LETTER TO A COLUMNIST!!!

Dear Sir,

I have read your column piece on AVRL and the GWCL saga. Useful commentary on a topical public policy matter I must say but I am worried by some of the claims you make. You assert that " human resource is the least" of the problems GWCL faced because it has some of the best engineers. But the question we must ask without sullying the image of the engineers there is how come GWSL needed AVRL in the first place? You defense is that politics is to blame. If that is so how then do you blame AVRL for all the woes of GWCL? 

I find your claim that Ghana has no problem with human resource quite puzzling. Do we even have data on the professionals we have in various professions? How many Ph.Ds does Ghana have and medical doctors and computers scientists and mathematicians etc? The minister of employment and social welfare just recently bemoaned the absence of labour statistics; that should tell you something about the gaps in this seductive claim that all is well with Ghana's human resource base. I mean look at our roads and other infrastructure. They tell a story of the challenges we face with manpower.I think that the excoriation of AVRL(which I humbly think your piece reflects) has taken a certain nationalistic tone bordering on the jingoistic. That will not serve Ghana well. Again you mention "wheel barrow and shovels" and the management contract that Ghana entered into with AVRL; does management involve such tools? Please tell me. Does President Atta Mills need such tools to run Ghana?

The great Nkrumah did not shy away from using foreign minds as and when necessary. His economic policy advisers for example included Europeans(see Tony Killick's latest work on Ghana). The Chinese have used foreign expertise as and when necessary( the Shanghai skyline for example has the stamp of Western architects; and note that the West has been China's arch enemy historically). Again in the run up to the Beijing Olympics Steven Spielberg was hired to advise on the choreography for the opening ceremony. Indeed a lily white man Shapiro is one of the core members of the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed to be able to tap into expertise wherever it comes from intelligently shows confidence in oneself instead of a cringing capitulation and loss of national honour as you suggest.

I think that sobriety is needed to interrogate this AVRL matter. I recently used the AVRL(after they left; or their "demise" -to borrow your words)  sms code 1700 to report a fault: I drew a blank. I called the Operations Room of the GWCL; the reaction was hostile. I was simply calling to report a burst pipe in my area and was led on a merry go round using my units to call area managers. The AVRL customer system worked; at least in my experience. AVRL might not have met all its targets; the key question is why and the answer does lie in the retort that the problems arose because non-Ghanaians were involved. Nationalism is important and I support you on that; but when it enforces blindness to our weaknesses that becomes debilitating hubris.

Fokofi please come again o this one.

Best wishes

lloyd 

NO BRAINER: IF YOU ALLEGE CORRUPTION PROVIDE PROOF!!!!

I have been pondering this maxim which seems to have taken root in our polity in contemporary times. Monitoring the news today it has been repeated ad nauseam that if Yaw, Ayisi or Rawlings alleges corruption they are talking nonsense unless they can offer proof. I mean the corrupt first and foremost will hide their booty and cover their tracks with all the subterfuge they can muster. If ordinary folks make the case about corruption it is in my view the duty of the state machinery to set the processes in motion to investigate. Kwame becomes a minister and then over night has four mansions in Accra and 6 four wheel drives sitting in his compound; people see this transformation and ask questions; should they offer proof before they are taken serious?

 In the first place a serious government intent on dealing with theft of public resources will ensure that government appointees do not live above their means and will take allegations of corruption serious enough to do their own checks( do an Anas if need be). It is lazy politicos who see power as a sure route to  ill gotten wealth who when confronted with corruption will respond as though we are in a court of law and say " where is your proof?": for me that is complete hogwash!!!! Any serious government will subject its ministers and appointees  to almost hellish standards of public morality; that is the sure route to the TRANSFORMATION we seek!!!!

Stars and a pitch!!!

Laryea Kingson (in black pants) and Stephen Appiah(in white trunks) leave the pitch.

I recently joined a crowd that had gathered to watch an informal training session of some of Ghana's very recent former soccer stars. A grass-less, red earth, almost obscure field hosted legs that had made Ghana so proud on countless occasions and graced some of the leading leagues on the globe. For me it was a moment to extend a very personal thanks to Stephen Appiah the only and first captain to have led the Black Stars to the world cup. Appiah's selfless devotion to country marks him out. I shook his hand; small talk followed; I could feel the steely resolve and charisma with which he led Ghanaian colours on countless battles on the football pitch. He still looks great; in evidence was that great physical presence: a cross between a rhino and an ox. Any smart government must give him the Order of the Star of the Volta. He more than deserves it.  On his right sat Laryea Kingson. In Ga I told him some of us were waiting for the moment he would play for the Black Stars at the world cup; it is now just a dream; maybe. Awudu Issaka(him of the Starlets fame) was on the pitch too and Matthew Amoah.  As I watched them tango with the red earth I wondered why Accra has no fields(grassed; organized; even humane) in a nation completely gobsmacked by this game?   

Minds on the Ghanaian Media

Great minds: Kwaku Sakyi-Addo(right) and Harruna Attah(left) 

On the podium

Professor Gyimah-Boadi holding forth

It was quite a night of satiny thinkery at the very well appointed Citizen Kofi last friday. Facing the burning singe of cerebral matter was Ghana's mediascape in the last twenty odd years and whether potentially mortal threats were lurking at the door.  Kwaku Sakyi-Addo was mortified by the emergence of religious charlatans  (who under the spell of phallic restlessness seem to have found voyeuristic escape in pudenda violations) and their seemingly unbridled access to the Ghanaian media. For Harruna Attah the  evils of pornagraphic licentiousness, dour reportage and worrying absence of communication finese among others could be cured by the emergence of a new breed of well educated journalists. The professorial input of Gyimah-Boadi capped it for me: the nebulous term national security needed clarification if it was not to become a bogey once again for the media. I stormed the Accra night thereafter musing: did Ghana's media get ahead of itself seduced by the promise of nirvana post liberalization?    

Where's the VUVUZELA?????

Blow man Blow!!!!

While we got consumed by the soccer delights dished out at Wembley yesterday thought I would share this piece on Africa's dearest Vuvuzela: http://www.postamble.org/PDFs/201034811242374.pdf

Nana Akufo-Addo and the Ghanaian Presidency: Shoot and Hit or Miss?

Eyes on the prize?

Reading the Daily Graphic today I found a report(p.13) on Nana Akufo-Addo's engagement with his party the NPP a poignant throwback to the 2008 elections and thus troubling. It is reported that the presidential candidate argued that liberalism had won the global ideological war and since the NPP in its  antecedents was linked to this view of the world somehow the NPP held the answers to Ghana's policy challenges. 

I think the presidential candidate missed an opportunity and crucially to highlight where he wants to take Ghana; a more profound and pressing question than his penchant to constantly remind us of the ideology of the NPP. My take is that Nana Akufo-Addo in his narratives is finding the warm womb of his party's purported ideological triumph too comfortable a place to inhabit. I have had occasion to make this point in a piece I wrote in my column(Asia 601) in 2008 in the Graphic Business which I reproduce in full below. For a youthful population(I teach a few) I guess Nana Addo will be putting his formidable oratorical skills to greater use if he focused more on the everyday existential questions and his solutions going forward.   

       

 HARD TIMES?

I discovered a new bookshop recently and in my last visit found in stock some classic pieces of literature. These books penned with such verve and literary power by Alexander Dumas, Jack London, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Henry James and of course Charles Dickens among others stared from the shelves. I bought Dickens’ book “Hard Times” which has become the title of this piece.

The ruling NPP has received one hell of a pounding at the polls. That is beyond debate. Beyond argument also is the role of the Electoral Commission in helming the whole process and going by the book. Dr. Afari-Gyan’s principled, professional and fearless approach to the task shines through. He represents so brilliantly and effortlessly what our compatriots have consistently expected of our Republic’s intellectuals, leading lights and elites: trustworthiness and selfless devotion. I remember meeting him once at a seminar. At the refreshments he nibbled on his chicken piece and made small talk with all.  No airs; free of pretense; simply a fellow compatriot. I salute you, Sir: unlike some of our compatriots you have testicular fortitude!!!!! Cajoled you never balked. Threatened you stood firm. Attacked you never wavered. When the EC erred you admitted it and sought amendments.  Kudos to your team too across our Republic.

This election goes down in our history for its nail biting, hair balding, heart attack inducing closeness! The results show a polity split right across the middle. The NPP’s ego is badly bruised. The NDC is emboldened. How a ruling party that came to power with so much goodwill from the electorate (after the contradictions of the Rawlings years) could go head to head with an opponent led by a twice beaten candidate and be so badly bloodied speaks volumes. My take is that it brought this grief upon itself. And as a collective simply learnt nothing from the monumental blunders that got the NDC butt kicked from power in 2000. When we complained of economic hardships and social distress the NDC in power pointed to economic indices and infrastructure. Ditto the NPP in the run-up to the elections. The perception was that the NDC had become arrogant, insensitive, rudderless, corrupt and downright silly. The NDC was simply almost impervious to such thoughts and carried on as usual. Ditto the NPP. For Christ sake how can you inaugurate a Presidential Palace a few days to elections in the throes of national economic strain and in the full glare of an opposition chafing and hungry for power? Its simply bad strategic thinking and PR!!! And that matter of seventeen gentlemen running for the presidential primaries of the NPP was flippantly defended as democratic and therefore sane. The good people have shown what they think of the NPP’s policies and actions so far in the results of the December 7 vote and its a worrying verdict.

The NPP must seize the moment and re-invent itself. It seems to me that it is hide-bound, slow to respond to changing times and held captive by old guards. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew deliberately ensured that the Peoples Action Party allowed fresh minds and ideas to bubble to the surface. Indeed he stepped down as PM to hand the reins of the state to young, fresh blood. China’s Deng Xiaoping ensured that the old comrades of the revolutionary era in the party and across the bureaucracy remained permanently in their sofas. This maneuver ensured that the average age of top state and party officials is currently in the 50-55 years band down from 70 decades earlier. The NDC and NPP have proved really languid at regeneration. Ex-President Rawlings and wife (may have cost the NDC the presidency in this election) and other stalwarts of the 1980s still tower over the party. What new can they bring to the policy table? Every human being peaks and declines.

The run off beckons. The battle is joined. If the NPP is to win the run off it needs to change its rhetoric heavily weighted as it is on emphasizing its democratic and economic record. Its democratic record is unassailable and known! Indeed Ghanaians by voting massively for constitutional rule in the referendum of 1991 underscored their belief in democratic governance. To keep on harping on this is to flog a dead theme. Nana Akufo-Addo must amend his rhetoric (free it from economic indices and jargons) to reflect more sensitivity to the economic pain and social distress of his compatriots.

Ordinary Ghanaians have shown that they run our beloved country. My ninety–four year old grandfather in law voted. Looking at the snaking queues of my compatriots in their flip flops(chale wote) and Sunday best voting under the scorching sun was empowering. The message is clear: “We love our Motherland. We will chose who we will to serve us. Politicians the game is over. Henceforth beware. We cannot be taken for a ride anymore.” These are hard times?  If you are a foolish politician!!!!          

           

AU Day...after the dust settled....and kicking some more!!!!!

So the whole continent of Africa stood still yesterday on account of an AU day. At the core of this all is a dream of a united Africa of which Kwame Nkrumah was the foremost and nay arguably the most ebullient advocate. I share Nkrumah's Garveyite world view and to be sure I will shout myself hoarse that his brilliance as leader is yet to be matched in Africa(I have all his books and have practically listened to his most seminal speeches beginning from the age of say 5 because my Dad owned a vinyl LP of his great oratorical flights).

But I think the continental unity dream was at best a diversionary,seducing walkabout: politically appealing, logically flawed and practically unfeasible. The Nigerian thinker Chinweizu puts it brutally: if weak states aggregate the outcome is simply a larger weaker entity. What is the point? 

The key for me is what I term the inward turn with an outward gaze. Go with the AU flow for all is worth(China is building the AU headquarters in Addis; what does that say?) but recognize that Africa's emergence to global power lies in the rise of a military, technological, industrial, post-industrial capable super power on the continent in the shortest possible time.  Short of this the AU day is a pitiable loss of time: just ask Gbagbo and Gaddafi.