Features
Kudos BOST!
• Aerial view of Bulk OilStorage and Transportation
Company Limited facility
If Ghana is to quickly recover from the current economic problems and be able to make things better for all Ghanaians and other residents in the country, then each and everyone will have to play his/her role in support of the country’s national agenda for socioeconomic development.
If certain individuals and groups play their part well while others also keep destroying things, the result will be unpalatable in the sense that not much can be achieved to improve upon the welfare of Ghanaians. It is important to note that the agenda for national development will not be an easy task but if every person agrees to work hard and contribute his/her quota towards national progress, things will be far better for everyone in the country.
SOEs
It is unfortunate that some State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are not performing well due to greed and corrupt practices. Some of these state enterprises are not making use of good governance but rather victimising some of their members of staff and ensuring that conditions are highly unfavourable for some of these people to have their peace and put in their best to ensure satisfactory productivity.
Many of such enterprises led by their management have linkages with corrupt officials in their procurement department, finance office, general administration and many other places to engage in what has become known as “create and share” among themselves. The overall result of this is poor performance and inability to generate more revenue to support central government revenue. What happens very often is that these corrupt officials team up to do little to improve the financial position of their own state enterprises, sometimes rendering it worse than what they came to find.
DISTRESSED ORGANISATIONS
There are a number of cases in this country where at the initial stages, the management at the time found it very difficult to make meaningful strides as a result of limited resources and other problems that they were facing. The genuine problems faced by these organisations did not help matters in the sense that the management of these organisations, tried as they did, could not make any headway even though they did their best and were committed towards progress and development. In spite of this, they were able to find other leaders appointed later to take over the management of their distressed entities.
The challenge was accepted by management in some of these organisations to overcome the hurdles and make things better. As a result of this, the distressed organisations concerned were able to recover from their problems and difficulties to make things far better than the situation they came to meet.
PROSPERITY
It is not easy to move from nowhere in terms of limited resources and push forward to a place where prosperity is made to become the order of the day. When things happen in this way, it brings remarkable improvement to all members of staff, helping them to be knitted together as one family striving for good life of prosperity.
Prosperous life does not come about easily, especially within organisations. Rather they are able to come about as a result of discipline, selflessness, dedication and alacrity, among others. Also, the rules of the organisation, the welfare packages and all others will have to be applied in a manner that will favour anyone who works for the organisation.
TRANSPARENCY
In organisations where things are made transparent, everyone feels good and work hard towards the general good of the entities. This is what all organisations, together with their staff and management ought to do if they are to achieve the ultimate. This is attainable so all public enterprises will have to put in their best for the attainment of this positive agenda.
State-owned enterprises or organisations in public sectors should never consider their activities unimportant or begin to do business as usual, that is not caring to bring in innovative ways that will bring about great increase in productivity compared with what they did in the past and disillusionment.
BOST POSITIVE TURNAROUND
It is in light of this that the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) ought to be highly commended for being able to make a positive turnaround and bringing about great improvement to the economy. This is what all state-owned enterprises or public organisations ought to do to ensure that the assets of such public entities are being held in a responsible way for the country. When things happen like this, it helps the whole economy to go forward.
All sectors of the economy must grow but this should not come from the private sector alone. The public sector must also do all it can to bring in such improvement.
DISCIPLINE
For the public sector to grow well, there must be discipline on the part of the governing board, management and also members of staff. All leaders must, therefore, provide good examples for the attainment of the best results.
We will continue to be proud of BOST for what they have been able to do.
IMPRESSIVE REVENUE
The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has recorded a revenue of GH¢1.12 billion in 2021, almost twofold the GH¢632 million recorded in 2020.
Out of that amount, GH¢671.6 million came from product sales, GH¢380.4 million from the BOST margin, GH¢52.64 million from storage and rack, GH¢14.83 million from marine transportation, with GH¢2.07 million coming from products swap. The Managing Director of BOST, Edwin Provencal, who disclosed this at a press conference in Accra, attributed the company’s recent successes to some new policies introduced.
HONESTY & COMMITMENT
The trick about Mr. Provencal and his management is that they were disciplined and honest apart from their commitment to the work they are doing. If BOST has been able to do it, then all other public agencies can do same.
All sectors of the economy ought to be able to grow under the various leaderships there, as has been done by BOST, so that tremendous success can be attained for the country. When all sectors grow well, we will all end up contributing various sources of income to the national kitty and the result will be nothing but national growth for the entire country.
Email address/whatsApp number of author:
Pradmat201@gmail.com (0553318911)
By Dr. Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty. 
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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