PRESS STATEMENT – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20
The Danquah Institute, an Accra-based policy think tank, has called on the collective leadership of the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union to actively show, with urgency, leadership and concern in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Such a priority engagement could boost ongoing domestic efforts at finding a democratic solution to the pending constitutional crisis in the biggest black nation in the world,” the think tank argues, adding that the situation is threatening Nigeria’s democracy and the stability of the region.
After a longer history of instability, coups, military dictatorship and controversial elections, Africa’s most populous nation is struggling to contain the ramifications of a seriously ill, and absent, president.
In a statement released on Sunday, December 20, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, says “Nigeria, a nation hosting half of the population of our region and Africa’s biggest energy producer, is facing a period of grave uncertainty. Our fear is that the apparent passive posture of the two transnational bodies (AU and ECOWAS) in the face of such fundamental constitutional crisis in Nigeria, smacks of the kind of irresponsibility that usually leads to fire-fighting after the harm is done.”
The Danquah Institute is particularly calling on the President of the Republic of Ghana, the second most populous nation in the West African region, “to take the initiative and get the AU and ECOWAS to act. This can start by the two bodies agreeing to send a high powered monitoring team to Nigeria.”
DI feels “very little is being done or shown in the spirit and letter of both the AU and ECOWAS by the rest of Africa to show how seriously the continent views the ensuing sense of paralysis and crisis in Nigeria. The Federal government, security forces and civil society in Nigeria must be made to appreciate how crucial the country’s stability is to the rest of the continent. We must begin to show more concern and support.”
The DI statement explains, “The mandate of the delegation must include engaging various local stakeholders to ensure that the democratic institutions in the federal republic are protected and allowed to endure in these trying times and guide the nation through the crisis. They can do so without interfering in the process.”
The AU Constitutive Act declares a commitment “to consolidate democratic institutions and culture, and to ensure good governance and the rule of law.” Mr Otchere-Darko sees this as an opportunity for the AU to demonstrate commitment.
“We believe President John Evans Atta Mills should impress on other African leaders about the urgency and importance of this mission to help ensure that the future of multi-party democracy in Nigeria is secured. If Nigeria fails we all fail,” the statement warns.
On November 24, President Musa Yar’Adua checked into a Saudi Arabian hospital with a serious heart condition and has not been heard or seen since. This has prompted calls for his resignation. Earlier this month, 56 prominent Nigerians called for President Yar'Adua to hand power to his vice president.
But that call has also raised another controversy, bordering on ethno-religious lines and constitutional conventions.
Since Mr Yar-Adua’s hospitalisation, Nigeria has had nobody acting as President. “Unlike Ghana, for instance, where the vice president automatically acts whenever the president leaves the shores of the country, the Nigerian constitution is more stringent on this issue,” says Mr Otchere-Darko.
Section 145 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic stipulates: “Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office,… until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President.”
No such letter was written by the president, formally handing power to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, before he left the country for treatment. Also the constitution is almost silent on the exclusive powers of the vice president when a substantive president is in office, Mr Otchere-Darko says, further incapacitating the president’s deputy under the circumstances.
The failure to hand over to the vice-president has created a serious power vacuum. This has led to a constitutional crisis where legislative bills cannot receive presidential assents.
“A typical case in point is the 2009 Supplementary Appropriation Bill. Both the Senate and House of Representative passed the N352.5billion supplementary budget bill in November. It has to receive presidential assent in 30 days. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan admits he cannot sign the budget without being cloaked with Section 145 powers,” Mr Otchere-Darko points out.
“Another constitutional crisis may hit the judiciary in a few days time,” he warns. Last week, the Senate approved the nomination of Justice Aloysius Iyorgyer Katsina-Alu as Chief Justice of Nigeria. He is to take over from Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi, who retires on December 31. However, the head of the third arm of government must be sworn in on January 1, 2010 by the President of the Federal Republic.
“Thus, Africa is looking at a very likely scenario where the most populous nation on the continent would have a headless executive and a headless judiciary,” Mr Otchere-Darko predicts.
As one Nigerian newspaper puts it, “We are 150 million sheep without a shepherd.”
There are also serious issues in the event that the vice president is made to act under Section 146 (1) of the constitution. The provision reads: “The Vice-President shall hold the office of President if the office of President becomes vacant by reason of death or resignation, impeachment, permanent incapacity or the removal of the President from office for any other reason in accordance with section 143 of this Constitution.”
A convention that has supported the stability of the Fourth Republic Constitution dictates that power rotates between the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south and former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure effectively defined that rotational period to be every two presidential terms in office.
The current vice president is a Christian from the south. This has led to loud calls for him to resign if the option of acting president becomes available, for fear that his ascendancy would upset the north-south rotation convention. Mr. Yar’Adua has two years of his first term left.
The Danquah Institute is worried about the prospect of the constitutional crisis being exploited by some military adventurists.
“The Nigerian armed forces have shown tremendous professionalism in recent years. The Nigerian political elite has also shown tact and maturity in resolving peacefully previous crisis. Moreover, the Nigerian people have been patient and resilient. But, we can’t afford the luxury of complacency and rule out anything, especially, when these crisis are coming on top of long held perception by the masses of massive corruption and the tolerance of that anti-development culture in the body politic,” Mr Otchere-Darko cautions.
He recollects that “since the Togolese coup d’état of January 1963, West Africa built a reputation as the military takeover belt of Africa. By the early 1990s, West Africa was leading the continent towards a period of multi-party democracy. We need to maintain our eternal vigilance and build public confidence in the concept that we can indeed develop in freedom here in Africa. It is that which we fear is perilously at stake in Nigeria today.”
The Danquah Institute cites the recent statement by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, describing Nigeria as an example of governments “able but unwilling to make the changes their citizens deserve.” Mr Otchere-Darko throws back a rhetorical question, “So has multi-party democracy brought about the change that citizens of Nigeria deserve?”
This widespread perception of corruption was not helped when on December 17 a federal judge threw out a $60 million corruption case against a former governor which many Nigerians believed was an opportunity to finally bring to book big politicians who allegedly steal millions of dollars from government coffers.
Justice Marcel Awokulehin dismissed the 170-count case against former Delta state governor James Ibori and a close associate of President Yar’Adua for lack of evidence. The case is seen as a big blow against democracy.
Mr. Ibori, who as governor received an official salary of about $25,000, was indicted by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in December 2007, which resulted in a UK court freezing his assets in that country worth $35m. The head of the EFCC at the time, Nuhu Ribadu, was shortly after fired and eventually forced to flee the country.
“Another blow against democracy is the perception that the fight against corruption is only ‘stage-managed’ when the accused person is an ‘enemy’ of the powers that may be,” Mr.Otchere-Darko says.
On December 9, a presidential candidate in 2007, Attahiru Bafaraw, was picked up on corruption charges in the course of a meeting by opposition forces aimed at forming a formidable united front against the ruling party for the 2011 elections.
The country’s security has been further compromised by the president’s absence. Ripples of the vacuum created by President Yar’Adua’s ailment was felt in the troubled Delta State last weekend when Nigerian militants reportedly carried out their first attack on an oil pipeline since an amnesty offer. They said the attack was prompted by the absence of President Yar’Adua, which was delaying peace talks.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main militant group in the region, held formal peace talks with the president only two weeks before he left for treatment in Saudi Arabia. The unconditional cease-fire declared on October 25 appears to have been broken now.
Again, there are reports that the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua from the country may be sparking off supremacy battle among his cabinet members and close aides.
The Danquah Institute points out that Article 3 of the AU Constitutive Act states its objectives as including the achievement of greater unity and solidarity between the African countries and the peoples of Africa; the promotion of peace, security, and stability on the continent; the promotion of democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance.
“When these objectives are juxtaposed to the objective of defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States and the Article 4 principles of non-interference by any Member State in the internal affairs of another, it is our submission that the case for a pro-active diplomatic engagement to help Nigeria resolve the crisis is very strong.”
DI argues further that per its fundamental principles as enshrined in Article 4 of its treaty, ECOWAS has a duty to assist Nigeria promote and consolidate its democratic system of governance, thereby, helping to maintain regional peace, stability and security.
President Musa Yar'Adua of Nigeria
Thursday, December 24, 2009
DANQUAH INSTITUTE CALLS FOR URGENCY IN LOCAL CONTENT POLICY FOR OIL INDUSTRY
Press statement – Tues, Dec 22
The governance think tank, Danquah Institute, is unhappy in what it describes as “undue delay” in the making of a local content policy for Ghana’s oil sector. The fellows and researchers of the think tank have, notably, earned international recognition for publishing several insightful articles on the policy direction of Ghana’s oil sector.
A press statement issued Tuesday by the think tank, expresses concern that, “Although the country expects to begin producing crude oil next year, the law or policy which should determine the level of participation of Ghanaian companies and individuals into the oil and gas sector is yet to be finalised. In fact there isn’t even an indication of a deadline on this. This we find very worrying.”
The statement, signed by DI’s Executive Director, Gaby Asare Otchere-Darko, adds, “Whilst we share Government’s apparent view that the country should not rush to sell itself short in preparing for an industry that could impact tremendously on Ghana’s economy for the next 30 years, we do, however, have serious reservations about the pace of preparation in an area that is crucial to how Ghanaians and their businesses must participate and benefit directly from this new industry.”
The statement cautions: “We cannot afford the kind of state policy negligence and naivety that have seen Ghana and Ghanaians benefit modestly from 100 years of mining.”
Local content refers to any policy or set of rules established by a government to assure that local companies and individuals participate actively in petroleum operations conducted in the country to achieve a number of goals. These include: the transfer of knowledge to host-country citizens; capacity-building of local companies; creation of local jobs; and development and growth of the local economy.
DI acknowledges that in August 2009, Government sent out for stakeholder consultation a Local Content and Local Participation in Petroleum Activities – Policy Framework draft.
“Among the policy objectives set out in the draft are to ‘develop local capability in all aspects of the oil and gas value chain through education, skills and expertise development, transfer of technology and know-how and an active research and development portfolio’; and, what we see as, a very ambitious plan to ‘achieve at least 90 percent local content and local participation in all aspects of oil and gas industry value chain within a decade.’ Ambitious goals should be backed by ambitious urgency in planning,” the Danquah Institute suggests.
“Subsequent to the first draft, what was said to be a ‘draft final’ was issued on November 4. However, it is far from clear when the regulatory framework itself (like the Ghana Petroleum Authority Bill), from which an agency (such as the Nigerian Content Monitoring Board) would be created to give effect to the implementation of the local content and local participation policy, would be set up,” the Danquah Institute points out.
“We are calling for a clear time table for the necessary policy framework to be completed. This should be set within the first quarter of 2010, since we are told plans are still on course for production to begin by the last quarter of 2010,” the statement adds.
“We fear that this policy delay, while operational preparations are ongoing, risks denying Ghana and Ghanaians significant benefit from this new industry. Ghanaian entrepreneurs need to have some of the trade assurances provided in policy in order to begin making the necessary business preparations to leverage the opportunities that are bound to come. The delay can also compromise transparency in the award of contracts in a very big way,” the statement stresses.
“The draft policy document, for instance, provides that ‘all operators in the oil and gas industry shall as far as practicable use goods and services produced by or provided in Ghana for their operations in preference to foreign goods and services.’ It also states vaguely that ‘attention will also be given to technology development skills towards indigenisation of oil and gas technologies.’ Procrastination and ambiguity give the oil companies legitimate excuse to ignore local content,” the Danquah Institute warns.
With a wide margin of error, a central estimate of 490 million barrels of crude oil is expected to be produced from the Jubilee Fields over the Phase 1 period of 2011-29. This could fetch a central estimate of US$20 billion Government revenue. A good local content policy could easily double this figure, the Danquah Institute argues.
But, the Danquah Institute believes a lot more work needs to be done to the local content policy. “With our West African coast touted as the ‘New Gulf’ and Nigeria ignoring until recently the need to set up a comprehensive local content policy, Ghana can plan to become a global supplier of knowledge-intensive, value-added goods and services to the global extractive industry with a medium-term focus on the region.
“It also provides us the long-denied luxury to invest in R&D to develop other industries as a preventive measure to Dutch Disease,” the think tank opines.
The Danquah Institute also urges Ghana to learn something from Angola, the second-largest sub-Saharan Africa oil producer. The southern African country’s focus has been on developing Angola into a manufacturing and fabrication base for after-sales service and sup¬port for oil operations, helping to maximize the provision of goods and services through local businesses.
“If this oil discovery is to benefit Ghanaians then let us give the policy framework that would make that happen the needed urgency and importance. There are several models from elsewhere that we could have drawn examples from and customise them to suit us. The issue is, should it take as this long to create a platform that would protect and promote the potential employment and participation of Ghanaian workers and entrepreneurs in this industry, when we are busy hoping that oil production, which would be done by the multinational companies, should start in about 10 months time?” the Accra-based think tank poses the question.
The governance think tank, Danquah Institute, is unhappy in what it describes as “undue delay” in the making of a local content policy for Ghana’s oil sector. The fellows and researchers of the think tank have, notably, earned international recognition for publishing several insightful articles on the policy direction of Ghana’s oil sector.
A press statement issued Tuesday by the think tank, expresses concern that, “Although the country expects to begin producing crude oil next year, the law or policy which should determine the level of participation of Ghanaian companies and individuals into the oil and gas sector is yet to be finalised. In fact there isn’t even an indication of a deadline on this. This we find very worrying.”
The statement, signed by DI’s Executive Director, Gaby Asare Otchere-Darko, adds, “Whilst we share Government’s apparent view that the country should not rush to sell itself short in preparing for an industry that could impact tremendously on Ghana’s economy for the next 30 years, we do, however, have serious reservations about the pace of preparation in an area that is crucial to how Ghanaians and their businesses must participate and benefit directly from this new industry.”
The statement cautions: “We cannot afford the kind of state policy negligence and naivety that have seen Ghana and Ghanaians benefit modestly from 100 years of mining.”
Local content refers to any policy or set of rules established by a government to assure that local companies and individuals participate actively in petroleum operations conducted in the country to achieve a number of goals. These include: the transfer of knowledge to host-country citizens; capacity-building of local companies; creation of local jobs; and development and growth of the local economy.
DI acknowledges that in August 2009, Government sent out for stakeholder consultation a Local Content and Local Participation in Petroleum Activities – Policy Framework draft.
“Among the policy objectives set out in the draft are to ‘develop local capability in all aspects of the oil and gas value chain through education, skills and expertise development, transfer of technology and know-how and an active research and development portfolio’; and, what we see as, a very ambitious plan to ‘achieve at least 90 percent local content and local participation in all aspects of oil and gas industry value chain within a decade.’ Ambitious goals should be backed by ambitious urgency in planning,” the Danquah Institute suggests.
“Subsequent to the first draft, what was said to be a ‘draft final’ was issued on November 4. However, it is far from clear when the regulatory framework itself (like the Ghana Petroleum Authority Bill), from which an agency (such as the Nigerian Content Monitoring Board) would be created to give effect to the implementation of the local content and local participation policy, would be set up,” the Danquah Institute points out.
“We are calling for a clear time table for the necessary policy framework to be completed. This should be set within the first quarter of 2010, since we are told plans are still on course for production to begin by the last quarter of 2010,” the statement adds.
“We fear that this policy delay, while operational preparations are ongoing, risks denying Ghana and Ghanaians significant benefit from this new industry. Ghanaian entrepreneurs need to have some of the trade assurances provided in policy in order to begin making the necessary business preparations to leverage the opportunities that are bound to come. The delay can also compromise transparency in the award of contracts in a very big way,” the statement stresses.
“The draft policy document, for instance, provides that ‘all operators in the oil and gas industry shall as far as practicable use goods and services produced by or provided in Ghana for their operations in preference to foreign goods and services.’ It also states vaguely that ‘attention will also be given to technology development skills towards indigenisation of oil and gas technologies.’ Procrastination and ambiguity give the oil companies legitimate excuse to ignore local content,” the Danquah Institute warns.
With a wide margin of error, a central estimate of 490 million barrels of crude oil is expected to be produced from the Jubilee Fields over the Phase 1 period of 2011-29. This could fetch a central estimate of US$20 billion Government revenue. A good local content policy could easily double this figure, the Danquah Institute argues.
But, the Danquah Institute believes a lot more work needs to be done to the local content policy. “With our West African coast touted as the ‘New Gulf’ and Nigeria ignoring until recently the need to set up a comprehensive local content policy, Ghana can plan to become a global supplier of knowledge-intensive, value-added goods and services to the global extractive industry with a medium-term focus on the region.
“It also provides us the long-denied luxury to invest in R&D to develop other industries as a preventive measure to Dutch Disease,” the think tank opines.
The Danquah Institute also urges Ghana to learn something from Angola, the second-largest sub-Saharan Africa oil producer. The southern African country’s focus has been on developing Angola into a manufacturing and fabrication base for after-sales service and sup¬port for oil operations, helping to maximize the provision of goods and services through local businesses.
“If this oil discovery is to benefit Ghanaians then let us give the policy framework that would make that happen the needed urgency and importance. There are several models from elsewhere that we could have drawn examples from and customise them to suit us. The issue is, should it take as this long to create a platform that would protect and promote the potential employment and participation of Ghanaian workers and entrepreneurs in this industry, when we are busy hoping that oil production, which would be done by the multinational companies, should start in about 10 months time?” the Accra-based think tank poses the question.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Overtaking the Elephant into the Bush - Arthur K's Communication of Complacency
Excerpts of a Book Review of ‘Chasing the Elephant into the Bush: The Politics of Complacency’ Author: Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy
By Asare "Gabby" Otchere-Darko
Below are excerpts from my review of a book written by a man I shared an office room with for the duration of the 2008 presidential campaign…
Arthur Kennedy’s book, ‘Chasing the Elephant into the Bush – the Politics of Complacency’ has generated the kind of media furore that would make any author very proud. In reality, there is nothing controversial about the actual contents of the book. Rather than delivering the enlightening account and analysis one might have expected from an inner-circle notable such as Arthur K (as we call him), the book instead presents an interesting but not especially insightful account of the events of the NPP campaign in a readable and enjoyable manner, together with the now all-too-familiar analysis of the causes of the NPP defeat as have already been articulated by several observers and disappointed NPP sympathisers.
What has proved genuinely intriguing is how this rather standard account of the NPP’s 2008 campaign has come to attract such controversy. The explanation for this lies not in its content, but rather the way in which it has emerged from the ether, with little forethought or forewarning given to the management of its launch.
Ironically for a book written by the communications head of a presidential candidate (in which he seeks to outline what went wrong in his boss’ campaign), the author has spectacularly failed in successfully managing his book’s promotional campaign – a rather glaring indictment on the author.
As a result of the ill-conceived strategy of releasing it to just a small, select group, the author has allowed its contents and message to become distorted and spun without any recompense to the full text for those who may seek to verify the context of the sensational twists and headlines generated in the media.
The author’s frustrations with how the book has been treated by the Ghanaian media is clear in this paragraph of a rejoinder published on Joy FM’s website: “A seasoned journalist interested in honest reporting and our political development would have found a lot of constructive headlines from the book or even from the body of your story. Amongst the significant issues raised by the book are: the over 205 thousand spoilt ballots that could have given the NPP a first round victory; the systematic attacks on the institutions of state by the NDC campaign that was documented by the EU Monitoring team; the Election-night shenanigans in places as far apart as Ablekuma, Asutifi and Ketu that distorted the will of the people.”
Shortly after Ben Ephson’s Daily Dispatch started serialising the book, I called Arthur K and he complained to me that the mass media were focusing on only the passages in the book which give the NPP a bad name. I advised him, as a communications strategy, to direct his press interviews to reactions and spins on the book to the areas that he says he wants the media and public to rather focus on. His response was that he circulated widely copies of the book to the Chronicle, Peace FM, Joy FM and others, so they should also serialise it and bring about a balance.
A week later, this was his response to Chronicle’s first ‘excerpts’ from the book as contained in his rejoinder:
“Media houses like Joy fm and Peace fm, who both have copies of the book and can verify claims like the one in this should stop their mediums from being used to peddle falsehoods. It is wrong. It is unethical and it harms their reputations… Finally, I urge Ghanaians to read the book for themselves and reach their own conclusions. I am prepared to be held to account for my conclusions anywhere, anytime but not for lies concocted by the likes of the CHRONICLE.”
Ben Ephson would tell the author that book/article serialisations have become the equivalent of a recreational drug for a section of the press. It helps boost up sales. Anybody familiar with the Ghanaian media could have easily predicted that sending copies of the book weeks in advance to newspaper editors and radio presenters when the Ghanaian launch of the book had not even been decided would result in chaos. Cue the publication of unbalanced excerpts fuelling unfounded speculation, accusations and allegations completely uncorroborated by a correct reading of the text in its full context. In fact the handling of the pre-launch publicity has been so farcical, and the resulting media storm so great, that if it weren’t for the fact that the book is still unavailable to buy on the streets of Accra , one might think this was a deliberate strategy deployed to boost sales.
In short, this pre-launch strategy (or rather lack of) was, quite simply, a recipe for disaster. The author’s rejoinders to the Egbert Faibilles, Kweku Baakos and Ben Ephsons of the Ghanaian media are labouring to tell the mass public that much of the media’s reaction to the book is both misguided, mistaken and outright erroneous: the controversy has thus become less about what the book does say and more about Arthur K being forced to clarify that it doesn’t say what some have tried to claim it does!
This shroud of mystery was perhaps to be expected given the rather secretive way in which the book suddenly materialized. On Citi FM’s ‘Eye Witness News’ on Thursday, December 3, Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy was on the other line when the host, Shamima Muslim, asked me: ‘Gabby, were you ever aware that Dr Kennedy was writing a book?’; ‘No’, I said. ‘Was Nana Akufo-Addo aware of the book?’; ‘Like me, not until he received his copy,’ I answered. This is all the more amazing as I had shared a single office with Arthur K for the entire eleven months of the 2008 New Patriotic Party presidential campaign, whilst he served as Chairman of the Communications Committee and I as, in effect, the technical Communications Director.
From this vantage point I can state categorically that whatever conclusions one may draw from the way in which the launch of Dr Kennedy’s book has been handled, it is by no means a fair reflection of the professionalism of the campaign’s communications department, led by a committee that boasted several experts and professionals.
In defending his decision to publish privileged information about the 2008 presidential campaign of the NPP, Arthur K has done what he does best, citing examples from America. He compares himself to the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidate of the Republican Party in the United States. But, the politician Sarah Palin has been described, incontestably, by respected Republican columnist, David Brooks as representing “a fatal cancer to the Republican party.” Going by, at least the sentiments expressed by majority of members of the National Council of the New Patriotic Party at their recent sitting, Arthur K represents a cancer to the NPP, arguably. But, why should this be so?
At the heart of the controversy over the book is the importance of confidentiality, what Professor Peter Hennessy has called the “governing marriage” between politicians and their staff. Politicians, understandably, dislike being embarrassed. And, this book deserves the Booker Prize for having a serious go at embarrassing the NPP - from the President, Presidential Candidate, Chairman, Campaign Director, through DCEs to footsoldiers. The NPP is offended by, what I can only describe as, Arthur K’s bad manners. More importantly, is how offensive this book is to efforts to sidestep the rumours and learn useful lessons from what actually informed decisions of past campaigns.
Arthur K’s memoirs of life on the Akufo-Addo campaign trail is certainly one of the most insightful political memoirs in Ghana. It is insightful for the mere reason that political memoirs are hardly written in Ghana. It is accepted as an insider’s eye- and ear-witness account of an unprecedented historical event such as the 2008 general elections, which ended in a photo finish, nearly a month after the general elections of December 7. The question is this: has he done enough justice to the issues? Has he been fair to the issues, his party, his colleagues, himself and his readers? Would an informed insider have written this? My answer is no.
What comes out loud and clear throughout Arthur Kennedy’s book is that prior to 2008 he had never had first-hand experience of a national campaign, and thus his commentary is automatically limited by his inability to provide a comparative analysis with previous election campaigns. This is a major deficiency of an otherwise interesting read. It regrettably leaves the reader’s curiosity insatiated by failing, from the outset, to provide the context necessary in order for it to be worthy of becoming serious historical reference material in years to come.
This is particularly disappointing given the numerous innovations in the way the NPP campaign conducted its communications in 2008. For the first time the party had a fully equipped Communications Directorate, with an editing suite and virtually every necessary tool for the job. It controlled and maintained a network of communicators across the country. The committee met regularly, perhaps more so than any other and went some significant distance in implementing its programmes. TV and radio stations had strict directives that only adverts approved by the directorate would be paid for and that directive was adhered to.
These changes represented a significant break with the past and a step-change in the sophistication of the NPP’s communications arsenal. Yet despite the author of this book being the man officially in charge of this new system, we are not presented with any analysis of the impact or effect of these changes because, quite simply, he had no knowledge of the previous system with which to make comparisons.
Nowhere is this lack of prior experience more apparent than the overemphasis of problems that beset any political campaign the world over. Tensions between party office and campaign office, coordination issues between the campaign schedules of different party notables, personality tensions and clashes, disagreements over how best to deploy and control campaign spending: these are familiar kitchen utensils in the household of campaigns – both winning and losing. Even Messrs Koku Anyidoho, Aseidu Nketia, John Mahama and John Atta Mills would be forced to admit that their campaign was not exempt from these universal issues: indeed similar problems have affected every campaign in Ghana since campaigning began and will undoubtedly continue until campaigning ends. Not even Obama was able to rise above such problems: in his book, Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory, the author, David Plouffe, failed to hide the tensions that were apparent in the campaign. But, he was clever enough to not over-emphasise those tensions.
Some erroneous recounting of events also adds fuel to the critics’ flames, diminishing the work’s validity as a document with the purpose of “setting the record straight.”
Few examples, Clifford Braimah is described as Northern Regional Organiser of the NPP. He is in fact the Regional Secretary; Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, the National Chairman of the PNC is described as the Chairman of the CPP; Akufo-Addo is said to have taken over Victor Owusu’s law chambers. The Communications Directorate of the campaign put together the candidate’s biography which listed all the law firms the candidate worked with.
Dr Kennedy’s lack of apparent insight or understanding of the situation in relation to Tain is a prime example. He writes: “Many questions will be asked for years about Tain. Here are a few of those questions: Why could the President not go to Tain? If it was not safe for him to go, why could the vote take place? Why did the NPP [Presidential] Candidate not go to Tain?” - questions that, quite rightly, readers would have expected to be answered rather than asked in a book written by an insider and head of the campaign’s communications team.
The simple answer to these questions is that the party had moved to place a court injunction against voting taking place in Tain with the thinking that it would prejudice the challenge it had launched against several polling stations in at least nine constituencies in the Volta Region. Surely, this reasoning could not have been lost on Arthur Kennedy. Such gaps in knowledge, combined with factual errors, seriously undermine the credibility of the more specific accounts provided in the book. For example, on page 145, it is falsely stated that evidence of NPP complaints concerning “nearly 300,000 votes in the southern [and central] part of the Volta Region”, did not “get to the Chair that day and by the time it was ready, it had been changed from a protest addressed to the EC to a petition aimed at restraining the EC Chair from holding the Tain Election.” The reality was that the petition with evidence of the electoral malpractice was delivered to the EC chairman by Nana Ohene Ntow separately from the court process filed by Atta Akyea at the law courts and on separate days.
Regrettably, too much of the book is concerned with an unthinking and uncritical repetition of many of the unfounded rumours about the campaign that abounded in the heady days of the run-up to the election. A detailed and hard-hitting analysis of the foundation, source and spread of these may have proved insightful: sadly a bland reiteration of them provides little in the way of food for thought.
And while reporters and political analysts have long since hashed out the reasons for NPP losing in 2008, one would have expected an insider account to have contributed to this in a profound and significant way through a more considered and reflective analysis that properly utilised the privileged vantage point of its author.
Instead, we are presented with a considerable amount of – harsh as it may sound – useless venting about the inevitable frustrations that arise in any endeavour involving the sheer mass of people that the NPP Presidential Campaign did. In amongst this confused maelstrom of criticism and complaint we struggle to decipher the “lessons learnt” or the suggested roadmap for the future.
‘Politics of Complacency’ is not only an unnecessarily antagonistic by-line, open to abuse by critics, but I challenge Dr Kennedy as to whether he really believes this is the right description for the long hours put in by thousands of NPP supporters during the campaign.
Arthur Kennedy simply does not get it. In one of his numerous rejoinders he states: “Finally, to be the nation we aspire to be, we must in the words of the NPP’s 2008 campaign ‘move forward’. As I write, there are two books out on the 2008 US Campaign, one by Mr. Obama’s Campaign Manager and the other by Mr. McCain’s running mate. Both are being discussed seriously and will significantly affect the respective campaigns in 2012. That is what we must aspire to.”
If Arthur K wants to use those American books as justification then he should also know that Obama’s campaign manager was so tactful on the kind of information he released that his book, though selling, has not been controversial. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was forced to say on a radio show that “some on the left, that lamestream media, they’re contradicting what I wrote in the book.”
She has been accused of showing her lack of insight on contemporary issues. President Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe’s book is not doing as good as Sarah Palin’s because the former’s book does not interest the public as much. That does not mean that Ms Palin’s book is more in the public interest.
She confirms that there was substantial tension between her advisers and McCain's, criticising McCain staffers. But, that is understandable considering the strong words some of those staffers have used on her, calling her a “whack job”. “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” was how an angry McCain aide described Palin's controversial $150,000 shopping spree during the campaign. Another McCain adviser complained on CNN, “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”
The Senate President of her home state, Alaska, Lyda Green, a Republican said of her: “She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” She signed over a million dollar publishing contract because Harpercollins knew she would sell. The book, which has a first printing of 1.5 million copies, is a best seller on Amazon.com, where incidentally Arthur K is presumably making some wonderful sales. Her book, like Arthur K’s, has serious issues with getting the facts right. AP reporters alone found 14 major factual errors in the 413 page book. For instance, she criticises US President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.
Arthur K’s book names names as if he is listing the squad of a football match. Yet, a deliberate, intelligent decision was made by the Campaign Committee to only make public the chairpersons of the various committees. Some Ghanaians like to volunteer during campaigns but they don’t want to be publicly acknowledged. Even in America the closest Ms Palin comes to naming names occurs in the passages about chief McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. Quoting another campaign official, she writes that Schmidt felt she wasn't prepared enough on policy matters and even wondered if she was suffering from postpartum depression following the April 2008 birth of her son Trig, who has Down syndrome. But, not Arthur K.
What you have now is a book that condemns NDC propaganda being itself used as canon fodder for NDC propaganda. It would also be used within the NPP against Akufo-Addo’s future candidacy. Hopefully for the author, by the time the paperback hits the local market, the book would not have been shredded by critics, ignored by his party members and classified as an unnecessarily long political suicide note. As comedian David Letterman said of the best-selling book by John McCain’s running mate, Going Rogue: An American Life, whch was released on November 17, “Sarah Palin’s book is big, 400 pages. She wrote the book herself and agonised over every word, and so will you.”
His decision to sell for personal profit confidential information gleaned in the course of a sensitive job as the party’s Communications Committee Chairman for the 2008 campaign may have merits. Nevertheless, Arthur K could have produced a more useful even if anodyne account of the 2008 campaign. He could have been cautious in preserving and possibly enhancing his own political reputation and that of others who, perhaps, may have a much more realistic political ambitions than himself. And, he still could have made his money.
In fact, he has brought to the fore the need to develop and encourage here in Ghana the culture of writing memoirs and diaries by our leaders. Ironically, the kind of condemnation his book is receiving may end up discouraging others. There is certainly value in contemporary diaries. But, there is actually more intellectual and historical value in more considered and researched recollections. I support the presumption that there is no reason why stuff should not be published unless it can be demonstrated that it will do more harm than good.
The public interest value of publishing memoirs must always be favourably considered. But, it is also in the public interest that the private space for frank discussions and the sharing of information should be respected and protected. The danger is not the seasonal damage that this single shocking book does to those affected, but its introduction of a new culture of fear which may steadily erode the confidence and trust crucial to the administration of politics.
The NPP has much reflecting and much learning to do in the wake of the 2008 election, and we have embarked upon this. It is not a task to be shied away from and we must live up to our elephant moniker instead of burying our hand in the sand like an ostrich.
So we should and we must welcome constructive criticism. But the key here is constructive. It is on this count that Dr Kennedy’s book falls flat. And in this, we are all losers, for it is vital that we in Ghana foster a culture of memoirs and diaries through which we can increase a more sophisticated and detailed reflection upon our political condition. Biographies and autobiographies as well as diaries can help increase our understanding of the behind-the-doors functioning of our political parties and Government, help expose deficiencies, foster transparency and increase confidence and trust. Regrettably for us all, Dr Kennedy’s contribution has done little to aid this process.
qanawu.blogspot.com
By Asare "Gabby" Otchere-Darko
Below are excerpts from my review of a book written by a man I shared an office room with for the duration of the 2008 presidential campaign…
Arthur Kennedy’s book, ‘Chasing the Elephant into the Bush – the Politics of Complacency’ has generated the kind of media furore that would make any author very proud. In reality, there is nothing controversial about the actual contents of the book. Rather than delivering the enlightening account and analysis one might have expected from an inner-circle notable such as Arthur K (as we call him), the book instead presents an interesting but not especially insightful account of the events of the NPP campaign in a readable and enjoyable manner, together with the now all-too-familiar analysis of the causes of the NPP defeat as have already been articulated by several observers and disappointed NPP sympathisers.
What has proved genuinely intriguing is how this rather standard account of the NPP’s 2008 campaign has come to attract such controversy. The explanation for this lies not in its content, but rather the way in which it has emerged from the ether, with little forethought or forewarning given to the management of its launch.
Ironically for a book written by the communications head of a presidential candidate (in which he seeks to outline what went wrong in his boss’ campaign), the author has spectacularly failed in successfully managing his book’s promotional campaign – a rather glaring indictment on the author.
As a result of the ill-conceived strategy of releasing it to just a small, select group, the author has allowed its contents and message to become distorted and spun without any recompense to the full text for those who may seek to verify the context of the sensational twists and headlines generated in the media.
The author’s frustrations with how the book has been treated by the Ghanaian media is clear in this paragraph of a rejoinder published on Joy FM’s website: “A seasoned journalist interested in honest reporting and our political development would have found a lot of constructive headlines from the book or even from the body of your story. Amongst the significant issues raised by the book are: the over 205 thousand spoilt ballots that could have given the NPP a first round victory; the systematic attacks on the institutions of state by the NDC campaign that was documented by the EU Monitoring team; the Election-night shenanigans in places as far apart as Ablekuma, Asutifi and Ketu that distorted the will of the people.”
Shortly after Ben Ephson’s Daily Dispatch started serialising the book, I called Arthur K and he complained to me that the mass media were focusing on only the passages in the book which give the NPP a bad name. I advised him, as a communications strategy, to direct his press interviews to reactions and spins on the book to the areas that he says he wants the media and public to rather focus on. His response was that he circulated widely copies of the book to the Chronicle, Peace FM, Joy FM and others, so they should also serialise it and bring about a balance.
A week later, this was his response to Chronicle’s first ‘excerpts’ from the book as contained in his rejoinder:
“Media houses like Joy fm and Peace fm, who both have copies of the book and can verify claims like the one in this should stop their mediums from being used to peddle falsehoods. It is wrong. It is unethical and it harms their reputations… Finally, I urge Ghanaians to read the book for themselves and reach their own conclusions. I am prepared to be held to account for my conclusions anywhere, anytime but not for lies concocted by the likes of the CHRONICLE.”
Ben Ephson would tell the author that book/article serialisations have become the equivalent of a recreational drug for a section of the press. It helps boost up sales. Anybody familiar with the Ghanaian media could have easily predicted that sending copies of the book weeks in advance to newspaper editors and radio presenters when the Ghanaian launch of the book had not even been decided would result in chaos. Cue the publication of unbalanced excerpts fuelling unfounded speculation, accusations and allegations completely uncorroborated by a correct reading of the text in its full context. In fact the handling of the pre-launch publicity has been so farcical, and the resulting media storm so great, that if it weren’t for the fact that the book is still unavailable to buy on the streets of Accra , one might think this was a deliberate strategy deployed to boost sales.
In short, this pre-launch strategy (or rather lack of) was, quite simply, a recipe for disaster. The author’s rejoinders to the Egbert Faibilles, Kweku Baakos and Ben Ephsons of the Ghanaian media are labouring to tell the mass public that much of the media’s reaction to the book is both misguided, mistaken and outright erroneous: the controversy has thus become less about what the book does say and more about Arthur K being forced to clarify that it doesn’t say what some have tried to claim it does!
This shroud of mystery was perhaps to be expected given the rather secretive way in which the book suddenly materialized. On Citi FM’s ‘Eye Witness News’ on Thursday, December 3, Dr Arthur Kobina Kennedy was on the other line when the host, Shamima Muslim, asked me: ‘Gabby, were you ever aware that Dr Kennedy was writing a book?’; ‘No’, I said. ‘Was Nana Akufo-Addo aware of the book?’; ‘Like me, not until he received his copy,’ I answered. This is all the more amazing as I had shared a single office with Arthur K for the entire eleven months of the 2008 New Patriotic Party presidential campaign, whilst he served as Chairman of the Communications Committee and I as, in effect, the technical Communications Director.
From this vantage point I can state categorically that whatever conclusions one may draw from the way in which the launch of Dr Kennedy’s book has been handled, it is by no means a fair reflection of the professionalism of the campaign’s communications department, led by a committee that boasted several experts and professionals.
In defending his decision to publish privileged information about the 2008 presidential campaign of the NPP, Arthur K has done what he does best, citing examples from America. He compares himself to the 2008 Vice Presidential Candidate of the Republican Party in the United States. But, the politician Sarah Palin has been described, incontestably, by respected Republican columnist, David Brooks as representing “a fatal cancer to the Republican party.” Going by, at least the sentiments expressed by majority of members of the National Council of the New Patriotic Party at their recent sitting, Arthur K represents a cancer to the NPP, arguably. But, why should this be so?
At the heart of the controversy over the book is the importance of confidentiality, what Professor Peter Hennessy has called the “governing marriage” between politicians and their staff. Politicians, understandably, dislike being embarrassed. And, this book deserves the Booker Prize for having a serious go at embarrassing the NPP - from the President, Presidential Candidate, Chairman, Campaign Director, through DCEs to footsoldiers. The NPP is offended by, what I can only describe as, Arthur K’s bad manners. More importantly, is how offensive this book is to efforts to sidestep the rumours and learn useful lessons from what actually informed decisions of past campaigns.
Arthur K’s memoirs of life on the Akufo-Addo campaign trail is certainly one of the most insightful political memoirs in Ghana. It is insightful for the mere reason that political memoirs are hardly written in Ghana. It is accepted as an insider’s eye- and ear-witness account of an unprecedented historical event such as the 2008 general elections, which ended in a photo finish, nearly a month after the general elections of December 7. The question is this: has he done enough justice to the issues? Has he been fair to the issues, his party, his colleagues, himself and his readers? Would an informed insider have written this? My answer is no.
What comes out loud and clear throughout Arthur Kennedy’s book is that prior to 2008 he had never had first-hand experience of a national campaign, and thus his commentary is automatically limited by his inability to provide a comparative analysis with previous election campaigns. This is a major deficiency of an otherwise interesting read. It regrettably leaves the reader’s curiosity insatiated by failing, from the outset, to provide the context necessary in order for it to be worthy of becoming serious historical reference material in years to come.
This is particularly disappointing given the numerous innovations in the way the NPP campaign conducted its communications in 2008. For the first time the party had a fully equipped Communications Directorate, with an editing suite and virtually every necessary tool for the job. It controlled and maintained a network of communicators across the country. The committee met regularly, perhaps more so than any other and went some significant distance in implementing its programmes. TV and radio stations had strict directives that only adverts approved by the directorate would be paid for and that directive was adhered to.
These changes represented a significant break with the past and a step-change in the sophistication of the NPP’s communications arsenal. Yet despite the author of this book being the man officially in charge of this new system, we are not presented with any analysis of the impact or effect of these changes because, quite simply, he had no knowledge of the previous system with which to make comparisons.
Nowhere is this lack of prior experience more apparent than the overemphasis of problems that beset any political campaign the world over. Tensions between party office and campaign office, coordination issues between the campaign schedules of different party notables, personality tensions and clashes, disagreements over how best to deploy and control campaign spending: these are familiar kitchen utensils in the household of campaigns – both winning and losing. Even Messrs Koku Anyidoho, Aseidu Nketia, John Mahama and John Atta Mills would be forced to admit that their campaign was not exempt from these universal issues: indeed similar problems have affected every campaign in Ghana since campaigning began and will undoubtedly continue until campaigning ends. Not even Obama was able to rise above such problems: in his book, Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory, the author, David Plouffe, failed to hide the tensions that were apparent in the campaign. But, he was clever enough to not over-emphasise those tensions.
Some erroneous recounting of events also adds fuel to the critics’ flames, diminishing the work’s validity as a document with the purpose of “setting the record straight.”
Few examples, Clifford Braimah is described as Northern Regional Organiser of the NPP. He is in fact the Regional Secretary; Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, the National Chairman of the PNC is described as the Chairman of the CPP; Akufo-Addo is said to have taken over Victor Owusu’s law chambers. The Communications Directorate of the campaign put together the candidate’s biography which listed all the law firms the candidate worked with.
Dr Kennedy’s lack of apparent insight or understanding of the situation in relation to Tain is a prime example. He writes: “Many questions will be asked for years about Tain. Here are a few of those questions: Why could the President not go to Tain? If it was not safe for him to go, why could the vote take place? Why did the NPP [Presidential] Candidate not go to Tain?” - questions that, quite rightly, readers would have expected to be answered rather than asked in a book written by an insider and head of the campaign’s communications team.
The simple answer to these questions is that the party had moved to place a court injunction against voting taking place in Tain with the thinking that it would prejudice the challenge it had launched against several polling stations in at least nine constituencies in the Volta Region. Surely, this reasoning could not have been lost on Arthur Kennedy. Such gaps in knowledge, combined with factual errors, seriously undermine the credibility of the more specific accounts provided in the book. For example, on page 145, it is falsely stated that evidence of NPP complaints concerning “nearly 300,000 votes in the southern [and central] part of the Volta Region”, did not “get to the Chair that day and by the time it was ready, it had been changed from a protest addressed to the EC to a petition aimed at restraining the EC Chair from holding the Tain Election.” The reality was that the petition with evidence of the electoral malpractice was delivered to the EC chairman by Nana Ohene Ntow separately from the court process filed by Atta Akyea at the law courts and on separate days.
Regrettably, too much of the book is concerned with an unthinking and uncritical repetition of many of the unfounded rumours about the campaign that abounded in the heady days of the run-up to the election. A detailed and hard-hitting analysis of the foundation, source and spread of these may have proved insightful: sadly a bland reiteration of them provides little in the way of food for thought.
And while reporters and political analysts have long since hashed out the reasons for NPP losing in 2008, one would have expected an insider account to have contributed to this in a profound and significant way through a more considered and reflective analysis that properly utilised the privileged vantage point of its author.
Instead, we are presented with a considerable amount of – harsh as it may sound – useless venting about the inevitable frustrations that arise in any endeavour involving the sheer mass of people that the NPP Presidential Campaign did. In amongst this confused maelstrom of criticism and complaint we struggle to decipher the “lessons learnt” or the suggested roadmap for the future.
‘Politics of Complacency’ is not only an unnecessarily antagonistic by-line, open to abuse by critics, but I challenge Dr Kennedy as to whether he really believes this is the right description for the long hours put in by thousands of NPP supporters during the campaign.
Arthur Kennedy simply does not get it. In one of his numerous rejoinders he states: “Finally, to be the nation we aspire to be, we must in the words of the NPP’s 2008 campaign ‘move forward’. As I write, there are two books out on the 2008 US Campaign, one by Mr. Obama’s Campaign Manager and the other by Mr. McCain’s running mate. Both are being discussed seriously and will significantly affect the respective campaigns in 2012. That is what we must aspire to.”
If Arthur K wants to use those American books as justification then he should also know that Obama’s campaign manager was so tactful on the kind of information he released that his book, though selling, has not been controversial. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was forced to say on a radio show that “some on the left, that lamestream media, they’re contradicting what I wrote in the book.”
She has been accused of showing her lack of insight on contemporary issues. President Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe’s book is not doing as good as Sarah Palin’s because the former’s book does not interest the public as much. That does not mean that Ms Palin’s book is more in the public interest.
She confirms that there was substantial tension between her advisers and McCain's, criticising McCain staffers. But, that is understandable considering the strong words some of those staffers have used on her, calling her a “whack job”. “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” was how an angry McCain aide described Palin's controversial $150,000 shopping spree during the campaign. Another McCain adviser complained on CNN, “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”
The Senate President of her home state, Alaska, Lyda Green, a Republican said of her: “She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” She signed over a million dollar publishing contract because Harpercollins knew she would sell. The book, which has a first printing of 1.5 million copies, is a best seller on Amazon.com, where incidentally Arthur K is presumably making some wonderful sales. Her book, like Arthur K’s, has serious issues with getting the facts right. AP reporters alone found 14 major factual errors in the 413 page book. For instance, she criticises US President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.
Arthur K’s book names names as if he is listing the squad of a football match. Yet, a deliberate, intelligent decision was made by the Campaign Committee to only make public the chairpersons of the various committees. Some Ghanaians like to volunteer during campaigns but they don’t want to be publicly acknowledged. Even in America the closest Ms Palin comes to naming names occurs in the passages about chief McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. Quoting another campaign official, she writes that Schmidt felt she wasn't prepared enough on policy matters and even wondered if she was suffering from postpartum depression following the April 2008 birth of her son Trig, who has Down syndrome. But, not Arthur K.
What you have now is a book that condemns NDC propaganda being itself used as canon fodder for NDC propaganda. It would also be used within the NPP against Akufo-Addo’s future candidacy. Hopefully for the author, by the time the paperback hits the local market, the book would not have been shredded by critics, ignored by his party members and classified as an unnecessarily long political suicide note. As comedian David Letterman said of the best-selling book by John McCain’s running mate, Going Rogue: An American Life, whch was released on November 17, “Sarah Palin’s book is big, 400 pages. She wrote the book herself and agonised over every word, and so will you.”
His decision to sell for personal profit confidential information gleaned in the course of a sensitive job as the party’s Communications Committee Chairman for the 2008 campaign may have merits. Nevertheless, Arthur K could have produced a more useful even if anodyne account of the 2008 campaign. He could have been cautious in preserving and possibly enhancing his own political reputation and that of others who, perhaps, may have a much more realistic political ambitions than himself. And, he still could have made his money.
In fact, he has brought to the fore the need to develop and encourage here in Ghana the culture of writing memoirs and diaries by our leaders. Ironically, the kind of condemnation his book is receiving may end up discouraging others. There is certainly value in contemporary diaries. But, there is actually more intellectual and historical value in more considered and researched recollections. I support the presumption that there is no reason why stuff should not be published unless it can be demonstrated that it will do more harm than good.
The public interest value of publishing memoirs must always be favourably considered. But, it is also in the public interest that the private space for frank discussions and the sharing of information should be respected and protected. The danger is not the seasonal damage that this single shocking book does to those affected, but its introduction of a new culture of fear which may steadily erode the confidence and trust crucial to the administration of politics.
The NPP has much reflecting and much learning to do in the wake of the 2008 election, and we have embarked upon this. It is not a task to be shied away from and we must live up to our elephant moniker instead of burying our hand in the sand like an ostrich.
So we should and we must welcome constructive criticism. But the key here is constructive. It is on this count that Dr Kennedy’s book falls flat. And in this, we are all losers, for it is vital that we in Ghana foster a culture of memoirs and diaries through which we can increase a more sophisticated and detailed reflection upon our political condition. Biographies and autobiographies as well as diaries can help increase our understanding of the behind-the-doors functioning of our political parties and Government, help expose deficiencies, foster transparency and increase confidence and trust. Regrettably for us all, Dr Kennedy’s contribution has done little to aid this process.
qanawu.blogspot.com
Saturday, October 17, 2009
WHY GHANA MUST SOON DECIDE ON E-VOTING DI Reacts to David Kanga’s comments
Article by Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko
Recent statements by a Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr David Adenze Kanga, only add to the confusion on what the Electoral Commission sees as the way forward to enhancing significantly the integrity of Ghana’s electoral system which was perilously tested in the December 2008 general elections.
During the workshop organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) for some selected civil society organisations, leaders of political parties, religious leaders, journalists and development partners on the theme, “The survival of multi-party democracy and politics of accommodation and tolerance”, Mr Kanga expressed, what we see as a very worrying scepticism about the viability of Ghana adopting a biometric voter registration system and an electronic voting system.
The Daily Graphic of Thursday, 15 October read: “Regarding the biometric system of registration and voting, Mr Kanga said the country should tread cautiously concerning voting, in order not to throw off the transparency tenets in the present voting system.”
He explained that “with the electronic voting, the electorate would be given receipts from the machine indicating that they had voted and after the process the machine would indicate how many votes each candidate received. With this process against the backdrop of the fact that the Ghanaian electorate was accustomed to the counting of ballots in their presence, the ordinary voter would not appreciate how the machine arrived at the final figures for each candidate.”
Such selective comments do not inform the public fully on the respective weight that should be put on the pros and cons of both electronic voting and paper balloting. It is with this in mind that the Danquah Institute is holding a seminar on December 7, 2009 exclusively devoted to the viability of adopting a biometric voter register and/or electronic voting for Ghana in 2012. The purpose of the conference is to interrogate deeper the issues and concerns about e-voting. (DI will hold a press conference on Monday, 9 November on its ‘National Conference on the Viability of Electronic Voting in Ghana’).
The sum total of international research shows that e-voting offers potential for voting and election management that is an improvement over ballot paper voting or non-biometric voter registration. For Ghana, that technological leap could be the defence weapon against the explosion of electoral violence in the future, which could ultimately deal a fatal blow to the entire democratic experiment here in Ghana and with continental consequences.
On Tuesday, 12 May, a forum was organised by the Electoral Commission in collaboration with KAB Governance Consult and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), under the theme “Safeguarding the Integrity of the Ballot Project”. What could only be described as a historical commitment was made that day. At the Akosombo gathering, Ghana’s main political parties endorsed the adoption of a Biometric Voter Register as the best way to guarantee a credible database of eligible voters. In a communiqué, all the seven political parties (including NDC, NPP, CPP, PNC and DFP) in attendance, in their endorsement stated: “This is very necessary to deal authoritatively with practices of multiple voting and impersonation that tend to undermine public confidence in declared election results.”
Ref: http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/200905/30029.asp.
There is a very strong case for biometric-based credentialing solution for Ghana’s Voter Registration Project. Not long after the 2008 elections, the Danquah Institute started to advocate for the consideration of e-voting. Shortly afterwards, the Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, stated that the EC was looking to adopt a biometric system of registering voters prior to the next polls, but will stop short of implementing electronic voting for election day.
Delivering the CDD-Ghana 5th Kronti ne Akwamu lecture on ‘The Challenges to Conducting Free and Fair Elections in Emerging African Democracies: The Case of Ghana.’, Dr Afari-Gyan stated in response to a question by this author, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute: “The Commission is considering biometric registration of voters but as for biometric voting, I don't think the country is ready for it. If we do, I believe some people will start asking whether the Castle has not programmed the machines with some figures to their advantage.”
Again, on Wednesday, 18 March, 2009, Dr. Afari-Gyan announced on radio that a completely new voter registration exercise will take place to compile a new credible database for the 2012 general elections. The exercise will employ the best of technologies, including the use of biometric registration to beat fraudsters who attempt to exploit the voting exercise to their advantage. Dr. Afari-Gyan was the guest of Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show. Conceding that Ghana was lagging behind in the use of technologies in the electoral process, he said any new improvements in the system will have to include the best technologies, including biometric systems that will beat the fraudsters. See and listen via: http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/200903/27689.asp.
We cannot, as a nation, dismiss without the benefit of a full domestic interrogation the viability of electronic voting. Just as allegations such as the EC conspiring with the incumbent government in 2008 to rig the elections did not perturb the Commission, so should we not allow predictable allegations such as “the Castle programming the machines” to stop us from considering the suitability of that option. Ghana has developed a matured tradition of post-elections self-assessment, which often leads to the introduction of enhanced security features to the electoral system, for example, transparent ballot boxes in 1996, and photo voter IDs in 2000. Surely, this is not the time to sidestep that tradition.
Though, there is talk of biometric voter registration or electronic voting as possibly the way forward, this prospect is being allowed to be easily shot down by the cynics because we are yet to devote enough intellectual resources to interrogate seriously this modern system of voting and its viability in Ghana. The fundamental question to be addressed before 2012 is how do we protect the integrity of the elections from the point of voter registration to the moment of winner certification? Linked to this is the question, what are the factors that influence public confidence in elections?
In 2008, both the rulling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), at the time, accused each other of encouraging non-citizens, ghost names, as well as underage Ghanaians to register ahead of the elections. Speculations about and evidence of a bloated voter register went very far to undermine the credibility of the December vote. The possibility of a bloated register also fed steroids to the macho men of electoral fraud and violence, since a bloated voter register allows the opportunity to add up numbers and intimidate your opponents, ironically even as a defence strategy against an assumed threat of fraud against the intimidator’s political party.
In the words of Dr. Afari Gyan concerning Ghana’s 2008 voters’ register:
“If our population is indeed 22 million, then perhaps 13 million people on our register would be statistically unacceptable by world standards. If that is the case, then it may mean that there is something wrong with our register.”
Political parties exploited public admission and knowledge of a bloated voter register to feed their fears and trumpet allegations that there was a plot by a particular party or between an opposing party and electoral officers to rig the December polls. This gained legitimacy in the minds of several Ghanaians, including, perhaps, most dangerously some members in the security agencies. Thus, the ‘battlefield’ for a possible rejection of the results had been provided. We cannot as a nation continue with the undemocratic phenomenon where the balance of victory in our elections will be determined by how well a political party thinks it can manipulate results in its electoral strongholds.
The EC is yet to explain to Ghanaians how come after four previous presidential elections, 2008 registered the highest number of spoilt ballots (in both percentages and actual numbers), when the same system was used last year. With an election that less than 40,000 votes decided who swore the presidential oath on January 7, having over 200,000 spoilt ballots deserves more than a cursory comment. There is no such thing anywhere in the world as perfect election arrangement, but it has been shown elsewhere that electronic voting stops ballot box stuffing, ballot box theft and destruction, multiple voting, reduces spoilt ballots to zero, and saves the EC in printing, storage, staff costs, etc. Some jurisdictions have even maintained paper ballot in addition to electronic voting to serve as a counter-check in case of a dispute, thereby responding adequately to the very concerns raised by Mr. Kanga above. It is worth examining all the various options of e-voting, their security and usability features and their cost-benefit dimensions in order to make a responsible and informed decision on the way forward for Ghana’s electoral process.
In Ghana’s volatile and charged partisan political environment, it is extremely important that we have a trusted election process, where elections will be regarded as reasonably fair, even by the losing side. If India, with more illiterates than the entire population of Ghana, with 714 million registered voters, 828,000 polling stations, and many polling stations in areas with no electricity, could deploy one million battery-powered Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for an election with more than 100 political parties and not register any notable voice of protest, then Ghana would do herself a great disservice by refusing to examine constructively the viability of an electronic electoral process.
The spectre of hundreds of very angry young men wielding cutlasses at the vicinity of the EC headquarters last December should at least remind us of how close Ghana got to become another Kenya instead of the black star of hope that it is today that Africa can indeed hold ‘normal’ general elections. The platform on which Ghana has been receiving global applause for its performance at the theatre of elections is fragile. We need not allow our weaknesses to be deafened by the din of global praise. We must get to work now and tighten the nuts and bolts of our electoral process. E-voting may well turn out to be the best way to securing the future of Africa’s fledgling democracies and, if so, Ghana should not miss this self-serving opportunity to blaze once again the continental trail. Democracy must succeed in Ghana and biometric registration and e-voting may well provide us with the warranty for democracy’s enduring success.
The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, a liberal think tank.
Contact: gabby@danquahinstitute.org
Recent statements by a Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr David Adenze Kanga, only add to the confusion on what the Electoral Commission sees as the way forward to enhancing significantly the integrity of Ghana’s electoral system which was perilously tested in the December 2008 general elections.
During the workshop organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) for some selected civil society organisations, leaders of political parties, religious leaders, journalists and development partners on the theme, “The survival of multi-party democracy and politics of accommodation and tolerance”, Mr Kanga expressed, what we see as a very worrying scepticism about the viability of Ghana adopting a biometric voter registration system and an electronic voting system.
The Daily Graphic of Thursday, 15 October read: “Regarding the biometric system of registration and voting, Mr Kanga said the country should tread cautiously concerning voting, in order not to throw off the transparency tenets in the present voting system.”
He explained that “with the electronic voting, the electorate would be given receipts from the machine indicating that they had voted and after the process the machine would indicate how many votes each candidate received. With this process against the backdrop of the fact that the Ghanaian electorate was accustomed to the counting of ballots in their presence, the ordinary voter would not appreciate how the machine arrived at the final figures for each candidate.”
Such selective comments do not inform the public fully on the respective weight that should be put on the pros and cons of both electronic voting and paper balloting. It is with this in mind that the Danquah Institute is holding a seminar on December 7, 2009 exclusively devoted to the viability of adopting a biometric voter register and/or electronic voting for Ghana in 2012. The purpose of the conference is to interrogate deeper the issues and concerns about e-voting. (DI will hold a press conference on Monday, 9 November on its ‘National Conference on the Viability of Electronic Voting in Ghana’).
The sum total of international research shows that e-voting offers potential for voting and election management that is an improvement over ballot paper voting or non-biometric voter registration. For Ghana, that technological leap could be the defence weapon against the explosion of electoral violence in the future, which could ultimately deal a fatal blow to the entire democratic experiment here in Ghana and with continental consequences.
On Tuesday, 12 May, a forum was organised by the Electoral Commission in collaboration with KAB Governance Consult and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), under the theme “Safeguarding the Integrity of the Ballot Project”. What could only be described as a historical commitment was made that day. At the Akosombo gathering, Ghana’s main political parties endorsed the adoption of a Biometric Voter Register as the best way to guarantee a credible database of eligible voters. In a communiqué, all the seven political parties (including NDC, NPP, CPP, PNC and DFP) in attendance, in their endorsement stated: “This is very necessary to deal authoritatively with practices of multiple voting and impersonation that tend to undermine public confidence in declared election results.”
Ref: http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/200905/30029.asp.
There is a very strong case for biometric-based credentialing solution for Ghana’s Voter Registration Project. Not long after the 2008 elections, the Danquah Institute started to advocate for the consideration of e-voting. Shortly afterwards, the Chairman of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, stated that the EC was looking to adopt a biometric system of registering voters prior to the next polls, but will stop short of implementing electronic voting for election day.
Delivering the CDD-Ghana 5th Kronti ne Akwamu lecture on ‘The Challenges to Conducting Free and Fair Elections in Emerging African Democracies: The Case of Ghana.’, Dr Afari-Gyan stated in response to a question by this author, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute: “The Commission is considering biometric registration of voters but as for biometric voting, I don't think the country is ready for it. If we do, I believe some people will start asking whether the Castle has not programmed the machines with some figures to their advantage.”
Again, on Wednesday, 18 March, 2009, Dr. Afari-Gyan announced on radio that a completely new voter registration exercise will take place to compile a new credible database for the 2012 general elections. The exercise will employ the best of technologies, including the use of biometric registration to beat fraudsters who attempt to exploit the voting exercise to their advantage. Dr. Afari-Gyan was the guest of Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show. Conceding that Ghana was lagging behind in the use of technologies in the electoral process, he said any new improvements in the system will have to include the best technologies, including biometric systems that will beat the fraudsters. See and listen via: http://news.myjoyonline.com/politics/200903/27689.asp.
We cannot, as a nation, dismiss without the benefit of a full domestic interrogation the viability of electronic voting. Just as allegations such as the EC conspiring with the incumbent government in 2008 to rig the elections did not perturb the Commission, so should we not allow predictable allegations such as “the Castle programming the machines” to stop us from considering the suitability of that option. Ghana has developed a matured tradition of post-elections self-assessment, which often leads to the introduction of enhanced security features to the electoral system, for example, transparent ballot boxes in 1996, and photo voter IDs in 2000. Surely, this is not the time to sidestep that tradition.
Though, there is talk of biometric voter registration or electronic voting as possibly the way forward, this prospect is being allowed to be easily shot down by the cynics because we are yet to devote enough intellectual resources to interrogate seriously this modern system of voting and its viability in Ghana. The fundamental question to be addressed before 2012 is how do we protect the integrity of the elections from the point of voter registration to the moment of winner certification? Linked to this is the question, what are the factors that influence public confidence in elections?
In 2008, both the rulling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), at the time, accused each other of encouraging non-citizens, ghost names, as well as underage Ghanaians to register ahead of the elections. Speculations about and evidence of a bloated voter register went very far to undermine the credibility of the December vote. The possibility of a bloated register also fed steroids to the macho men of electoral fraud and violence, since a bloated voter register allows the opportunity to add up numbers and intimidate your opponents, ironically even as a defence strategy against an assumed threat of fraud against the intimidator’s political party.
In the words of Dr. Afari Gyan concerning Ghana’s 2008 voters’ register:
“If our population is indeed 22 million, then perhaps 13 million people on our register would be statistically unacceptable by world standards. If that is the case, then it may mean that there is something wrong with our register.”
Political parties exploited public admission and knowledge of a bloated voter register to feed their fears and trumpet allegations that there was a plot by a particular party or between an opposing party and electoral officers to rig the December polls. This gained legitimacy in the minds of several Ghanaians, including, perhaps, most dangerously some members in the security agencies. Thus, the ‘battlefield’ for a possible rejection of the results had been provided. We cannot as a nation continue with the undemocratic phenomenon where the balance of victory in our elections will be determined by how well a political party thinks it can manipulate results in its electoral strongholds.
The EC is yet to explain to Ghanaians how come after four previous presidential elections, 2008 registered the highest number of spoilt ballots (in both percentages and actual numbers), when the same system was used last year. With an election that less than 40,000 votes decided who swore the presidential oath on January 7, having over 200,000 spoilt ballots deserves more than a cursory comment. There is no such thing anywhere in the world as perfect election arrangement, but it has been shown elsewhere that electronic voting stops ballot box stuffing, ballot box theft and destruction, multiple voting, reduces spoilt ballots to zero, and saves the EC in printing, storage, staff costs, etc. Some jurisdictions have even maintained paper ballot in addition to electronic voting to serve as a counter-check in case of a dispute, thereby responding adequately to the very concerns raised by Mr. Kanga above. It is worth examining all the various options of e-voting, their security and usability features and their cost-benefit dimensions in order to make a responsible and informed decision on the way forward for Ghana’s electoral process.
In Ghana’s volatile and charged partisan political environment, it is extremely important that we have a trusted election process, where elections will be regarded as reasonably fair, even by the losing side. If India, with more illiterates than the entire population of Ghana, with 714 million registered voters, 828,000 polling stations, and many polling stations in areas with no electricity, could deploy one million battery-powered Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for an election with more than 100 political parties and not register any notable voice of protest, then Ghana would do herself a great disservice by refusing to examine constructively the viability of an electronic electoral process.
The spectre of hundreds of very angry young men wielding cutlasses at the vicinity of the EC headquarters last December should at least remind us of how close Ghana got to become another Kenya instead of the black star of hope that it is today that Africa can indeed hold ‘normal’ general elections. The platform on which Ghana has been receiving global applause for its performance at the theatre of elections is fragile. We need not allow our weaknesses to be deafened by the din of global praise. We must get to work now and tighten the nuts and bolts of our electoral process. E-voting may well turn out to be the best way to securing the future of Africa’s fledgling democracies and, if so, Ghana should not miss this self-serving opportunity to blaze once again the continental trail. Democracy must succeed in Ghana and biometric registration and e-voting may well provide us with the warranty for democracy’s enduring success.
The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, a liberal think tank.
Contact: gabby@danquahinstitute.org
Friday, October 2, 2009
Who owns Barclays account in Geneva?
Qanawu Gabby
By Thursday, August 16, 2007 the identity of a private account in Geneva, Switzerland in which about $1.7 million was transferred as bribe monies, was expected to be disclosed. This was shifted to December, and finally it seemed to us that the multi-million dollar settlement that Scancem's lawyer said could be the out-of-court settlement went through.
On the orders of Norway's Supreme Court, details of the Swiss account were supposed to be provided.
This should have helped in the appeal case that December, in which a former top employee of Scancem was accused of stealing more than $4 million allegedly meant as bribe monies to top Ghanaian personalities, namely PV Obeng and former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
In 2000, a report by Scancem International ANS, led by its in-house lawyer, Arne-Jørg Selen, discovered that an account at Unibank, Luxembourg, which all along they believed belonged to P V Obeng did in fact belong to one of the men who was responsible for putting money into that account, Tor Egil Kjelsaas, who was head of Scancem's cement operations in Africa, mainly Ghana and Togo. The other man was Per Jacobsen, head of finance, Scancem.
About $2.5 million had gone into that account in five years, from 1993 to 1998. Within the same period, another account held at Barclays, Geneva, Switzerland had received from Scancem another $1.7m.
This account, the Scancem bosses believed belonged to Ghana’s first lady at the time, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
About seven years ago, the Hibis Group, a UK-based anti-fraud and anti-corruption systems firm, with a branch on Drammensveien 39, Oslo, Norway, found out for Scancem that the Unibank account was in the name of Mr Kjelsaas. But, the investigators drew a blank on the Barclays account, allegedly in the name of Mrs Rawlings.
Mr Kjelsaas’ explanation to Scancem’s internal investigators, as contained in pleadings before a Norwegian District Court last year, was that the account was in his name "because he did not want to put the recipients at risk."
A similar investigation had been done by the old bosses of Scancem (before the Norwegians sold it to German firm HeidelbergCement in 1999) under Cato Holmsen, director of administration at the time.
Holmsem concluded in his report of January 2000 that in spite of some glaring irregularities with the operations of the slush funds, he could find no evidence that Kjelsaas misappropriated the bribery monies.
He had spoken to two of the intended recipients, a Togolese Minister of Industry Payadowa Boukpessi (and later Finance Minister), who was summoned to Oslo by Scancem and Ghana’s PV Obeng and had become convinced that at least those two received the bribes, if not all, as intended.
In court, however, Kjelsaas, who did not even attend proceedings, refused to cooperate and would not make available bank statements of the Unibank Bank account.
He, however, had strong witnesses in the persons of former executives of Scancem, including the highly respected Gerhard Heiberg, a former CEO and Chairman of Aker (former owners of Scancem), Per Jacobsen and Tor Nygaard to rally to his defence that indeed Scancem operated such a system of bribing top government officials and that the monies did get to their intended recipients through a system which operated on trust.
On the Barclays account, though, the court had absolutely nothing to go on.
Last June, the Norwegian Supreme Court decided to get to the bottom of it. Now it is left with the ailing 69-year-old Mr Kjelsaas to comply.
Between 1996 and 1998, a total sum of about $1.7m was paid into two private accounts, one at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Zurich and another at Citibank, Geneva. The transfers were marked either "Consultant General" or "Finders Fee".
Scancem officials made these payments to facilitate their bid at the time to obtain controlling shares in Cimtogo, the state-owned Togolese cement company.
The man who made that deal possible was the country’s Industry Minister, Payadowa Boukpessi. According to Scancem’s own internal investigation, he confirmed later to Holmsen, when he was invited to Oslo to assist with the investigation, that he received the payments as scheduled.
Interestingly, Scancem was around the same time in the process of buying more and more shares in Ghacem. In 1992, Government of Ghana owned 75% of Ghacem, by 1999, it had sold off all its stake in the company to the Norwegians.
The District Court of Norway in its judgment of last September held that Scancem knew who the monies were supposed to go to, and the purpose of the internal enquiry was to find out whether the moneys went to Kjelsaas.
In the court proceedings, Kjelsaas’s case was that the name the Unibank account was in was immaterial to the dispute. He was merely using an old account he had himself, as this was easiest. It was further argued that it was difficult for many recipients in Africa to open accounts abroad.
Kjelsaas was said to have withdrawn cash in London or Luxembourg and passed it on to the correct recipients. His witnesses contended that Kjelsaas took the money to Africa by air.
The defendant’s case was that it was useful for the account to be in his name when taking cash out. Little was said or known about the Barclays account, however.
Court testimonies given and evidence before the court showed that Scancem paid amounts to other accounts during this period which were controlled by African recipients.
Tor Nygaard, who headed Scancem operations in Ghana, for a long time, told the court that Scancem also paid out amounts in cash locally to a number of recipients in Ghana, usually in envelopes and that the person who undertook this exercise was a top Ghanaian executive at Ghacem, Accra at the time.
From 1993 to 1998, according to Scancem’s internal probe, a total amount of $1,690,000 was paid into the Barclays account in Geneva. $2,460,00 went into the Unibank account.
A very senior source at Scancem told me and Kweku Baako in 2007 that the company was baffled by the fact that more money went into the Unibank account than the Barclays account, and this became even more so after Mr Obeng resigned as top presidential staffer in December 1996.
He told us (captured on audio tape) that Scancem’s case was not about Mr and Mrs Rawlings or PV Obeng. The company accepts that some monies were certainly paid to top government officials in Ghana, and this may run into double the $4.1m being claimed back from Mr Kjelsaas.
"What we are saying is that this [$4.1m] is the amount that we have serious reasons to believe never really got to them but was taken by Kjelsaas."
When he was further questioned about the reliability of the evidence given by Mr Heiberg, the Scancem source said, "We don’t put enough weight on his evidence because these things happened after him, I believe. It was just a situation of the old bosses of Scancem coming to defend one of their own. That’s how we saw it."
He further stated that the German owners who took over Scancem in 1999 also intend with this trial to send a clear message that they "disapprove of the bribery scheme that was operated by the former owners of Scancem."
As was captured in the report filed for Dagens Naerinsgliv on April 21-22, "In the middle of the 1990s, there were two anonymous bank accounts in Unibank SA in Luxembourg and Barclays SA in Geneva in Switzerland which were earmarked 'Ghana’, and substantial amount was being paid in dollars to the said accounts from SCANCEM’s headquarters in Oslo."
As judge Trine Standal observed in the ruling, "Scancem itself established a system of bribery and corruption. The system required payments to be untraceable. The system can only be based on trust, and producing evidence in retrospect can be difficult. Kjelsaas finds it hard to prove he is innocent, and Scancem has a problem proving him guilty."
The decision by the Supreme Court of Norway to compel full disclosure of the Barclays account is a reflection of the court’s frustration: The trial judge held, "Tor Egil Kjelsaas has made absolutely no contribution to clarifying the matter, or to undermine Scancem International ANS’s claims against him.
":Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s health has deteriorated, admittedly, but he could have produced account statements, company documents etc. Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s failure to assist in clarifying matters affects how the Court sees the evidence."
Information reaching me by September 2007 was that Scancem might still reach some form of settlement with Kjelsaas before the December appeal. So, it seems it has come to pass?
By Thursday, August 16, 2007 the identity of a private account in Geneva, Switzerland in which about $1.7 million was transferred as bribe monies, was expected to be disclosed. This was shifted to December, and finally it seemed to us that the multi-million dollar settlement that Scancem's lawyer said could be the out-of-court settlement went through.
On the orders of Norway's Supreme Court, details of the Swiss account were supposed to be provided.
This should have helped in the appeal case that December, in which a former top employee of Scancem was accused of stealing more than $4 million allegedly meant as bribe monies to top Ghanaian personalities, namely PV Obeng and former President Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
In 2000, a report by Scancem International ANS, led by its in-house lawyer, Arne-Jørg Selen, discovered that an account at Unibank, Luxembourg, which all along they believed belonged to P V Obeng did in fact belong to one of the men who was responsible for putting money into that account, Tor Egil Kjelsaas, who was head of Scancem's cement operations in Africa, mainly Ghana and Togo. The other man was Per Jacobsen, head of finance, Scancem.
About $2.5 million had gone into that account in five years, from 1993 to 1998. Within the same period, another account held at Barclays, Geneva, Switzerland had received from Scancem another $1.7m.
This account, the Scancem bosses believed belonged to Ghana’s first lady at the time, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings.
About seven years ago, the Hibis Group, a UK-based anti-fraud and anti-corruption systems firm, with a branch on Drammensveien 39, Oslo, Norway, found out for Scancem that the Unibank account was in the name of Mr Kjelsaas. But, the investigators drew a blank on the Barclays account, allegedly in the name of Mrs Rawlings.
Mr Kjelsaas’ explanation to Scancem’s internal investigators, as contained in pleadings before a Norwegian District Court last year, was that the account was in his name "because he did not want to put the recipients at risk."
A similar investigation had been done by the old bosses of Scancem (before the Norwegians sold it to German firm HeidelbergCement in 1999) under Cato Holmsen, director of administration at the time.
Holmsem concluded in his report of January 2000 that in spite of some glaring irregularities with the operations of the slush funds, he could find no evidence that Kjelsaas misappropriated the bribery monies.
He had spoken to two of the intended recipients, a Togolese Minister of Industry Payadowa Boukpessi (and later Finance Minister), who was summoned to Oslo by Scancem and Ghana’s PV Obeng and had become convinced that at least those two received the bribes, if not all, as intended.
In court, however, Kjelsaas, who did not even attend proceedings, refused to cooperate and would not make available bank statements of the Unibank Bank account.
He, however, had strong witnesses in the persons of former executives of Scancem, including the highly respected Gerhard Heiberg, a former CEO and Chairman of Aker (former owners of Scancem), Per Jacobsen and Tor Nygaard to rally to his defence that indeed Scancem operated such a system of bribing top government officials and that the monies did get to their intended recipients through a system which operated on trust.
On the Barclays account, though, the court had absolutely nothing to go on.
Last June, the Norwegian Supreme Court decided to get to the bottom of it. Now it is left with the ailing 69-year-old Mr Kjelsaas to comply.
Between 1996 and 1998, a total sum of about $1.7m was paid into two private accounts, one at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Zurich and another at Citibank, Geneva. The transfers were marked either "Consultant General" or "Finders Fee".
Scancem officials made these payments to facilitate their bid at the time to obtain controlling shares in Cimtogo, the state-owned Togolese cement company.
The man who made that deal possible was the country’s Industry Minister, Payadowa Boukpessi. According to Scancem’s own internal investigation, he confirmed later to Holmsen, when he was invited to Oslo to assist with the investigation, that he received the payments as scheduled.
Interestingly, Scancem was around the same time in the process of buying more and more shares in Ghacem. In 1992, Government of Ghana owned 75% of Ghacem, by 1999, it had sold off all its stake in the company to the Norwegians.
The District Court of Norway in its judgment of last September held that Scancem knew who the monies were supposed to go to, and the purpose of the internal enquiry was to find out whether the moneys went to Kjelsaas.
In the court proceedings, Kjelsaas’s case was that the name the Unibank account was in was immaterial to the dispute. He was merely using an old account he had himself, as this was easiest. It was further argued that it was difficult for many recipients in Africa to open accounts abroad.
Kjelsaas was said to have withdrawn cash in London or Luxembourg and passed it on to the correct recipients. His witnesses contended that Kjelsaas took the money to Africa by air.
The defendant’s case was that it was useful for the account to be in his name when taking cash out. Little was said or known about the Barclays account, however.
Court testimonies given and evidence before the court showed that Scancem paid amounts to other accounts during this period which were controlled by African recipients.
Tor Nygaard, who headed Scancem operations in Ghana, for a long time, told the court that Scancem also paid out amounts in cash locally to a number of recipients in Ghana, usually in envelopes and that the person who undertook this exercise was a top Ghanaian executive at Ghacem, Accra at the time.
From 1993 to 1998, according to Scancem’s internal probe, a total amount of $1,690,000 was paid into the Barclays account in Geneva. $2,460,00 went into the Unibank account.
A very senior source at Scancem told me and Kweku Baako in 2007 that the company was baffled by the fact that more money went into the Unibank account than the Barclays account, and this became even more so after Mr Obeng resigned as top presidential staffer in December 1996.
He told us (captured on audio tape) that Scancem’s case was not about Mr and Mrs Rawlings or PV Obeng. The company accepts that some monies were certainly paid to top government officials in Ghana, and this may run into double the $4.1m being claimed back from Mr Kjelsaas.
"What we are saying is that this [$4.1m] is the amount that we have serious reasons to believe never really got to them but was taken by Kjelsaas."
When he was further questioned about the reliability of the evidence given by Mr Heiberg, the Scancem source said, "We don’t put enough weight on his evidence because these things happened after him, I believe. It was just a situation of the old bosses of Scancem coming to defend one of their own. That’s how we saw it."
He further stated that the German owners who took over Scancem in 1999 also intend with this trial to send a clear message that they "disapprove of the bribery scheme that was operated by the former owners of Scancem."
As was captured in the report filed for Dagens Naerinsgliv on April 21-22, "In the middle of the 1990s, there were two anonymous bank accounts in Unibank SA in Luxembourg and Barclays SA in Geneva in Switzerland which were earmarked 'Ghana’, and substantial amount was being paid in dollars to the said accounts from SCANCEM’s headquarters in Oslo."
As judge Trine Standal observed in the ruling, "Scancem itself established a system of bribery and corruption. The system required payments to be untraceable. The system can only be based on trust, and producing evidence in retrospect can be difficult. Kjelsaas finds it hard to prove he is innocent, and Scancem has a problem proving him guilty."
The decision by the Supreme Court of Norway to compel full disclosure of the Barclays account is a reflection of the court’s frustration: The trial judge held, "Tor Egil Kjelsaas has made absolutely no contribution to clarifying the matter, or to undermine Scancem International ANS’s claims against him.
":Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s health has deteriorated, admittedly, but he could have produced account statements, company documents etc. Tor Egil Kjelsaas’s failure to assist in clarifying matters affects how the Court sees the evidence."
Information reaching me by September 2007 was that Scancem might still reach some form of settlement with Kjelsaas before the December appeal. So, it seems it has come to pass?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Will JJ and Spio battle Mills and John for 2012?
Qanawu Gabby (updated 7pm Sept 29)
Plenty of talk within the circles of the New Patriotic Party about
factionalism within the main opposition party. There are the few who
wish to believe that there are no camps in the NPP and the many who
admit there are camps. More worrying for party analysts is the growing
worry among the rank and file and sympathisers that factionalism could
see once again defeat snapped from the jaws of the National Democratic
Congress by the NPP.
But, if those involved in the competition-driven NPP factionalism mean
well for the party then the NPP has very little to worry about.
Polling station officers’ elections in first week of October;
constituency and regional officers’ contests follow in October and
November, respectively. Once national officers are chosen in December,
the stage is set for the presidential candidate to be chosen,
preferably in the first half of 2010. This leaves NPP until the end of
2010 to sort out all major differences, bond together behind the
nominated leaders and set clear guidelines and mechanisms to ensure a
harmonious parliamentary primaries in 2011/12.
But, the potential for deep-wounding factionalism appears more
apparent in the ruling party than the NPP. I made this point before
September (see maiden edition of The Thunder) and a couple of articles
recently support this view. First of all, power has its obvious way of
making competition for positions seem like a one-off race for limited
accommodation in heaven. Secondly, there are high voltage live fault
lines in the NDC that are likely to experience a power surge in 2012.
Former President Jerry John Rawlings has already given notice that
President John Mills and Vice John Mahama are presiding over borrowed
time, with a grace period shorter than hoped. In the eyes of the NDC
founder and some notable players, President Mills is fast losing his
credit worthiness. President Rawlings can be expected to seriously
consider sponsoring a candidate in 2012 against President Mills. The
former President can be inspired by his own estimation of the support
he enjoys among the grassroots of the party and he has cleverly
crafted his outbursts with the kind of populism that resonates with
the foot-soldiers of the party.
Yet, the NDC founder is likely to face a dilemma similar to what he
faced in 2006. He did not see Prof Mills then as necessarily the best
man to lead the NDC. But President Rawlings was checked by sheer
ground reality: Prof Mills had ridden on the popularity horse of
President Rawlings to have become mightily popular and well-marketed;
to attempt to mount a public challenge against him could seriously
compromise your own hallowed standing in the party you created. So,
Rawlings obediently dropped his two hands in his damerifa.
On the face of it, it seems even more difficult now to mount any
credible challenge against Mills, surely? But, there are strong hints
that Rawlings may be joining up with the man who came second to Mills
in the 2006 flagbearership race to mount an all-out war to get Mills
out. In his hard-hitting article in the September 18 and Wednesday 23
September, 2009 editions of the Daily Graphic, Ekwow Spio Garbrah
spoke boldly as if to say he has pitched camp with Rawlings. Spio
accuses the President being too slow and putting the party's fortunes
in 2012 at risk barely 9 months after taking over. Like Rawlings'
criticisms of Mills, Spio crafted his piece to appeal to the ordinary
members of the party, who are still queuing up for their modest ration
of the better Ghana. They are also crying out for some Mabeys (free
cash), if not jobs.
His warning that leading NDC members would not sit by and watch Mills
return the NDC into opposition cannot be ignored.
“Should leading NDC members stay quietly on the sidelines even if we
can see that if matters continue as they are [NDC] would lose power in
2012? Are we the kind of passengers who sit passively in a bus until
we die in an accident even when we realise that the bus is not being
driven well?” he says. Spio concludes that Mills is driving the NDC
juggernaut into an electoral accident in 2012.
Spio has not been able to come to terms with Mills vindictiveness
against him as much as Mills has never come to terms with what he sees
as Spio's betrayal on the issue of Mills' health. If Spio cannot
convince coach Mills to select him then he's going straight to the
party's shareholders to convince them to change the coach for 2012 and
hopefully make him the coach.
But, should Rawlings and Spio team up to contest Mills, that would be
an all-out war. The NDC should do all that it can to avoid that. Could
the party recover from that kind of intra-political brawl in time to
face the NPP in 2012? I doubt it.
It is not that Rawlings and Spio would win such a fight. Highly
unlikely. Even if Rawlings and Spio are really serious about meeting
Mills head to head together Mills is likely to triumph because the
sensible people in the party would want to stick to driver Mills, even
if he's accident prone. However, Mills would only refuse to run and
use his health as an excuse if his popularity were to dip so low even
beneath the radar of self-deceit. Performing anywhere near fair is
enough to get him to believe he has done mightily well and can do more
and so continue, regardless of any objective advice he's likely to
get.
Again, waiting in the wings is Vice President John Mahama. John is
cleverly building his support base and, one can expect, his war chest,
as well. But, only as a standby strategy. He's not one to rock the
boat so long as the leakage may be deceptively minor.
There is already talk of the Ahwois preparing their brother Kwesi
Ahwoi as a probable candidate. His work as Minister of Agriculture,
with the biggest budget increase this year, allows him to go down on
the ground and do some real work for nation, party and ambition. But,
the Ahwois know too well that their best bet is to keep Mills well and
on for a second term. And, even if it means keeping Mills' popularity
on a life-support machine they would do so to make him run and
therefore maintain their power base. If Spio was in any doubt about
that then Ato Ahwoi's reply should have done some excellent valeting
on Spio's mind.
John Mahama will only run should his boss not. Mills would not have
done enough in 2012 to be contend with his legacy and is likely to be
persuaded by post-2012 oil prospects to want to have another go at a
better Ghana.
The best way the NDC can patch up internal cracks and create a
semblance of party unity is to maintain Mills. President Mills running
effectively stops any serious challenge or acrimonious succession
contest among the three or so power camps within the party. Unlike the
NPP, the NDC would have less than 12 months to patch up before the
2012 general elections.
One of the biggest Hollywood movie hits in 2008 was the ‘Curious Case
of Benjamin Button’. It was about a person who was born already as an
old man in his 80s and grew backward, getting younger until his aged
wife had to carry him as a baby in her arms ‘til death did them part.
For those who think the better Ghana is just a bitter Ghana and have
soon given up hope, they should just take a look at President John
Evans Atta Mills.
He is looking a lot healthier than he did just 9 months ago. He is
getting better. The better Ghana has started with him and we all hope
it may soon trickle down to the rest of Ghanaians.
For those who think President Mills is just a one term head of state,
they should begin to revise their notes. Well, it is said that he
managed to convince John Mahama, who was having daydreams about moving
to South Africa, that the younger and healthier looking man should
join the Mills 2008 ticket and that Mills would pass the baton on to
him after just one term. It is also said that John Mahama then
convinced Hannah Tetteh to retire from her early retirement from
active politics to join him and maybe the two of them could form a
north-south, man-woman dream ticket for 2012.
For those who feared the health of candidate Mills Not only is
President Mills looking every bit a President in good shape, what
candidates promise and what presidents think once they get hit by the
power bug are as compatible as power and hunger. To reiterate, beyond
that President Mills is likely to find out at the end of his four-year
term that he has not delivered anything near what he promised.
The economic indicators and forecasts are not helpful to his wishful
legacy. It is predicted that at least 10 million Ghanaians will get
poorer in the next two years than they were in December 2008, with
inflation depleting their purchasing power. This is expected,
according to World Bank figures, to push half a million more Ghanaians
below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.
President Mills knows he can’t do much to turn the tide of economic
stagnation in four years. He needs more than what the IMF and World
Bank are offering yet he has signed up to the kind of conditionalities
that seriously limits his fiscal manoeuvrability. The IMF may not even
allow him to raise oil bonds next year on the capital market, since
that would be considered non-concessionary. There are even
nonconcessionary issues today about moves by Ecobank and Stanchart to
raise money for the Tema Oil Refinery to pay off some of the debt owed
to Ghana Commercial Bank.
With no serious revenue from oil expected to trickle into state
coffers before 2013, President Mills is bound to feel another four
years should do the trick. The question is, would JJ and Spio share
that position enough not to upset Mills' position?
Plenty of talk within the circles of the New Patriotic Party about
factionalism within the main opposition party. There are the few who
wish to believe that there are no camps in the NPP and the many who
admit there are camps. More worrying for party analysts is the growing
worry among the rank and file and sympathisers that factionalism could
see once again defeat snapped from the jaws of the National Democratic
Congress by the NPP.
But, if those involved in the competition-driven NPP factionalism mean
well for the party then the NPP has very little to worry about.
Polling station officers’ elections in first week of October;
constituency and regional officers’ contests follow in October and
November, respectively. Once national officers are chosen in December,
the stage is set for the presidential candidate to be chosen,
preferably in the first half of 2010. This leaves NPP until the end of
2010 to sort out all major differences, bond together behind the
nominated leaders and set clear guidelines and mechanisms to ensure a
harmonious parliamentary primaries in 2011/12.
But, the potential for deep-wounding factionalism appears more
apparent in the ruling party than the NPP. I made this point before
September (see maiden edition of The Thunder) and a couple of articles
recently support this view. First of all, power has its obvious way of
making competition for positions seem like a one-off race for limited
accommodation in heaven. Secondly, there are high voltage live fault
lines in the NDC that are likely to experience a power surge in 2012.
Former President Jerry John Rawlings has already given notice that
President John Mills and Vice John Mahama are presiding over borrowed
time, with a grace period shorter than hoped. In the eyes of the NDC
founder and some notable players, President Mills is fast losing his
credit worthiness. President Rawlings can be expected to seriously
consider sponsoring a candidate in 2012 against President Mills. The
former President can be inspired by his own estimation of the support
he enjoys among the grassroots of the party and he has cleverly
crafted his outbursts with the kind of populism that resonates with
the foot-soldiers of the party.
Yet, the NDC founder is likely to face a dilemma similar to what he
faced in 2006. He did not see Prof Mills then as necessarily the best
man to lead the NDC. But President Rawlings was checked by sheer
ground reality: Prof Mills had ridden on the popularity horse of
President Rawlings to have become mightily popular and well-marketed;
to attempt to mount a public challenge against him could seriously
compromise your own hallowed standing in the party you created. So,
Rawlings obediently dropped his two hands in his damerifa.
On the face of it, it seems even more difficult now to mount any
credible challenge against Mills, surely? But, there are strong hints
that Rawlings may be joining up with the man who came second to Mills
in the 2006 flagbearership race to mount an all-out war to get Mills
out. In his hard-hitting article in the September 18 and Wednesday 23
September, 2009 editions of the Daily Graphic, Ekwow Spio Garbrah
spoke boldly as if to say he has pitched camp with Rawlings. Spio
accuses the President being too slow and putting the party's fortunes
in 2012 at risk barely 9 months after taking over. Like Rawlings'
criticisms of Mills, Spio crafted his piece to appeal to the ordinary
members of the party, who are still queuing up for their modest ration
of the better Ghana. They are also crying out for some Mabeys (free
cash), if not jobs.
His warning that leading NDC members would not sit by and watch Mills
return the NDC into opposition cannot be ignored.
“Should leading NDC members stay quietly on the sidelines even if we
can see that if matters continue as they are [NDC] would lose power in
2012? Are we the kind of passengers who sit passively in a bus until
we die in an accident even when we realise that the bus is not being
driven well?” he says. Spio concludes that Mills is driving the NDC
juggernaut into an electoral accident in 2012.
Spio has not been able to come to terms with Mills vindictiveness
against him as much as Mills has never come to terms with what he sees
as Spio's betrayal on the issue of Mills' health. If Spio cannot
convince coach Mills to select him then he's going straight to the
party's shareholders to convince them to change the coach for 2012 and
hopefully make him the coach.
But, should Rawlings and Spio team up to contest Mills, that would be
an all-out war. The NDC should do all that it can to avoid that. Could
the party recover from that kind of intra-political brawl in time to
face the NPP in 2012? I doubt it.
It is not that Rawlings and Spio would win such a fight. Highly
unlikely. Even if Rawlings and Spio are really serious about meeting
Mills head to head together Mills is likely to triumph because the
sensible people in the party would want to stick to driver Mills, even
if he's accident prone. However, Mills would only refuse to run and
use his health as an excuse if his popularity were to dip so low even
beneath the radar of self-deceit. Performing anywhere near fair is
enough to get him to believe he has done mightily well and can do more
and so continue, regardless of any objective advice he's likely to
get.
Again, waiting in the wings is Vice President John Mahama. John is
cleverly building his support base and, one can expect, his war chest,
as well. But, only as a standby strategy. He's not one to rock the
boat so long as the leakage may be deceptively minor.
There is already talk of the Ahwois preparing their brother Kwesi
Ahwoi as a probable candidate. His work as Minister of Agriculture,
with the biggest budget increase this year, allows him to go down on
the ground and do some real work for nation, party and ambition. But,
the Ahwois know too well that their best bet is to keep Mills well and
on for a second term. And, even if it means keeping Mills' popularity
on a life-support machine they would do so to make him run and
therefore maintain their power base. If Spio was in any doubt about
that then Ato Ahwoi's reply should have done some excellent valeting
on Spio's mind.
John Mahama will only run should his boss not. Mills would not have
done enough in 2012 to be contend with his legacy and is likely to be
persuaded by post-2012 oil prospects to want to have another go at a
better Ghana.
The best way the NDC can patch up internal cracks and create a
semblance of party unity is to maintain Mills. President Mills running
effectively stops any serious challenge or acrimonious succession
contest among the three or so power camps within the party. Unlike the
NPP, the NDC would have less than 12 months to patch up before the
2012 general elections.
One of the biggest Hollywood movie hits in 2008 was the ‘Curious Case
of Benjamin Button’. It was about a person who was born already as an
old man in his 80s and grew backward, getting younger until his aged
wife had to carry him as a baby in her arms ‘til death did them part.
For those who think the better Ghana is just a bitter Ghana and have
soon given up hope, they should just take a look at President John
Evans Atta Mills.
He is looking a lot healthier than he did just 9 months ago. He is
getting better. The better Ghana has started with him and we all hope
it may soon trickle down to the rest of Ghanaians.
For those who think President Mills is just a one term head of state,
they should begin to revise their notes. Well, it is said that he
managed to convince John Mahama, who was having daydreams about moving
to South Africa, that the younger and healthier looking man should
join the Mills 2008 ticket and that Mills would pass the baton on to
him after just one term. It is also said that John Mahama then
convinced Hannah Tetteh to retire from her early retirement from
active politics to join him and maybe the two of them could form a
north-south, man-woman dream ticket for 2012.
For those who feared the health of candidate Mills Not only is
President Mills looking every bit a President in good shape, what
candidates promise and what presidents think once they get hit by the
power bug are as compatible as power and hunger. To reiterate, beyond
that President Mills is likely to find out at the end of his four-year
term that he has not delivered anything near what he promised.
The economic indicators and forecasts are not helpful to his wishful
legacy. It is predicted that at least 10 million Ghanaians will get
poorer in the next two years than they were in December 2008, with
inflation depleting their purchasing power. This is expected,
according to World Bank figures, to push half a million more Ghanaians
below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.
President Mills knows he can’t do much to turn the tide of economic
stagnation in four years. He needs more than what the IMF and World
Bank are offering yet he has signed up to the kind of conditionalities
that seriously limits his fiscal manoeuvrability. The IMF may not even
allow him to raise oil bonds next year on the capital market, since
that would be considered non-concessionary. There are even
nonconcessionary issues today about moves by Ecobank and Stanchart to
raise money for the Tema Oil Refinery to pay off some of the debt owed
to Ghana Commercial Bank.
With no serious revenue from oil expected to trickle into state
coffers before 2013, President Mills is bound to feel another four
years should do the trick. The question is, would JJ and Spio share
that position enough not to upset Mills' position?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Will JJ and Spio battle Mills and John for 2012?
There is talk and more talk in Kumasi and elsewhere within circles of the New Patriotic Party about factionalism within the opposition party. There are the few who say there are no camps in the NPP and the many who admit there are camps. More worrying for party analysts is the growing worry among the rank and file and sympathisers that factionalism could see once again defeat snapped from the jaws of the National Democratic Congress by the NPP.
But, if those involved in the competition-driven factionalism mean well for the party then the NPP has very little to worry about. Poling station officers’ elections in first week of October; constituency and regional officers’ contests follow in October and November, respectively. Once national officers are chosen in December, the stage is set for the presidential candidate to be chosen in the first half of 2011. This leaves NPP until the end of 2011 to sort out all major differences and set clear guidelines and mechanisms to ensure a harmonious parliamentary primaries in 2011/12.
But, the potential for deep-wounding factionalism appears more apparent in the ruling party than the NPP. First of all, power has its obvious way of making competition for positions seem like a one-off race for limited accommodation in heaven. Secondly, there are high voltage live fault lines in the NDC that are likely to experience a power surge in 2012.
Former President Jerry Rawlings has already given notice that President Mills is presiding over borrowed time. President Rawlings can be expected to seriously consider sponsoring a candidate in 2012 against President Mills. The former President can be inspired by his own estimation of the support he enjoys among the grassroots of the party.
But, the NDC founder is likely to face a dilemma similar to what he faced in 2006. He did not see Prof Mills at that time as the best man to lead the NDC. But President Rawlings was checked by sheer ground reality: Prof Mills was mightily popular and well-marketed; to attempt to mount a public challenge against him could seriously compromise your own hallowed standing in the party you created.
For 2012, surely, Rawlings could only seriously think about sponsoring? But, there are strong hints that Rawlings may be joining up with the man who came second to Mills in the 2006 flagbearership race to mount an all-out war to get Mills out. In a hardhitting article in the Friday, September 18, 2009 edition of the Daily Graphic, Ekkwow Spio Garbrah spoke boldly as if to say he has pitched camp with Rawlings. Spio accuses the President being too slow and putting the party's fortunes in 2012 at risk barely 9 months after taking over. Like Rawlings' criticisms of Mills, Spio crafted his piece to appeal to the ordinary members of the party, who are still queuing up for their modest ration of the better Ghana.
His warning that leading NDC members would not sit by and watch Mills return the NDC cannot be ignored.
“Should leading NDC members stay quietly on the sidelines even if we can see that if matters continue as they are [NDC] would lose power in 2012? Are we the kind of passengers who sit passively in a bus until we die in an accident even when we realise that the bus is not being driven well?” he says, concluding that Mills is driving the NDFC juggernaut into an electoral accident in 2012.
But, should Rawlings and Spio team up to contest Mills, there would be an all-out war. And, could the party recover from that in time to face the NPP? I doubt it. Even if Rawlings and Spio are really serious about meeting Mills head to head together Mills is likely to triumph. But Mills would only refuse to run and use his health as an excuse if his popularity were to dip so low even beneath the radar of self-deceit. Performing anywhere near fair is enough to get him to believe he has done mightily well and can do more and so continue, regardless of any objective advice from any expert.
Again, waiting in the wings is Vice President John Mahama. There is already talk of the Ahwois preparing their brother Kwesi Ahwoi as a probable candidate. His work as Minister of Agriculture, with the biggest budget increase this year, allows him to go down on the ground and do some real work for nation, party and ambition. But, the Ahwois know too well that their best bet is to keep Mills well and on for a second term.
John Mahama will only run should his boss not.
The best way the NDC can patch up internal cracks and create a semblance of party unity is to maintain Mills. President Mills running effectively stops any serious challenge or acrimonious succession contest among the three or so power camps within the party. Unlike the NPP, the NDC would have less than 12 months to patch up before the 2012 general elections.
One of the biggest Hollywood movie hits in 2008 was the ‘Curious Case of Benjamin Button’. It was about a person who was born already as an old man in his 80s and grew backward, getting younger until his aged wife had to carry him as a baby in her arms ‘til death did them part.
For those who think the better Ghana is just a bitter Ghana and have soon given up hope, they should just take a look at President John Evans Atta Mills.
He is looking a lot healthier than he did just 9 months ago. He is getting better. The better Ghana has started with him and we all hope it may soon trickle down to the rest of Ghanaians.
For those who think President Mills is just a one term head of state, they should begin to revise their notes. Well, it is said that he managed to convince John Mahama, who was having daydreams about moving to South Africa, that the younger and healthier looking man should join the Mills 2008 ticket and that Mills would pass the baton on to him after just one term. It is also said that John Mahama then convinced Hannah Tetteh to retire from her early retirement from active politics to join him and maybe the two of them could form a north-south, man-woman dream ticket for 2012.
For those who feared the health of candidate Mills Not only is President Mills looking every bit a President in good shape, what candidates promise and what presidents think once they get hit by the power bug are as compatible as power and hunger. Beyond that President Mills is likely to find out at the end of his four-year term that he has not delivered anything near what he promised.
The economic indicators and forecasts are not helpful to his wishful legacy. It is predicted that at least 10 million Ghanaians will get poorer in the next two years than they were in December 2008, with inflation depleting their purchasing power. This is expected, according to World Bank figures, to push half a million more Ghanaians below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.
President Mills knows he can’t do much to turn the tide of economic stagnation in four years. He needs more than what the IMF and World Bank are offering yet he has signed up to the kind of conditionalities that seriously limits his fiscal manoeuvrability. The IMF may not even allow him to raise oil bonds next year on the capital market, since that would be considered non-concessionary. There are even nonconcessionary issues today about moves by Ecobank and Stanchart to raise money for the Tema Oil Refinery to pay off some of the debt owed to Ghana Commercial Bank.
With no serious revenue from oil expected to trickle into state coffers before 2013, President Mills is bound to feel another four years should do the trick.
But, if those involved in the competition-driven factionalism mean well for the party then the NPP has very little to worry about. Poling station officers’ elections in first week of October; constituency and regional officers’ contests follow in October and November, respectively. Once national officers are chosen in December, the stage is set for the presidential candidate to be chosen in the first half of 2011. This leaves NPP until the end of 2011 to sort out all major differences and set clear guidelines and mechanisms to ensure a harmonious parliamentary primaries in 2011/12.
But, the potential for deep-wounding factionalism appears more apparent in the ruling party than the NPP. First of all, power has its obvious way of making competition for positions seem like a one-off race for limited accommodation in heaven. Secondly, there are high voltage live fault lines in the NDC that are likely to experience a power surge in 2012.
Former President Jerry Rawlings has already given notice that President Mills is presiding over borrowed time. President Rawlings can be expected to seriously consider sponsoring a candidate in 2012 against President Mills. The former President can be inspired by his own estimation of the support he enjoys among the grassroots of the party.
But, the NDC founder is likely to face a dilemma similar to what he faced in 2006. He did not see Prof Mills at that time as the best man to lead the NDC. But President Rawlings was checked by sheer ground reality: Prof Mills was mightily popular and well-marketed; to attempt to mount a public challenge against him could seriously compromise your own hallowed standing in the party you created.
For 2012, surely, Rawlings could only seriously think about sponsoring? But, there are strong hints that Rawlings may be joining up with the man who came second to Mills in the 2006 flagbearership race to mount an all-out war to get Mills out. In a hardhitting article in the Friday, September 18, 2009 edition of the Daily Graphic, Ekkwow Spio Garbrah spoke boldly as if to say he has pitched camp with Rawlings. Spio accuses the President being too slow and putting the party's fortunes in 2012 at risk barely 9 months after taking over. Like Rawlings' criticisms of Mills, Spio crafted his piece to appeal to the ordinary members of the party, who are still queuing up for their modest ration of the better Ghana.
His warning that leading NDC members would not sit by and watch Mills return the NDC cannot be ignored.
“Should leading NDC members stay quietly on the sidelines even if we can see that if matters continue as they are [NDC] would lose power in 2012? Are we the kind of passengers who sit passively in a bus until we die in an accident even when we realise that the bus is not being driven well?” he says, concluding that Mills is driving the NDFC juggernaut into an electoral accident in 2012.
But, should Rawlings and Spio team up to contest Mills, there would be an all-out war. And, could the party recover from that in time to face the NPP? I doubt it. Even if Rawlings and Spio are really serious about meeting Mills head to head together Mills is likely to triumph. But Mills would only refuse to run and use his health as an excuse if his popularity were to dip so low even beneath the radar of self-deceit. Performing anywhere near fair is enough to get him to believe he has done mightily well and can do more and so continue, regardless of any objective advice from any expert.
Again, waiting in the wings is Vice President John Mahama. There is already talk of the Ahwois preparing their brother Kwesi Ahwoi as a probable candidate. His work as Minister of Agriculture, with the biggest budget increase this year, allows him to go down on the ground and do some real work for nation, party and ambition. But, the Ahwois know too well that their best bet is to keep Mills well and on for a second term.
John Mahama will only run should his boss not.
The best way the NDC can patch up internal cracks and create a semblance of party unity is to maintain Mills. President Mills running effectively stops any serious challenge or acrimonious succession contest among the three or so power camps within the party. Unlike the NPP, the NDC would have less than 12 months to patch up before the 2012 general elections.
One of the biggest Hollywood movie hits in 2008 was the ‘Curious Case of Benjamin Button’. It was about a person who was born already as an old man in his 80s and grew backward, getting younger until his aged wife had to carry him as a baby in her arms ‘til death did them part.
For those who think the better Ghana is just a bitter Ghana and have soon given up hope, they should just take a look at President John Evans Atta Mills.
He is looking a lot healthier than he did just 9 months ago. He is getting better. The better Ghana has started with him and we all hope it may soon trickle down to the rest of Ghanaians.
For those who think President Mills is just a one term head of state, they should begin to revise their notes. Well, it is said that he managed to convince John Mahama, who was having daydreams about moving to South Africa, that the younger and healthier looking man should join the Mills 2008 ticket and that Mills would pass the baton on to him after just one term. It is also said that John Mahama then convinced Hannah Tetteh to retire from her early retirement from active politics to join him and maybe the two of them could form a north-south, man-woman dream ticket for 2012.
For those who feared the health of candidate Mills Not only is President Mills looking every bit a President in good shape, what candidates promise and what presidents think once they get hit by the power bug are as compatible as power and hunger. Beyond that President Mills is likely to find out at the end of his four-year term that he has not delivered anything near what he promised.
The economic indicators and forecasts are not helpful to his wishful legacy. It is predicted that at least 10 million Ghanaians will get poorer in the next two years than they were in December 2008, with inflation depleting their purchasing power. This is expected, according to World Bank figures, to push half a million more Ghanaians below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.
President Mills knows he can’t do much to turn the tide of economic stagnation in four years. He needs more than what the IMF and World Bank are offering yet he has signed up to the kind of conditionalities that seriously limits his fiscal manoeuvrability. The IMF may not even allow him to raise oil bonds next year on the capital market, since that would be considered non-concessionary. There are even nonconcessionary issues today about moves by Ecobank and Stanchart to raise money for the Tema Oil Refinery to pay off some of the debt owed to Ghana Commercial Bank.
With no serious revenue from oil expected to trickle into state coffers before 2013, President Mills is bound to feel another four years should do the trick.
What the U.S. wants from Ghana
Not since the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president of a free South Africa has the election of a national leader generated so much global interest and excitement as that of Barack Obama last November. It was therefore predictable that the announcement of President Obama’s trip to Ghana from 10-11 July would attract extensive media coverage as the first state visit by the first ‘black’ president of the United States to any African state.
While cool heads maintain it is a result of Ghana’s enviable role as a beacon of hope in the continent, proving that multiparty democracy can work in Africa, others have added a partisan spin to the visit, alleging it is because President Mills has shown a greater commitment to fighting the drug barons, which has led to cocaine being in short supply.
The US government itself states the purpose of the visit is: 'Strengthening the US relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlight the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development.'
But who is talking about what is in it for America?
US-GHANA RELATIONS
In the past Ghana has enjoyed a strong relationship with the US ever since the first American Peace Corps volunteers came to Ghana in 1961, the same year that President John F. Kennedy created the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to assist the developing world (aside from a blip in the mid-1980s during the Soussoudis spy affair). Indeed, the setting up of the US Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs in 1958 was largely informed by Ghana becoming the first black African nation to gain independence the previous year. But for the next three decades, Africa was little more than a geo-political lebensraum for proxy campaigns of the Cold War. It was not until March 1978 that sub-Saharan Africa witnessed its first ever state visit by an American president, Jimmy Carter, who first met President Olusegun Obasanjo in Lagos, Nigeria, and then President William Tolbert in Monrovia, Liberia, a country the United States established diplomatic relations with 147 years ago for obvious reasons.
Bill Clinton’s visit to sub-Saharan Africa in March 1998 was the first by a US president in 20 years. His successor, President George W. Bush, visited the continent twice in eight years and it was even said that Africa was the place where he felt most comfortable and welcome. He returned this by pushing for the implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was passed just a year before his predecessor handed over to him. This was followed by initiatives of his own for Africa that earned him respect in the eyes of millions of Africans, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003 and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which has thirty-two African countries on its development assistance radar. Under President Bush’s watch American assistance to Africa quadrupled since 2001.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JULY’S VISIT
Against this backdrop, July’s US state visit is significant for various reasons. It will be President Obama’s first to Africa – a continent that has not only personal significance for Obama the man, but growing political significance for Obama the president – and one that has significant expectations of the first black president to sit in the Oval Office.
For Ghana, Obama will be the third successive American president to have visited in the space of 11 years, confirming the significant position Ghana has assumed as a role model for the continent. That Obama’s first visit is to one of Africa’s unquestioned success stories rather than one of its examples of stalled development or conflict zones, will draw attention to the fact that there is proof right here in Africa that freedom can serve as the means to development and multi-party democracy can work. Ghana’s extraordinarily consistent economic growth pattern for the past seven years (registering a GDP of 7.3 per cent in 2008) offers the best evidential advertisement for the new development paradigm, which seeks to show that not only can freedom and development go hand in hand, but that the former provides a helping hand to the latter.
WHY GHANA?
But we must not ignore America’s interest. After all, whatever his connection to the African continent, Obama is president of America – and acts in the interest of its people at home above all else. So what can Americans hope to gain from President Obama’s trip to Ghana?
First, this trip offers a very compelling platform for America to reaffirm to a significant mass of the world the triumph of its values of liberal democracy, rule of law and freedom. With the US’s failure to impose these in the Middle East, and China’s irksome demonstration that economic progress can be achieved without them, Ghana helps bolster the US’s argument about the centrality of these values to the development process.
But the decision to embark on this trip was also made on the basis of some tangible and concrete opportunities for America in the region.
Top on the list is the United States’ military and energy security agenda. Before the 9/11 bombing in 2001, conventional thinking in Washington perceived no vital strategic interests for the US in sub-Saharan Africa. But this has changed. Today we can see a significant shift away from America’s traditional geopolitical calculations regarding oil production and supply. The US’s National Intelligence Council (NIC) estimates that by 2015, 25 per cent of American oil imports will come from West Africa, compared to 16 per cent today – an estimate even considered as too conservative in some quarters. Already West Africa supplies as much oil to the US as Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, our oil is light and sweet, making it easier and cheaper to refine than Persian oil. Plus its offshore location reduces transportation costs and minimises risk of political violence and terrorist attacks.
This shift in global energy patterns to the Gulf of Guinea has led to a significant re-evaluation of foreign policy focus and global alliances, resulting in a multi-layered engagement with countries such as Ghana, that encompasses military and energy security, and development aid. This trip is thus at the heart of Washington’s strategy of working with its regional allies in West Africa to develop relationships that will secure its energy security in the long term.
The United States, in typical Dick Cheney oilthink, sees the Gulf of Guinea as offering the opportunity to break with the old politics which saw the US at the mercy of the geostrategic pressure of unstable or unfriendly oil-producing states in the ‘old’ Gulf (Persian Gulf) and Venezuela.
The way forward is a pro-active policy to build a new Gulf of energy security and prosperity in a part of the world that is relatively receptive to American presence. With significant discoveries being made in the Gulf of Guinea oil basin, off the coast of Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Congo and Cote d’Ivoire, according to the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy, the United States will be importing in the year 2020 over 770 million barrels of African oil a year. And Ghana with its stability, notable responsiveness to America, deepening multiparty democracy and promising investment climate is seen as the perfect epicentre for the growth and fulfilment of this interest. In the eyes of America, geography, geology and ideology all favour Ghana as the gem in the crown of this new policy.
WHAT ABOUT CHINA?
But the US is not alone in seeing Africa as a better bet to provide a secure source of energy. There is a new scramble for Africa’s raw materials, especially energy resources, brought on by China’s astonishing industrial growth and its deepening influence in the global economy. It is the second largest consumer of oil in the world behind the United States. Consistently high economic growth rates saw Asia’s formerly largest oil exporter switch to become a net importer of oil since 1993. The International Energy Agency projects China's net oil imports will jump from 3.5 million barrels per day in 2006 to 13.1 million barrels per day by 2030.
In 2006, 9 per cent of Africa’s oil exports went to China (with 60 per cent of Sudan’s oil export China-bound). The US received 33 per cent. Already, China has sped past Britain and France to become Africa’s second-highest trading partner behind the United States.
Though Angola, the second largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, supplies the US with approximately twice as much oil as it does China, China has outpaced the United States in partnering Angola’s rapid development with its multi-billion dollar investment support in the country’s infrastructure. For example, in 2006, Sinopec, China’s state-owned energy company, bid US$2.2 billion for two deep-water blocks off the Angolan coast. Two years earlier, Beijing softened the ground with a US$2 billion package of loans and aid to Angola, which has Chinese companies building telecommunications infrastructure, roads, railways, bridges, buildings, schools and hospitals.
However, in 2007, Erica Strecker Downs of the Brookings Institute think tank made some headway in calming American anxiety over China and African oil. She wrote that contrary to public opinion, China's NOCs are not 'locking up' the lion's share of African oil as part of a centralised quest for energy. But while China, with a mere 3 per cent of its FDI in Africa and controlling under 2 per cent of oil reserves on the continent, may not be winning the race for oil exploration and production in Africa, there is no question that China is winning more and more of the oil supply produced in Africa.
If the US wants to out-muscle China in the 21st century scramble for Africa, then it will have to show more aggression in investing in the development of infrastructure on the continent, as China is doing. Even if American money comes with job for American companies, Africans are not likely to complain so long as it ends in the brick and mortar of the continent’s infrastructural development. Africans believe they are increasingly feeling more and more the positive might of Beijing in their quest for advancement. Chinese investment deserves a big part of the credit for Africa’s highest ever economic growth rate, 5.8 per cent in 2007. Furthermore, China has cancelled US$10 billion in bilateral debt owed to it by African countries.
Outside of Ghana’s oil exploration and production zone, the US and China’s involvement in Ghana’s development has been most obvious in two major infrastructural projects in the energy sector. The first, the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP), is 59 per cent owned by Chevron, the US-based oil multinational company and Royal Dutch Shell. This US$700 million onshore-offshore pipeline will run 681 kilometres from the Western Niger Delta of Nigeria via Benin and Togo to Ghana, and was cooperatively underwritten by the World Bank in 2004. The bank, however, refused to underwrite the Bui Dam project designed to generate 400MW of electricity for Ghanaians. It took a 2006 visit to President Hu Jintao of China by President J A Kufuor to secure Chinese support for the dam’s construction (by Sino-Hydro) and funding (Exim Bank) at an estimated cost of US$600 million.
These two projects highlight the masterful diplomacy that the Mills’ administration will need to deploy in the coming years in order to secure optimal benefit for Ghana from its new oil-rich status.
HOW GHANA MUST UTILISE ITS NEW STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE
With the discovery of significant oil potential offshore, Ghana has not only new international importance – we also have cause for greater confidence and strength in our global interactions. The increased interest of both China and the United States in Ghana can add extraordinary oomph to Ghana’s development – but this can only happen if we become smarter, more strategic and more assertive in our dealings with these two powerful nations.
The Obama trip reinforces the extent of US strategic interest in the country. Ghana has become an object of international desire between the two super powers of the 21st century – America and China – and the Americans are in no mood to lose its ‘trusted partner’ to the Chinese.
The Americans know what they want from Ghana. But does Ghana know what it wants from America? The question is: Has the Ghanaian government taken a considered, sober decision on the price to be paid and the prize to be gained for being considered as the serene oasis at the heart of the ‘New Gulf’? President Obama came into office with the strategic objective of 'investing in a shared humanity' with regards to US policy in Africa, listing his three thematic policy areas of focus as:
i. To accelerate Africa's integration into the global economy
ii. To enhance the peace and security of African states
iii. To strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organisations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa.
He may well be the president who can make a bold resourceful contribution to see the realisation of the dream of an African nation breaking though the stigma of underdevelopment to act as a trailblazer for the others. Ghana has the potential to serve as this model – but it will require a wholesale adoption of a new attitude of assertiveness based on a well-founded confidence in what we bring to the table, and a permanent shift from the outdated and counterproductive assumption amongst Ghanaians that our country is simply a geographical mass of humanitarian concerns or a charity case.
But has the mindset of the Ghanaian leadership gravitated towards this new reality?
GLOBAL ECONOMIC POSITIONING
As Ken Ofori-Atta of Databank stated at Chatham House recently, 'We have not seen such massive destruction of wealth in the history of modern civilisation and I might add also such rapid recreation of capital in the past year. Africa is truly astounded at how quickly the West can mobilise to save their companies when a fraction of those amounts could reinstate the impressive growth trajectory which Africa had achieved.' The rich economies are prepared to spend $2 trillion to rescue their financial infrastructure. For nearly a decade now, Africans have been demanding extra funding to the tune of $60 billion a year to accelerate its development – a mere three per cent of what is being pumped into the western financial systems today to maintain socio-corporate standards there.
The UN under-secretary general and executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Abdoulie Janneh, said the current economic downturn could cost Africa US$251 billion in 2009 and US$277 billion in 2010 in export earnings, despite earlier predictions that the continent would not be hard hit. So whatever is on offer to countries like Ghana by the IMF and World Bank only follows the old pattern of development assistance never matching what is taken out from Africa.
Unfortunately, once again, (a little over a year after Ghana issued its first sovereign bond on the international capital market) we have been forced by exogenous circumstances to make a u-turn to over-dependence on the Bretton Wood institutions for our development spending. And we are being told to adopt a kind of fiscal discipline which the developed world is also finding to be fundamentally contradictory to their programme for stimulating their economies today.
Much noise has been made both in Ghana and elsewhere about Ghana’s ‘extraordinarily huge’ 2008 budget deficit of 11.5 per cent of GDP. Indeed, the Ghanaian government has allowed it to serve as a roadblock in the way of maintaining, let alone increasing, the momentum of development Ghana has experienced in the last seven years. It is worth noting that in America the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the US budget deficit will reach US$1.85 trillion this year, 13.1 per cent of GDP. Furthermore, they project deficits averaging over US$1 trillion a year for the next 10 years, which will raise the US public debt-to-GDP ratio to over 80 per cent by 2019. Ghana’s total public debt stood at US$7,742.4 million in May 2009, representing a debt-to-GDP ratio of 49.2%. Both huge budget deficits were necessary responses to national crisis and imperatives. In Ghana’s case the energy crisis of 2007 and the urgency with which Ghana needs to invest in its infrastructure and respond to a rising cost of living contributed to our unusually high deficit.
In July 2005, when heads of the world’s leading industrialised countries (the G8) pledged to step up development aid by US$50 billion by 2010, with half of the increase going to Africa, African leaders hailed it as a significant high-gear shift in development aid from the developed world. Barely four years later, what we know today is that a lot more money can be found for productive investment to push millions of Africans out of poverty. US development assistance to Ghana in 2007 – about US$55 million – was nowhere near that befitting a nation carrying the kind of strategic weight that contemporary Pentagon thinking suggests.
In real terms it is little improvement on the 1994 assistance of US$38 million, plus US$16 million in food aid. President Bush contributed an extra US$547 million support from the Millennium Challenge Account. But this was given when America’s strategic flirtation with Ghana was purely based on its interests in Ghana as a geographical location for AFRICOM rather than the additional oil value it has today.
What has all this to do with Obama’s trip?
Negotiations are not held in a vacuum. A nation that sits around the table without prior knowledge and appreciation of its own strengths and weaknesses in its counterpart’s mind has provided gaping holes in its negotiation armoury and is bound to come out with a bad deal. A good deal depends on both an understanding of the cards in your hands and your opponent’s, and the skilful and strategic play of these cards. The first of these cards that the Ghanaian government must not fail to appreciate is the fact that Superpower America now sees West Africa as a zone of strategic importance – it is no longer a question of just us needing them, but they now also need us.
Our trump card is of course oil. But if we are to prevent ourselves being played by the US, we must deploy this to maximum benefit: Ultimately it is up to Africans to selfishly see our oil as means to provide energy security to others in exchange for support for more rapid African economic development.
In the words of US Congressman William Jefferson, 'The strategic question is which countries we depend on for this oil. The suggestion that comes out of all of these discussions is our best partners are in West Africa for many of the reasons I’ve mentioned: the commitment to democracy. Though there may be strivings and failings, nonetheless there is a commitment. West Africa is closer, making it easier to move product from there to here; the resources are, in most cases, not landlocked. Things usually work fairly well if you’re out in deep water.'
Since 2007, Washington has become more convinced that the Gulf of Guinea is an area of 'Vital Interest' and Ghana is in prime position to serve as its hub, a point reinforced by the seemingly smooth transition from one democratically elected government to another of a different party.
AFRICOM
Furthermore, the US is, understandably, bent on establishing a regional command for Africa, similar to US Forces Korea, with a homeport situated on the African continent to protect their interests. West Africa is its natural home, given the need to protect energy interests in the Gulf of Guinea. Liberia has offered but simply cannot match the kind of convenience available in Ghana. It can be a win-win situation.
AFRICOM can protect US investments in our region. But, those investments (regardless of our percentage share of ownership) are also fundamentally our investments – and thus the assistance in their protection will be a welcome boon. US military presence can also help improve the level of military professionalism of our already well-respected troops. It is interesting to note that in the six decades since World War II in which America has maintained a military presence in other sovereign nations, none of the host nations has suffered instability or military takeovers, as the presence of US troops helps entrench the subordination of soldiers to civil leadership. Moreover the presence of U.S. troops boosts social and economic activities in the host countries, too.
The loudest argument against Ghana hosting AFRICOM when the possibility first arose was that it would make us a target for anti-American terrorists. But a global examination of the number and location of American military bases overseas vis-à-vis the geographical targets of terrorist attacks, shows that this argument has far greater emotive value than evidential corroboration.
At the moment the Americans say they are happy to keep the US Africa Command headquarters in Germany, to coordinate all US military and security interests throughout the African continent. But any reasonable assessment must conclude that this can be nothing but a temporary address and arrangement. Ghana should welcome that it is thus the target of America’s desire – and we should make the most of this, using it for our own advantage. After all, the process has already started.
The US and Ghanaian militaries have cooperated in numerous joint training exercises, including the African Crisis Response Initiative, an international activity in which the US facilitates the development of an interoperable peacekeeping capacity among African nations. And the head of AFRICOM has already reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to assisting the Ghana Armed Forces 'to become more robust'.
There is also the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. Beyond that, Ghana and the US have an active bilateral International Military Education and Training program.
In 2007, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, the managing editor of The Insight newspaper and the energy behind the pressure group Socialist Forum, warned Ghanaians against what he saw to be the looming danger of a US military base in Ghana. He cited, inter alia, the erection of the huge American Embassy complex in Cantonments as evidence of this. Meanwhile, in August 2007 Major-General Ward, who was later confirmed as AFRICOM’s first commander, visited Accra. He held discussions with President Kufuor on 'ways of strengthening military cooperation.' His high-powered secret meetings with the president, minister of defence and the chief of defence staff triggered huge speculation. Much was made of Maj Gen J B Danquah’s public statement about the visit when he said Maj Gen Ward had ‘done enough to resolve’ Ghana’s concerns about AFRICOM, adding, 'I have had the chance to hear [Ward] explain what is the reasoning behind the command, and it’s all about partnership.'
General T. Hobbins, head of the US Air Forces Europe, has held discussions with his counterparts here on the possibility of establishing 'lily pads', landing and rapid airlift facilities in otherwise deserted terrain in certain strategic sites in Africa. Tamale Airport has come up as one of the 'forward operating sites' targeted. That airport is said to have a runway capacity of accommodating massive US C-3 cargo planes and troop transports.
Ghana is also already the site of a US-European Command-funded Exercise Reception Facility that was established to facilitate troop deployments for exercises or crisis response within the region. The direct link to our oil is only too apparent: The Facility came out of Ghana's partnership with the United States on what is termed a Fuel Hub Initiative. It may sound like a mere gas station for the troops. But the choice of stable, imminently oil-rich Ghana as a Fuel Hub reflects a greater strategic interest in the country than as merely a filling station.
The Americans have not been shy in establishing a clear economic link alongside their military cooperation. Ghana is one of the few African nations, mainly those with oil, selected for the State Partnership Program to promote greater economic ties with US institutions, including the National Guard. Expanding this to deepen our cooperation with the Drugs Enforcement Agency is one other area that President Mills should focus attention on.
GHANA THE ‘NATURAL’ ALLY
This all points to the fact that the United States sees Ghana as having all the vital statistics and morphological features of a ‘natural’ ally. We have the oil reserves, we are in the stable centre of the ‘New Gulf’ and we have the military discipline and stable atmosphere to make us the perfect hosts for America’s first major military migration to our continent. America is strategically placed to maintain and deepen its stronger footing here, ensuring it rather than China becomes our dominant ally. As one analyst confirmed, Washington has no interest in seeing China’s presence in Africa extended to Ghana. The fact, however, is that China is already here and the recent dealings between the Mills administration and the ruling Chinese Communist Party means the US needs to act sooner rather than later.
Obama’s chief policy adviser assured Africans two months before the 2008 presidential race, 'Barack Obama understands Africa, and understands its importance to the United States. Today, in this new century, he understands that to strengthen our common security, we must invest in our common humanity and, in this way, restore American leadership in the world.' Now is the chance for him to seek and effect the real change that will finally show the world that Africans are capable of more than managing their own affairs – but, crucially, Ghana must take up the opportunity provided by the state visit and the US’s burgeoning strategic interest in us, to be the nation that demonstrates this.
While cool heads maintain it is a result of Ghana’s enviable role as a beacon of hope in the continent, proving that multiparty democracy can work in Africa, others have added a partisan spin to the visit, alleging it is because President Mills has shown a greater commitment to fighting the drug barons, which has led to cocaine being in short supply.
The US government itself states the purpose of the visit is: 'Strengthening the US relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlight the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development.'
But who is talking about what is in it for America?
US-GHANA RELATIONS
In the past Ghana has enjoyed a strong relationship with the US ever since the first American Peace Corps volunteers came to Ghana in 1961, the same year that President John F. Kennedy created the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to assist the developing world (aside from a blip in the mid-1980s during the Soussoudis spy affair). Indeed, the setting up of the US Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs in 1958 was largely informed by Ghana becoming the first black African nation to gain independence the previous year. But for the next three decades, Africa was little more than a geo-political lebensraum for proxy campaigns of the Cold War. It was not until March 1978 that sub-Saharan Africa witnessed its first ever state visit by an American president, Jimmy Carter, who first met President Olusegun Obasanjo in Lagos, Nigeria, and then President William Tolbert in Monrovia, Liberia, a country the United States established diplomatic relations with 147 years ago for obvious reasons.
Bill Clinton’s visit to sub-Saharan Africa in March 1998 was the first by a US president in 20 years. His successor, President George W. Bush, visited the continent twice in eight years and it was even said that Africa was the place where he felt most comfortable and welcome. He returned this by pushing for the implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was passed just a year before his predecessor handed over to him. This was followed by initiatives of his own for Africa that earned him respect in the eyes of millions of Africans, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003 and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which has thirty-two African countries on its development assistance radar. Under President Bush’s watch American assistance to Africa quadrupled since 2001.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JULY’S VISIT
Against this backdrop, July’s US state visit is significant for various reasons. It will be President Obama’s first to Africa – a continent that has not only personal significance for Obama the man, but growing political significance for Obama the president – and one that has significant expectations of the first black president to sit in the Oval Office.
For Ghana, Obama will be the third successive American president to have visited in the space of 11 years, confirming the significant position Ghana has assumed as a role model for the continent. That Obama’s first visit is to one of Africa’s unquestioned success stories rather than one of its examples of stalled development or conflict zones, will draw attention to the fact that there is proof right here in Africa that freedom can serve as the means to development and multi-party democracy can work. Ghana’s extraordinarily consistent economic growth pattern for the past seven years (registering a GDP of 7.3 per cent in 2008) offers the best evidential advertisement for the new development paradigm, which seeks to show that not only can freedom and development go hand in hand, but that the former provides a helping hand to the latter.
WHY GHANA?
But we must not ignore America’s interest. After all, whatever his connection to the African continent, Obama is president of America – and acts in the interest of its people at home above all else. So what can Americans hope to gain from President Obama’s trip to Ghana?
First, this trip offers a very compelling platform for America to reaffirm to a significant mass of the world the triumph of its values of liberal democracy, rule of law and freedom. With the US’s failure to impose these in the Middle East, and China’s irksome demonstration that economic progress can be achieved without them, Ghana helps bolster the US’s argument about the centrality of these values to the development process.
But the decision to embark on this trip was also made on the basis of some tangible and concrete opportunities for America in the region.
Top on the list is the United States’ military and energy security agenda. Before the 9/11 bombing in 2001, conventional thinking in Washington perceived no vital strategic interests for the US in sub-Saharan Africa. But this has changed. Today we can see a significant shift away from America’s traditional geopolitical calculations regarding oil production and supply. The US’s National Intelligence Council (NIC) estimates that by 2015, 25 per cent of American oil imports will come from West Africa, compared to 16 per cent today – an estimate even considered as too conservative in some quarters. Already West Africa supplies as much oil to the US as Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, our oil is light and sweet, making it easier and cheaper to refine than Persian oil. Plus its offshore location reduces transportation costs and minimises risk of political violence and terrorist attacks.
This shift in global energy patterns to the Gulf of Guinea has led to a significant re-evaluation of foreign policy focus and global alliances, resulting in a multi-layered engagement with countries such as Ghana, that encompasses military and energy security, and development aid. This trip is thus at the heart of Washington’s strategy of working with its regional allies in West Africa to develop relationships that will secure its energy security in the long term.
The United States, in typical Dick Cheney oilthink, sees the Gulf of Guinea as offering the opportunity to break with the old politics which saw the US at the mercy of the geostrategic pressure of unstable or unfriendly oil-producing states in the ‘old’ Gulf (Persian Gulf) and Venezuela.
The way forward is a pro-active policy to build a new Gulf of energy security and prosperity in a part of the world that is relatively receptive to American presence. With significant discoveries being made in the Gulf of Guinea oil basin, off the coast of Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Congo and Cote d’Ivoire, according to the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy, the United States will be importing in the year 2020 over 770 million barrels of African oil a year. And Ghana with its stability, notable responsiveness to America, deepening multiparty democracy and promising investment climate is seen as the perfect epicentre for the growth and fulfilment of this interest. In the eyes of America, geography, geology and ideology all favour Ghana as the gem in the crown of this new policy.
WHAT ABOUT CHINA?
But the US is not alone in seeing Africa as a better bet to provide a secure source of energy. There is a new scramble for Africa’s raw materials, especially energy resources, brought on by China’s astonishing industrial growth and its deepening influence in the global economy. It is the second largest consumer of oil in the world behind the United States. Consistently high economic growth rates saw Asia’s formerly largest oil exporter switch to become a net importer of oil since 1993. The International Energy Agency projects China's net oil imports will jump from 3.5 million barrels per day in 2006 to 13.1 million barrels per day by 2030.
In 2006, 9 per cent of Africa’s oil exports went to China (with 60 per cent of Sudan’s oil export China-bound). The US received 33 per cent. Already, China has sped past Britain and France to become Africa’s second-highest trading partner behind the United States.
Though Angola, the second largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, supplies the US with approximately twice as much oil as it does China, China has outpaced the United States in partnering Angola’s rapid development with its multi-billion dollar investment support in the country’s infrastructure. For example, in 2006, Sinopec, China’s state-owned energy company, bid US$2.2 billion for two deep-water blocks off the Angolan coast. Two years earlier, Beijing softened the ground with a US$2 billion package of loans and aid to Angola, which has Chinese companies building telecommunications infrastructure, roads, railways, bridges, buildings, schools and hospitals.
However, in 2007, Erica Strecker Downs of the Brookings Institute think tank made some headway in calming American anxiety over China and African oil. She wrote that contrary to public opinion, China's NOCs are not 'locking up' the lion's share of African oil as part of a centralised quest for energy. But while China, with a mere 3 per cent of its FDI in Africa and controlling under 2 per cent of oil reserves on the continent, may not be winning the race for oil exploration and production in Africa, there is no question that China is winning more and more of the oil supply produced in Africa.
If the US wants to out-muscle China in the 21st century scramble for Africa, then it will have to show more aggression in investing in the development of infrastructure on the continent, as China is doing. Even if American money comes with job for American companies, Africans are not likely to complain so long as it ends in the brick and mortar of the continent’s infrastructural development. Africans believe they are increasingly feeling more and more the positive might of Beijing in their quest for advancement. Chinese investment deserves a big part of the credit for Africa’s highest ever economic growth rate, 5.8 per cent in 2007. Furthermore, China has cancelled US$10 billion in bilateral debt owed to it by African countries.
Outside of Ghana’s oil exploration and production zone, the US and China’s involvement in Ghana’s development has been most obvious in two major infrastructural projects in the energy sector. The first, the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP), is 59 per cent owned by Chevron, the US-based oil multinational company and Royal Dutch Shell. This US$700 million onshore-offshore pipeline will run 681 kilometres from the Western Niger Delta of Nigeria via Benin and Togo to Ghana, and was cooperatively underwritten by the World Bank in 2004. The bank, however, refused to underwrite the Bui Dam project designed to generate 400MW of electricity for Ghanaians. It took a 2006 visit to President Hu Jintao of China by President J A Kufuor to secure Chinese support for the dam’s construction (by Sino-Hydro) and funding (Exim Bank) at an estimated cost of US$600 million.
These two projects highlight the masterful diplomacy that the Mills’ administration will need to deploy in the coming years in order to secure optimal benefit for Ghana from its new oil-rich status.
HOW GHANA MUST UTILISE ITS NEW STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE
With the discovery of significant oil potential offshore, Ghana has not only new international importance – we also have cause for greater confidence and strength in our global interactions. The increased interest of both China and the United States in Ghana can add extraordinary oomph to Ghana’s development – but this can only happen if we become smarter, more strategic and more assertive in our dealings with these two powerful nations.
The Obama trip reinforces the extent of US strategic interest in the country. Ghana has become an object of international desire between the two super powers of the 21st century – America and China – and the Americans are in no mood to lose its ‘trusted partner’ to the Chinese.
The Americans know what they want from Ghana. But does Ghana know what it wants from America? The question is: Has the Ghanaian government taken a considered, sober decision on the price to be paid and the prize to be gained for being considered as the serene oasis at the heart of the ‘New Gulf’? President Obama came into office with the strategic objective of 'investing in a shared humanity' with regards to US policy in Africa, listing his three thematic policy areas of focus as:
i. To accelerate Africa's integration into the global economy
ii. To enhance the peace and security of African states
iii. To strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organisations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa.
He may well be the president who can make a bold resourceful contribution to see the realisation of the dream of an African nation breaking though the stigma of underdevelopment to act as a trailblazer for the others. Ghana has the potential to serve as this model – but it will require a wholesale adoption of a new attitude of assertiveness based on a well-founded confidence in what we bring to the table, and a permanent shift from the outdated and counterproductive assumption amongst Ghanaians that our country is simply a geographical mass of humanitarian concerns or a charity case.
But has the mindset of the Ghanaian leadership gravitated towards this new reality?
GLOBAL ECONOMIC POSITIONING
As Ken Ofori-Atta of Databank stated at Chatham House recently, 'We have not seen such massive destruction of wealth in the history of modern civilisation and I might add also such rapid recreation of capital in the past year. Africa is truly astounded at how quickly the West can mobilise to save their companies when a fraction of those amounts could reinstate the impressive growth trajectory which Africa had achieved.' The rich economies are prepared to spend $2 trillion to rescue their financial infrastructure. For nearly a decade now, Africans have been demanding extra funding to the tune of $60 billion a year to accelerate its development – a mere three per cent of what is being pumped into the western financial systems today to maintain socio-corporate standards there.
The UN under-secretary general and executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Abdoulie Janneh, said the current economic downturn could cost Africa US$251 billion in 2009 and US$277 billion in 2010 in export earnings, despite earlier predictions that the continent would not be hard hit. So whatever is on offer to countries like Ghana by the IMF and World Bank only follows the old pattern of development assistance never matching what is taken out from Africa.
Unfortunately, once again, (a little over a year after Ghana issued its first sovereign bond on the international capital market) we have been forced by exogenous circumstances to make a u-turn to over-dependence on the Bretton Wood institutions for our development spending. And we are being told to adopt a kind of fiscal discipline which the developed world is also finding to be fundamentally contradictory to their programme for stimulating their economies today.
Much noise has been made both in Ghana and elsewhere about Ghana’s ‘extraordinarily huge’ 2008 budget deficit of 11.5 per cent of GDP. Indeed, the Ghanaian government has allowed it to serve as a roadblock in the way of maintaining, let alone increasing, the momentum of development Ghana has experienced in the last seven years. It is worth noting that in America the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the US budget deficit will reach US$1.85 trillion this year, 13.1 per cent of GDP. Furthermore, they project deficits averaging over US$1 trillion a year for the next 10 years, which will raise the US public debt-to-GDP ratio to over 80 per cent by 2019. Ghana’s total public debt stood at US$7,742.4 million in May 2009, representing a debt-to-GDP ratio of 49.2%. Both huge budget deficits were necessary responses to national crisis and imperatives. In Ghana’s case the energy crisis of 2007 and the urgency with which Ghana needs to invest in its infrastructure and respond to a rising cost of living contributed to our unusually high deficit.
In July 2005, when heads of the world’s leading industrialised countries (the G8) pledged to step up development aid by US$50 billion by 2010, with half of the increase going to Africa, African leaders hailed it as a significant high-gear shift in development aid from the developed world. Barely four years later, what we know today is that a lot more money can be found for productive investment to push millions of Africans out of poverty. US development assistance to Ghana in 2007 – about US$55 million – was nowhere near that befitting a nation carrying the kind of strategic weight that contemporary Pentagon thinking suggests.
In real terms it is little improvement on the 1994 assistance of US$38 million, plus US$16 million in food aid. President Bush contributed an extra US$547 million support from the Millennium Challenge Account. But this was given when America’s strategic flirtation with Ghana was purely based on its interests in Ghana as a geographical location for AFRICOM rather than the additional oil value it has today.
What has all this to do with Obama’s trip?
Negotiations are not held in a vacuum. A nation that sits around the table without prior knowledge and appreciation of its own strengths and weaknesses in its counterpart’s mind has provided gaping holes in its negotiation armoury and is bound to come out with a bad deal. A good deal depends on both an understanding of the cards in your hands and your opponent’s, and the skilful and strategic play of these cards. The first of these cards that the Ghanaian government must not fail to appreciate is the fact that Superpower America now sees West Africa as a zone of strategic importance – it is no longer a question of just us needing them, but they now also need us.
Our trump card is of course oil. But if we are to prevent ourselves being played by the US, we must deploy this to maximum benefit: Ultimately it is up to Africans to selfishly see our oil as means to provide energy security to others in exchange for support for more rapid African economic development.
In the words of US Congressman William Jefferson, 'The strategic question is which countries we depend on for this oil. The suggestion that comes out of all of these discussions is our best partners are in West Africa for many of the reasons I’ve mentioned: the commitment to democracy. Though there may be strivings and failings, nonetheless there is a commitment. West Africa is closer, making it easier to move product from there to here; the resources are, in most cases, not landlocked. Things usually work fairly well if you’re out in deep water.'
Since 2007, Washington has become more convinced that the Gulf of Guinea is an area of 'Vital Interest' and Ghana is in prime position to serve as its hub, a point reinforced by the seemingly smooth transition from one democratically elected government to another of a different party.
AFRICOM
Furthermore, the US is, understandably, bent on establishing a regional command for Africa, similar to US Forces Korea, with a homeport situated on the African continent to protect their interests. West Africa is its natural home, given the need to protect energy interests in the Gulf of Guinea. Liberia has offered but simply cannot match the kind of convenience available in Ghana. It can be a win-win situation.
AFRICOM can protect US investments in our region. But, those investments (regardless of our percentage share of ownership) are also fundamentally our investments – and thus the assistance in their protection will be a welcome boon. US military presence can also help improve the level of military professionalism of our already well-respected troops. It is interesting to note that in the six decades since World War II in which America has maintained a military presence in other sovereign nations, none of the host nations has suffered instability or military takeovers, as the presence of US troops helps entrench the subordination of soldiers to civil leadership. Moreover the presence of U.S. troops boosts social and economic activities in the host countries, too.
The loudest argument against Ghana hosting AFRICOM when the possibility first arose was that it would make us a target for anti-American terrorists. But a global examination of the number and location of American military bases overseas vis-à-vis the geographical targets of terrorist attacks, shows that this argument has far greater emotive value than evidential corroboration.
At the moment the Americans say they are happy to keep the US Africa Command headquarters in Germany, to coordinate all US military and security interests throughout the African continent. But any reasonable assessment must conclude that this can be nothing but a temporary address and arrangement. Ghana should welcome that it is thus the target of America’s desire – and we should make the most of this, using it for our own advantage. After all, the process has already started.
The US and Ghanaian militaries have cooperated in numerous joint training exercises, including the African Crisis Response Initiative, an international activity in which the US facilitates the development of an interoperable peacekeeping capacity among African nations. And the head of AFRICOM has already reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to assisting the Ghana Armed Forces 'to become more robust'.
There is also the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. Beyond that, Ghana and the US have an active bilateral International Military Education and Training program.
In 2007, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, the managing editor of The Insight newspaper and the energy behind the pressure group Socialist Forum, warned Ghanaians against what he saw to be the looming danger of a US military base in Ghana. He cited, inter alia, the erection of the huge American Embassy complex in Cantonments as evidence of this. Meanwhile, in August 2007 Major-General Ward, who was later confirmed as AFRICOM’s first commander, visited Accra. He held discussions with President Kufuor on 'ways of strengthening military cooperation.' His high-powered secret meetings with the president, minister of defence and the chief of defence staff triggered huge speculation. Much was made of Maj Gen J B Danquah’s public statement about the visit when he said Maj Gen Ward had ‘done enough to resolve’ Ghana’s concerns about AFRICOM, adding, 'I have had the chance to hear [Ward] explain what is the reasoning behind the command, and it’s all about partnership.'
General T. Hobbins, head of the US Air Forces Europe, has held discussions with his counterparts here on the possibility of establishing 'lily pads', landing and rapid airlift facilities in otherwise deserted terrain in certain strategic sites in Africa. Tamale Airport has come up as one of the 'forward operating sites' targeted. That airport is said to have a runway capacity of accommodating massive US C-3 cargo planes and troop transports.
Ghana is also already the site of a US-European Command-funded Exercise Reception Facility that was established to facilitate troop deployments for exercises or crisis response within the region. The direct link to our oil is only too apparent: The Facility came out of Ghana's partnership with the United States on what is termed a Fuel Hub Initiative. It may sound like a mere gas station for the troops. But the choice of stable, imminently oil-rich Ghana as a Fuel Hub reflects a greater strategic interest in the country than as merely a filling station.
The Americans have not been shy in establishing a clear economic link alongside their military cooperation. Ghana is one of the few African nations, mainly those with oil, selected for the State Partnership Program to promote greater economic ties with US institutions, including the National Guard. Expanding this to deepen our cooperation with the Drugs Enforcement Agency is one other area that President Mills should focus attention on.
GHANA THE ‘NATURAL’ ALLY
This all points to the fact that the United States sees Ghana as having all the vital statistics and morphological features of a ‘natural’ ally. We have the oil reserves, we are in the stable centre of the ‘New Gulf’ and we have the military discipline and stable atmosphere to make us the perfect hosts for America’s first major military migration to our continent. America is strategically placed to maintain and deepen its stronger footing here, ensuring it rather than China becomes our dominant ally. As one analyst confirmed, Washington has no interest in seeing China’s presence in Africa extended to Ghana. The fact, however, is that China is already here and the recent dealings between the Mills administration and the ruling Chinese Communist Party means the US needs to act sooner rather than later.
Obama’s chief policy adviser assured Africans two months before the 2008 presidential race, 'Barack Obama understands Africa, and understands its importance to the United States. Today, in this new century, he understands that to strengthen our common security, we must invest in our common humanity and, in this way, restore American leadership in the world.' Now is the chance for him to seek and effect the real change that will finally show the world that Africans are capable of more than managing their own affairs – but, crucially, Ghana must take up the opportunity provided by the state visit and the US’s burgeoning strategic interest in us, to be the nation that demonstrates this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
