Features
What a hardworking President! (Part 2)
There is no doubt that in the light of his achievement, President Akufo-Addo has proved to be a leader who is very hardworking, is committed to what he stands for and is also prepared to leave for this country a list of achievements for the benefits of Ghanaians today and yet unborn.
We have already spoken about his achievements in a form of the free educational system, in digitalisation, in the health sector and remarkable growth in the agricultural sector. All these, put together, show that he is a great leader who must be emulated by all countries in Africa today. The opposition in Ghana have done all they can to vilify him, but he has always risen high above their evil intentions to serve his country to the best of his ability which is unparalleled in the history of this country. The discussion of his achievements will reveal that indeed he is a great leader, and that Ghanaians will have to retain his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in power in 2024.
The Chief in the village of Berepro was faced with preservation of foodstuff in his community. The Chief and his elders thought about how to solve this problem, knowing that in previous times leaders who preceded him had not done anything meaningful to solve the problem. God being with him, this chief and his elders thought of traditional ways of preserving their produce and engaging in trade with the other villages around. Within a short time, the village of Berepro enjoyed better standard of living together with their neighbours.
INTRA-CONTINENTAL TRADE
Similarly, the government of President Akufo-Addo has done very well when it comes to promoting intra-continental trade in Africa. Until recently, many countries on the continent of Africa, were trading in larger volumes with countries outside the continent, while intra-regional trade was very low. African countries, realising this as a short-coming, have decided to come together and promote trade among themselves. This is what has led to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
WHAT ARE THE OBJECTIVES OF AFCFTA?
First, it is to create a single continental market for goods and services and thereby accelerate Continental Customs Union. Second, it is to expand intra-African trade through better harmonisation and co-ordination of trade liberalisation and facilitation regimes. Third, it is to resolve the challenges of multiple forms of membership and expedite regional and continental processes. Finally, the Agreement seeks to enhance competitiveness at the industry and enterprise level through the exploitation of opportunities for large scale production, continental market access and better reallocation of resources.
One good move made by the President of the Republic is that he fought hard and negotiated with his colleagues for the headquarters of this noble programme to be sited in Accra. As we speak, AfCFTA headquarters is in Accra, bringing about numerous benefits to the country. First, it has raised the image of Ghana to a high level as a country that has set up and accommodate the AfCFTA secretariat.
Secondly, it goes to show Ghana as a peaceful and well secured country that must be trusted to accommodate the secretariat. Thirdly, all the officials connected to the secretariat will be based in Accra and indirectly bring in some revenue to the country. Fourthly, Ghana will also take advantage of the secretariat and conscientise its people on the need for making use of applicable standards in the production of goods and services for export to other countries on the continent. Furthermore, the local staff to be employed by the secretariat stands the chance of benefitting Ghanaians. This shows that Ghana stands to gain a lot for accepting to host the secretariat in line with the vision of President Akufo-Addo.
Fighting for the secretariat to be set up in Accra received very little opposition from other countries on the continent. This is because Ghana was seen as a beacon of hope for the rest of the continent. Several countries supported Ghana’s bid to host the AfCFTA secretariat and this did not come as a surprise when Ghana won the mandate to do so all because of President Akufo-Addo.
PLANTING FOR FOOD AND JOBS
In the agricultural sector, the President and his team introduced Planting for Food and Jobs as well as Rearing for Food and Export programmes. Also introduced was the One District One Factory concept and rolled it out in such a careful and vigorous manner that within the second and third years of his administration, the President had been able to produce a large quantity of foodstuff for consumption by the people of this country. Some of the food items were exported to neighbouring countries to feed the people there.
Neighbouring countries have been so enticed to Ghana that they are now rushing for the foodstuff available and today maize, yam, plantain and many others are running out of stock. What government must do in this case is to rigidly regulate the export of such products so that its own people will be fed adequately and be encouraged in their farming and farming-related businesses such as poultry so that the shortages can be curtailed to reasonable levels. Our neighbours must be fed but not to the detriment of Ghanaians.
Fruits like pineapple, watermelon and many others are being produced in various parts of the country under the programme and if things continue like this, Ghana will be a net exporter of food to the rest of the world as it is already doing, but of course not to the detriment of its people as has been pointed out already. Similarly, vegetables like tomatoes, onions, green pepper, garden eggs and others must be produced in large quantities so that people elsewhere can also benefit from such produce. In Demfefe in the Bono Region, for example, the 1D1F has set up Weddi Africa Tomato processing factory with 40,000 metric tonnes capacity. Here, 2,200 direct and indirect jobs have been created. It is not all the factories under the 1D1F that are agricultural in nature. Some of them produce non-agricultural products like garments.
COMMODITY EXCHANGE
In its wisdom, the government has been able to set up the Commodity Exchange which is helping to store the foodstuff produced so that they will not go bad within a short time since under the 1D1F, most of the factories established were agricultural in nature. The Commodity Exchange has helped to make food items available all year round. We should, however, not be happy with these achievements but continue to work hard under the programme, 1D1F, so that the best will be created for Ghana and Ghanaians for that matter.
Still on agriculture, much frantic efforts have been made in cocoa to increase output. Most of the cocoa trees were too old and had to be cut down to make way for new ones. Cutting them down required compensation for the cocoa farmers and this was provided by the government. Also, spraying of the cocoa trees as well as pruning were needed to energise the trees and make them produce more. All these have yielded positive results and today, Ghana has hit over one million tonnes of cocoa regarding production in that sector. Here too, kudos to the Akufo-Addo government and the Chief Executive of COCOBOD.
The programmes designed and implemented by the Akufo-Addo government is what as a country we would have to implement over the next decade or so to ensure that the country can begin to swim in greater prosperity than it is even doing now. We need to keep this in mind for a brighter future for all Ghanaians.
Contact email/WhatsApp of author:
Pradmat2013@gmail.com (0553318911)
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Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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