Mr President, let it happen here

Our President, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, was in the Republic of Turkey last week to undertake two major assignments in the interest of the republic. The first was the inauguration of a new embassy building in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, for Ghana’s Mission after many years of diplomatic hiatus between the two countries. The President also addressed the opening session of the Ghana-Turkey Trade and Investment Forum in Istanbul, which was organised mainly by TUSKON, a conglomerate of Turkish businessmen and industrialists and the Turkish Ministry of Economy, with collaboration from the Ghana Free Zones Board. TUSKON could be likened to our Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) and it has as its aim helping Turkish companies to penetrate new markets, especially the unexplored ones in Africa. The President’s visit started to bear fruits before it came to official end, with the extension of a US$300 million credit to the country by the Turkish government through the Turkey Export and Import Bank (Exim Bank). Expressing his gratitude, President Mahama said the money would be used to expand the Tema Port, construct a new international airport and build of bridges and roads. Turkey is one of those countries that are not tagged as developed but are best described as emerging economies or newly developed countries. Others in the same group include Brazil, India, South Korea, Malaysia and strangely China, the country with the second largest and the fastest growing economy in the world. Apart from the Republic of South Africa, no other African country has emerged from the Third World, where the newly developed countries and the rest of Africa belonged 50 years ago, and South Africa’s status could be attributed to the apartheid era, when the Whites took control of political and economic administration of that country. The fresh and rapidly growing romance between Ghana and Turkey is bound to yield fruitful results as the signs are showing already. There is now a direct flight between Ghana and Turkey, by courtesy of Turkish Airlines, one of the largest in the world. There is also frequent exchanges between Ghanaian and Turkish businessmen and industrialists which are expected to yield mutual results for both parties. The most recent trade and investment forum in Istanbul was attended by over 60 Ghanaian businessmen and women. We hope that Ghanaian businessmen and women were not in Istanbul only to find out what goods to import into the country but also, and more importantly, what goods to export from Ghana to that country. The most significant thing is that both Ghana and Turkey were in the same trench many years ago, so there is common ground for understanding and cooperation in trade, business and cultural exchanges to serve their mutual interests. Ghana stands to gain more, if it would study and learn from how a fellow Third World country could emerge from that stage to become one of the world’s industrialised countries within such a relatively short period. In terms of natural resources, Turkey has no comparative advantage over Ghana. In fact, the reverse is the case. Turkey cannot boast of the mineral resources Ghana has. Its oil and gas industry is still at its infant stage and it cannot compare its oil resources to that of its southern neighbours—Iraq and Iran. Turkey’s economy is driven mainly by industry. It is into the construction of ships and the manufacture of vehicles, textiles and electronics and aircraft. Turkey is not rich in gold or diamond but it has one of the world’s largest factories that manufactures gold and diamond jewels in Istanbul. It has exploited to maximum advantage its geographical location which is at the crossroad of Europe and Asia. Nowhere is this evident than Istanbul, the largest and commercial heart of Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus, a narrow sea way that links the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Turkey is a tourist destination, with Istanbul alone receiving more than nine million visitors a year and historic sites such as its mosques, cathedrals and museums continue to attract tourists. Apart from industry and commerce, there are a lot that Ghana can learn from Turkey. One of the most unfortunate things about being driven in fast convoys is that you hardly see things clearly through the window of the speeding limousine. But I believe our President did not miss the transport system in Istanbul, a city of 13 million (2011 census), about half of Ghana’s national population. Istanbul is one of those places described as mega-cities in terms of land and population size. Accra is but a small place compared to this vast city. In this category are cities such as Tokyo (Japan), Mexico City (Mexico), Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria), Seoul (South Korea), New York (USA), Jakarta (Indonesia) Sao Paolo (Brazil) and Shanghai (China). For a vast city like Istanbul which stretches over 150 kilometres in length, the transport system is near perfect. It has the metro or the underground system, the rail and the tram in addition to well-paved expressways and flyovers to take care of hundreds of thousands of vehicles of all descriptions. The traffic lights work 24 hours for seven days and the energy sapping and nerve wracking traffic jams are absent. For the Ghanaian, a journey between Istanbul and Ankara, the national capital, will make him or her miserable with self-pity if he/she compares it to a journey between Accra and Kumasi. As stated earlier, Turkey is no better than Ghana in terms of resources. The difference may lie in the people and their leadership. This is why I would appeal to President Mahama not to rest with what we can get from Turkey by way of assistance, but more importantly, what lessons could be learnt from their experience. The Turks are hardworking, so are Ghanaians. What they have which we are still searching for is a leadership that will marshal our resources and our human energies for development. We must resolve not to remain beggars forever. We must resolve to come out of poverty and underdevelopment just as countries like Turkey have done and have become our benefactors. I pray that our President will resolve that what he saw in Turkey will be replicated in this country within the shortest time. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com

The stampede at Graphic

As home to the nation’s top brands in the newspaper industry, the company is never lack of tourists who are regular visitors to its premises. Individuals, students, social groups, church organisations and corporate executives on a near daily basis, pay regular visits to the premises of the Graphic Communications Group Limited to acquaint themselves with its operations and for sure, to attract free publicity. On Monday, January 14, 2013, as I approached the main gate, I could see quite a sizeable number of young men and women at the main entrance. I was not in the least surprised, since they could easily pass for students on a facility tour. By noon when I came out of the office, the gate, spilling over to the access road, was still jammed with the young men and women, so this time out of curiosity, I inquired what was going on. Then I was told that what I thought were tourists were young graduates that were responding to a job advert placed in the Daily Graphic. I was alarmed and my fear was that some of these scam people were in to pull a fast one on our children who are desperate for jobs. For I could not understand how one advert could attract so many people, otherwise the jobs must have tantalising remuneration packages, including travels outside to where the pastures are evergreen. However, my fears were allayed when I was told that the advert was placed by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), on behalf of its Customs Division, for which the company was acting as an agent in the collection of completed application letters. The number became bigger the following day, Tuesday, January 15, 2013, which was the closing day. Desperation and apprehension was visible on their faces as the young men and women jostled for space to drop their applications in a box that was provided for the purpose outside the main gate in their determination to beat the deadline. A top official of the Customs Division of GRA who confided in me somehow said he was aware the service was trying to recruit about 200 young graduates in both the senior and junior categories. This did not come near the over 10,000 applications that were channelled through the Graphic Communications Group in Accra alone. There were credible information that other applicants dropped their documents in the regions while others channelled theirs through other media houses as specified by the advertiser. At the end of the day, we should not be surprised if the applications are more than 20,000 countrywide. At the same time that the young graduates were struggling for the limited vacancy at the Customs Division of the GRA, another group or possibly the same set was queuing at various post offices across the country to purchase forms for recruitment into the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS). An official of the GNFS said the service had targeted to recruit 1,000 people but put on sale 20,000 forms which became hot commodities all over the country. Sincerely speaking, even though unfortunate it may sound, the Ghana National Fire Service is one of those public establishments that had never held any serious attraction to many young graduates. The reason may lie in the tedious nature of the job, which does not offer attractive remuneration. An Igbo proverb says if you see a toad in the day time, it means something is after its life. The mad rush of our young graduates for limited jobs could only offer one reason – the joblessness and hopelessness that have engulfed the youth front. This is no propaganda and the signals are clear. It is a timely warning to our leaders if in the past they have toyed with the idea or attributing it to political machinations of their opponents. Youth or graduate unemployment is real and the earlier we acknowledge it and seek remedies, the better. I am sure if anybody were to advertise for recruits into a private army, the response would be the same as seen in the two instances mentioned here. It means the country is sitting on a time bomb ready to explode at the least opportunity and the consequences would not be pleasant for the country. A proverb says the devil makes work for idle hands: If these hundreds of thousands of young school leavers with talents are left unutilised, God knows when the devil will find something for their creative minds and physical strength. Our productive sector is very weak, rendering everybody a distributor of some fancy product from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea or even Palestine, where catapults are imported from for the local market. It is time we moved quickly from producers and exporters of raw materials to an industrialised country where our raw materials are given value for export. Our resources seem unlimited. We are still missing strong leadership that could carry the nation along the path of national development, harnessing to the fullest, these resources. No country has ever succeeded in giving full employment to its population. But in a situation where economic growth has no bearing on population growth, one should not expect anything but a situation where hundreds of thousands of young and energetic men and women would be chasing a few jobs, some having no relevance to their talents and skills. We’ve just installed a young and energetic President in the person of John Mahama who promises to bring some urgency and vibrancy into our political leadership. This is a big challenge to him and his lieutenants. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com

National cohesion critical

On Monday, January 7, 2013, Ghana went through another inaugural ceremony, when President John Dramani Mahama was installed as the fourth President of the Fourth Republic. The global community watched with appreciation and applauded, heaping tonnes of accolade on us. But we would be wiser to realise that we still have a long way to go. Since the 1992 Constitution came into force on January 7, 1993, the country has held presidential and parliamentary elections in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and the latest in 2012. None of these came off without controversy and acrimony. The most contentious one was that of 1992, when the presidential election was held before the parliamentary one. The New Patriotic Party’s presidential candidate, Professor Albert Adu Boahen, had serious problems with the polls which he claimed were heavily rigged in favour of Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, who stood on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). So aggrieved was the New Patriotic Party (NPP), that it boycotted the parliamentary elections. That development did not only undermine our political advancement, it also affected our national psyche and tore the country into two, with one party running the show, while the other looked on passively. The 1993-1996 parliament nearly upturned the constitutional order and made Ghana a one-party state but for a few members who stood on the ticket of the National Convention Party (NCP) and as independent candidates. That might have informed the decision to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections on the same day, apart from cost considerations. What could be described as the biggest test for the Fourth Republic and the electoral process came in 2000, when the NDC lost power to the NPP in the December elections of that year. At least, that change gave assurance to Ghanaians that change through the ballot box is possible and reinforced our confidence in the democratic path we chose for ourselves. Incidentally, that was the second election conducted by the Electoral Commission (EC) under the chairmanship of Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan. A second test came in 2008, when the NPP lost political power to the NDC in the general election. A case was made again emphatically that a political party in government could easily go into opposition if it failed to deliver to the satisfaction of the electorate. That is the strength of our democracy and which has brought us this far. With the nasty experience of the 1992 polls as timely warning, a lot of reforms were introduced into the electoral process to make it more transparent, and reliable to reduce or minimise malpractices associated with general elections. At various stages, transparent ballot boxes were introduced, black and white photo ID cards gave way to colour ID cards. The latest reform was the introduction of the biometric registration of voters and verification of voters on voting day. All these notwithstanding, our EC, under Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, which presided over all the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections except the one held in 1992, has still not been able to erase doubts from the minds of all Ghanaians. The approach of every election puts the country in a war mood. Every interested party has something to complain about the electoral process and the integrity and impartiality of the EC and its officers are always put to question. Violent and foul words always fill the air, causing fear and panic among the larger population The Afari-Gyan, who presided over the 2000 polls which saw power being transferred from the NDC to the NPP and in 2008, when the NPP handed over to the NDC, is still seen with suspicion by both parties. After the latest reforms, we were all expecting that after the polls, both the winners and losers would shake hands and this country would move on with all hands on deck in the pursuit of national development. This was not to be. In fairness to the EC and to ourselves as a people, the 2012 election was without any incident such as ballot box snatching, intimidation or violent attack on political opponents. That was to our credit. While the world was praising us for one of the best elections ever, one party, the NPP, which commands the support of almost 50 per cent of the electorate, is in court challenging the results. The challenge is legitimate, more so when it is being pursued in a court of law as prescribed by the Constitution, so there should be no qualms about that. What is of worry to some of us, and I want to believe that we are in the majority, is the fact that since 1993 when the first government under the Fourth Republic was formed, we Ghanaians have never been able to put our energies together behind our governments. We have never succeeded in pursuing any national development agenda with a common purpose, with collective resolute and with national determination. Many projects on which national resources have been spent are still at the skeleton stages because they were initiated by other governments. Policies have been abandoned midway because there was a change of government. Our educational system has been one of the victims of such lack of national cohesion and national development agenda and our children are the greatest losers. This year for instance, there will be two batches writing the West African Senior School Certificate Examination. One group did four years of senior secondary education while the other did three years of the same course. So two batches, one examination and the same number of tertiary institutions to admit them. That is the chaos we are creating for this country without knowing because we lack accommodation, tolerance and understanding in our politics. Until President John Mahama decided to relocate to the Jubilee/Flagstaff House, the edifice built at national expense to house the presidency was a wasteland, maybe home to rodents and miscreants. This country has enough resources to turn the place if we would allow patriotism and nationalism to take the better part of us. If elections are the dividing line, then the EC must go a step further by introducing biometric voting in 2016, so that human beings would play very little part in the counting process to reduce any doubts or the possibility of cheating in any form. We have held on through thick and thin. We have proved our determination to make things work no matter the challenges. But we cannot continue to rely on luck. We need to tackle our electoral process with all seriousness if we are to avoid the pitfalls of others and to move this nation forward in unity. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com

The monster at Tetteh-Quarshie

Many Ghanaians were excited when the Kufuor Administration decided to put on the ground, what had been on the drawing board for years to transform the huge Tetteh-Quarshie roundabout into a modern traffic interchange. The reasons for this were many: First, Tetteh-Quarshie had become a major central point from where traffic moved in various directions and its major transformation would to enable it to redirect and ease traffic flow. Second, since it was named after a great son of the land who was instrumental in bringing cocoa to Ghana which has become the mainstay of the national economy, it was only fair to expect that the place would be developed to international standards as a monument befitting the memory of the person after whom it was named. Third but not least, at the time that programme was initiated we were approaching the Golden Jubilee of nationhood, and we were expecting that the new Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange would be one of the monumental birthday gifts for the country as we prepared to journey through another 50 years of national development. Strange to relate, after its completion and opening to traffic, the government did not show any enthusiasm to do any official inauguration, which was contrary to the culture of our political leaders who are too eager to inaugurate even the smallest of projects with a lot of fanfare. This naturally aroused suspicion that something might have gone wrong. It did not take too long for us to realise that the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange was after all a mistake. The poor design work did not meet the expectation of many as we realised sooner than later that the interchange which was supposed to be a masterpiece of engineering work that would add beauty to the national capital and facilitate free flow of traffic turned out to be the opposite. Upon questioning, we were told from some sources that as part of cost-cutting measures, the government ordered the downgrading of the original design. It does not need any technical mind to notice that the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange has serious design defects which have made nonsense of beauty and free traffic flow. One visible feature of the interchange which without any doubt is one of the most horrible bottlenecks in road construction is a roundabout which blocks traffic coming from Accra towards Tema and those coming from the Spintex Road trying to make contact with the interchange. On normal days, traffic between Accra and Tema via the motorway and from the Spintex Road is heavily impeded because of that ubiquitous roundabout which defies any engineering logic. Matters were compounded and made worse, when the government granted permission for a huge shopping mall to be constructed at the interchange. This increased the human and vehicular traffic and the accompanying frustration of motorists. As stated earlier, on normal days, the traffic situation could be very bad. It becomes worse on special occasions such as weekends and holidays when attendance at the shopping mall increases. On such occasions, vehicular movement is virtually at a standstill. The decision to scale down the design of the interchange may sound prudent at the time it was made, but as things stand now, it is more or less like saving money today to suffer tomorrow. An attempt to ease traffic at the interchange by constructing a by-pass from the Polo Grounds to link up with the Spintex Road is moving so slowly that many are wondering if it would ever be completed to serve the purpose. City authorities are still unable to define the status of the Spintex Road, one of the busy roads that discharges into the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange. From the Sakumono end, it begins as a single-lane road till the Flower Pot area, where it expands into a dual carriageway. Then getting close to the interchange, it narrows again as a single lane. Meanwhile so heavy is the traffic that the least obstruction in the form of an accident or otherwise quickly builds it up and compounds the already bad situation. By all considerations, Tetteh-Quarshie still remains a major obstacle because vehicles on the N1 from the direction of Achimota going to Tema or the Spintex Road come to meet the poor design work at Tetteh-Quarshie which slows down everything. The lesson we should learn from the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange is that: Accra is not just a national capital; it is also a fast-growing city and any new road development project should factor in this reality in the design work. Work is expected to start very soon, hopefully by the middle of the year, on the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange. We hope the engineers and politicians are not going to do a piece of shoddy work in the name of cost cutting. The Kwame Nkrumah Circle is more or less the city centre and it bears the name of the great Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the Founder of the Republic of Ghana, a man who had shown great vision and foresight in all his plans for this country. We should, therefore, not do anything that would demean the image of the man. Monuments are not built or erected for the fun of it but for serious purposes. Any edifice named after Nkrumah should command respect befitting the man. The Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange in its present form has done very little to project the image of the man after whom it was named. The little money we claimed we saved yesterday is wasted because we are going to spend tenfold or more of that money to bring Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange to appreciable international standards that could make this nation proud. Until we do that it will remain a monster that would continue to devour our precious time and limited fuel and raise our blood pressure to dangerous levels. fokof@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com