Vendors pick up newspapers from a distribution center in Accra, Ghana. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
ACCRA, Apr 30 2018 (IPS)

Ghana is a living contradiction, at least in the arena of freedom of expression, free speech and press freedom.

It is touted as one of the continent’s best atmospheres for media workers and does have a highly free media space, being ranked number one in Africa and number 23 in the World Press Freedom Index 2018 by Reporters Without Borders.

But that only gives half the picture of the culture of freedom of speech, information and the press in the country. Just last month a journalist from one of the country’s top media houses was beaten to near death by the police.

His crime was that he was doing his job as a journalist and had asked a police officer who had been deployed to disperse a demonstrating crowd the name of one of the anti-riot vehicles. That harmless question was enough to provoke the officer, who pounced on the journalist and was later joined by other officers who had no clue what crime the journalist had committed.

Latif Iddrisu suffered facial, neck and rib injuries and has been experiencing intermittent pain since. He was diagnosed with a fractured skull after four X-ray examinations and a CT Scan. The journalist, who has been recovering at home for close to a month now, says he’s been traumatized as he awaits doctors’ final verdict about whether “I will be in a position to work actively again”.

“For now, all that I have been praying for is a good outcome so that I can get back to work and do even much better, much more ground-braking documentaries and impactful investigative stories to help build the nation,” he told IPS.

Latif Iddrisu in the hospital after being assaulted by police. Photo Courtesy of Latif Iddrisu

The vicious attack on Iddrisu was not an isolated incident. It adds to a long list of attacks on journalists by politicians and their supporters as well as ordinary people, with personnel from the security forces, especially the police, leading the onslaught.

Such abuses against journalists are commonplace in the West African sub-region in particular and Africa in general. The Media Foundation for West Africa’s compilation of abuses against journalists in the region gives a very gloomy picture of press freedom culture. In the past 15 months alone, the Foundation has compiled 12 such assaults with a total of 17 journalist victims in Ghana. And these are just the cases that caught the attention of the Foundation.

In the sub-region, the Foundation says it recorded “nine violations in six countries during its monitoring of the freedom of expression environment in February 2018. Five incidents of physical assaults were recorded in four countries – Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Ghana. Mali, Togo and Nigeria recorded one incident each of arrests and detentions, while Benin recorded one incident of suspension of a media house. The violations affected ten journalists, 11 citizens and one media organisation”.

Colonial-era laws persist despite new constitutions

These abuses continue despite the embrace of democracy and the rule of law by all countries in the sub-region. New constitutions guaranteed basic human rights, including freedom of expression and, in many cases, freedom of the press. But many countries still maintain what some have described as colonial-era laws that restrict free press and expression which are inconsistent with their constitutions.

A typical example is the use of criminal defamation laws – laws which criminalise the publication of untrue statements, reports or rumors that are likely to alarm the public – in African countries to harass, detain and imprison journalists, as well as impose hefty fines.

In the sub-region, countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia have long promised to repeal the laws, but this is yet to happen. Liberia, for instance, attracted the world’s attention in 2013 in what is arguably the most infamous libel defamation judgment in West Africa. The Supreme Court on August 20, 2013, sentenced Rodney Sieh, the Managing Editor of the FrontPage Africa newspaper, to 5,000 years in prison after the journalist was unable to pay a fine of 1.5 million dollars in a civil suit for defamation brought by then Minister of Agriculture, Chris Toe.

Of course the jailing of two editors of the Independent Observer within hours of publishing a column comparing Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma’s behaviour to that of a rat also attracted global attention and condemnation. The 10-court-appearance case dragged out for six months (October 2013 to March 2014) and eventually saw the cautioning and discharge of the journalists after they were forced to plead guilty to conspiracy to defame the president as part of a deal to end the case.

Commenting on the case, Reporters Without Borders said, “The government’s policy of harassing the media is a threat to fundamental freedoms. The authorities use criminal defamation and sedition charges to intimidate journalists and then allow the proceedings to drag on in order to keep up the pressure.”

The story could only be worse in countries like Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria which have for a long time remained adamant in refusing to repeal criminal defamation laws.

And this is where Ghana stands tall. The West African country has distinguished itself on the continent and in the sub-region, having repealed its criminal libel law since 2001, beating its colonial master the United Kingdom which repealed its law in 2009. This accolade makes Ghana the only country in the sub-region to have done so with a clear 17-year margin. But even here, journalists and media houses are not out of the doghouse yet.

Ghana enjoys a thriving press and is ranked number one in Africa in terms of media freedom. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

Politicians, public office holders and businessmen can still press for civil charges, which may bring hefty fines. In February 2014 the General Secretary of the then political party in power, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, was awarded 250,000 dollars in defamation damages (25% of what Ntetia demanded) against the Daily Guide newspaper by an Accra Fast-Track High Court.

It was in respect to a story which alleged that Nketia used his position in government to divert building materials for his personal building project. In spite of this, it is still refreshing to note that no journalist would ever spend a day in prison for what they publish, a fact journalists Kweku Baako and Haruna Atta who were imprisoned in 1998 using the libel law will appreciate.

Lip service to RTI law

Ghana has not been able to consolidate its commitment to free press with a right to information (RTI) law which is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the country’s constitution. This is against the backdrop of several treaties and agreements the country has signed which require that such a law be passed.

In Africa, RTI is guaranteed in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights; African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance; African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption; African Union Youth Charter; among others. For years CSOs, NGOs, academics, journalists have been advocating for an RTI law without success.

Ghana’s RTI bill was drafted and reviewed by government in 2003. Since then parliamentarians have discussed it, referred it, reviewed it and published it – anything but pass it. Interestingly parliamentarians have passed about 300 bills into law since 2003, with one of the latest being the special prosecutor law which was a campaign promise by President Akufo-Addo.

More than 15 African countries, including seven in West Africa, have passed the RTI law since Ghana first drafted its own in 2003. And yet the West African country ranks higher in press freedom among all these countries. The reluctance of politicians to pass the RTI bill has left many to conclude that successive governments dread what the passage of an RTI will mean for their corrupt deals.

The executive director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sulemana Braima, says “It is regrettable that we are hosting this global event without the RTI,” adding that “the absence of the law remains one of the darkest spots on our democracy, freedom and human rights credentials.”

Ghana hosts 2018 World Press Freedom Day

When Ghana was selected as the host of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, having beaten India and other prominent countries, there were some who thought the nonexistence of an RTI law was a big blot on an otherwise reputable event. But Ghana is not the first country to host the event on the continent.

It becomes the sixth country to host the event in African and the second in the West African sub-region (Uganda, Namibia, Senegal, Monzambigue, and Tunisia have all hosted the event in the past). It appears what determines a host country is not based solely on press freedom practices.

When Colombia hosted the event in 2007 it was in recognition of the 10th Anniversary of the establishment of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Cano was a Colombian journalist who was killed by hired assassins in 1986. Since the inception of the Prize in 1997, two African journalists have won it (Christina Anyanwu, Nigeria in 1998 and Geoffrey Nyarota, Zimbabwe in 2002). Tunisia seem to have won the host in 2012 because of the theme: 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers, New Voices with the Arab Spring as a main focus.

And so with this year’s global theme: Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law, Ghana definitely fits in. Again, going by milestones and anniversaries it looks as if Ghana’s celebration of 25 years of uninterrupted democratic governance and the rule of law (1993 – 2018) has coincided with the 25th Anniversary of the establishment of the World Press Freedom Day. A good reason to celebrate it on Ghanaian soil.

Excerpt:

Nazir (left) and Usman both returned to Ghana from Libya in 2011, among some 19,000 Ghanaians who fled back home. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
KWAME DANSO, Ghana, Feb 6 2018 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Nazir Mohammed sits on one of the two sofas in his single room in Kwame Danso, a small town about 290 kilometres north of Ghana’s capital Accra, reflecting on life back in Libya.

“Libya offers great economic opportunities to West African migrants, but the human rights abuse, especially of dark-skinned Africans, is real. I will not advise even my enemy to go to Libya,” Mohammed says.“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

He is among some 19,000 Ghanaians who were repatriated from Libya about seven years ago. Mohammed left home at 23 after completing high school. Having lost his father a few months before, he felt the responsibility of taking care of his mother and four other siblings naturally fell on him as an older male child.

“I just heard that if I get about 500 cedis (about 100 dollars) I would be able to get to Libya. And that meant a lot of hard work. So I did some construction work to gather that money,” he said. “My mom and family only got to know of my intentions when I called and told her. I was already halfway on my journey. She cried but later prayed for me since there was nothing she could do.”

Most young people set off on the trip without telling family members, anticipating they wouldn’t be supportive because of the risks.

Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire all have a large number of their citizens among the almost one million migrants trapped in Libya. Mohammed’s home region, Brong Ahafo – which is in the middle belt of Ghana – has the highest number of people migrating to Libya. Most, like Mohammed, hope to use Libya as a transit point to Europe.

The Back Story

The history of Ghana–Libya migration dates back to the 1980s when the Ghanaian government signed a bilateral agreement with its Libyan counterpart to send some 200 Ghanaian teachers to teach English in Libya, according to researchers at the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine Adiku.

This arrangement was also necessitated by the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, mostly from West African countries, including about two million Ghanaians, from Nigeria in 1983. In the initial stages, the Libyan authorities offered employment to only highly skilled Ghanaian immigrants.

But the availability of job opportunities for other low-skilled migrants attracted many more Ghanaians who entered Libya through informal routes such as the Sahara Desert. As a result, the Libyan authorities clamped down on illegal migration amidst forced repatriations.

Before the 2011 Libyan political crisis, the Libyan authorities were already dealing with illegal immigrants and concomitant attacks, especially on black migrants. In 2006, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) set up a voluntary return program to arrange for the return of stranded undocumented migrants from Libya to their countries of origin.

Statistics at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration indicate that on Oct. 8, 2000, the first group of 238 Ghanaians fleeing attacks arrived in Ghana, with harrowing tales of gross human rights abuses. The influx has continued. Last year, 565 people returned with similar stories.

But the biggest evacuation of migrants happened in 2011 in the heat of the Libyan crisis, when IOM figures show that about 19,000 Ghanaians were evacuated back to Ghana. Many migrants attributed this exodus to increased hostility against black Africans. The political instability and challenge to the authority of Muammar Qaddafi offered a prime opportunity for some Libyan nationals – who see the Libyan leader as a shield for black Africans and have accused Qaddafi of using them as mercenaries – to attack dark-skinned people.

“It was very dangerous to be spotted as a black African,” said Mohammed. He said a lot of migrants left properties behind and several months of salary arrears from companies they worked for. Nazil says it is common practice for companies to pay migrant workers about two months’ salary after they have worked for six months. This means migrant workers always have their unpaid monies with the companies.

“I was lucky because I got help from a soldier friend whom I used to teach English to. He drove me and my friend all the way from Benghazi to neighboring Egypt where evacuation planes were. When I got to Ghana I had only 500 cedis left on me, but I had left about 7,000 cedis worth of money with my company, and that was very painful,” he added with bitterness.

A lack of job opportunities for young people in Kwame Danso, Ghana has led many to attempt the risky migration to Libya. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

The Journey

Most migrants from West Africa use the desert as an illegal route to enter Libya, and this leaves them vulnerable to human traffickers. Mohammed says thugs meet them at the border and take them to places which have now been dubbed slave camps. Once at the camps, migrants are held captive, fed just enough to keep them alive, and subjected to various forms of inhuman treatment in a bid to extort money.

Mohammed, who had hardly any money, was ordered to call his family and pressure them for a ransom.

“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

Mohammed says his stepfather coughed up 300 cedis and he was released. But he added that some captives had to pay more, sometimes thousands.

Once out of the slave camp, the next difficulty is gathering enough money to pay to be smuggled to the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Making it to Tripoli is crucial for those who have hopes of reaching Europe because of the proximity the capital offers to Italy.

“I was engaged in very dangerous jobs such as lifting overly heavy concrete. I sneaked back to the ghetto [slave camp] and tipped some of the inmates for a place to sleep,” he recalled.

Mohammed says the journey to Tripoli was a nightmare as migrants were packed “like sardines in the back of a pick-up” covered with a tarpaulin tied down with a rope and driven on a hot, bumpy desert road for many kilometers.

“When we got to Tripoli I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t feel my legs and I thought I had sunstroke,” he said.

When he couldn’t find a decent job in Tripoli, Mohammed left for Benghazi, where he shuffled between jobs with hopes of gathering enough money to pay for the perilous trip on a packed-to-the-brim boat across the Mediterranean Sea. But his hopes of making it to Europe were dashed when the civil war broke out.

The story of migrants being sold at slave camps, first exposed by CNN, has been denied by Libyan authorities who accuse the media of wrongly portraying Libya as a racist country. Asked whether he believes in the slave trade story, Mohammed said he wouldn’t doubt it.

A year after their repatriation in 2011, IOM offered training and other forms of support, including equipment, for some returnees in three districts in the Brong Ahafo region, the region with the highest number of returnees, to help them integrate into their communities.

Anita Jawadurovna Wadud, Project Manager for the Returns, Protection and Direct Assistance to Vulnerable Migrants Unit of IOM, said the UN agency carries out various activities in Brong Ahafo, including awareness raising and sensitization of the risks of irregular migration in communities including in schools, a Migration Information Centre in Sunyani, livelihood projects for returnees and potential migrants, as well as reintegration activities for Ghanaian returnees who return to the region through IOM’s assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes. IOM has been assisting Ghanaian returnees since 2002.

“Reintegration provides returnees with an opportunity to support their socio-economic reintegration, through counselling, psychosocial and medical support if needed, vocational/skills training and micro-business support,” she explained.

Mac Simpson, a Ghanaian teacher in Libya and expert on migration and human trafficking based in Tripoli, says out of the about 2,000 Ghanaian migrants who have died at sea in the past four years trying to make it to Europe, 1,600 are from the Brong Ahafo region.

Some advocates have used social media to share videos of maltreatment of migrants in Libya with the hope of discouraging hopefuls. But Simpson, who himself embarked on the deadly voyage more than two decades ago and has written three books about the migrant situation in Libya, says such videos have very little impact.

He says youth will continue to take the risk as long as they cannot find sustainable jobs in Ghana and Libya offers some hope.

“To convince someone from the Brong Ahafo Region not to go to Libya, you need to work some magic. My NGO went to the region to talk to some youth who had returned and when we asked what would make them stay, one said give me a taxi. So we got him one and as we talk he’s still in the country working as a taxi driver.”

Mac, who is currently in Ghana to engage in advocacy work, says he’s liaising with the Ministry of Education to adopt one of his books, The Cemetery Without Graves, among schoolchildren as he believes getting the message to people at a younger age can have some impact.

Finding something to do seem to be the factor that has kept Mohammed in Ghana. Even though his district wasn’t among those selected for intervention by IOM, he and other friends who returned to the Kwame Dano area have found their own ways back into society.

“I had good grades after Senior High School so I enrolled in a teacher training college. I’m now employed as a teacher in a junior high school… The pay isn’t too good but we are surviving,” he said, adding that since they came back, “some of us haven’t had any form of support from the government or anybody”.

Mohammed hopes to enter into politics where he believes he could influence policy and perhaps help to address this age-old Ghana-Libya migration canker. Until then, he believes a lot of uninformed youth will be making that treacherous journey in search of a better life.

Professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Ghana, Emmanuel Afoakwa, and other researchers at a cocoa farm. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
ACCRA, Oct 5 2017 (IPS)

Ghana is home to the world’s favourite cocoa beans. They’re bigger in size, have a higher butter content and superior flavour – all qualities which make Ghana’s cocoa the world standard against which all cocoa is measured.

But while cocoa used to be the biggest foreign exchange earner for the West African country, contributing about 45 percent of the total foreign exchange earnings, now the commodity barely provides 25 percent.“They [farmers who sell their lands] don’t know what they are doing because cocoa is a legacy that can be left to children, unlike one-time cash.” --Nana Kwasi Ofori of the Cocoa Farmers Association

Farmers in Ghana follow a strict routine in the planting, harvesting and drying of cocoa, supported and monitored by the government regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board.

They employ natural drying of the beans in the sun (instead of heating), turning the beans at regular intervals for not less than a week. This natural and painstaking means of drying ensures the beans turn out their characteristic golden brown. The layers of monitoring at the time of purchase are all part of government’s intervention.

The country is the second biggest supplier of cocoa worldwide, beaten only by its West African neighbour, Cote D’Ivoire. But Ghana was once the world champion. It lost the first spot to its neighbour in the 1970s after government reduced the price given to farmers, thereby discouraging many from going into the venture.

Exchanging Golden Pods for Golden Nuggets

Several factors have contributed to the shortfall. Distribution of free or subsidized farm inputs such as fertilizers or chemicals have been fraught with several challenges.

“Not all of us were given the free fertilizers. And they were politicizing it. Someone with a small farm of four acres could be given 50 bags of fertilizer while others with very big farms were given less,” Abusuapanyin Kwabena Amankwaa, a cocoa farmer, told IPS.

Central Regional Chief Cocoa Farmer Nana Kwasi Ofori also said that “farmers who are not cultivating cocoa were given some of the inputs”.

CEO of the Cocoa Board Joseph Baidoo has said his interactions with farmers revealed that Ghana’s fertilizers – which are not supposed to be for sale – were in fact being sold in Nigeria, Gabon and other neighbouring African countries, adding that this meant the free fertilizers were given to political party loyalists who were not cocoa farmers.

Diseases such as black pod, swollen shoot, and capsids have had a field day as a result.

The new government decided to discontinue the free fertilizer programme following what it says were complaints from farmers. Instead, it wants to sell the fertilizer at subsidized prices.

Ghana has an annual cocoa production target of one million tonnes. That target was achieved in 2011. Since then government has struggled to maintain the target, with annual production hovering around 800,000 tonnes.

In previous years, government decided to absorb the cost and technical assistance needed to apply the right chemicals and fertilizers to cocoa farms nationwide – initiatives called the Mass Spraying Exercise and the Hi-tech Programme, respectively.

Government also created the Rehabilitation Programme where old, less productive trees were felled and replaced with new, more-yielding hybrid seedlings for free. This saw a big dividend in cocoa bean output, with the country recording its highest cocoa output of over 1 million tonnes in 2011. But government has not been able to sustain the programme.

Probably the biggest threat to hit the cocoa industry in recent times is illegal mining, locally called galamsey. The upsurge in the search for gold between 2012 and 2016 has threatened the livelihoods of several cocoa farmers as galamsey takes over cocoa farms.

“Some chiefs are part of the problem which we are facing. They sell the land to the miners and collect the money so sometimes farmers are not even compensated,” said Nana Kwasi Ofori, an executive member of the Cocoa Farmers Association.

Most farmers are tenant farmers who work on lands owned by chiefs or families. Fifty-three-year-old Adwoa Oforiwaa, a cocoa farmer in the Central Region, says she was only given 500 cedis (about 112 dollars) as compensation when galamsey operators took over a good part of her farm.

“When they [galamsey operators] come, they tell you they have orders from the chiefs or even government, and they start the destruction,” she added.

A journalist in the Western Region – the leading cocoa-producing region in Ghana – Yaw Obrempong says some farmers willingly sell off their cocoa farms for ready cash.

“If the galamsey operator is here with a bag full of cash, why won’t I sell my land instead of staying in a queue for over two weeks only to be given a bag of fertilizer?” Obrempong noted.

He says some farmers claim they had to pay bribes in order to get farm inputs from the government. Other farmers sold their lands when the much-needed labour to work on the cocoa farms shifted into illegal mining.

But Nana Kwasi Ofori says, “They [farmers who sell their lands] don’t know what they are doing because cocoa is a legacy that can be left to children, unlike one-time cash.”

The galamsey invasion has affected a good part of the 1.7 million hectares of cocoa farms in the country.  The Government has launched an anti-galamsey crusade to flush out illegal miners. With the help of a taskforce including the military, several arrests and confiscation of galamsey equipment have been carried out.

The launch of the Media Coalition against Galamsey has also given government a shot in the arm. Government has moved the crusade a notch higher with the announcement by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources of its intention to procure drones at the cost of 3 million dollars for surveillance.

Guaranteed Pricing

Nonetheless, cocoa remains the most important economic crop for Ghana, raking in about 2 billion dollars annually, contributing to some 4.22 percent of the country’s GDP.  Such a feat has been achieved through government interventions such as price stability. For instance, the world price of cocoa beans has plummeted from about 3,122 dollars per tonne last year to about 1,900 dollars this year, yet the Cocoa Board maintained s producer price of 7,600 cedis per tonne (1,700 dollars).

The Board is able to cushion farmers with a Stabilization Fund established some ten years ago, as well as other sources of funds. This presents a big advantage for cocoa farmers in Ghana over other cocoa-producing countries on the continent this year.

For instance, the Ivorian government has slashed the prices of cocoa almost by a third, to 700 CFA per kg (about 1,300 dollars per tonne). Some Ghanaians have expressed concern that the development is likely to reverse the dreaded cross-border smuggling of cocoa (Ghana has in the past seen a lot of its cocoa smuggled to their neighbor countries because of price differences).

But professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Ghana, Emmanuel Afoakwa says “it is not likely because Ghana is bent on protecting its premium quality and so there is tight security to ensure cocoa does not move from Cote D’Ivoire and other countries into the country”.

He adds that “farmers must cherish that government is interested in their welfare because government now loses about 500 dollars on every tonne of cocoa bought from them”.

The Ghana Cocoa Board also has an arrangement to pay for the felling and replanting of old and diseased cocoa trees. The board has announced that it will be giving away about 60 million seedlings to farmers for replanting. The exercise, called rehabilitation, is meant to boost output.

The Government also has a programme to woo youth into the sector to replace aging cocoa farmers. The Board is providing support for all young cocoa farmers by giving them hybrid pods, improved seedlings, free fertilizer and inputs, a farmer business school programme, as well as extension support to boost cocoa production. Cocoa farmers are also pushing for a Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme which they believe will help attract the youth.

Cocoa Processing

To maximize revenue from cocoa, the government has its eyes on adding value to the cocoa it exports. The global cocoa market has an estimated value of 9 billion dollars for unprocessed cocoa beans, about 28 billion dollars for semi-processed/intermediate products and a whopping 87 billion dollars for fully processed/final products. In an attempt to get its share of the 87-billion-dollar cake, government has set a target of processing 50 percent of its exported cocoa.

Currently, the seven processing companies operating at various levels of value-addition process about 25 percent of the county’s exported cocoa. But most of the processed cocoa are exported in semi-processed form of cocoa paste.

Prof. Afoakwa says the huge capital requirement involved in processing cocoa into finished products fit for export could be a big hurdle for Ghana. Moreover, there are high tariff walls with regards to the export of processed products. For example, the European Union levies no duties on the import of raw cocoa beans, but levies a 7.7 percent and 15 percent duty on cocoa powder and cocoa cake, respectively.

He believes heightening the campaign on the consumption of cocoa products would be one way of tackling the issue.

“I’m working with Ghana Cocoa Board to conduct the cocoa product processing competition and we are bringing together ten different polytechnic institutions to develop new products using cocoa. We are going to invite high schools to come witness it. What we are trying to do is to advocate for higher consumption of cocoa products and this can be done when we know the kind of different products that we can make out of cocoa,” he added.

A graffiti artist in Accra creates an image of the leader of Ghana’s struggle for independence, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
ACCRA, Mar 9 2017 (IPS)

Ghana turned 60 years old this week. The West African country gained independence from Britain on Mar. 6, 1957, and remains a study in contradictions.

At 60, Ghana is viewed by many as a beacon of democracy and stability. But its current growth rate is just 3.6 percent — the lowest in 20 years — and its tax revenue to GDP ratio is 18 percent, which is one of the lowest among middle income economies.

At 60, it has a debt to GDP ratio of over 73 percent, one of the highest in the sub-region; the country is bedeviled with an erratic power supply, which has caused many businesses to collapse; and its informal sector is still not formalized enough to be able to widen the tax net.

At 60, Ghana still has schoolchildren who study under trees. 

Some of these economic indicators have sparked a national debate about whether it was prudent for the country to set aside 4.3 million dollars to celebrate the day. Many are of the view that such an amount could be better spent on projects that would bring some economic dividend than, as they describe it, to waste it on pomp and pageantry, parade and fanfare.

These criticisms may have informed President Nana Akufo-Addo when he announced that the budget for the commemoration would not be borne by the taxpayer but by corporate Ghana. The chairman of the 30-member committee planning the anniversary was quick to add that committee members would be doing their work on voluntary basis.

But there are some who take all this with a pinch of salt, perhaps taking a cue from what many perceive to be misappropriation of funds and plain corruption during the organization of the event ten years ago (the Ghana at 50 commemoration committee spent over 60 million dollars).

The head of the Centre for Economic Governance and Political Affairs at the policy think tank Imani-Ghana wants government to make public the names of all companies who committed and how much they committed, to ensure accountability and transparency. Patrick Stephenson believes this is “the only way we can ensure that a corporate body is not getting some undue advantage in the award of contracts just because of their affiliation to this event”.

The independence event is always commemorated with marching parades performed by security personnel, workers unions, traders and school children among others. The event, which typically starts with the lighting of a flame, also sees the president inspecting a guard mounted in his honour.

Stephenson wants organisers to think outside the box and use innovative means to project and develop certain aspects of the country’s economy and culture. “For instance, cocoa, one of our biggest cash crops, could be the year-long theme of one of the commemorations in which we will look at the history, the challenges, the current situation and set targets be achieved as to how to improve on its production,” he said.

It is a view shared by communications academic Dr Ete Skanku. He writes: “The parades are exciting but you don’t need to stand and take a salute. Spare the kids the unnecessary dehydration. Engage them in another way. They can be out there promoting a major nationals initiative practically or give a meaning/breathing life to a national project.”

The day is observed as a national holiday but most people within the informal sector, especially traders, couldn’t afford to stay at home. At the central business district in the capital, Accra traders were busily going about their business. But the traders believe that the day is worth celebrating as the budget statement given by the finance minister some four days ago seems to give some hope.

The Government has already abolished nine taxes, including a duty on importation of spare parts and the excise duty on petroleum, saying these are nuisance taxes that have “low revenue yielding potential and at the same time impose significant burden on the private sector and on the average Ghanaian”.

“These measures introduced by the government will help businesses a lot and the one-district-one-factory policy by the new administration, if implemented, will enable some of us to go back home for jobs because in Accra here we use a good part of our incomes on rent. If I were in my hometown I wouldn’t have to pay rent. I can use that rent money for something else,” says Francis Agyei, a 32-year-old second-hand clothing seller at Accra.

But a lecturer at the economics department of the University of Ghana, Owusu Adu Sarkodie, says Francis’s hopes and aspirations can only be achieved if managers of the economy and resources do things differently. He believes politicians should increase the revenue tax net to cover majority of people and move away from the borrowing mindset.

“We don’t have to keep borrowing for borrowing sake. Even if we have to borrow we need to use the money prudently. If you look at the public debt right now, the greater part of it was for consumption. For example, last year we borrowed 17 billion cedis, we only invested 7 billion, where did the rest go? Consumption,” he added.

If words were action then these words uttered by the President Nana Akufo-Addo in his maiden State of Nation address to parliament some two weeks ago should offer some hope to Ghanaians:

“We will put in place policies that will deliver sustainable growth and cut out corruption. We will set upon the path to build a Ghana that is not dependent on charity; a Ghana that is able to look after its people through intelligent management of the resources with which it has been endowed.

“This Ghana will be defined by integrity, sovereignty, a common ethos, discipline, and shared values. It is one where we aim to be masters of our own destiny, where we mobilise our own resources for the future, breaking the shackles of the “Guggisberg” colonial economy and a mind-set of dependency, bailouts and extraction.

“It is an economy where we look past commodities to position ourselves in a global marketplace. It is a country where we focus on trade, not aid, a hand-up, not a hand-out. It is a country with a strong private sector.

It is a Ghana beyond aid.”

Residents in Kumasi, the capital of Ghana's Ashanti region and stronghold of the opposition NPP, carry a casket, ready to bury John Mahama and his NDC whom they say is politically dead. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
KUMASI, Ghana, Dec 11 2016 (IPS)

Ghanaian opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo has made history as the first son of a former president to lead the West African country, beating incumbent President John Mahama in the 2016 presidential elections held on Wednesday, Dec. 7.

Nana Akufo-Addo’s father, Edward Akufo-Addo, was part of the “Bix Six” leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), which included the country’s first prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah. Edward Akufo-Addo later became president in the second republic.“I voted for Nana because I believe his one-district-one-factory policy will create a lot of jobs so I could easily find one when I graduate.” -- Second-year university student Modesta Bonsu

President Mahama, leader of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDC), called to concede defeat and congratulate third-time contender and flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akufo-Addo minutes before the electoral commission came out to announce the results.

The 72-year old opposition leader fulfilled his lifetime dream of stepping into his father’s shoes by polling 5.7 million votes (53.85 percent) to beat 59-year old President Mahama who managed 4.7 million votes (44.40 percent) in an election with 68.62 percent turnout.

This was about 10 percentage points lower than the last presidential elections in 2012. The average voter turnout is 72 percent.

The NPP’s flagship campaign message of creating jobs and building a stronger economy seems to have resonated with voters in a country where almost half of the youth between the ages of 15 and 25 are unemployed, according to the latest World Bank report.

“I voted for Nana because I believe his one-district-one-factory policy will create a lot of jobs so I could easily find one when I graduate,” second-year university student Modesta Bonsu told IPS.

Osborn Adu, a 26-year-old IT worker, said utility bills and the cost of living have become so high that “sometimes I have to support my mom from money that I’m saving to pursue further education”.

A jubilant supporter of the new president celebrates on Dec. 10 in Kumasi after the results were announced. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

Economic analysts say the NDC’s flagship message of infrastructure development failed to gain traction, with survey results showing that the primary issues of concern for voters were lack of jobs, high cost of living, and corruption.

The energy crisis, which was at its worst in the last two years, also saw electricity bills skyrocket, resulting in the collapse of businesses and attendant job losses. The institute of Statistical, Scientific and Economic Research found in a 2014 study that on average, the country loses production worth 2.1 million dollars per day as a result of the crisis and that it lost about 680 million dollars in 2014, which translates into about 2 percent of GDP.

The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Ghana (ICU) warned last year that more than 3,000 jobs would be lost to the erratic power supply by the end of 2015. It is of little surprise that in a survey conducted among SME operators by Policy Think Tank Imani-Ghana, many wanted to see a change in government.

The NPP not only promised to cut taxes on electricity bills but also to financially restructure and provide a recovery plan for the utility companies to ensure sufficient reserve of energy to end blackouts.

The NPP flagbearer’s message of building a factory in each of the 216 districts in Ghana and ensuring that farming communities, especially in the northern part of the country, have irrigation facilities for year-round production of crops – the one-village-one-dam policy – seems to have been well received by voters.

Former president of the Peasant Farmers Association Mohammed Adam Nashiru believes the policy will help create thousands of jobs for farmers. “Our parents who were rice farmers during the Acheampong regime in the 1970s could buy for themselves brand new Mercedes Benz cars because the agriculture sector was booming due to good government policies,” he said.

“In my personal interaction with Nana Addo, he embraced the Agriculture Mechanisation Services Centres programme, where in some communities they are going to have equipment like tractors, combine harvesters, dryers and everything, so that small-scale producers who cannot afford to buy these machines can afford the services of these centres,” Nashiru said.

“So this is also another nice idea because 1,000 peasant farmers combined cannot even afford to buy a single tractor. But when these opportunities are available, the farmers can have the services of these tractors in their respective communities. So we hope and pray Nana Addo will give it the needed attention so that people, especially in the three northern regions, can get jobs and that will help curb the rural-urban migration,” he added.

One issue that gained a lot of public attention is corruption. Several cases which many see as loot-and-share have bedeviled the Mahama administration. The legal campaign by a former attorney general to help the state retrieve some 12 million dollars the government illegally paid to NDC financier and businessman Alfred Woyome has dragged out to the point that the frustrated former AG said the only way to get the money back into state coffers was to boot the government out.

Adu Owusu Sarkodie, an economics lecturer at the University of Ghana, believes Nana Akofu-Addo’s policy of fighting corruption and managing the public debt – which has more than tripled from 8.2 billion dollars in 2012, when John Mahama took over, to 26.4 billion dollars – can save the country money it can then funnel into economic development.

Sarkodie said that the country could easily have raided “the 1 billion cedi [236-million-dollar] Euro bond that we issued right here, because there are so many leakages in the tax system which can be sealed to ensure we are able to raise a lot of money for economic development.

“So Nana’s promise to fight corruption can provide the fuel for his one-district-one-factory and one-village-one-dam policies, because the 51 million Woyome money and other such payments can do a lot of things,” he added.

Economists say the incoming government must work to reduce the high public debt and poor economic indicators such as high inflation, high interest and exchange rates and low GDP growth rate.

The outcome of this election also brings to a close the lingering question of whether Ghanaian voters lean more towards political parties or leaders of parties.

Since 1992, Ghanaians have shuffled between the two main political parties, The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), every eight years. Things, however, took a different turn when then president Mills of the NDC died few months before the end of his first term. His then vice President John Mahama took over as the flagbearer and won on the ticket of the party.

This meant that while 2016 marked eight years of government for the NDC, President Mahama has served only four years. Political analysts were not sure whether Ghanaians would give the president another term or say goodbye to the NDC after eight years. The outcome of the election thus marks another historic event – Mahama becomes the first president to be denied re-election.