one stage came under tear gas from the canisters of the police for going beyond bounds.
Thankfully, some kind of agreement has been reached and the parties have found a common ground on which to stand for future negotiations. On Friday, March 11, 2011, the various representatives on both the teachers and the government sides appended their signatures to a document which we hope will send the teachers back to the classrooms.
Those who signed the document included Mr John Nyoagbe, Deputy General Secretary of GNAT; Mr Stanilaus P. Nabome, Deputy General Secretary of NAGRAT; Mr Peter Lumor, National Chairman of TEWU; Dr Kwabena Duffuor, the Minister of Finance; Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the Minister of Education; Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Deputy Minister of Education; Mr Smith-Graham, the Chief Executive of the FWSC, and Mr E.T. Mensah, the Minister of Employment and Labour who witnessed the day’s agreement.
A major point in the agreement was the introduction of the 15 per cent teachers retention premium which is an incentive package covering all professional teachers and certain categories of non-teaching staff in the GES who are members of TEWU, with the aim of attracting and retaining teachers in the classroom.
The committee also agreed that the joint technical committee should ensure that all errors detected in the February salaries of teachers were corrected and the right salaries paid at the end of March.
The question is, could we have avoided the one week of hostilities and confrontation? The answer is, it was possible. There is this saying that what is worth doing is worth doing well. All the parties should have exercised patience, instead of raising the stakes so high. We have allowed too much politics into the whole exercise of migrating workers onto the SSSS, thereby diverting attention which should have been devoted to the exercise to ensure that the best comes out of it.
The government, on one hand, was too eager to please workers, while the workers. on the other, with their appetites whetted to astronomical levels were in no mood to wait. The result was what we witnessed over the last two weeks.
There are many more workers’ groups to be migrated onto the SSSS. We hope the FWSC and other stakeholders are gaining experience in this exercise and will do due diligence before coming up with its final products to save the nation unnecessary tension.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
IT was the end of the month and teachers, like all salaried workers, trooped to the banks to withdraw what will keep body and soul together for the following 30 or so days. That time, their expectations were very high because their salaries were not going to be the usual thing but something they had been promised would keep them smiling all the way from the bank to the classrooms and, obviously, to their homes.
As we all do when a back pay or some windfall is on its way, the teachers drew lavish budgets against the latest flat screen TV sets and all those modern electronic gadgets that have become the envy of most workers whose incomes could only afford them dreaming about those items.
Many were those who were ready to confront their merciless landlords, for once, with some cynical smile as they doled out wads of notes to pay for rent arrears and possibly pay in advance to cover rent for a month or two.
Nobody should blame the teachers. They had been assured by their leadership and spokespersons for the government that things were going to change dramatically in a positive way after they (teachers) had been migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
Then the unexpected happened. What promised to be a happy pay day became a doomsday. Things did not work out the right way. Salaries, instead of seeing major increases, had been slashed, allowances agreed upon did no reflect in the salaries and, where there had been increases, they were so insignificant that to some it was better they stayed where they were before. The budget has been thrown in disarray. All the expectations had evaporated into thin air. Immediately excitement gave way to exasperation, desperation, frustration and total rejection.
Everybody admitted that serious things had gone wrong. The first buck stopped at the doorstep of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC). Mr George Smith-Graham of the FWSC, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) and the Ghana Education Service (GES), the major employer, quickly downloaded the burden. The leadership of the teachers had been in a rush to join the SSSS and did not allow a test run of the new salaries to allow for the correction of anomalies.
Meanwhile, the leaderships of the various teachers’ groups — the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), which appears to be the most vocal, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) — had their own versions for those who cared to listen.
The SSSS, which was conceived with all good intentions, had run into serious trouble at the crucial hour when it mattered most. The implementation had backfired, putting into jeopardy many months of tireless work.
The government, in anticipation of the backlash, put in place a joint technical committee made up of representatives of NAGRAT, GNAT, TEWU, the GES, the FWSC and the CAGD and tucked it away in the serene environment of Dodowa to deliberate on all the anomalies and come out quickly to solve them.
The teachers, however, would not compromise. All appeals to them to return to the classroom fell on deaf ears. They had suffered for far long and the latest was a slap in the face and so they would not take any excuses short of the right thing being done. At one stage, they saw their leaders as traitors who had sold out to the government. Some even threatened to go the Tunisian or Egyptian way and camp at the Independence Square until all anomalies were rectified and allowances paid.
These allowances include: Professional allowance (15%); Risk (30%); Rent (20%); Transport (10%); Clothing (10%); Stationery (15%); Co-curricular (20%); Marking (25%); Research (15%); Preparation of Lesson notes (5%) and Invigilation (5%).
The more the explanations and appeals, the more resilient the teachers became. Apart from a nation-wide demonstration to press home their case, the teachers threatened to disrupt the 54th Independence anniversary by boycotting the event. Thank God, the celebration went on successfully at the Independence Square.
On Friday, March 11, 2011, when their leaders were locked up in serious negotiations with their employers and government representatives, some teachers were still demonstrating and at one stage came under tear gas from the canisters of the police for going beyond bounds.
Thankfully, some kind of agreement has been reached and the parties have found a common ground on which to stand for future negotiations. On Friday, March 11, 2011, the various representatives on both the teachers and the government sides appended their signatures to a document which we hope will send the teachers back to the classrooms.
Those who signed the document included Mr John Nyoagbe, Deputy General Secretary of GNAT; Mr Stanilaus P. Nabome, Deputy General Secretary of NAGRAT; Mr Peter Lumor, National Chairman of TEWU; Dr Kwabena Duffuor, the Minister of Finance; Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the Minister of Education; Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Deputy Minister of Education; Mr Smith-Graham, the Chief Executive of the FWSC, and Mr E.T. Mensah, the Minister of Employment and Labour who witnessed the day’s agreement.
A major point in the agreement was the introduction of the 15 per cent teachers retention premium which is an incentive package covering all professional teachers and certain categories of non-teaching staff in the GES who are members of TEWU, with the aim of attracting and retaining teachers in the classroom.
The committee also agreed that the joint technical committee should ensure that all errors detected in the February salaries of teachers were corrected and the right salaries paid at the end of March.
The question is, could we have avoided the one week of hostilities and confrontation? The answer is, it was possible. There is this saying that what is worth doing is worth doing well. All the parties should have exercised patience, instead of raising the stakes so high. We have allowed too much politics into the whole exercise of migrating workers onto the SSSS, thereby diverting attention which should have been devoted to the exercise to ensure that the best comes out of it.
The government, on one hand, was too eager to please workers, while the workers. on the other, with their appetites whetted to astronomical levels were in no mood to wait. The result was what we witnessed over the last two weeks.
There are many more workers’ groups to be migrated onto the SSSS. We hope the FWSC and other stakeholders are gaining experience in this exercise and will do due diligence before coming up with its final products to save the nation unnecessary tension.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Save the beloved country
By Kofi Akordor
IT was a winding, dusty and muddy journey from Sakumono to Accra. The driver, in order to beat the traffic, decided to use what in local parlance is described as short-cuts. What should, therefore, have been a straight drive from Sakumono through Nungua and Teshie to Accra turned out to be a winding, meandering and delicate manoeuvring at the outskirts of the two suburbs before finally emerging at a place close to the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).
The question is: Was this circuitous route worth the effort? Here we are, confronted with a dirty, dusty road which has been under construction for more than five years without any sign of progress, let alone completion.
The neglect of this beach road strips us bare of any national pride as our children marched in the scorching sun to rekindle the dreams of independence earned 54 years ago. I hope many Ghanaians will join me in the belief that we have simply failed ourselves, using poverty as an excuse.
Come to think of it. On this short stretch of road are some national installations or institutions that we should be proud of and gladly showcase to the international world. We have the Southern Command Headquarters of the Ghana Army; The Military Academy and Training School (MATS); the Armed Forces Staff College and, above all, the KAIPTC which has been receiving foreign delegations on regular basis. Are we saying we do not have the money to make this road beautiful and durable for motoring?
Can you imagine the feeling, after hearing so much about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America, only to meet a dusty, potholes-filled road at Langley, Virginia, as you approach the headquarters of this internationally known and dreaded security institution? We have treated our version of the CIA or the Pentagon with careless abandon.
So, after 54 years as a sovereign nation, where lies our national pride and dignity? Something very serious and fundamental is lacking in our national life. We may have a very good document called the Constitution; we may have all the legislative and administrative structures in place. We may have all the anti-corruption laws and institutions, but without any serious sense of direction, we labour in vain.
For a very long time we have been missing the inspiring leadership that will give direction and carry on its shoulders a broad-based national development agenda. There is no evidence that we have any national development targets for, say, the next five, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years.
We lack the leadership that will challenge the various sectors such as business, agriculture, science and technology to innovative and exceptional achievements just as the great leaders who have left their footprints in the sands of history had done.
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy of the United States challenged scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to conquer the moon before the end of the decade. That was three weeks after Alan Sheppard had become the first American in space.
President Kennedy’s bold challenge set the US on a determined journey to the Moon. He did not live to savour the occasion when, on July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module of the Apollo 11 and took “one small step” in the Sea of Tranquillity, calling it a “giant leap for mankind”. The US has, since then, made six successful landings on the Moon with Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
Similarly, during the Cultural Revolution in China, Chairman Mao Zedong closed China’s borders and challenged his compatriots to prove those who claimed the Chinese were primitive either right or wrong. Mao Zedong is dead and gone, but the Chinese miracle has become the wonder of the 21st century and all countries, including mighty America, are all falling head over heels to have their fair share of the Chinese cake. That is the type of challenge I am talking about.
Do we have any such challenge from our leaders? Why are we importing everything, including toothpicks? Why are we unable to make bicycles when we were assembling vehicles in this country in the 1960s? Why are we still heavily importing food items when, many years ago, other countries, including Malaysia, sent their researchers to come and learn from our research institutes?
Why is our educational system in such a miserable state when, at one stage after independence, ours was one of the best, not only on the continent but in the advanced world of those days? Why is our road network in such an appalling state when, year in year out we continue to vote huge amounts of money for road construction?
After 54 years when our railway system should have gone modern, we do not even have the locomotives that predated the colonial period.
We have continued to blame our failures on external factors. We have always been quick to mention slavery and colonialism and lately dictatorship as the source of our problems and underdevelopment when these factors are not limited to Ghana and Africa.
Today, just like yesterday, we have put all our hope on donor support, to the extent that we rely on charity to procure reflective jackets and flash lights for our policemen and women for their official duties.
We have entered the 55th year of our national independence as usual with a lot of promises and pledges. We want a new leadership that will talk less and act more. We want transformational leadership that breaks away from the routine promise-making and pursue achievable goals with religious fervour.
Our youth are losing hope as they see the dreams of independence to be fading away. The democracy that we have been yearning for has come without any signs of a breakthrough in our national life.
The optimists may say we should not lose hope, but hope alone will not offer solutions if we do not take concrete steps to salvage this country from poverty and underdevelopment. We must begin to have confidence in our ability to solve our own problems and end the excessive dependence on external support.
Yesterday, we put all our hope in Western countries – America, Britain, Germany, France, etc. Today, we have shifted to China, Korea, Malaysia and even Thailand. Where our next redeemers shall come from is the big question. Incidentally, in comparative terms, none of these countries could count on more resources than Ghana.
It is time we gave meaning to our independence or stopped subjecting our children to the annual march past under hostile weather conditions for a freedom which does not go beyond raising a national flag and singing a national anthem. We want independence that will make us self-reliant, self-sufficient, proud and authors of our own history.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
IT was a winding, dusty and muddy journey from Sakumono to Accra. The driver, in order to beat the traffic, decided to use what in local parlance is described as short-cuts. What should, therefore, have been a straight drive from Sakumono through Nungua and Teshie to Accra turned out to be a winding, meandering and delicate manoeuvring at the outskirts of the two suburbs before finally emerging at a place close to the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).
The question is: Was this circuitous route worth the effort? Here we are, confronted with a dirty, dusty road which has been under construction for more than five years without any sign of progress, let alone completion.
The neglect of this beach road strips us bare of any national pride as our children marched in the scorching sun to rekindle the dreams of independence earned 54 years ago. I hope many Ghanaians will join me in the belief that we have simply failed ourselves, using poverty as an excuse.
Come to think of it. On this short stretch of road are some national installations or institutions that we should be proud of and gladly showcase to the international world. We have the Southern Command Headquarters of the Ghana Army; The Military Academy and Training School (MATS); the Armed Forces Staff College and, above all, the KAIPTC which has been receiving foreign delegations on regular basis. Are we saying we do not have the money to make this road beautiful and durable for motoring?
Can you imagine the feeling, after hearing so much about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America, only to meet a dusty, potholes-filled road at Langley, Virginia, as you approach the headquarters of this internationally known and dreaded security institution? We have treated our version of the CIA or the Pentagon with careless abandon.
So, after 54 years as a sovereign nation, where lies our national pride and dignity? Something very serious and fundamental is lacking in our national life. We may have a very good document called the Constitution; we may have all the legislative and administrative structures in place. We may have all the anti-corruption laws and institutions, but without any serious sense of direction, we labour in vain.
For a very long time we have been missing the inspiring leadership that will give direction and carry on its shoulders a broad-based national development agenda. There is no evidence that we have any national development targets for, say, the next five, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years.
We lack the leadership that will challenge the various sectors such as business, agriculture, science and technology to innovative and exceptional achievements just as the great leaders who have left their footprints in the sands of history had done.
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy of the United States challenged scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to conquer the moon before the end of the decade. That was three weeks after Alan Sheppard had become the first American in space.
President Kennedy’s bold challenge set the US on a determined journey to the Moon. He did not live to savour the occasion when, on July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module of the Apollo 11 and took “one small step” in the Sea of Tranquillity, calling it a “giant leap for mankind”. The US has, since then, made six successful landings on the Moon with Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
Similarly, during the Cultural Revolution in China, Chairman Mao Zedong closed China’s borders and challenged his compatriots to prove those who claimed the Chinese were primitive either right or wrong. Mao Zedong is dead and gone, but the Chinese miracle has become the wonder of the 21st century and all countries, including mighty America, are all falling head over heels to have their fair share of the Chinese cake. That is the type of challenge I am talking about.
Do we have any such challenge from our leaders? Why are we importing everything, including toothpicks? Why are we unable to make bicycles when we were assembling vehicles in this country in the 1960s? Why are we still heavily importing food items when, many years ago, other countries, including Malaysia, sent their researchers to come and learn from our research institutes?
Why is our educational system in such a miserable state when, at one stage after independence, ours was one of the best, not only on the continent but in the advanced world of those days? Why is our road network in such an appalling state when, year in year out we continue to vote huge amounts of money for road construction?
After 54 years when our railway system should have gone modern, we do not even have the locomotives that predated the colonial period.
We have continued to blame our failures on external factors. We have always been quick to mention slavery and colonialism and lately dictatorship as the source of our problems and underdevelopment when these factors are not limited to Ghana and Africa.
Today, just like yesterday, we have put all our hope on donor support, to the extent that we rely on charity to procure reflective jackets and flash lights for our policemen and women for their official duties.
We have entered the 55th year of our national independence as usual with a lot of promises and pledges. We want a new leadership that will talk less and act more. We want transformational leadership that breaks away from the routine promise-making and pursue achievable goals with religious fervour.
Our youth are losing hope as they see the dreams of independence to be fading away. The democracy that we have been yearning for has come without any signs of a breakthrough in our national life.
The optimists may say we should not lose hope, but hope alone will not offer solutions if we do not take concrete steps to salvage this country from poverty and underdevelopment. We must begin to have confidence in our ability to solve our own problems and end the excessive dependence on external support.
Yesterday, we put all our hope in Western countries – America, Britain, Germany, France, etc. Today, we have shifted to China, Korea, Malaysia and even Thailand. Where our next redeemers shall come from is the big question. Incidentally, in comparative terms, none of these countries could count on more resources than Ghana.
It is time we gave meaning to our independence or stopped subjecting our children to the annual march past under hostile weather conditions for a freedom which does not go beyond raising a national flag and singing a national anthem. We want independence that will make us self-reliant, self-sufficient, proud and authors of our own history.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Politics of insults, mischief and acrimony
By Kofi Akordor
Midway through President Barack Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address to Congress, a voice rang out, “It’s not true.”
The maker of that embarrassing statement was later identified as Samuel Anthony Alito, a former Supreme Court judge.
That irresponsible behaviour was widely condemned. The leadership of Congress rendered a public apology to President Obama. The man himself called Obama and apologised for that split moment of indiscretion.
The message here is loud and clear: The sanctity of the American Presidency cannot be violated, no matter the freedoms spelt out for individuals in the constitution. That is the politics of a nation that believes in playing the game according to the rules.
On Tuesday, February 15, 2011, President John Evans Atta Mills breached protocol when he delivered his State of the Nation Address to Parliament by not acknowledging the presence of the Chief Justice, the leadership of the House and former President John Agyekum Kufuor.
The President publicly acknowledged his mistake, which he said had been oversight, and went on to apologise to the personalities concerned.
On the same day, the Minority Leader in Parliament chose to register his protest on the same matter by publicly snubbing the President by refusing to escort him out of the chamber of the House, as is customarily the case.
As has been said very often, two wrongs do not make a right. Many might not have realised that the President breached protocol in his salutation during the State of the Nation Address, but millions watched while the Minority Leader chose the path of positive defiance to register his protest at the President’s mistake. What was otherwise a good case had been poorly bungled by that act of indiscretion.
All those who felt slighted by the President’s mistake, including the Minority Leader, are justified in expressing so, at least for the records, but should it have been at the expense of the sanctity of the presidency? Should our democracy be reduced to a child’s play because one party has faltered or made a mistake? Should the Minority Leader’s action be a signal to people of this country to defy authority or treat our leadership with scorn and contempt at the least mistake or provocation?
A week after that unfortunate incident, many Ghanaians heaved a heavy sigh of relief when information got round that President Mills had invited former President Kufuor for a meeting at the Castle. Truly, the meeting came on and former President Kufuor admitted that even though the invitation had been at short notice, he was obliged to honour it because of his respect for the presidency. Secondly, as a former President and an elder statesman, he must be prepared to respond to national calls at all times.
Nothing can be more soothing to the hearts of Ghanaians than those beautiful words. The two leaders never told the public what went into their discussions, except that they dwelt on national and international issues which are of interest to Ghana.
One would have thought that the meeting between the two leaders would serve as a solid foundation for us to mend our ways and reach out to one another. Sadly, commentators from both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) chose to dwell on the negative side of that great event.
While the NDC hatchet men saw the invitation as a lesson to former President Kufuor on how to reach out to former office holders, NPP activists saw the invitation as a public relations gimmick, as if public relations itself is a bad thing in communication science.
Such is the nature of our politics that everything has been reduced to the level of personal confrontation among people who do not see anything good in one another. At every turn it seems we are only looking out for negative things about other people. We are missing the good things democracy offers to people.
The freedoms our Constitution guarantees the individual, to many, mean freedom to insult, vilify and attack verbally or physically our perceived political opponents. At first we thought political confrontations were restricted to election years and during political rallies. But here we are; our whole national life has been characterised by political violence in one form or another, acrimonious debates empty of rationalisation, sober and meaningful contributions.
While we are at one another’s throats, we have failed to notice that just after one heavy rainfall, Accra, our national capital, has become one huge mud city because of poor drainage and irresponsible behaviour on our part as residents. We do not even realise that most of our traffic lights do not work at peak hours. We are rather interested in trivialities such as what dress somebody was wearing.
In other words, we have failed to use our democracy, which we are told on a daily basis is the envy of other countries, to confront development challenges. Instead, we think it is an opportune time to settle old scores that years of dictatorship had suppressed.
The media, especially the radio, have not helped our quest for national unity and the crusade to move this country away from its present miserable state into a better place for us all. Far from setting a development agenda, the media have set a confrontational agenda by feeding the people with nothing but hatred and insults in divisive language.
The leadership of the various political parties, especially the NDC and the NPP, and those in government have not helped matters in any way by their outbursts and other forms of irresponsible conduct. It appears people are more interested in winning political power, without necessarily being interested in solving our problems.
I saw a full-page advert placed by Mr Kofi Amoah, a business executive, raising issues with the negative trend which is diluting our politics. That means many discerning Ghanaians are not happy with the way some people are doing politics in this country.
The challenges confronting this country are just too many that we cannot afford the luxury of spending the whole day insulting one another, threatening death and mayhem and fanning ethnocentric sentiments.
Media practitioners and owners of radio stations should remember that they stand accused for creating the platform, in the name of media freedom and freedom of expression, for hostility to flourish in the country. I still do not know the benefits of some of the phone-in programmes and discussion programmes on television apart from bringing out the animalistic instincts in us.
We may not realise it now, but we may be gradually sowing seeds of social disintegration by the politics of hate, acrimony and mischief which is now the order of the day.
It is better we emphasise the things that unite us than those which divide us.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Midway through President Barack Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address to Congress, a voice rang out, “It’s not true.”
The maker of that embarrassing statement was later identified as Samuel Anthony Alito, a former Supreme Court judge.
That irresponsible behaviour was widely condemned. The leadership of Congress rendered a public apology to President Obama. The man himself called Obama and apologised for that split moment of indiscretion.
The message here is loud and clear: The sanctity of the American Presidency cannot be violated, no matter the freedoms spelt out for individuals in the constitution. That is the politics of a nation that believes in playing the game according to the rules.
On Tuesday, February 15, 2011, President John Evans Atta Mills breached protocol when he delivered his State of the Nation Address to Parliament by not acknowledging the presence of the Chief Justice, the leadership of the House and former President John Agyekum Kufuor.
The President publicly acknowledged his mistake, which he said had been oversight, and went on to apologise to the personalities concerned.
On the same day, the Minority Leader in Parliament chose to register his protest on the same matter by publicly snubbing the President by refusing to escort him out of the chamber of the House, as is customarily the case.
As has been said very often, two wrongs do not make a right. Many might not have realised that the President breached protocol in his salutation during the State of the Nation Address, but millions watched while the Minority Leader chose the path of positive defiance to register his protest at the President’s mistake. What was otherwise a good case had been poorly bungled by that act of indiscretion.
All those who felt slighted by the President’s mistake, including the Minority Leader, are justified in expressing so, at least for the records, but should it have been at the expense of the sanctity of the presidency? Should our democracy be reduced to a child’s play because one party has faltered or made a mistake? Should the Minority Leader’s action be a signal to people of this country to defy authority or treat our leadership with scorn and contempt at the least mistake or provocation?
A week after that unfortunate incident, many Ghanaians heaved a heavy sigh of relief when information got round that President Mills had invited former President Kufuor for a meeting at the Castle. Truly, the meeting came on and former President Kufuor admitted that even though the invitation had been at short notice, he was obliged to honour it because of his respect for the presidency. Secondly, as a former President and an elder statesman, he must be prepared to respond to national calls at all times.
Nothing can be more soothing to the hearts of Ghanaians than those beautiful words. The two leaders never told the public what went into their discussions, except that they dwelt on national and international issues which are of interest to Ghana.
One would have thought that the meeting between the two leaders would serve as a solid foundation for us to mend our ways and reach out to one another. Sadly, commentators from both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) chose to dwell on the negative side of that great event.
While the NDC hatchet men saw the invitation as a lesson to former President Kufuor on how to reach out to former office holders, NPP activists saw the invitation as a public relations gimmick, as if public relations itself is a bad thing in communication science.
Such is the nature of our politics that everything has been reduced to the level of personal confrontation among people who do not see anything good in one another. At every turn it seems we are only looking out for negative things about other people. We are missing the good things democracy offers to people.
The freedoms our Constitution guarantees the individual, to many, mean freedom to insult, vilify and attack verbally or physically our perceived political opponents. At first we thought political confrontations were restricted to election years and during political rallies. But here we are; our whole national life has been characterised by political violence in one form or another, acrimonious debates empty of rationalisation, sober and meaningful contributions.
While we are at one another’s throats, we have failed to notice that just after one heavy rainfall, Accra, our national capital, has become one huge mud city because of poor drainage and irresponsible behaviour on our part as residents. We do not even realise that most of our traffic lights do not work at peak hours. We are rather interested in trivialities such as what dress somebody was wearing.
In other words, we have failed to use our democracy, which we are told on a daily basis is the envy of other countries, to confront development challenges. Instead, we think it is an opportune time to settle old scores that years of dictatorship had suppressed.
The media, especially the radio, have not helped our quest for national unity and the crusade to move this country away from its present miserable state into a better place for us all. Far from setting a development agenda, the media have set a confrontational agenda by feeding the people with nothing but hatred and insults in divisive language.
The leadership of the various political parties, especially the NDC and the NPP, and those in government have not helped matters in any way by their outbursts and other forms of irresponsible conduct. It appears people are more interested in winning political power, without necessarily being interested in solving our problems.
I saw a full-page advert placed by Mr Kofi Amoah, a business executive, raising issues with the negative trend which is diluting our politics. That means many discerning Ghanaians are not happy with the way some people are doing politics in this country.
The challenges confronting this country are just too many that we cannot afford the luxury of spending the whole day insulting one another, threatening death and mayhem and fanning ethnocentric sentiments.
Media practitioners and owners of radio stations should remember that they stand accused for creating the platform, in the name of media freedom and freedom of expression, for hostility to flourish in the country. I still do not know the benefits of some of the phone-in programmes and discussion programmes on television apart from bringing out the animalistic instincts in us.
We may not realise it now, but we may be gradually sowing seeds of social disintegration by the politics of hate, acrimony and mischief which is now the order of the day.
It is better we emphasise the things that unite us than those which divide us.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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