By John K. Essel. Kumasi.
Pix Mr Ibrahim Adam (middle) Chairman of Board of Agriculture Development Bank, interacting with some Executive members of the Ghana Society of Agricultural Engineers after the opening ceremony a the Fifth National Conference of the Agricultural Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
With them include Mr E. Buckson (right) Executive Secretary of Ghana Institute of Engineering, and Mr D. Lamptey, (left) President of Society.
THE two day conference under a theme “Agricultural Engineering for Commercial Food Production and Environmental Sustainability in Ghana, was aimed at finding the solution to improve upon agriculture development in the country.
Speaking at the opening session, Mr Ibrahim Adam, stated that agric engineering have a major role to pray for the designing modern of agricultural equipment and tools to improve upon agricultural production in the country and stressed need to sustain agricultural production by ensure quality production and marketing.
He said the country has expertises and called for closer collaboration with policy makers to ensure the agriculture development in the country.
He said the doors of the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) are open for any group of people or individuals for the development of the agriculture industry.
Prof W. O. Ellis, Vice Chancellor of (KNUST) said agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy and therefore stressed the need to adopt modern technology to attract the youth in the agriculture production in the country.
He called for adoption of commercial farms by intensifying research and training to move the development of agriculture forwards.
He said the university has intensified its policies to produce quality products to meet the national demand to enhance national socio-economic development.
Mr D. Lamptey, President of the Society, called for the need for the increase of Agric students as well as Agricultural Engineers to produce simple equipment for the food production in the country. By John K. Essel. Kumasi.
Pix Mr Ibrahim Adam (middle) Chairman of Board of Agriculture Development Bank, interacting with some Executive members of the Ghana Society of Agricultural Engineers after the opening ceremony a the Fifth National Conference of the Agricultural Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
With them include Mr E. Buckson (right) Executive Secretary of Ghana Institute of Engineering, and Mr D. Lamptey, (left) President of Society.
THE two day conference under a theme “Agricultural Engineering for Commercial Food Production and Environmental Sustainability in Ghana, was aimed at finding the solution to improve upon agriculture development in the country.
Speaking at the opening session, Mr Ibrahim Adam, stated that agric engineering have a major role to pray for the designing modern of agricultural equipment and tools to improve upon agricultural production in the country and stressed need to sustain agricultural production by ensure quality production and marketing.
He said the country has expertises and called for closer collaboration with policy makers to ensure the agriculture development in the country.
He said the doors of the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB) are open for any group of people or individuals for the development of the agriculture industry.
Prof W. O. Ellis, Vice Chancellor of (KNUST) said agriculture was the backbone of the country’s economy and therefore stressed the need to adopt modern technology to attract the youth in the agriculture production in the country.
He called for adoption of commercial farms by intensifying research and training to move the development of agriculture forwards.
He said the university has intensified its policies to produce quality products to meet the national demand to enhance national socio-economic development.
Mr D. Lamptey, President of the Society, called for the need for the increase of Agric students as well as Agricultural Engineers to produce simple equipment for the food production in the country.
By Kofi Akordor
While the rest of us stayed in line crawling agonisingly in heavy traffic, a different breed of superior beings drive past very fast on the shoulders of the road which have become their expressways. Pedestrians and other motorists dare not drop their guard, otherwise they will be crushed to death.
Hawkers, shop owners and roadside workshops have always been at the mercy of these rampaging, lawless and arrogant drivers of commercial vehicles who have turned the city roads into a jungle where their animalistic instincts are in full display.
Theirs is a world where law and order does not exist and who have taken the police for granted. Those who could no longer endure the menace, in their attempt to escape the wrath of these arrogant, wicked and dangerous drivers, try to put impediments on their path by blocking portions of the road with old tyres, stones, cement blocks and metal bars. But they are not deterred. They will meander past these obstacles with greater venom and create bigger problems than they usually do.
Precious lives have been lost, among them schoolchildren and street hawkers, the sick and the old. Properties too have been destroyed. Still the menace is there, smoothened by occasional assurances of deterrent action by the law enforcement agencies.
Some of us heaved a heavy sigh of relief when a new Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service in the person of a brother and a colleague communication scientist, Assistant Commissioner of Police Awuni Angwubutoge, was named.
Some of us rejoiced because we know our man very well and we know if there is someone who can confront these hooligans with success, it must be Awuni. He is not just outspoken and down-to-earth, he also acts his words.
He is the type whose approach to duty can even be met with hostility from members of his own establishment because of their forthrightness and determination to succeed where others have given up and thrown up their arms in frustrating despair.
He belongs to that class of people who work with zeal and are ready to sacrifice for the work if it even means challenging the status quo.
True to his character, ACP Awuni, on taking over as the Commander of the MTTU, pledged to bring sanity on the roads and put a stop to the free reign of those commercial drivers using the shoulders of the roads as expressways.
Almost a year into his administration, it appears ACP Awuni is against a tough and very steep uphill task. The illegal expressways created by the commercial drivers are as busy as ever and the drivers themselves are operating with greater impunity than before. One of them, according to newspaper reports, even recently had the nerves to attack the MTTU commander himself.
If our city roads are unsafe, travelling on our highways has become more or less like a journey of no return. Relatives and friends who accompany their loved ones to the lorry stations may be waving them a final farewell without knowing it.
The carnage on the roads has assumed alarming proportions and there seems to be no solutions in sight. The statistics is quite revealing and alarming. According to MTTU records, in the first six months of this year alone, 6,449 accident cases involving 9,222 vehicles were recorded. For the period (January-June, 2011), 1,081 lives were lost while 6,209 others got injured. The figure shows a marginal increase over last year’s.
At the heart of road accidents in the country is the human factor. A common observation which has been documented and widely accepted by experts and ordinary people is traffic indiscipline exhibited by many of the drivers on the road.
Most of the drivers, as a result of inadequate training and poor educational backgrounds, know or pay very little attention to traffic regulations. There is also open display of irresponsible behaviour partly due to bad character and other influences such as alcohol and illicit drugs.
These transform into speeding, wrong overtaking and other careless manouvrings which pose danger to all other road users.
It is not that we do not have enough laws to check human behaviour on the roads. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) of the Ministry of Transport begins the process of bringing sanity on our roads and promoting law and order by examining and licensing vehicles as being roadworthy.
It also examines those who apply for driving and give them certification as qualified both mentally and physically to drive vehicles of various specifications.
Any slip on the part of DVLA, whether deliberately or by default, means we are at risk.
The MTTU is to ensure that all vehicles on the roads have certification from the DVLA as being roadworthy. It also ensures that all persons driving vehicles possess valid driving licences.
The MTTU has a bigger responsibility to right the wrongs allowed into the system by the DVLA. This means even though a person may possess a driving licence, it is the duty of the MTTU personnel to satisfy themselves that the so-called driver is actually qualified and driving according to the motor regulations.
They must also make assure that vehicles plying the roads are truly roadworthy and not only possessing road worthy certificates. They must also process for prosecution drivers who infringe the law.
The presence of MTTU personnel is in itself a guarantee of safety on the roads since they become the watchdogs and an inspiration for the rest of us.
This means the physical presence of the MTTU personnel must be seen and felt at all times on all our roads both in the cities, towns and on the highways.
The unit must have vehicles to move personnel round at all times. It must have vehicles patrolling the roads and streets at all times. It must have towing vehicles to clear the roads of breakdown and accident vehicles and ambulances to convey the injured to hospitals when there is an accident.
It should also have hearses for those who could not survive accidents.
How is the MTTU faring in our circumstances? Seriously the MTTU, like other wings of the Ghana Police Service, is hampered by inadequate resources, both in terms of human resource and logistics. Out of a total police strength of 20,000, MTTU personnel account for only 8.89 per cent.
The number is woefully inadequate and leaves the personnel thinly spread on the ground. The problem is further compounded when divisional, district and unit points are left unmanned, because the men have been withdrawn for other more important assignments.
As stated earlier, the MTTU is heavily constrained by inadequate logistics. This is a unit which should be highly mobile but unfortunately lacks all manner of vehicles. Special and important operations are, therefore, abandoned mid-way because the old and weak vehicles break down and cannot successfully execute the day’s assignment.
MTTU personnel who are to police the roads very often have to rely on the generosity of private or commercial drivers, thereby compromising them in the effective discharge of statutory duties. A few days ago, I saw a police vehicle being towed by a private truck. So what happens when a truck breaks down and abandoned in the middle of the road? Any wonder that broken-down vehicles left in the middle of the road continue to be a major cause of accidents on the highways?
Apart from these inadequacies, the MTTU lacks any effective command structure. The MTTU Commander sounds a huge title but operationally has very little to command. Beyond Accra Central, the title loses its meaning because he lacks authority in Greater Accra, let alone the rest of the country.
Operationally, MTTU personnel outside Accra are under the command of the various Regional Commanders. In effect, the national MTTU lacks the operational capacity to operate in the regions outside the Accra Central Business District.
The situation does not provide any opportunity to prepare strategic enforcement plan for the major highways where a high proportion of serious accidents occurs.
One could now appreciate why ACP Awuni’s pledge to bring sanity on the roads seems to be yielding little results.
The MTTU, as a human institution, has its fair share of human frailty, no matter how hard they try. It has its deviants, fifth columnists and those with purely mercenary motives and so on. One should expect miracles even if the unit has its full complement of staff and equipment. But still the difference would have been clear.
This is an institution that so much is expected from yet very little is given. It could be admitted that even with the limited resources, the unit could have performed better. But very often when you are overwhelmingly weighed down by problems, the little goodness in you gets diluted by evil things. It is, therefore, not surprising that of all the units of the Ghana Police Service, it is the MTTU that is castigated most.
While demanding that the few bad ones straighten their ways, shall we also demand that the unit is revamped and well-equipped ? Under the present circumstances, the burden is too much. That is why Brother Awuni and his team are losing the battle against irresponsible and careless driving on the roads and highways.
Just pointing accusing fingers at them will not solve our problem neither will it end the carnage on the roads. If we really value our lives, then we must demand a better equipped MTTU with a well-trained personnel to do the policing to our satisfaction.
All the same, Brother, do not give up. I still want you to use your limited resources to do something about those crazy drivers who are tormenting us on the Spintex Road and elsewhere with their brand of driving skills.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Old bicycles on show in Maputo
By Kofi Akordor
After a rather poor performance in the cycling events at the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, the Mozambican capital, our cyclists offered a weird and rather sad and embarrassing excuse. Their bicycles were old, outmoded and worn out.
According to the story, two cyclists actually had punctures in the men’s individual trial and men’s team trial races and some of our cyclists had to fall on some other competing nationals to put their bicycles in good shape for the event.
Do we need to say more? It is not only a national disgrace; the events of Maputo also exposed traits of a national character which does not place value on national pride and where people entrusted with national responsibilities can afford to do anything, knowing well that there are no penalties to pay.
We have a reputation for being ardent patrons of second-hand goods because our governments have accepted that. So, having endorsed it as part of our national culture is itself an acceptance of our failure to cater for our own needs.
But should we go to such a prestigious continental sporting event as the All Africa Games with old and worn-out bicycles? How much would it have cost this dear nation of ours to provide our cyclists with the best of bicycles on the market to showcase their talents on the continental stage and live up to the image of Ghana as the first Black nation south of the Sahara to gain political freedom from colonial domination?
How best can we advertise our country as the land of gold, one of the largest producers of top-grade cocoa beans and lately our emergence as an oil-producing country on the continent than to use the platform offered by sports to make a strong case for our country?
Even before the national teams left for the games, there were complaints of poor training facilities, inadequate resources and near neglect by the government and the sports authorities. These problems followed them to Maputo, and from reports which have not been countered by the authorities, our athletes had to suffer unnecessarily because of our failure to pay an earlier fine of US$74,000.
While some were detained at the airport for several hours, members of our contingent had to do with substandard facilities. It was obvious we were ill-prepared for the games and those charged with the responsibility to take charge of Team Ghana took things for granted, counting on the fact that at the end of the day the determination of the Ghanaian and his survival instincts would push the athletes through.
Sports is longer just an entertainment event. It has become a platform where countries win psychological wars over their opponents. Many countries now use sports to the fullest to create big psychological images for themselves and their people.
It has also become a huge commercial activity where athletes win fame and glory. Young men and women who otherwise would be scavenging for survival are turned into wealthy citizens more useful to themselves and their societies.
It is, therefore, important that we invest more in sports than we are doing now. Even though sports holds a lot of promise for this country, our approach to its development at the grass-root levels leaves much to be desired.
An example is the lack of sporting facilities in the various communities and the neglect of existing ones. A visit to the Kaneshie Sports Complex, now renamed the Azumah Nelson Sports Complex, leaves one wondering if the place deserves to be named after a great sports personality such as the boxing professor, Zoom Zoom Azumah Nelson, a man who brought fame to himself and put Ghana on the boxing map of the world in practical terms.
This is a facility which was built during the Acheampong regime with the purpose of serving as a breeding ground for young talents in various sporting disciplines and as camping venue for national teams.
The question of lack of funds is ruled out. It is simply neglect and lack of national attention. How can we have a ministry responsible for sports and neglect a facility which is supposed to be a national monument to celebrate personal and national achievement right in the heart of our national capital?
A lot of the youth roaming the streets who, out of desperation, have become a danger to society could become breadwinners and even national heroes if a well-defined youth development policy with sports as an integral part is put in place.
To start with, let us give the Azumah Nelson Sports Complex a new face to befit the status of the man it was named after. Let us build more community sports facilities to include tennis and basketball courts, boxing gyms and swimming pools.
I could see the words, “No money” forming on the lips of our big people. You know we do not get money to do the right things in our country. But I bet that every little investment made in sports development means millions of dollars as returns from the stars that will be produced.
Jamaicans and other Caribbean people are not different from us. But the fact that they are able to produce top sprinters in abundance when we are not should be a puzzle we should all try to unravel. The difference, we believe, lies in commitment.
We should know where our strength lies and exploit it. We may not be technologically advanced but we have a huge potential in sports which, with a committed and dedicated approach and investment, can bring us national glory and wealth.
All said and done, we should use every available opportunity to raise high the flag of Ghana, instead of bring dishonour to the motherland by hastily pushing ill-prepared and ill-equipped sports men and women into the international arena to be mocked at and frowned upon.
We thank Team Ghana that, notwithstanding the shabby treatment and the disinterest shown in their preparation, departure and participation in the games, they were still able to chalk up some achievements and brought glory to all of us.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
After a rather poor performance in the cycling events at the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, the Mozambican capital, our cyclists offered a weird and rather sad and embarrassing excuse. Their bicycles were old, outmoded and worn out.
According to the story, two cyclists actually had punctures in the men’s individual trial and men’s team trial races and some of our cyclists had to fall on some other competing nationals to put their bicycles in good shape for the event.
Do we need to say more? It is not only a national disgrace; the events of Maputo also exposed traits of a national character which does not place value on national pride and where people entrusted with national responsibilities can afford to do anything, knowing well that there are no penalties to pay.
We have a reputation for being ardent patrons of second-hand goods because our governments have accepted that. So, having endorsed it as part of our national culture is itself an acceptance of our failure to cater for our own needs.
But should we go to such a prestigious continental sporting event as the All Africa Games with old and worn-out bicycles? How much would it have cost this dear nation of ours to provide our cyclists with the best of bicycles on the market to showcase their talents on the continental stage and live up to the image of Ghana as the first Black nation south of the Sahara to gain political freedom from colonial domination?
How best can we advertise our country as the land of gold, one of the largest producers of top-grade cocoa beans and lately our emergence as an oil-producing country on the continent than to use the platform offered by sports to make a strong case for our country?
Even before the national teams left for the games, there were complaints of poor training facilities, inadequate resources and near neglect by the government and the sports authorities. These problems followed them to Maputo, and from reports which have not been countered by the authorities, our athletes had to suffer unnecessarily because of our failure to pay an earlier fine of US$74,000.
While some were detained at the airport for several hours, members of our contingent had to do with substandard facilities. It was obvious we were ill-prepared for the games and those charged with the responsibility to take charge of Team Ghana took things for granted, counting on the fact that at the end of the day the determination of the Ghanaian and his survival instincts would push the athletes through.
Sports is longer just an entertainment event. It has become a platform where countries win psychological wars over their opponents. Many countries now use sports to the fullest to create big psychological images for themselves and their people.
It has also become a huge commercial activity where athletes win fame and glory. Young men and women who otherwise would be scavenging for survival are turned into wealthy citizens more useful to themselves and their societies.
It is, therefore, important that we invest more in sports than we are doing now. Even though sports holds a lot of promise for this country, our approach to its development at the grass-root levels leaves much to be desired.
An example is the lack of sporting facilities in the various communities and the neglect of existing ones. A visit to the Kaneshie Sports Complex, now renamed the Azumah Nelson Sports Complex, leaves one wondering if the place deserves to be named after a great sports personality such as the boxing professor, Zoom Zoom Azumah Nelson, a man who brought fame to himself and put Ghana on the boxing map of the world in practical terms.
This is a facility which was built during the Acheampong regime with the purpose of serving as a breeding ground for young talents in various sporting disciplines and as camping venue for national teams.
The question of lack of funds is ruled out. It is simply neglect and lack of national attention. How can we have a ministry responsible for sports and neglect a facility which is supposed to be a national monument to celebrate personal and national achievement right in the heart of our national capital?
A lot of the youth roaming the streets who, out of desperation, have become a danger to society could become breadwinners and even national heroes if a well-defined youth development policy with sports as an integral part is put in place.
To start with, let us give the Azumah Nelson Sports Complex a new face to befit the status of the man it was named after. Let us build more community sports facilities to include tennis and basketball courts, boxing gyms and swimming pools.
I could see the words, “No money” forming on the lips of our big people. You know we do not get money to do the right things in our country. But I bet that every little investment made in sports development means millions of dollars as returns from the stars that will be produced.
Jamaicans and other Caribbean people are not different from us. But the fact that they are able to produce top sprinters in abundance when we are not should be a puzzle we should all try to unravel. The difference, we believe, lies in commitment.
We should know where our strength lies and exploit it. We may not be technologically advanced but we have a huge potential in sports which, with a committed and dedicated approach and investment, can bring us national glory and wealth.
All said and done, we should use every available opportunity to raise high the flag of Ghana, instead of bring dishonour to the motherland by hastily pushing ill-prepared and ill-equipped sports men and women into the international arena to be mocked at and frowned upon.
We thank Team Ghana that, notwithstanding the shabby treatment and the disinterest shown in their preparation, departure and participation in the games, they were still able to chalk up some achievements and brought glory to all of us.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Still in the shadows
By Kofi Akordor
I COULD hear Chelsea being mentioned in the football commentary running on a local radio station. I was not surprised because our local league had long ago lost most of the indigenous names such as Venomous Vipers and Mysterious Dwarfs, both of Cape Coast‚ Eleven Wise and Hassacas, both of Sekondi, and many others, only to be replaced by fanciful names of English and other European clubs.
That was why I was not surprised to hear Chelsea being mentioned by the commentator. Apart from Chelsea, there is also Arsenal in our local league. There used to be a Man U and we do not know what to expect in future.
I only somehow got surprised when I realized that the commentary was not on a local match but an English Premier League match between London-side Chelsea and another team. Then I asked, “Are we back in those days when, during major bulletins, local radio stations hooked on to BBC to listen to the news according to the colonial masters?”
In an era of technological advancement, the individual has a wide range of choices to make in what radio station and television channel to tune in to, whether local or foreign. Therefore, some of us will not find it out place for those who are obsessed with foreign things, including foreign football leagues, to follow their favourite clubs wherever they played.
Our radio stations also have every right to broadcast what they believe will be of interest to their audience. Therefore, no one could begrudge them if they choose to broadcast sporting events in foreign lands. Moreover, Ghanaians, being a sports-loving people, deserve their pleasure from what a commentary on the English Premier League will give them.
In fact, all other considerations would have been ignored but for the fact that what may appear as a nation’s obsession for a sporting event amounts to following a dangerous trend which has left us second to all others.
Some time ago, I raised issue over how the spirit of our local league system is being diluted by a new phenomenon -- naming local teams after foreign teams for whatever reason. We have or had Ajax, Feyernood, Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and many others.
Some may chose to brush this development aside by asking, after all, what is in a name? Yes, if there is nothing in a name, why should Ghanaians be anxious to name their teams after teams? What do they expect to achieve by doing that?
Already, we are having problems marketing our local league to our people for several reasons. As we lose interest in our local league, we have virtually shifted focus onto foreign leagues, especially the English Premier League and the UEFA competitions.
We may just be talking football but we have unconsciously fallen into that inferiority complex trap which makes us believe that we can only attain recognition if we associate ourselves with foreign things deemed superior.
Still on football, we prefer to describe our national stadium in Accra as Ghana’s Wembley, which is the name of one of the stadia in London.
There is a street at Osu, a suburb of Accra, called Cantonments Road. Without any official change of name, the street has assumed a new name -- Oxford Street -- again named after a place in London in the United Kingdom.
I wonder whether an average Englishman will bother his head over a country called Ghana, let alone a street in its capital. While we care to know and admire everything about them, the average European and American only knows that there is a place called Africa which is home to all the problems on the Earth, including diseases, poverty, famine, illiteracy and ignorance.
We have done everything to appear or sound like Europeans or Americans by bleaching our skins and forcing on ourselves some strange nasal accents in our delivery of the English language.
While desperately trying to portray ourselves as Europeans or Americans that we will never be, we have woefully failed to pick some of their best attributes, such as environmental cleanliness and sanitation and personal hygiene.
Our beaches are refuse dumps or public toilets where people defecate openly. Elsewhere, beach fronts are prime locations where only the nouveau riche could afford plots and build residential accommodation. The beaches are money-spinning zones, churning out billions of dollars in foreign exchange because of their attraction to tourists. Proper utilization of our beaches alone has the potential to bring us out of poverty.
If we are ashamed of our natural identity and want to be like other people, then we should begin by identifying with the wonderful things that endear those people to us. We must love the environment and protect our coastline and keep it neat; we must protect our water bodies and beautiful landscapes nature has given us; we must begin to love ourselves and all the good things God has given us, and instead of seeing goodness in others, we must begin to see goodness in ourselves. We must aspire to greater heights, instead of living in the shadows of others.
If the English Premier League is interesting and attractive to us, it is because it is well-organised and has never been at the whims and caprices of individuals or groups. The answer to our poor league system does not lie in abandoning it and embracing that of others. It lies in building ours on strong and firm rules and regulations that will pass the test of time.
It is this mentality of inferiority complex that has undermined our national development efforts because we have failed to release the latent energies in us for our own good. We have failed to identify and exploit our strengths and capabilities that will propel us from hopelessness and mediocrity to a strong, virile and proud people who would not play second fiddle to others.
If we think we do not deserve beautiful things and that anything beautiful must have originated from outside or bore semblance to something from outside, then we must as well give up all pretences of being a free and independent people.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
I COULD hear Chelsea being mentioned in the football commentary running on a local radio station. I was not surprised because our local league had long ago lost most of the indigenous names such as Venomous Vipers and Mysterious Dwarfs, both of Cape Coast‚ Eleven Wise and Hassacas, both of Sekondi, and many others, only to be replaced by fanciful names of English and other European clubs.
That was why I was not surprised to hear Chelsea being mentioned by the commentator. Apart from Chelsea, there is also Arsenal in our local league. There used to be a Man U and we do not know what to expect in future.
I only somehow got surprised when I realized that the commentary was not on a local match but an English Premier League match between London-side Chelsea and another team. Then I asked, “Are we back in those days when, during major bulletins, local radio stations hooked on to BBC to listen to the news according to the colonial masters?”
In an era of technological advancement, the individual has a wide range of choices to make in what radio station and television channel to tune in to, whether local or foreign. Therefore, some of us will not find it out place for those who are obsessed with foreign things, including foreign football leagues, to follow their favourite clubs wherever they played.
Our radio stations also have every right to broadcast what they believe will be of interest to their audience. Therefore, no one could begrudge them if they choose to broadcast sporting events in foreign lands. Moreover, Ghanaians, being a sports-loving people, deserve their pleasure from what a commentary on the English Premier League will give them.
In fact, all other considerations would have been ignored but for the fact that what may appear as a nation’s obsession for a sporting event amounts to following a dangerous trend which has left us second to all others.
Some time ago, I raised issue over how the spirit of our local league system is being diluted by a new phenomenon -- naming local teams after foreign teams for whatever reason. We have or had Ajax, Feyernood, Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and many others.
Some may chose to brush this development aside by asking, after all, what is in a name? Yes, if there is nothing in a name, why should Ghanaians be anxious to name their teams after teams? What do they expect to achieve by doing that?
Already, we are having problems marketing our local league to our people for several reasons. As we lose interest in our local league, we have virtually shifted focus onto foreign leagues, especially the English Premier League and the UEFA competitions.
We may just be talking football but we have unconsciously fallen into that inferiority complex trap which makes us believe that we can only attain recognition if we associate ourselves with foreign things deemed superior.
Still on football, we prefer to describe our national stadium in Accra as Ghana’s Wembley, which is the name of one of the stadia in London.
There is a street at Osu, a suburb of Accra, called Cantonments Road. Without any official change of name, the street has assumed a new name -- Oxford Street -- again named after a place in London in the United Kingdom.
I wonder whether an average Englishman will bother his head over a country called Ghana, let alone a street in its capital. While we care to know and admire everything about them, the average European and American only knows that there is a place called Africa which is home to all the problems on the Earth, including diseases, poverty, famine, illiteracy and ignorance.
We have done everything to appear or sound like Europeans or Americans by bleaching our skins and forcing on ourselves some strange nasal accents in our delivery of the English language.
While desperately trying to portray ourselves as Europeans or Americans that we will never be, we have woefully failed to pick some of their best attributes, such as environmental cleanliness and sanitation and personal hygiene.
Our beaches are refuse dumps or public toilets where people defecate openly. Elsewhere, beach fronts are prime locations where only the nouveau riche could afford plots and build residential accommodation. The beaches are money-spinning zones, churning out billions of dollars in foreign exchange because of their attraction to tourists. Proper utilization of our beaches alone has the potential to bring us out of poverty.
If we are ashamed of our natural identity and want to be like other people, then we should begin by identifying with the wonderful things that endear those people to us. We must love the environment and protect our coastline and keep it neat; we must protect our water bodies and beautiful landscapes nature has given us; we must begin to love ourselves and all the good things God has given us, and instead of seeing goodness in others, we must begin to see goodness in ourselves. We must aspire to greater heights, instead of living in the shadows of others.
If the English Premier League is interesting and attractive to us, it is because it is well-organised and has never been at the whims and caprices of individuals or groups. The answer to our poor league system does not lie in abandoning it and embracing that of others. It lies in building ours on strong and firm rules and regulations that will pass the test of time.
It is this mentality of inferiority complex that has undermined our national development efforts because we have failed to release the latent energies in us for our own good. We have failed to identify and exploit our strengths and capabilities that will propel us from hopelessness and mediocrity to a strong, virile and proud people who would not play second fiddle to others.
If we think we do not deserve beautiful things and that anything beautiful must have originated from outside or bore semblance to something from outside, then we must as well give up all pretences of being a free and independent people.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
A million tonnes of cocoa, what next?
By Kofi Akordor
Nearly two weeks ago, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) announced the pleasant news that the country has attained its long-cherished target of producing one million metric tonnes of cocoa.
The announcement was in the form of a brief press statement released by the COCOBOD. But that did not downplay the importance and significance of the message.
This is not an achievement that came the easy way. It took years of careful and meticulous planning and other interventions on the part of the government, COCOBOD, the Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs), the agro-chemical manufacturers and distributors and, of course, the hardworking cocoa farmers throughout the country.
The record production did not come by accident. Many years ago, in an effort to arrest the decline in cocoa production and make the cocoa industry effective and efficient, the government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) embarked upon the cocoa sector reforms in 1984/85.
In 1999, the government approved a cocoa sector development strategy to guide the development of the cocoa industry. As part of that reform, private sector competition in the external marketing of the commodity was introduced with the LBCs controlling about 30 per cent of the export share.
Production targets were expected to progress steadily from the 335,000 tonnes at the time to 500,000 tonnes by 2004/5 to 700,000 tonnes in 2009/10 and hitting the 1,000,000 tonnes mark by 2010. On August 18, 2011, COCOBOD attained a record purchase of 1,004,194 metric tonnes to make it a dream come true.
There was cause to celebrate. More cocoa for the export market means more foreign exchange in the national kitty to be dispensed on the numerous development challenges confronting the country. We may still be behind Ivory Coast as the second largest producer in the world but the achievement also means that we are capable of making projections and attaining those projections provided we work hard towards them.
The question, however, is: Should we continue to rejoice in the fact that we are a major producer of raw cocoa beans without adding value to the commodity? By some strange irony, although cocoa is largely produced in the developing countries including Ghana, it is mostly consumed in the developed countries.
In effect, the major buyers in the consuming countries are also the processors and the great chocolate manufacturers. So while cocoa products such as chocolate and cocoa beverages are basic food elements in the developed world, they still are delicacies in Ghana and in other major producing countries in Africa where only a few families could afford them.
Others are making the effort to depart from exporters of raw cocoa beans. Brazil and Malaysia, for example, are major producers but are not necessarily major exporters because of the large size of their processing industry which absorbs their productions.
The cocoa industry can provide wealth not only to the about 80,000 cocoa farmers, the LBCs, the agro-chemical producers and distributors but millions of other Ghanaians if only the industry will expand from the rudimentary production of raw beans to processed products.
The establishment of more cocoa processing plants in the regions, especially the cocoa-growing areas, will not only add value to the crop but open job avenues to children of cocoa farmers who are jobless even after graduating from tertiary institutions.
Cocoa production is not the only sector where we have failed to do value addition but always take pride the in the raw materials. Our mineral wealth continues to be exported in their pure form which fetches very little on the international market.
An integrated aluminium industry for example, is one sector where Ghana seems to be one of the few countries which have the resources from the ore stage to the aluminium ingots that could be processed into very easily marketable products.
If our job market is very restricted and unable to absorb the youth, it is because we have failed largely to expand our industrial base using the abundant natural resources nature has endowed us with.
With abundant oil and gas resources, it means an integrated aluminium industry is feasible. It also means we have great prospects in an integrated petrochemical industry having regard to the fact that we have large reserves of salt which constitute a huge component of that industry.
The same can be said of the timber industry where we are a net exporter of timber logs but at the same time a bulk importer of processed wood products. The volume of mangoes, oranges and tomatoes that go waste during the harvest season is an indication that there is a vast potential for food processing if we are serious.
The wealth of our resources is vast and almost inexhaustible and our economy will be greatly enhanced if we go beyond celebrating the production of raw materials and begin to expand our processing capacity.
Until we attain that level whereby our children will enjoy cocoa beverages on regular basis and until a bar of chocolate is no longer seen as a luxury, we might as well shelve the celebration for now.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Nearly two weeks ago, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) announced the pleasant news that the country has attained its long-cherished target of producing one million metric tonnes of cocoa.
The announcement was in the form of a brief press statement released by the COCOBOD. But that did not downplay the importance and significance of the message.
This is not an achievement that came the easy way. It took years of careful and meticulous planning and other interventions on the part of the government, COCOBOD, the Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs), the agro-chemical manufacturers and distributors and, of course, the hardworking cocoa farmers throughout the country.
The record production did not come by accident. Many years ago, in an effort to arrest the decline in cocoa production and make the cocoa industry effective and efficient, the government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) embarked upon the cocoa sector reforms in 1984/85.
In 1999, the government approved a cocoa sector development strategy to guide the development of the cocoa industry. As part of that reform, private sector competition in the external marketing of the commodity was introduced with the LBCs controlling about 30 per cent of the export share.
Production targets were expected to progress steadily from the 335,000 tonnes at the time to 500,000 tonnes by 2004/5 to 700,000 tonnes in 2009/10 and hitting the 1,000,000 tonnes mark by 2010. On August 18, 2011, COCOBOD attained a record purchase of 1,004,194 metric tonnes to make it a dream come true.
There was cause to celebrate. More cocoa for the export market means more foreign exchange in the national kitty to be dispensed on the numerous development challenges confronting the country. We may still be behind Ivory Coast as the second largest producer in the world but the achievement also means that we are capable of making projections and attaining those projections provided we work hard towards them.
The question, however, is: Should we continue to rejoice in the fact that we are a major producer of raw cocoa beans without adding value to the commodity? By some strange irony, although cocoa is largely produced in the developing countries including Ghana, it is mostly consumed in the developed countries.
In effect, the major buyers in the consuming countries are also the processors and the great chocolate manufacturers. So while cocoa products such as chocolate and cocoa beverages are basic food elements in the developed world, they still are delicacies in Ghana and in other major producing countries in Africa where only a few families could afford them.
Others are making the effort to depart from exporters of raw cocoa beans. Brazil and Malaysia, for example, are major producers but are not necessarily major exporters because of the large size of their processing industry which absorbs their productions.
The cocoa industry can provide wealth not only to the about 80,000 cocoa farmers, the LBCs, the agro-chemical producers and distributors but millions of other Ghanaians if only the industry will expand from the rudimentary production of raw beans to processed products.
The establishment of more cocoa processing plants in the regions, especially the cocoa-growing areas, will not only add value to the crop but open job avenues to children of cocoa farmers who are jobless even after graduating from tertiary institutions.
Cocoa production is not the only sector where we have failed to do value addition but always take pride the in the raw materials. Our mineral wealth continues to be exported in their pure form which fetches very little on the international market.
An integrated aluminium industry for example, is one sector where Ghana seems to be one of the few countries which have the resources from the ore stage to the aluminium ingots that could be processed into very easily marketable products.
If our job market is very restricted and unable to absorb the youth, it is because we have failed largely to expand our industrial base using the abundant natural resources nature has endowed us with.
With abundant oil and gas resources, it means an integrated aluminium industry is feasible. It also means we have great prospects in an integrated petrochemical industry having regard to the fact that we have large reserves of salt which constitute a huge component of that industry.
The same can be said of the timber industry where we are a net exporter of timber logs but at the same time a bulk importer of processed wood products. The volume of mangoes, oranges and tomatoes that go waste during the harvest season is an indication that there is a vast potential for food processing if we are serious.
The wealth of our resources is vast and almost inexhaustible and our economy will be greatly enhanced if we go beyond celebrating the production of raw materials and begin to expand our processing capacity.
Until we attain that level whereby our children will enjoy cocoa beverages on regular basis and until a bar of chocolate is no longer seen as a luxury, we might as well shelve the celebration for now.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)