Lest We Forget – 1983 - Thirty Years Ago (08-05-13)

Lest We Forget – 1983 - Thirty Years Ago (08-05-13)

The year 1983 perhaps was the harshest year in Ghana’s modern history. In some countries there would be retrospectives, symposia and other kinds of public reflections on this most devastating year in our collective memory. When I say “collective”, I am referring to those who have not forgotten because they were there and those who have chosen not to forget because they remember. There cannot be many of the latter because general amnesia is another Ghanaian strategy for enduring the pain of the recent past, especially those for whom remembering the past is inconvenient.

The year 1983 did not start well. One of the harshest droughts was in progress. There had been little meaningful rain since 1981; that is it has either rained little or the rain had come at the wrong place and time. The drought could not have come at the worst possible moment.

To understand the full import of what happened, a bit of history is in order. The most unsettled decade for this country has to be the 1970s, the years during which for good or ill, the chickens of the Nkrumah overthrow in 1966 came home to roost. Maybe the Progress Party government of Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia could have succeeded in its policy of rural development but we have no way of knowing because it lasted only 27 months. In the meantime, it managed to sell off state assets in a manner that foreshadowed other economic controversies, some would say disasters, in the following decades.

In January 1972 Colonel Kutu Acheampong and his close friends staged a military coup and took over the country. They did not appear to have any development strategy but they managed to infuse a sense of purpose and urgency around their slogan of “Operation Feed Yourself”, and a mild form of pan-Africanism and Nkrumaist orientation, later to be described as “domestication” by the late Dan Lartey who was one of their civilian advisers. In 1975, Acheampong’s closest comrades in their National Redemption Council government were demoted to a second-tier of government in palace coup staged by the most senior officers in all branches of the military. They formed the Supreme Military Council, still with Acheampong as head but without the esprit de corps he enjoyed with his demoted friends, who quietly left the centre stage of government. The SMC had no policies except staying on in power through some of the most disastrous economic crises we have ever known. This article is not the place to go into the details of those policies and their consequences, except to remind us that almost all sections of society rose up against the government.

Trapped and with nowhere to go, the SMC tried one last trick; this was “Union Government”, (UNIGOV) an ill-defined coalition of civilians, soldiers and police officers. A botched referendum was the last straw and yet another palace coup overthrew Acheampong in 1978 and replaced him with General F.W.K. Akuffo, who was generally acknowledged to be a first-class military officer but untested as a political leader. He is the man who used military discipline and precision to lead Ghana’s switch from driving on the left to the right in 1974 without a single accident on the day of the change. However, his attempts, first to continue the UNIGOV scam under a different guise, and then to absolve the military of blame did not sit well with soldiers and civilians as well.

On June 4 1979, a fortnight before the first general elections in a decade, a group of young soldiers overthrew the Akuffo government as they successfully released a certain Air force officer from custody at the Special branch headquarters where he had been held since leading a failed insurrection on 15 May that year. That young air force officer, of course, was Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings who needs no introduction in this discussion. On the last day of the year 1981, Rawlings who had been retired from the military led another insurrection to overthrow the Limann-led Peoples National Party government which had been in office since the Rawlings insurrectionist gave up power three months after their coup.

Flt Lt Rawlings announced at the beginning of his insurrectionary regime that it was a “revolution”, and the revolution’s first year saw the country economically destabilised partly by the revolutionaries own activities and by international pressure. Squeezed by international commercial lenders, Ghana’s credit dwindled and disappeared. Our credit was not a lot to start with; Nigeria had to bring in truckloads of gifts including toilet rolls to soften our difficulties during the Christmas! Understandably, life got very difficult for most citizens of this country. In the meantime, as lack of raw materials shut local production of everything we could make ourselves there was no money to import anything and yet warehouses had been emptied by revolutionaries pursuing social justice.

The revolutionaries had a point even if it was excessively expressed. Ghana could not continue on the path, whichever it was, that had driven us that far. The nation needed restructuring and whether a political revolution was the ideal way to perform this all-out change in those circumstances, still needs to be debated in this country. There is a Japanese proverb that says “although the sign reads do not pluck these flowers from this garden, it is useless against the wind which does not read”. The drought did not read the revolutionary script and deepened as 1982 turned into 1983.

There had been little notice in the Ghanaian media that Nigeria had given a very strict and final ultimatum in 1982 to foreigners there to “regulate” their stay or be kicked out early in 1983. It is difficult not to conclude that Nigeria’s actions were in some way retaliation for Ghana’s own eviction of foreigners, mostly Nigerians some fourteen years earlier. More than one million Ghanaians had to pack bag and baggage and head home. They came into an empty country. Food was scarce and disappearing fast and although our “returnees” came with some nicely painted bags known as “Ghana Must Go” and many stories of atrocities, none brought a morsel of food to add to the national stock.

It was in that period that the term “Rawlings Chain” was coined to describe the deep gorges formed around people’s neck’s when their emaciated skin exposed protruding collar bones. It is the look of refugees on television, but the famine of 1983 was not a television play; it was real. Most Ghanaians of a certain age will have their own stories but the most enduring scene from that year is the long queue formed not of human beings but by discarded objects and stones to stand in the place for people because those queues would not move for hours on end. The queues were mainly for uncooked kenkey; yes, we stood in line for hours just to buy the raw fermented corn dough to take home to cook. It was a privilege.

Nineteen-eighty-three also saw interesting changes in social attitudes in the country. In hospitality, the norm in Ghana pre-1983 was to offer food to any guest who entered your house. Indeed, the host was often offended if the guest refused to eat. In 1983 and after this turned 180 degrees as people hid food under chairs and even beds and waited until the departure of any friends and family who had chosen to visit at mealtimes. The indiscipline that has become a byword in Ghana dates back to that period when family structures collapsed; it is obvious that a father who could not put food on the table would command no respect.

We have to remember 1983 - those of us who can; those who cannot remember because they were not there must be told the stories, and those who have chosen to forget must be reminded because unless we learn from history it is bound to repeat itself. There were political, economic and environmental mistakes that had been made many years before that disastrous year. We did not absorb all the lessons and we have still not learnt from them.

In 1983, we had only one TV news channel and before the evening news broadcast the following ditty would be rendered…

Ghana People make you stand up

Make you fight

For your rights

We no go sit down make them cheat we everyday…

I don’t know what to make of that today.

Nineteen-eighty-three, 30 years ago – lest we forget!

 

An Intimate Portrait of a Dumso Victim (01-05-13)

An Intimate Portrait of a Dumso Victim (01-05-13)

People often wonder how Ghanaians keep an outward display of cool in the face of some of the most intractable challenges known to humankind. We may whine and moan from time to time but by and large, we grin and bear it. The secret is humour. We joke our way through national crises and catastrophes, and the current electricity cuts popular called “Dumso” (literal translation: “off and on”) has spawned more jokes than any other national problem in recent memory. Even a picture of a signpost showing the way to a town called Dumso which I posted on Facebook courtesy of Nanabanyin Dadson, is making waves.

However, we all know that this thing, far from being a joke, is a national calamity. Here is the logic of pain and loss which this nation is bearing with the usual dose of humour mixed with fatalism (give it to God)—and helplessness. If electricity contributes anything to the social and economic wellbeing of this country, it stands to reason that any reduction in electricity supply must have a negative impact on our development. In some countries, it would be possible to quantify the extent of the negative impact and its multipliers as they work their way through the different levels of the economy.

Even without having any such statistics to work with, we know that some people are losing their jobs because of this prolonged power cut situation, and with no solution in sight, more jobs will be lost as employers see no point in holding on to redundant staff over the longer period of inactivity. Even people in regular employment, especially in self-employment such as hairdressers, barbers, dressmakers, mechanics and the like are all working on half-time and sometimes less because electricity is useless to their work if it comes back at ten at night.

So the big picture of loss at the national level must be obvious and it will be surprising if the Minister of Finance manages to tell us that we have hit any of our economic and financial targets at the end of the year. In economics language, we could call the national pain as the “macro-pain”; but there is a more intimate pain at the personal “micro” level of dumso victimhood that is immense but hidden from view. I am a victim of dumso and I am sure my experience is similar to that of most Ghanaians except perhaps politicians, preachers and sellers of power generators whose fortunes are on the up and up.

The effect of the dumso pain can be debilitating. I have had malaria twice in a month which I link directly to dumso. I live with a small colony of mosquitoes in my house. I suspect that they are from one family and they have been living behind a bookcase for a number of years. I even believe that the numbers of the original invaders have been bolstered by other mosquito families joining the colony in the last few years. My mosquito guests and I have an unwritten agreement to keep to their side of my living room while I leave them alone. We arranged this agreement after I failed to dislodge them with every form of weapon of mosquito destruction at my disposal. I have tried to zap them with insect sprays, swat them with brooms, and hose them down with water. Still they flourished. In the end, we settled for a non-aggression pact of sorts which is generally observed by both parties.

However, anytime dumso strikes and the room becomes dark, hot and humid, the mosquitoes consider the atmosphere either provocative or inviting and the end result is they break our agreement and invade my patch. In the rampaging humidity, a mosquito does not need direction or better and further particulars. A mosquito that has been deprived of human blood for a considerable mosquito-time bites with the ferocity of a politician returning to power after years in opposition: it is all or nothing. The result, with greedy politicians and mosquitoes alike, is an unbearable condition—in this case, malaria.

Malaria is a dangerous disease but it can be treated; and when treated, you feel better again. The more treacherous dumso-related disease is one neither a microscope nor a doctor’s feel can detect. It is the energy-sapping syndrome of random dumso panic attack. Under normal conditions, a human being going home has every right to feel joy in his or her heart, except if you suspect that a creditor is lurking in wait to pounce! I used to set off for home with only one fear in my heart—the dreaded Spintex Road traffic but even that can be tolerated because at the end of it is home where a football match, a good book or even the GTV News await. But now there are two fears—the traffic and the possibility of dumso.

The fear of RANDOMISED dumso attack is an unnecessary condition because after years of practice, our beloved ECG should be able to give us far more precise information than they provide at the moment. Take what happened last Monday night. I drove home with the old traffic fear in my heart, and soon got the confirmation that the dreaded dumso was indeed on. That was not a problem even if it meant enduring four hours of high decibel neighbourhood generator engines accompanied by filthy gaseous fumes and an imminent attack by my mosquito house mates. The rule of thumb is that power would return at ten that night. But ten came and went. A quarter past ten passed; ditto ten-thirty.  I decided to call the ECG call centre where a melodious voice responded only to tell me “it will come, maybe in the morning”. This was no good and getting nowhere so I asked to speak to a supervisor.

The supervisor came on the phone and told me that ECG cannot EVER predict when power will be restored to any area because “it depends on how much power we are able to generate before we decide where to restore”. So could he give any information at all with which citizen-victims might plan their lives? The answer was ‘NO!’ I asked him if the ECG was, in effect, operating a lottery with the power supply; he said he wouldn’t “go that far.”

Folks, I will go even beyond that and argue that the real tragedy is not with the power rationing but its randomness that is a cruel mistreatment of customers. After years of operating power on a deficit, ECG ought to give us a more precise time table than merely depending on luck, God-willing, Insha’Allah, and maybe.

As a victim of this randomness, it is not the power outage that is playing the havoc; the problem is not knowing when the last mosquito would understand that the lights are coming, redemption is at hand, and a Better Ghana is really just around the corner.

FLOREAT CPP!

The news of the Convention Peoples Party victory in the Kunbungu Constituency is splendid not only for supporters of that party but for our politics in general. That seat has always gone to the NDC and the CPP victory signals that the stranglehold of the NDC and the NPP can be broken by the so-called smaller political parties. The good news for the NDC is that all over the world, third parties often win by-elections against the two main parties; the bad news is that such by-election contests often serves as referenda on the performance of the party in power.

In that sense Kumbungu is a message to the government that people are not happy, although the government did not need an electoral defeat to get the message; it has to listen more to the people and less to its own propaganda machinery.

For the CPP, victory for their candidate—Mr Moses Yahaya, an Assemblyman for the Saakuba Electoral Area—gives them a seat in Parliament again and potentially revives the party’s electoral fortunes. But they would be the first to know that unless the party works hard, such by-election gains do not last long.

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

Why NGOs Need Sustained Help (24-04013)

Why NGOs Need Sustained Help (24-04013)           

Sustainability is a big word in any dictionary or language but it looms even larger if you are an NGO trying hard to survive against the odds. Conventional businesses such as limited liability companies operate on the basis of profit and profit projections but NGOs survive on the most elusive of all possible outcomes: sustainability. This is the ability of the organisation to guarantee its existence and continue its activities into any kind of future without depending fully on external aid. Like profit, sustainability is difficult to acquire and most NGOs die under the weight of its considerable lack thereof!

The term NGO is an acronym for non-governmental organisation and is applied to any organisation registered legally as not being under government control. In cases where an NGO is funded fully or partially by a government it has to maintain its independence by excluding official government representation from its controlling structures. Another important aspect of NGO identity is that such organisations do not exist to make profit but to pursue wider social aims. Most NGOs aim for political impact although they are not political organisations themselves.

The term NGO once had a rather restricted usage, and was almost solely reserved for non-state institutions that were accredited to the United Nations when it was created in 1945. In the last 30 years the NGO world has grown astronomically and the term itself has undergone rapid transformation.

Today, according to the UN, any kind of private organization that is independent from government control can be termed an "NGO", provided it is not-profit, non-criminal and not simply an opposition political party. These include even professional associations, faith-based organisations, social entrepreneurs and other private setups whose primary objective is not to make a profit for shareholders. Estimates of the worldwide spread of NGOs differ but the number must be vast; a Wikipedia article puts the number of NGOs operating in the United States as 1.5 million while Russia has 277,000 NGOs. India is estimated to have had around 3.3 million NGOs in 2009, which works out at one NGO per 400 Indians.

The NGO world has spawned its own acronyms such as CBO (community based organisation), INGO (International NGO), TSO (Third Sector Organisation), CSO (Civil Society Organisation) and my all-time favourite QANGO (quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation), among several others.

NGOs come in different sizes from the behemoths such as Christian Aid, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Amnesty International and others two small community associations in villages. The story is told of a man and his wife who printed calling cards and simply wrote: Mr. and Mrs. XXX, NGO. But whether it is a budget-endowed organisation or a man and his wife operation in a tiny village all NGOs have to pass the sustainability test at some point in their operational lives. It is not an easy rite of passage because sustainability determines whether an NGO can work on its own or must rely on external funding or bust!

In Ghana the number of registered NGOs is reported by socialresponsibility.com to be around 5000, and the number is said to have jumped by about 30 percent in five years. There is no record of the number that perishes every year along the way for lack of sustainability or of those that can only operate as and when some donor funding becomes available. Last week STAR-Ghana, the multi donor mechanism for funding civil society organised a meeting in its ongoing effort to address the issue. Billed as an “experience-sharing and lessons festival“, the meeting brought together 43 organisations from different social sectors who are all STAR-Ghana Sustainability grantees and some donor representatives. This was the first opportunity for the organisations to get together since they got these grants which are meant to help them improve their sustainability or their chances of survival without depending on external aid all the time for all of their operations and other expenses.

Sustainability comes in different shapes and sizes and any organisation that hopes to achieve this elusive status has to touch all the bases. There is financial sustainability, which is perhaps the one that is most easily recognised and whereas it is the anchor of an organisation’s overall fitness, it is not the only measure. There is project sustainability which is how an organisation sustains its operations one project at a time and links them together to provide a seamless fabric that covers the range of its basic mission and purpose. There is sustainability in people and human resource which can have the most deleterious effect on small organisations that pay only a fraction of what experienced personnel are paid elsewhere. But the mother of all sustainability headaches is organisational and institutional sustainability which is the sum total of all other concerns that should make or break an organisation, including its internal culture and how it responds to external stimuli.

Conventional wisdom holds that NGOs have a lower threshold for professionalism than for-profit businesses but this notion was easily dispelled at the STAR-Ghana meeting when organisation after organisation presented professional sustainability performances similar or even better that what you would expect from a corporate entity. And across the expanse of social concerns NGOs address, they have to provide ancillary services, supervise staff and clients, and motivate partners in addition to their core projects. Then there is the fundraising which is the most backbreaking of all NGO undertakings, and for which reason STAR-Ghana is a blessing to civil society – and Parliament – for whom it provides funding.

However, despite the nice presentation and performance indicators presented at the meeting in question the fact remains that even the best NGOs cannot become fully self-sustaining over the long haul. This is not for want of trying but the very nature of social change and its management means that NGOs will forever be catching up in their effort to meet new challenges all the time. Unlike the corporate world, NGOs cannot claim success when the bottom line is black after 12 calendar months. Therefore, our government and donor partners must accept that funding these vital social institutions is going to require increasing support; not less, and funding organisations like STAR-Ghana and others need replenishments to sustain the social sector.

Another way to support the NGO sector is for corporate bodies to channel their social responsibility funds through established funding structures such as STAR-Ghana and others because they know which organisations are performing where and how. NGOs are not without their critics but the role they play far outstrips and reproach that may be directed at them. There are parts of this country that owe most of their development infrastructure to civil society and corporate social responsibility and communities across the country would become sustainable if the two ideational engines of social change work together. Even so, it is still very important for civil society to demonstrate responsibility and accountability as measures of their effort towards sustaining what they do, and this column hopes to be able to chart their progress in the coming months and years.

 

SHELF LIFE

Woeli Dekutsey is a publisher well known for establishing the Woeli Publishing Services but few people know that the man is a writer and poet in his own right. Last week he published two books for the youth literary market which also launched the Great Ghanaian Series. The two books are biographies of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana and Dr. James Kwegyir Aggrey, the world famous educator who became Assistant Vice Principal of Achimota College.

Although the two books, Kwame Nkrumah – the Great African and Kwegyir Aggrey – His Life and Achievements – are nominally targeted at young readers, they are indeed good books for all ages. Even for those who know the Nkrumah and Aggrey stories will be surprised at new insights in these two books. I recommend them highly as they become available in all leading shops.

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

 

Tribute to Uncle Blair of Okuapemman School (17-04-13)

Tribute to Uncle Blair of Okuapemman School (17-04-13)

William Blair Butterworth who died on Good Friday in Seattle, Washington State in the USA was a huge influence on the lives of hundreds of men and women who were lucky to be his students at Okuapemman School in the early 1960s. I was one of those and wherever and whenever we have met in the years since, Uncle Blair as we called him, has always been part of the conversation. It is strange that I only knew him for only one year because his inspirational impact on me has been disproportionately large.

In a sense, although Blair stayed in Ghana for only three years, this country also loomed disproportionally large in his own life which has been cut short tragically by cancer at the age of 74. He had an enduring love affair with Okuapemman School and Ghana and visited this country at least three times after he finished his stint as one of the first batch of Peace Corp Volunteers who arrived in this country in 1961. If my memory serves me right, he was perhaps the only PCV to stay for an additional year after the customary two years ended. His last visit was four years ago when he came to open the ICT laboratory in the school which was built on his inspiration, mostly with his funding and now bears his name.

He was larger than life in all senses of the expression; definitely when I went to Okuapemman School he was the one person you would not miss. He was tall and big in the way only Americans grow to be and added to his physical presence a booming voice that would often be heard in laughter. He represented for us “America” at that time in the first 20 years after the Second World War when US power was unrivalled and still in the ascendancy. People like Uncle Blair were the reason why despite years of political disdain for some of America’s imperialist excesses many people of my generation still have a profound love for the American people and way of life.

Blair was a Kennedy American. He was only 25 when he was made Assistant Headmaster at the school. This was rather unusual; assistant headmasters in secondary schools used to be dowdy catechist-type teachers of the old school. They were usually the ones who meted out the most extreme punishment for the least infraction of the rules. Assistant headmasters of the time did not laugh much, not in front of students because laughter would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Assistant headmasters did not have to show LOVE for their students even if they felt it. That was the way it was. Blair was different. And that is why and how he became my hero for life. He made school a lot more fun to be at and many of us followed him like the guru he was just to hear what he had to say.

At Okuapemman Uncle Blair taught a number of subjects including English, English literature and French but it was his running commentary on current affairs, especially the struggle of Black people in America for justice and equality in the US that struck a chord. It was from him we learnt about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. He was a huge fan of Muhammad Ali and I remember that he was probably the only person in the whole school who predicted that Ali, then called Cassius Clay, would defeat the fierce Sonny Liston who had made mincemeat of some serious heavyweights in the ring. Blair typically used the Clay-Liston fight to explain some of the changes going on in America and the future represented by Clay and his type.

He told us about Jack Kennedy and on the night we learnt of Kennedy’s death Uncle Blair became our immediate target of sympathy because he was for us what we felt Kennedy stood for: youthful idealism, coexistence, respect for our different cultures, but above all, a subtle form of subversion of the old order and an impatience to change things. When I think back on it, “change” was his message. He introduced new ideas and concepts, including teaching French by gramophone records known as the “Assimile” or immersion method, which was revolutionary then and still widely used for rapid language learning in some countries. He would play rock and jazz on his gramophone for us and run his usual commentary on Satchmo or whoever he was playing.

One particular day stands in my memory and I have written about it in this column and elsewhere for its magical effect. Before Blair poetry for me and my fellow students was known as “recitation”, a mindless act of memorising verse and reciting it mostly to satisfy the curriculum but with no aesthetic effect. Uncle Blair was the first teacher to introduce us to poetry as a beautiful piece of art that speaks a language of intelligent emotion. On this day he decided to to introduce us to Edgar Alan Poe via Annabel Lee:

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of ANNABEL LEE;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

 

I can still see him even today reading from the book with that twinkle in his eyes and booming that magic stanza to his students. It was calculated to have an effect. It did. Back in the dormitory that evening I picked up my pen and started writing a poem. Yes, a love poem. When you discover the power of poetry at the age of twelve that is what you write, or think you are writing. But the effect on me was instantaneous and magical and has not waned to date.

We missed him dearly when he left at the end of the first year but I reconnected with him albeit briefly five years later when I went to America to attend Camp Rising Sun at Rhinebeck in New York State. He visited the camp and stayed at the Guest House overnight and participated in a few of the events before leaving for Washington DC. He invited me to the US capital before I returned to Ghana and what happened at dinner was pure Uncle Blair. He took me to the nicest restaurant I had even seen, let alone enter, at that point in my life. When the waiter came for our orders Uncle Blair ordered steak and I said “the same”. The waiter asked “rare or well done?” and Uncle Blair said “rare”. I said “the same”. When the food arrived it was a piece of red meet bathed in what looked like a pool of blood! Uncle Blair burst out laughing. That was the occasion to explain American culinary complexities, but meanwhile he had secretly ordered a “well done” for me knowing that would be more to my taste.

Five years ago when he visited Ghana he brought his two sons to show them the country he had told them so much about. He decided to help Okuapemman School in some way and at the suggestion of his sons settled on setting up an ICT laboratory which has since been furnished and equipped with funds provided by Blair and some past students. But what stands out is his exceptional quality as a loving human being. He just loved his students and the opportunity to impart new ideas to his young charges. There was no boundary about subjects or topics he could discuss. That was his legacy: learning and cultures have no boundaries.

A SPECIAL MEMORIAL SERVICE WILL BE HELD AT OKUAPEMMAN SCHOOL AT 2PM ON SUNDAY APRIL 21. ALL PAST STUDENTS ARE EXPECTED TO ATTEND WITH THEIR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS.

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

Parliamentary Pay and Perks – Matters Arising (10-04-2013)

Parliamentary Pay and Perks – Matters Arising (10-04-2013)

The subject of MPs’ pay and other benefits is a topic of hot public interest in all democracies. In the UK, the MPs expenses scandal which rocked Westminster in 2009 is too well known to recount in full but at the core of that trouble was public outrage at expenses claimed by members of the British Parliament, especially for accommodation costs "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the performance of a Member’s parliamentary duties”. The scandal led to some members from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords going to prison and several resigning or being made to pay back monies illegally collected. It has generally been agreed that the scandal, which led to the 2005 Parliament being described as “rotten” led to a crisis of confidence for Parliament and politics as a whole.

In Ghana, MPs’ pay and allowances has taken centre stage lately and all indications are that the issue is not going away any time soon. No one has suggested that MPs in Ghana have done anything illegal but the immediate reason for the brouhaha was the disclosure that MPs have received (shock and horror) IN FULL their ex-gratia allowance totaling more than 40 million cedis at a time when the government is struggling to settle pay-arrears for the likes of teachers and doctors. Naturally, MPs defended their right to the money arguing that since some part of the amount paid was deducted to defray previous loans, the money could not be said to have been paid in full.

The debate was pitched as a contention between morality and value-for-money. It is both and we need to have a proper adult and non-partisan discussion about it. There are a number of questions that need to be answered; principal among them being whether the payment of the ex-gratia in addition to a basic monthly pay of 7,200 Ghana cedis is warranted. At the very least, we need to know what the money is intended for and whether that purpose is best served by this method of payment. The same can be said of the build-up of other expenses such as for accommodation and relocation.

Ex-gratia is Latin for “out of goodwill” and ex-gratia payment is defined by the online Business Dictionary as “a sum of money paid when there was no obligation or liability to pay it. For example, a lump sum payment over and above the pension benefits of a retiring employee”. In other words, an ex-gratia payment at all times is a privilege and not a right even when it has been conferred by the Constitution because it is money the recipient has NOT worked for or earned in any way.  We can understand why giving this “free bonto” money to MPs would have looked like the right thing to do in the transitional climate of 1992 when the present Constitution came into operation. Is it still the right thing to do? There has to be a reason why such ex-gratia payment to MPs can be justified in 2013 when public salaries and other payments have been restructured and rationalised in the years since the first Parliament.

Let us assume that the ex-gratia is a kind of end-of-service benefit paid to MPs. Why should it be paid automatically to all members including those who are still in service? Unless I have completely misunderstood the situation, every four years, ALL members of Parliament are given an ex-gratia payment that can best be justified as an end-of-service benefit. Would it not be more morally justified if that payment was made only to MPs who are retiring from Parliament?

Another point: all MPs receive a housing allowance said to be 50,000 Ghana cedis to help them find a place to live. This makes sense because the majority of MPs come from outside the nation’s capital where Parliament sits but since the allowance is not means-tested the same sum is paid to all MPs irrespective of their personal circumstances and needs. Thus, whether the MP is a youthful recent graduate or a serial polygamist who is the father of many children, they receive the same amount for accommodation. Question: is this fair and equitable?

Question: Do Accra MPs receive this allowance too? The question of MPs “second homes” was one of the most contentious issues in the UK scandal because it was claimed by MPs who were not entitled to it and grossly abused by some who did. Should MPs who come from Accra also receive a housing allowance to find accommodation in Accra? We have to assume that MPs were not homeless before getting elected into Parliament or must they necessarily have to change their living quarters just because they have become MPs?

And another question: do ALL MPs receive in the ex-gratia package an amount described as “re-settlement allowance”? What does the resettlement mean? These people are neither refugees nor internally-displaced persons; they are honourable men and women who after the privilege of serving their constituents, are presumably going back home. So how are they going to be “resettled”? This is an important point because in the course of their tenure in the House, MPs are expected to visit and interact with their constituents on a regular basis. If they do this as expected, why are they being “resettled” in a place they have never truly departed from? Can these “resettlements” be legal where there is no resettling to do?

Members of Parliament are public servants and we must ensure that they do not become a class apart from the people they are representing. No one begrudges MPs the special privileges they receive in the course of their work but there has to be a democratic principle implicit in the social contract that enjoins them to understand the pressures to which their constituents are subjected in their lives.

Here is an example: Why can’t MPs arrange their own mortgage just as other people do? Indeed, even the ability to arrange a mortgage in Ghana is a rare privilege given to a small minority of the people. Is it too much for MPs to be allowed to go to a bank to arrange their own mortgage, or will the privilege of a cool GHC50,000 housing allowance be granted to all public servants?

The above are among several questions that we must examine if public confidence in Parliament and politicians in general is not to be completed eroded. However, in the course of the recent public upheaval, several MPs were heard in the media displaying considerable annoyance that “We the People” dare raise these issues. One MP was particularly strident in denouncing the Public Affairs Division of the Parliamentary Service for not “explaining” to the public that the ex-gratia went into paying loans contracted by MPs already. She appeared to fall into the category of people who seemed to think that questions asked about MPs pay and perks are about procedure and process. In fact, they are about morality, equity and value-for-money.

In the course of her spirited defence, the MP said that, among other things, she and her colleagues had borrowed money to finance their election campaigns and therefore needed the ex-gratia to repay. This raises a serious political point: who must finance political campaigns in Ghana? The MP was saying in effect that the tax payer funds or must funds MPs re-election campaigns; the question is, who finances the campaigns of the MPs opponents who have no ex gratia to fall back on?

If we follow the logic of her argument, the ex-gratia, in effect, undermines democracy by ensuring that incumbent MPs have an unfair advantage over others who might want to challenge them for their seats. This means that only government ministers and others wealthy people who also have access to serious money can challenge sitting MPs for their seats. This is the surest way to morph democracy into oligarchy.

The tone of the discussion thus far does not betray a bitter or envious edge; perhaps it is a good idea to pay free money to our MPs as often as we like but given our needs and scale of priorities is it the best way to spend 40 million Ghana cedis every four years? That is the question.

 

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

Easter Homecoming at Akim Swedru (March 25 2013)

Easter Homecoming at Akim Swedru (March 25 2013)

The story of Easter in Ghana cannot be told without the word “Kwahu” featuring at least twice on every line, and Kwahu Easter is one of how unplanned happenstance can turn into a major opportunity; it speaks of the entrepreneurial spirit that has animated the people of the Kwahu Mountains for the better part of a century. I don’t know how much of this special romance has been chronicled but from sources I learnt about this subject years ago, the Kwahu Easter phenomenon came about because the Kwahu people who are mostly retail traders in grocery and hardware wanted to make more money at Christmas. Perhaps that needs some explaining.

By the middle of the last century, Christmas had become the main opportunity for people to return to their hometowns for family reunions and to show off what they had acquired on their travels working in big towns such as Accra, Kumasi, Koforidua and others. Of course shopping for bargains usually went on till late on Christmas eve and ever eager to make a quick pesewa, the Kwahu traders decided to sell to the last minute by which time it would be too late to go on their own holidays. By default, they as a group “postponed” their Christmas till the Easter. It was a clever move; since most other people did not celebrate Easter with the same zeal this meant the Kwahus could then invite their friends to come along.

By the middle of the last century Kwahu Easter was already firmly established as a social and cultural event not to ignore the religious dimension which is often overshadowed. The amazing thing is that although the original reasons that brought Kwahu and Easter together do no longer hold completely the Kwahu mountain continues to draw hundreds of thousands of holiday makers every Easter.

Now, Kwahu has an imitator in waiting. A group of people who hail from Akyem Swedru are set to make their hometown the second Easter destination of choice in this country. They have created what they are calling Easter Homecoming 2013 to lure those who may have done Kwahu and need a change or who simply want to stay away from the mammoth numbers that will trek up the hills. They started their own Easter activities last year but the emphasis was to encourage people from the town and its environs to return home for the Easter, hence the “Homecoming”. This year will be Homecoming Mark Two, for which they are throwing the invitation wide open.

According to one of the organisers, Mr. Maxwell Asare-Brewu, the main purpose of the Easter Homecoming is to speed the development of the ancient town by bringing ALL the people together in order “to think together, plan together and implement together”. He explained that after this year’s event the name of their Easter event occasion will change to reflect the appeal to a much wider audience. “For this year, it is Homecoming with a difference because we want all our visitors to feel at home”.

An elaborate programme has been laid out for the festivities. It begins on Thursday when a massive cleanup campaign and pothole-filling exercise will herald the “happening”. Apart from sprucing up the place to impress visitors, the cleanup will also be used to create health and hygiene awareness in the town with a talk by a local health expert. Friday will be devoted to church services and a candlelight and brass band procession through the streets which will culminate in a choral music night with youth and church choirs in performance.

The cleanup exercise will continue on Saturday morning to be followed by indoor and indigenous games such as marble, cards, ampe, draughts, Ludo, oware, sack race, and many more. The main durbar will take place at Abontenkesem at which a public forum on the theme How to Contribute to the Development of my Community under the patronage of the Omanhene of Bosome Traditional Area, Okotwasuo Oworae Agyekum.

The rest of the evening will be the climax of the Easter reverie with spinners and live acts in music, dance and drama. Sunday will be thanksgiving services at the various churches to be followed by a football match at the Methodist Park. The final activity for Sunday is a fundraising dinner and dance at the Eyirba Hotel to raise funds to establish a development fund. Monday will be devoted to a breakfast meeting with all Chiefs and Elders to discuss matters of concern, especially to the youth.

The organisers are keen to stress that the other purpose of the Easter Homecoming Mark Two is to foster unity among all the people from the Bosome area. They note that political elections often bring a measure of disagreements among people but events such as this bring them back together as one people therefore the Member of Parliament and all politicians, youth and community leaders, religious groups, community leaders, men and women and above all chiefs will all support their programme. For further information on Easter at Akim Swedru please contact: Maxwell Asare-Brewu on 0244 832 460 and 026 283 2460

SHELF LIFE: CHINUA ACHEBE

Naturally, the only books to talk about this week are books by the late Chinua Achebe, especially the first of the many influential books he wrote, Things Fall Apart. The reactions to his death have confirmed him as one of the most important figures in world literature in the last 60 years. Things Fall Apart alone has been translated into more than 50 languages and has sold more than ten million copies but the more telling aspect of the tributes is how Achebe seemed to have affected people personally in different ways. Nelson Mandela said that in the company of Achebe’s books prison walls broke down…

As for me, Chinua Achebe simply opened my eyes to the joys of literature and literary language in particular. When my classmates and I encountered Achebe for the first time nearly 50 years ago we did not know that he had broken new ground. We just felt that this was African writing because we had heard the speeches before in our homes and communities even if the stories were from Nigeria. We could recite large parts of Things Fall Apart from memory and used to quote it during debates, mostly to show off, I suspect.

But Chinua Achebe did for me a lot more than that. I discovered the beauty of language and poetry beyond Africa. The title is takes from W. B. Yeats’ seminal poem, The Second Coming, which I found so enthralling that it led me to discover other equally powerful verse in the school library. Here we go: 

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

I did not need to understand it fully being only 13 years or so, but the gyrations and whirling motions of the first four lines of the poem spoke to the anarchy that is necessarily part of a young awakened teen’s outlook growing up in the first decade of independence in Ghana. This was new, intense and powerful stuff to store in the brain. This is what good writing does. This is what many of the young are being denied because of lack of libraries, books and quality teaching of literature.

Correction: In an interview on GBC Radio I mistakenly attributed the Poem, The Second Coming to Lord Alfred Tennyson. Of course it is by W.B. Yeats.

Happy Easter to All Mirror Diary Readers

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who is in charge of light bulbs? (March 7 2013)

Who is in charge of light bulbs? (March 7 2013)

The government has presented its budget proposals for the fiscal year and as with all budgets, in the unlikely event of a huge parliamentary rebellion on the Majority side, these proposals will be passed by Parliament and form the basis of our national administration in the current financial cycle. The government sets great store by this budget which is the first after the most unpredictable election in Ghana’s recent history with the outcome of the presidential ballot still in the laps of Supreme Court judges.

The budget blends high expectations with sensible and cautious spending in a mix that will hopefully impress voters while moving the country on to greater things. But my question is: who is in charge of light bulbs in this country? This question may sound inane in the context of a debate on a national budget but unless we fully appreciate the importance of that very issue all our budget rhetoric will lead to little impact.

As you travel up and down this country at night you come upon large areas of darkness broken by short illuminated stretches in places that nominally have working street lights. A case in point: a few years ago the new highway that climbs from Ayi Mensah at the foot of the Akuapem hills was lit all the way to Mamfe at the apex of the mountain range. The lights were installed as part of the new road for a good reason – to prevent accidents and save lives. Today, the lighting has become a patchwork of alternating light and dark with those sharp curves really plunged into deep gloom at night.

It is the same for the recently constructed George Walker Bush Highway which some wags have re-christened Killer Road. In the short time since its construction most parts of the road have gone dark at night. This has made that road even more dangerous for pedestrians because they cannot be seen clearly by drivers and they are in turn blinded by headlamps switched on “high” by drivers. This situation persists all over the country and is not a recent situation too. I wrote about this same situation when President Kufuor was in office and pointed out that even the street lights at the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange and those leading to his own house had not worked for months. Miraculously, the lights were all working a few days after the article appeared in this same newspaper.

Does it matter that street lights do not work because of dead light bulbs? Yes, and for the following reasons. If we cannot replace a light bulb to make a street light work what can we guarantee to achieve? A street light is something we all see every day as we go about our lives. We see them when they work and we also know when they do not work but how many of us complain. Yes, this is a representation of our attitudes to our nation: country broke or no broke – we dey in! Furthermore, we go to huge expense to put up light poles but drive and walk in darkness for lack of light bulbs. Does it make sense? Like the poor light bulb, the “little things” in our lives that eventually amount to a lot, have no owners. Who looks after light bulbs in Ghana?

Perhaps the simple light bulb is a metaphor for our country and represents the malaise and dysfunction that is holding us back despite the efforts that many people think they are making.

So who is in charge of light bulbs in this republic? In other countries, especially the countries we admire so much, no street lamppost will go without a bulb for more than 24 hours. I have personally seen the people in charge of light bulbs elsewhere going round in a van to change the expired ones; here, it simply does not happen and no one is sanctioned for not doing it. Now, substitute a light bulb for an office computer or life-saving equipment in a hospital or a broken window in a school, or a little pothole in a road… and you get the picture; little things without owners which grow to become budget items that haunt the President in his nightmares and gives him sleepless nights. Somewhere, tucked hidden a book in some ministry or department of state are names of people who should be responsible for light bulbs but have themselves forgotten their responsibilities long ago. They get paid every month.

One reason we are not developing as fast as we all think we are entitled to is because of our attitudes to public service. Perhaps only a small percentage of people are working in police, immigration, tax, or any other kind of public office for the love of it or even because that is what they set out to do. Most people working in the public service see it as the gateway to personal private gain and consequently hate the work they do, apart from the salary and other benefits, including bribes. Therefore, as the higher they go up the professional ladder the more they are disinclined to go out and see things for themselves. Without any supervision the people responsible for changing light bulbs gradually “forget” because there is no side benefit to be had in fixing light bulbs.

By pure coincidence, as I was writing this piece I watched part of a programme called Undercover Boss USA on television. It is about how business and civic bosses disguise themselves to work in their own institutions without being recognised by their own workers. The episode I saw was about how the Mayor of Cincinnati in the USA who went underground and toured all the departments under his watch. It was touching when he went to the motor vehicle repair department and the person responsible for repairing police motorbikes told him to be careful; “one has to be very careful because this is about somebody’s life…” Can you hear that in Ghana? Somehow, I can’t.

In the budget the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning referred a few times to Ghana’s “middle income” status, and as usual I felt nauseated at the mention of that farce. I do not suppose the honourable gentleman has been to Porpornya, Dakurpe and Juaboso lately… He could not have travelled on the Tumu to Jefisi Road in the Upper West Region or even driven around the gold-blighted streets of urban Prestea; how come parts of the same country are middle income when others are “no income”?

The reason for this huge disparity between the rich and the poor in our country is that the people who are responsible for lifting up the poor have rather exploited them to further their own nests. In that sense, no one appears to checks what goes on in this country – from light bulbs to mega-cedi judgment debts. That is the scandal. The President told his ministers at their swearing in to go out and see things for themselves but unless he has a foolproof method to check them and their officials he would have spoken in vain.

Soon after the 2012 elections a close confidante of President Mahama emailed me the optimistic message that J.M. is serious about making change. I loved it, and I believe that JM sincerely wants to change things but things won’t get changed by the rhetoric of the State of the Nation address or the provisions of the ballot unless and until the President ensures that the persons in charge of light bulbs do their job.

SHELF LIFE

This was a good week to read a bit more about Kwame Nkrumah so I reached for NKRUMAH the Man written by Genoveva Kanu and published by Delta. This is one of the most intimate pen portraits of Nkrumah written by a person who was very close to him. Although published about 40 years ago it is still fresh and accessible because it dispenses with ideological posturing and cuts to the core of the first President as a human being. It is available in most bookshops in Ghana.

kgapenteng@gmail.com

kgapenteng.blogspot.com