Pulling No Punches

GHANA IS READY FOR A FEMALE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

2010-06-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

REACTIONS TO the news that former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings, who turns 62 on November 17 and is preparing to contest for the flag-bearership of the ruling NDC in 2012, have been extreme. Majority of the vociferous voices say it would be a disaster. But, how true is this?

She is arguably the most politically exposed and politically experienced Ghanaian female around. She was an active First Lady for 19 years, whose mobilisation prowess is legendary.

This is a woman who runs a women's movement (31st December Women's Movement), which at one time boasted of a two-million membership nationwide.

She has described it as a “broad based development oriented Non-Governmental Organisation that aspires to achieve [its] objectives through the effective mobilisation of women.”

In her, the NDC has a woman who has a solid three-decade record of mass mobilization; A woman who has the confidence to mix with the shakers and movers of the world; A woman who will die for the party; A woman with a handbag filled with iron balls and who is not afraid to swing it.

So if Ghana is ready for a female presidential candidate, then Mrs. Rawlings is a credible candidate. She more than qualifies.

But, would it be wise for her to stand against a sitting president, in a presidential primary? The fact that it didn't happen to Messrs Rawlings and Kufuor does not mean the prospect of her candidacy should be dismissed outright.

President Rawlings faced no opposition in 1996 because it was his ‘personal’ party and his popularity was never in doubt.

After all, he single-handedly decided for the party who his successor should be. President Kufuor did not face any challenge in 2004 because he had run the country credibly, and his popularity was not in doubt.

Can the same be said of President Mills today? Certainly not. Don't forget Mills is in a position quite similar to what the Democrats faced in the 1960s.

Nixon had earlier lost to JFK by a margin of 0.2%. Nixon sought for re-nomination as the Republican presidential candidate and won.

With his nationwide popularity assured, he came back and won the presidency. It is not cast in stone that incumbent presidents should not be challenged by their party members.

That decision is a calculated one based on prevailing pros and cons - chances of the party being re-elected or defeated by sticking to the incumbent leader. The NDC cannot leave anything to chance.

They should allow those positioning themselves to challenge Mills to do so, or risk being stuck with a losing candidate in 2012. The prospect of a challenge may even challenge President Mills to make a more serious attempt towards delivering a better Ghana than he is so far managing to do.

Also, in spite of all his threats of seeking a second term, it is far from certain that Mills will be in contention in 2012. That decision may not be entirely his to make.

But, with some 2,000 delegates to decide who leads the NDC in 2012 (in the event of a contest), any serious challenge against Mills will call for a significant expansion of the party's electoral college.

The NDC has next year's annual national conference to effect any such constitutional reforms. It should not be seen as an anti-Mills expansion, but rather an expansion for the sake of the party.

In 2007, it was the small size of the electoral college of the NPP that encouraged 17 people with some loose change (money to spare) to throw their hat into the NPP ring.

In the end, that orgy of ego trip cost the party dearly, in portraying it as corrupt, and in dividing the front. It prevented the eventual winner from going into the 2008 election with a clear mandate from his own party. A bigger electoral college will be a better test of the popularity of whoever emerges as the 2012 NDC candidate.

If Mills believes he is popular within his party, then let him sponsor such an exercise and take away probable allegations of vote-buying.

Ghanaians should not find it politically profane the fact that the wife of a former president may be thinking of contesting to be president. Exactly two years ago, Americans were preparing themselves for a possible President Hillary Clinton.

The world's longest serving female leader, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, was born into the politically influential Nehru family. Her grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was a prominent Indian nationalist leader. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first Prime Minister of Independent India.

The late Benazir Bhutto, twice prime minister of Pakistan, was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state. She was the eldest child of former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and was the wife of current Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.

In Mongolia, Suhbaataryn Yanjmaa, who became Head of State between 1953 and 1954, was the widow of national hero Sühbaatar, and arguably the absolute first woman political ruler in contemporary history.

Between 1968-1972, Song Qingling, the widow of doctor Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic, and the sister-in-law of Marshall Chiang Kai-shek, his successor as president of the Republic of China (then Taiwan), was co-president of the People's Republic of China.

Indeed, from 31 Oct 1968, to 24 Feb 1972, no Head of State was mentioned in the communist state, but Dong Biwu and Song Qingling were Vice Presidents by then (she was elected to the post in 1954, after being deputy premier since 1949), so, de facto (and in theory), both leaders shared the presidential duties in 1968-1972.

Furthermore, when in 1976, Zhu De, who was then the head of state and chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (the presidency of the Republic was officially abolished the previous year), passed away, a vacancy period was inaugurated and not filled until 1978, with the appointment of Ye Jianying.

In these months were the 21 vice-chairmen, among them four women: Song Qingling, Cai Chang, Li Suwen, and (from 2 Dec 1976) Deng Yingchao, the widow of just deceased premier Zhou Enlai. Shortly before Song's death, she was elected “Honorary President” of the People's Republic of China.

In Argentina, Maria Estela ‘Isabel’ Martinez de Peron, served as president from 1 Jul 1974 to 24 Mar 1976.

She replaced her husband Juan Domingo Perón as president, immediately after his death, since she held the Vice-Presidency of the Republic and the presidency of the Senate since the 1973 electoral victory of the 'Perón-Perón' formula. In fact, Perón's incapacitation forced her to act as president since Jun 29.

She was the first woman who became president, both in America and in the world. And also was the first one ousted in a military coup.

Cory Aquino of the Philippines is another example of a widow who succeeded her husband as president. After Benigno Aquino's assassination in 1983, she became Asia's first woman president.

The widow of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, assassinated in 1978, also became the president of Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997.

Chandrika Kumaratunga, the daughter of the late Sirimavo Bandaranaike, three times prime minister of Sri Lanka, served both as prime minister and president, and both through democratic elections.

Upon her election as president in 1994, the daughter appointed her mother as prime minister.

Chandrika's father and Sirimavo's husband, Solomon, was assassinated while being prime minister in 1959. The same thing happened to Chandrika's husband, Vijaya Kumaratunga, who also assassinated in 1988.

Until 2009, Janet Jagan was the President of Guyana. She was also prime minister in 1997. She succeeded her husband, Cheddi Jagan, in the presidency, some months after his passing.

The sixth woman occupying the presidential office in America, and the second one with an additional premiership experience in the world (the first one was Sri Lanka's Chandrika Kumaratunga), Mireya Elisa Moscoso de Arias, the first woman president of Panama, also took advantage of her status as widow of former president Arnulfo Arias Madrid.

Maria Arroyo, the current president of the Philipines, is the daughter of late president Diosdado Macapagal, and the country's second woman president.

Certainly, Mrs. Rawlings has plenty of international precedent to support her bid. Her challenge is finding enough party support to finally make good this two-decade long ambition of hers.

For people like Nii Lamptey Vanderpuye, the presidential aide who dismisses her bid with contempt, they should be reminded that she was even more responsible for the formation of the party they belong to today than even her husband.

In 1992, Kojo Tsikata and co, the CPP elements within the PNDC, were happy to piggy back an Nkrumaist vehicle, like Kweku Boateng's NCCP.

It was Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings, who managed to convince Obed Asamoah to support the project of going alone to set up a new party.

The others were very sceptical, but she was not. I guess the same forces are today sceptical about her chances as presidential candidate. They should know by now that the lady is not for writing-off.
qanawu.blog.spot.com

Goodbye Brown, hello Cameron, welcome Clegg

2010-05-05T12:00:00.001-07:00

Britain goes to the polls today. The main candidates are Gordon Brown of Labour, David Cameron of the main opposition Conservatives and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. Labour supporters and members of parliament are bracing themselves for a humiliating defeat today.
Thirteen years of Labour Party rule in Britain has taken its toll. The wind of change that blew across the Atlantic from America to Ghana has made a vertical shoot via the Greenwich Meridian to the UK. The campaign slogan of the main opposition party in the UK is “Vote for Change”.

Yet the outcome of the UK general election on May 6 is by no means certain. To use the cover story of the Focus on Africa Magazine in 2008 on the Ghanaian elections, it is ‘Too Close To Call’. About a year ago, today was supposed to be a done deal for the younger Cameron. That the Conservative leader should be going into today's poll with the result far too close to call is a surely a testament to the humiliating deficiencies of his campaign, according to one commentary.
David Cameron, the 43 year-old leader of the Conservative Party, a contemporary of mine in the Young Conservatives (the Tory youth win) during university years, would have had an easier go at getting the needed majority to form the next government, but he has not been able to deal decisively with serious doubts about his experience, capability and substance as a formidable politician.
Until today, out of a total of 646 seats, Labour controlled 345 seats, the Conservative Party 193, Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) 63. Dr Brown led with a working majority of 56, less 289 of all other parties - excluding Speaker & Deputies and the 5 Sinn Fein MPs who refused to take their seats at Westminster).
Yesterday, YouGov opinion poll left the Conservatives on 35%, the Lib Dems on 24% (down 4) and Labour on 30% (+2). The last two days saw the three candidates doing night shifts all in a bid to win over the floating voters. Of the 116 marginal/swing constituencies, the Conservatives need to win to form an overall majority, 26 are held by Lib Dem and 90 are Labour. Nine of them could go to any of the three parties and 81 are LAB-CON marginals.
It is for this reason that in the last few days, Labour has been calling for tactical voting in favour of Lib Dem in areas that they know Labour can by no means unseat the Tories. They are also calling on Lib Dem sympathisers to give their votes to Labour to keep out the Tories. If this anti-Tory pact works, Labour would end up holding on to 81 seats, while the Lib Dems would hold on to 26 and gain nine.
Tactical voting is defined as a conscious decision by a voter to back a party other than the one they support, in a pragmatic bid to secure a more desirable result in their constituency.
But, Qanawu does not expect a large shift in support from Lib Dem to Labour. Labour has gone stale. Nobody doubts Mr Brown’s handling of the recession-hit UK economy. Yet, Britons have seen their living standards suffered in the last couple of years and there can be no scapegoat as convenient as the incumbent government.
As the Daily Express believes only David Cameron can save Britain, telling readers “David Cameron has decisively won the case for change. But he needs a clear mandate. So the Daily Express urges readers to vote Conservative tomorrow. The future of our nation is at stake.”
In fact, out of the 15 most influential newspapers in the UK, two (Guardian and Observer) have shifted from Labour to Lib Dem, only one, the Mirror, is for Labour while advocating tactical voting for Lib Dem. The rest are all for the Conservative Party, including the Financial Times, Times and the Observer, which had not supported the Tories for at least 18 years.
As if it is an European conspiracy, just yesterday, the European Commission warned that the British budget deficit will swell this year to become the biggest in the European Union, overtaking even Greece. The EC’s spring economic forecasts put the UK deficit for this calendar year at 12% of GDP, the highest of all 27 EU nations and worse than the Treasury's own forecasts. It is also likely to help the Conservatives because there are doubts that a hung parliament will have the clout to rapidly reduce the deficit. A hung parliament is when no single party has enough seats to form a majority government on its own.

The Conservatives are likely to win their fight to oust the ruling Labour Party, but it is clear that no one party is likely to have an overall majority. The last time Britain had a hung parliament was in 1974 and that was short-lived because the cabinet could not even agree on how refuse should be collected. What seems obvious, despite all the scare tactics of the last few days is that the old voting system which produced a two-and-a-half party system in British politics will change from today. The smaller Lib Dem has finally arrived, a fate that our own Nkrumaist parties have not been able to achieve since 1992.
The inexperienced, Eton-educated Cameron has managed to give the Tories a new, soft image from the old haughty right-wing image. But, bringing the Tories to the centre has only made it more difficult for the voters to differentiate between the two main parties. In 1997 when Britons voted for change after 18 years under the Tories, there was a clear delineation between left and right, between Conservative and Labour. Now the lines are blurred.
This has forced the Liberals to be more left wing than the social democrats of Labour. The Lib Dems know that their only hope of having a piece of the governing cake is through a coalition.
Paul Stone, the public law expert at DLA Piper argues that a coalition government can lead to laws that are “often watered down to the point of being anodyne as a result of endless rounds of review and compromise”. Ironically, the wife of Nick Clegg (the apostle of coalition) works for DLA Piper.

Nick Clegg said in Durham called out to Britons to come out and vote in their numbers. “It might be a small cross [on the ballot paper] but it will be a big step towards a better, fairer Britain,” he says.
Like Dr Kwesi Nduom in 2008, Nick Clegg’s star shone the brightest in the first debate, with his purported disdain for the “old politics”, and taking easy pot shots at the other two. But, unlike Nduom, Clegg has managed to stay significant in the polls after the debates. Cleggmania had sustainability.
Desperate Brown is did a lot of walking, talking and even smiling with more confidence, shaking more greasy factory hands and carrying more pampers-wearing babies than he thought necessary some weeks ago. This is very different to the earlier campaign, which was all about getting the PM to meet his supporters in controlled environments.

“I know there are people who say, or hope, that the election is already over. But I tell you that tomorrow is the time for the thousands of people to speak for themselves. Tomorrow doesn't belong to the press, to the commentators, to the insiders, to the vested interests or even to the political parties. Tomorrow your voice shall be heard and your vote will determine the direction of this country.” That was Brown yesterday.

But my prediction is that he would be forced to resign on May 7 and with Labour having a new leader, and the conservatives just falling short of a working majority there is every chance for Clegg to be a kingmaker, forming a coalition government with Labour under a new leader. I certainly hope David triumphs and deliver a brighter Britain.
The Daily Telegraph, in backing David Cameron reminds readers that the Conservative is still “Built on the concept that the state should do less, better, and that decisions are best taken as closely as possible to where they impact, it addresses the straitened circumstances of the time...”
The Sunday Telegraph editorial still believes that there is a marked difference between the two main parties: “Despite the parties' attempts to capture the all-important middle ground, the differences between them are clear. Labour believes that only the state can solve the country's economic and social problems. The Conservatives, by contrast, believe that the growth of the central state is the cause of the problem, not its solution, and want to call upon the invigorating power of citizens and communities.”

qanawu.blogspot.com

Goodbye Brown, hello Cameron, welcome Clegg

2010-05-05T11:26:00.001-07:00

NPP ASPIRANTS, LEAVE KUFUOR ALONE AND DEFEAT THE BLAME GAME

2010-04-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

'Just take a deep breath and exhale slowly,' said a veteran politician in the wake of a presidential defeat. 'Forget about the finger-pointing, and start figuring out the way to a future that makes us relevant not just to our traditional constituency but to independents and independent-thinking NPP and NDC sympathisers.'

This was the opening remarks of an article I wrote on January 10, 2009 with the title ‘NPP MUST DEFEAT THE BLAME GAME’.

But, in the last week alone, there are reports of a New Patriotic Party constituency chairman blaming former President Kufuor for the 2008 electoral defeat and a Regional Organiser redirecting blame towards the 2008 flagbearer. The regional officer effectively blamed Nana Akufo-Addo for ‘engineering’ the prosecution of Kwadwo Mpiani and co over GIA!
This is not healthy for Ghana’s democracy and certainly not for the opposition party. Ghanaians are eager to see the NPP directing its attention on the ruling party and offering alternatives to what the government has to offer.

I have a personal experience on how damaging the blame game can be to a family. Four years ago today, April 6, my cousin and best friend, Ferdinand Ayim died in a road accident. It was a most painful loss! The family was almost torn apart as the blame game started. Witches were blamed; family members were blamed; politicians were blamed; some of us were blamed for discouraging him, through a political calculation, from running for the NPP General Secretary position in 2005. Being the General Secretary, it was simplistically argued, would not have occasioned him travelling on an official government duty about paragliding!

Instructively, the blame game was by and large fed by people who were not members of our family, including pastors and jujumen. They succeeded in knocking our heads together. This blame game almost marred the funeral of a commonly loved one.

But, blamers and accusers alike could understand the pain that was driving the blame game. We were all pained and looking for an escape. However, we chose to manufacture answers in the blame game and risked tearing the family apart. The family of course recovered, but it cost us dearly. Rest in peace my brother!

For the next three months the NPP risks being consumed by the blame game and in a manner that could eat away the unifying anatomy of the Elephant Family. But, there are a lot of positive things happening in the party. There is a revived commitment to work harder and better at the grassroots level. The party’s challenge now is how to get through the next 3 months unscathed.

On Sunday, I witnessed an NPP constituency chairman addressing some party supporters, specifically, in Jerusalem, Kpong Kantamanso. He said, as Vice Chairman in 2008, not once did he come to that area to campaign and that this was not an isolated incident. But, that they are determined to correct the shortcomings of the past and work harder for 2012. The polling station chairman of the area also spelt out plans to create a welfare system and build a closed and caring family of NPP sympathisers in his area.

There are others who are determined to focus on the past to make a case for the future, however. This is not unusual. But, it should be checked. Focusing on whether Alan Kyerematen resigned or not in 2008 is unhelpful and divisive. Let him sell his message and leave it to the over 114,000 delegates to decide. Also, aspirants and their supporters should leave former President Kufuor out of this flagbearership contest. This contest is not about Kufuor. Kufuor played the biggest role in the party’s success and would play a significant role for the party’s future. Just leave him out of anything that seeks to divide the party. Even if he is not neutral the party should resist temptations to drag him into the centre of this campaign. Let those campaigning cry their own proverbial cry.

There are those who use their personal grievances against the former President to throw their weight behind a particular candidate and use that vehicle to settle personal scores. There are others, who believe they can only advance their intra-political cause by seeking factional refuge under Kufuor. They would, with uncontrolled passion, jump into the defence of the former President but in a manner that is divisive only to score a political goal by portraying an internal competitor as anti-Kufuor. There should be greater discipline from all sides.

There is always a legitimate reason in any competition to show why you are better than your competitor, which may invariably call for some comparisons. Yet, the dynamics of internal politics call for some sensitivity in using this tactic, and the reasons are too obvious to articulate but can be summed up as the need to protect and promote post-intra-contest cohesion, trust and unity.

For example, I have heard it said that the NPP did not sell its 8 years achievements well. Well, who can forget what compelled John Mahama to say comparing records was mediocre! Indeed, any scientific analysis of NPP campaign adverts and other message formats will confirm that the ruling party in 2008 spent more campaign time and money telling Ghanaians about Kufuor’s achievements (NHIS, Capitation Grants, School Feeding Programme, Roads, etc) than telling Ghanaians what to expert in the future. Nana Akufo-Addo’s IEA debate also showed how the party had the unique three-prong task of incumbency of promoting achievements, defending government decisions and projecting hope and promise for the future.

As I write, communication strategists are, for example, busily passing on ‘information’ to newspaper editors about their points-scoring interpretation of how the 2008 campaign was badly ran. They are of course free to do so. Some are bent on making this flagbearership campaign a retrospective one of apportioning blame, rather than what the party should do to win back power.

I believe the article I wrote in January 2009 is still relevant today. I reproduce it below with some portions deleted for space or emphasised for effect:

'Just take a deep breath and exhale slowly,' said a veteran politician in the wake of a presidential defeat. 'Forget about the finger-pointing, and start figuring out the way to a future that makes us relevant not just to our traditional constituency but to independents and independent-thinking NPP and NDC sympathisers.'

Nonetheless, the blame game is in full swing. In the wake of the declaration of Prof John Evans Atta Mills as the President of the Republic, Kukrudites are engaging in the 'losing' party's ritualistic exercise of recrimination, re-examination and very little rebuilding. Bang in the middle of this licking and healing of wounds process is The Blame Game. The President, the Presidential Candidate, Campaign Director, National Officers, Regional and Constituency Officers, former presidential aspirants and close aides to Akufo-Addo are all being fingered in what was arguably the most innovative campaign in our political history.

While it may help deal with a 'defeat' that was shocking and was more than avoidable, it risks creating new cracks for a party that can certainly look forward to a Happier 2012 than this New Year.

My bottom-line message for hyperventilating Kukrudites sorting through the wreckage of their declared defeat at the polls is this: the New Patriotic Party should quickly move away from group or individual blame game and focus its attention on re-examining, and causing to reform, systems and structures that paved the way for the sword of office to be snatched away from the Elephant's jaws of victory and fumbled over to the National Democratic Congress.

Regardless of what might have gone on in the past, especially during the presidential primaries, no leading member of the NPP, from President Kufuor through ambitious ones like Alan Kyerematen and Dan Botwe, to constituency chairmen like Nhyiaeso's Jokad, would have wished defeat on the party they love. After all, there is even better protection and comfort in being perceived 'opposition' within a ruling party than being in opposition with your party.

However, when full direct, effective communications are compromised, rumours and presumptions have their own peculiar way of manufacturing their own realities from facts conjured from the fertile but destructive imaginations from characters afflicted with the classic Pull Him Down syndrome of the Ghanaian cultural environment. This is the danger that the NPP faces as it continues to lick its wounds by using scapegoats as a soothing balm.

Within some very serious circles of the party, John Agyekum Kufuor has been accused of doing Nana Addo in. An abominable thought about a man, who sacrificed over 30 years of his political life to the Danquah-Dombo-Busia tradition before being duly elected President of the Republic. Mr Kufuor is a very pained man. Pained by the fact that he could not hand over power to a deserving successor from his own party, Akufo-Addo. Pained by the fact that his personal decision to exercise his choice to back Mr Kyerematen in the 2007 primaries, has allowed his contribution to the 2008 campaign to be reviewed (after the facts) with some suspicion.

On the other hand, some are saying that the campaign team was made up of 'JAK's enemies' and thus no one wanted him to be involved. They have conveniently ignored the intimate and strategic roles played by some notable Kufuor loyalists. JAK, like Nana, you and I, may have people who don't like him but are they to be seen as his enemies?

Instead, names such as Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Kofi Apraku and Dan Botwe are cited, men who were deemed good enough to be in Kufuor’s cabinet. First of all, the four men were part of the campaign because they had shown their value in previous campaigns and they were among the 17 aspirants, in a campaign that operated on the philosophy of inclusiveness and unity.

For those who say the President was left out of the campaign, they should cross-check the regular weekly meetings Dr Apraku and, almost daily meetings others in the campaign had with Kwadwo Mpiani, President Kufuor's Chief of Staff.

After 8 years in office, facing the electorate in a year that global food and oil prices reached unprecedented heights, this was a year certainly for opposition politics: just refer to high cost of living. Especially, facing an opposition that was ruthlessly sharp in connecting with the vulnerabilities of the poor masses and was not afraid to climb on the ladder of tribalism to occupy a new presidential palace the investment on which it convinced Ghanaians it would rather have seen gone into a poultry farm, the incumbent NPP had its work cut out.

It is always easier after a defeat to say the NPP was not attacking hard enough, not responding to attacks, nuanced responses to difficult questions, etc. Now, people are wondering why the NPP did not make Prof Mills' health an issue or whip up Akan sentiments. Some are even angry that the President did not use the coercive powers of the state to call a state of emergency in the Volta Region or Tain.

I believe posterity would judge the NPP, Akufo-Addo and Kufuor favourably for not allowing the threat of defeat to compromise long-held principles. It was rather the NDC (then an opposition party) which issued threats of 'victory or violence'. The NPP has every reason to be proud of its record of performance both in office and in the polls. And, Kufuor must be praised for handling over power, peacefully.

In rounding-up terms, Nana Akufo-Addo won the endorsement of fifty percent of Ghanaian voters. The NPP is very strong in the legislature, with an exciting leadership that include the experience of Kyei-Mensah and the energy of Ambrose Derry.

For those stuck in the low gear of the blame game, the cheers from the thousands of party rank and file that greeted the arrivals and speeches of Chairman Peter Mac Manu, Nana Akufo-Addo and J A Kufuor, at Saturday's Thanksgiving Service at the Trade Fair Centre, said it all: the grassroots want the blame game to stop and campaign 2012 to begin now.

The party effectively had less than six months to campaign in 2008. The party took a decision to keep the flagbearer out of NPP-held constituencies until parliamentary candidates were chosen in April, May, and June. Nana was campaigning against a man who had been on every NDC presidential ticket since 1996. The first Akufo-Addo billboard came up in June 2008.

Indeed, it was Kwabena Agyepong who came out with the slogan ‘The Best Man for Ghana’, a direct counter to NDC’s ‘Better Man for Ghana.’ The billboard blitz was a claculated strategy to short circuit Nana’s popularity against the much marketed Mills.

The NPP 2008 campaign actually started in earnest in July, after the Kasoa rally. Before that, Akufo-Addo had to form a team that could combine the twin requisites of reconciliation and campaign efficacy.

The campaign had a committee in charge of Security. Its job was to liaise with the necessary organs of state to ensure that what happened in some nine constituencies in the Volta Region - the alleged assault, intimidation and multiple voting - would be under control.

An Identifiable Group Committee was set up, to among other things, listen to the concerns of groups such as fishermen, commercial drivers, teachers, etc., and see how government or the campaign message could address them, without needing to go for a run-off to apologise.

An Electoral Affairs Committee was set up to not only recruit and train polling agents, but also to prevent the use of an anticipated Ways & Means strategy from the other side and to ensure that the integrity of electoral officers was not compromised.

In all, two gospel concerts and four Believe in Ghana concerts were staged in the night, after campaigning hours, as part of the strategy of attracting some significant constituencies to the party. The total number of four BIG concerts took place in Cape Coast, Tamale, Accra and Kumasi, which critics now say dominated the campaign.

I believe some of the fundamental answers to what went wrong in 2008 may be found by taking a reconstructive look at the party's constitution. The focus must be on how party officers and candidates are nominated.

How to ensure logistics and money deployed to party branches do in fact get there. How the party branches can be revitalised to serve more than mere election machines. How the party can begin mapping out plans for a new grassroots movement that will give them a path back to power.

Signs are that the next two years would be economically difficult. Akufo-Addo sounded the alarm bells when he held a press conference on the effects of the global financial crisis on Ghana, which his opponents thought was too pompous (too known). The party must begin putting the Mills government on its toes. No sleep for the populists. Now is their chance to care for the populace.

The December 2008 debacle should not be seen as a repudiation of the NPP. We should rather see it as a period of deep reflection for the average Ghanaian. The country now has four years to assess the gap between populism and performance; between propaganda and delivering an agenda; between NPP and NDC and between Akufo-Addo and Mills.

We shall all be pro-active witnesses on how the Mills government focuses on the concerns of average Ghanaians, many of whom we now know as floating voters. The NDC, after making all the cheap but effective noises in opposition must now show they have compelling answers for the problems they identified as uppermost in the lives of the Ghanaian people.

Winning or losing election is not so much about individuals but by building efficient and reliable structures and systems. For example, a monitoring system that would guarantee that money allocated from the centre gets to the intended recipient. The philosophy behind the monitoring team was good but it had implementation problems. The idea was to bring on board people like Regional Ministers, DCEs and former executives who were seen as having something to contribute to the campaign at that level.
For example, the Ashanti Regional campaign monitoring team included, Albert Kan-Dapaah, (Defence Minister), Yaw Amankwa, Regional Chairman, Emmanuel Owusu Ansah, Regional Minister, Patricia Appiagyei, Kumasi MCE and FF Antoh, former former Regional Chairman.

The NPP has not the luxury to engage in infighting. Their first responsibility is not to advance the egos of any inner group or individual, it is to the people whose interest politicians seek to advance - the people.

In the words of an Australian opposition leader, 'and that really means we have an obligation to, in the, you know, gladiatorial nature of politics in this country to do what we can to ensure that we are in government as soon as possible, given that we are in opposition everywhere. And that in government, we are actually able to produce the best possible role, results, for the people that we are seeking to serve. Calm down -- and start building a bigger tent.'
gabby@danquahinstitute.org

A MONTHLY CHRONOLOGY OF MOBOCRACY UNDER PROF MILLS

2010-04-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Qanawu Gabby

In May 2009, Nana Akufo-Addo made a statement that was twisted by his detractors in the ruling party to portray him as rather a bellicose character on the outs and his party belligerent:
“Fellow Ghanaians, Instead of uniting us and fostering peace, the last four months have been spent intimidating innocent citizens and political opponents. We have seen physical attacks on NPP members in several parts of the country, including Agbobloshie, Kumasi, and Tamale.

“In the Tamale incidents of February 17th, violence erupted after discussions on Radio Justice following the seizure of my vehicle by agents of National Security. According to the report of the NPP Committee sent to investigate, which was confirmed by the press, there were arson attacks in Nyihini, Lameshegu, Worizehi, Choggu and Gumbihini.
“All the 27 properties that were attacked belonged to NPP members. Not a single one belonged to an NDC member. In the most outrageous case, Madame Sadia Seidu, a thirty-five year-old Nursing Officer and wife of Mr. Bawa Baako Alhassan, was brutally assaulted after a mob burnt and razed down the family’s 18-room house.
“She was chased by a mob of about a hundred, firing gun shots behind her. She ran 400 yards down the street to the house of an NDC member, where the gang attacked her and inflicted multiple cutlass wounds on her.
“No one has been arrested and charged for the attempted murder of Sadia, even though she identified those who led the mob attack. No attempt has been made by the state to assist the innocent victims, numbering about 800, who had their homes and belongings destroyed.”

After laying this foundation, Nana Akufo-Addo went on to forewarn: “The NPP’s leadership has worked very hard to restrain our supporters from reacting to these acts of intimidation and provocation. I am very concerned that sooner or later, militants on our side convinced that the state cannot or will not protect them, may take measures to protect their interests, themselves and their loved ones. Events will then be out of control, driving all of us towards a point of no return.
All of us, the President, the ruling party, the parties in opposition and civil society must, together, act to make our country peaceful and safe, and thus preserve our democracy for posterity.”

Unknown to Ghanaians, this was the beginnings of a mobocracy that would end up devouring the extended family of the mob, including MCEs, DCEs, Regional Ministers.

The splenetic reaction of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to the apparent inaction of the Techiman police to the alleged kidnapping and battery of the Tuobodom Omanhene underlined the emerging culture of mobocracy under Mills.

In 2008, Ghanaians were told the contest was between an ‘Asomdwehene’ (King of Peace) and a firebrand cocaine addict. The false and dirty defamatory propaganda obviously had an impression on some voters and the King of Peace won by the slimmest margin in our history (0.4%). But, the violence and lawlessness started even before the swearing in. In fact, it started when the votes were being counted and collated, with calls to arms to troop to the headquarters of the Electoral Commission.
Since then, on average, there have been six reports a month of major cases of mob action allegedly caused either by NDC activists or by people who, because of their political connections, believed impunity is synonymous to immunity under the umbrella. I have selected just a few monthly examples to illustrate the point:
1. NPP Still Living In Fear (6th January 2009, The Chronicle)
• Supporters of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) have been living with fear over the last couple of days, since the declaration of election results in favour of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) by Dr. Kwadwo Afari Djan’s Electoral Commission, on Saturday. Whilst some have suffered brutalities at the hands of NDC supporters, others have been evicted from their homes by their landlords, for having supported the NPP during the election period. Reports coming in from the regions also confirm similar incidents in which NPP supporters have been subjected to severe beatings, with their properties being vandalized.

2. NDC youth destroy shrine (GNA, 21st Jan. 09)
• Some supporters of the National Democratic Congress Party (NDC) destroy the gods of a fetish priest at Mehame in Asutifi District for allegedly prophesying that Nana Akufo-Addo would win the 2008 presidential election.

3. Actions of NDC Transition Team come under fire (GNA, 28th Jan. 09)
• The Minority in Parliament described the summoning of the Auditor General by NDC transition team as amounting to "utter and contemptuous disregard of the law, intimidation and violation of independent constitutional bodies."

4. Ashaiman NDC supporters besiege assembly, assault Director (GNA, 10th Feb. 09)
• About 30 supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ashaiman besiege the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly (AMA) and attack the Coordinating Director over management of public toilets. The Director, Mr Kwamina Akwa, was assaulted, had his spectacles destroyed and mobile phone snatched. The NDC supporters were returning from the court that heard the case involving the forcible takeover of toilets filed by operators who were managing them during the NPP administration. The Ashaiman police were informed but failed to bring the situation under control.

5. Ga-Dangbe Youth threaten to eject Kufuor (12th March 2009, Myjoyonline)
• The Ga-Dangme Youth Association threatened to demonstrate against the acquisition of an Office at Ridge in Accra by former President J.A. Kufuor.

6. NDC Youth Strike Again (23rd March 2009, Ghanaweb)
• The Nkwanta National Democratic Congress (NDC) youth joined their colleagues in Accra and other parts of the country in the vehicle snatching spree, with the Nkwanta District Coordinator of the Non-formal Education Division (NFED) and other supervisors being their first victims. The youth, numbering about 40 and allegedly led by the NDC Constituency Youth Organizer, Alidu Musah aka Suraj, rushed on the NFED Coordinator during one of her official supervision duties and seized her car, telling her that “you are an NPP activist and now that we are in power, you must handover all government properties in your care”.

7. NDC youth vandalise Party's office (7th April 2009, GNA)
• Youth supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Akwatia Constituency vandalize the Party's offices at Akwatia to protest the nomination of Mr George Agyeman-Duah as Kwaebibirem District Chief Executive (DCE). Singing war songs, the protesters smashed louvre windows and furniture, and burnt files and other stationery.

8. NDC Chairman beats up MP (16th May 2009, Daily Guide)
• The Chairman of the Ashaiman branch of the NDC, Alhaji Issifu Braimahm assaulted the MP for the area, Hon. Alfred Agbesi, for refusing to support their call to seize control over public toilets and lorry parks in the municipality. The Party Chairman delivered a heavy punch to the forehead of the Hon. MP making the Ashaiman legislator bang his head against a wall behind him. The incident took place at an executive meeting of the party at Ashaiman around 4:00 pm on the 14th of May 2009.

9. NDC supporters vandalise radio station (31st May 2009, GNA)
• An irate group of NDC youth, allegedly organized by the Member of Parliament for Techiman South in the Brong Ahafo region, Addai Simon, and led by the Constituency Organizer, Mumuni Saaka, invaded a local radio station, Classic FM, on Thursday May 28, 2009 with cutlasses, knives and sharp implements, stabbing two workers in the process and vandalized the station, leaving behind tales of woes, as the workers ran helter-skelter for dear life. The ‘Kanawu’ programme comes off every Thursday to discuss topical issues in the Techiman Municipality and had picked on a story about Hon. Addai, MP for the area who had allegedly threatened to sack National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) officials in the municipality.

10. NDC thugs seize Tamale NHIS, NYEP office (2nd June 2009, Myjoyonline)
• Thugs suspected to be sympathizers of the ruling National Democratic Congress on Tuesday raided the offices of the National Health Insurance Authority and the National Youth Employment Programme in Tamale, assaulted the workers of the two offices, threw them out and locked the office premises. The Metropolitan health scheme manager at the office, Fuseini Aminu who narrated the ordeal to Joy News said the attackers were supposed to be acting on the orders of their leaders. "We were in the office working, doing our normal work when some group of people came to tell us to leave the office immediately. I asked them what the reason was and from where did they get the authority. They told us they have been asked to come and sack us and that we should do that without complain," he narrated.

11. NDC Thugs Attack NPP Serial Callers (12th June 2009, The Chronicle)
• The Western regional Command of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) has taken over investigations into circumstances that led to a brutal assault on three Serial Callers who have allegiance to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Takoradi, by suspected National Democratic Congress (NDC) thugs. The thugs, who assaulted the serial callers, were reported to have been led by one Muhammad Anaba, an NDC activist and Chairman of the Takoradi Butchers Association. The regional Crime Officer, Mr. Vincent C. Agbenyato confirmed in a telephone interview that the said Muhammed Anaba had been arrested and granted bail. Muhammed Anaba reportedly engaged one of the NPP Serial Callers by name Kofi Adu, in a fierce argument which ended on a bitter note, with the latter ordering scores of NDC thugs to assault him.

12. NDC thugs attack NHIS office (18th June 2009, GNA)
• Some youth, believed to be sympathisers of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), are reported to have matched to the NHIS Secretariat in Goaso to push for the removal of the District Scheme Manager. The two were picked up early Thursday after police investigations revealed they led the youth to perpetrate the illegal act. Goaso District Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Kwabena Bediako said the other perpetrators would be pursued and arrested. This is one of several such attacks that supporters of the ruling party have been accused of engaging in since the new administration assumed power.

13. Choice FM under attack (19th June 2009, Daily Guide)
• Choice FM, an Accra based private radio station, has been ordered not to broadcast a political current affairs programme it intends to start airing from this Saturday. The threatening order, which was first sent in the form of a telephone call and a sms text message from a telephone number 0244371682, was reinforced by three men who stormed the station yesterday and introduced themselves to the General Manager, Raymond Afaga-Chie, as National Security agents. The agents, said they had ‘orders from above’ to order the station not to broadcast the program because the promotional advert was injurious to the government in power and the host, Martin Adjei-Mensah, is a known student leader of the opposition NPP.

14. NDC supporters on rampage in Kumasi (26th June 2009, Myjoyonline)
• Disgruntled supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Friday vandalized properties in Kumasi, in protest against the resignation of the Sports Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak. The angry supporters reportedly assaulted a woman and valdalised her urvan bus, accusing her of making derogatory remarks about the former minister who is also MP of Asawase in Kumasi. They argued they did not understand why Alhaji Mubarak has been “forced to resign” after he had been exonerated of all charges of financial malfeasance made against him. The Asawase Constituency Secretary of the NDC, one Salifu, who led the demonstration, told Luv FM’s Elton John Brobbey the demonstrators were outraged by the development.

15. NDC supporters threaten to seize toilets in Cape Coast (19th July 2009, Myjoyonline)
• Supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), are continuing to demand the right to control toilet facilities in the country. According to Joy FM’s Central Regional Correspondent, Richard Kojo Nyarko, the angry supporters have given a three-day ultimatum after which if nothing is done they will seize all toilet facilities in the Cape Coast Metropolis. The supporters say although a selection interview was conducted to pick people from amongst them to man the toilet facilities, some machinations were being done to torpedo the process. They warned their patience is thinning.

16. Minority calls for speedy investigations into Agbogboshie killings (27th August 2009, GNA)
• The Minority in Parliament appealed to the Minister of Interior to investigate, arrest and prosecute those who masterminded the killings at Agbogbloshie, Accra. The aggressive assailants reportedly used machetes, axes, iron rods, stones and other crude or lethal weapons to hack two of the victims to death and consequently inflicted degrees of life threatening multiple wounds on others. Hon. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu wondered why some of the people, who allegedly masterminded the killings, were still walking about freely in the streets of Accra and other places with impunity. Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said the victims at the hospital have allegedly named names such as Sule, Mohammed Ayatu, Sahana, Awal Voulina Naa, Sule Nabiya, Abdallah Rasta and Abdallah whom they said were responsible for the act.

To be continued
qanawu@gmail.com

No Ambiguity in NPP Constitution On Election Of Flagbearer

2010-03-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

Written by Asare Otchere-Darko Monday, 29 March 2010 18:25

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Some highly respected members of the New Patriotic Party have been arguing that the national leadership of the party, in choosing a date for the election of the 2012 presidential candidate of the party, must stick to the letter of the party’s constitution. This is a responsible statement, ordinarily.

However, their interpretation of the constitution is that the flagbearer must be chosen in (rather than by) December 2010. Some also argue, with some ostensible generosity, that the National Congress to elect the presidential candidate can be done ‘earlier’ but certainly not earlier than September 2010 because of the time the constitution provides for nominations to be filed.

The fundamental canon of interpretation is that where the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning and the words are reasonably capable of only one meaning that one literal meaning must be given. Thus, if a constitution’s language is plain and clear, the duty of interpretation does not arise, and the rules which are to aid doubtful meanings need no discussion.

Chapter 12, Clause 1 of the NPP constitution reads as follows:

1. The election of the Party’s Presidential Candidate shall be held not later than twenty-four (24) months from the date of the national election. The date and venue for the election shall be decided by the National Council, provided, however, that the National Council may, on appropriate occasion, vary the date.

What this means simply is that the only major check on the party, in concluding on a date, is to choose the next flagbearer before December 7, 2010. In theory, it could have been done last year. In practice, it must be done anytime this year before December 7.

It is therefore up to the National Council, which incidentally meets this Wednesday, to take a decision on the date for holding the National Congress. That date should only take two things into consideration: one, allowing for reasonable period of time for people to file their applications for nomination and for candidates to campaign. Two, when would it be practicable to hold a National Congress of some 114,200 delegates with its attendant cost to the party and how that would be funded?

This is because Clause 2 of the same Chapter 12 of the NPP constitution also imposes another time requirement. It reads:

2. Not later than six (6) months prior to the holding of the election, the General Secretary shall give notice inviting applications from Members for nomination as the Party’s candidate to contest for the office of the President of the Republic. The Notice shall be displayed in a conspicuous place in the Party’s Constituency, Regional and National Offices and shall specify the closing date for application, which shall not be more than five (5) months to the holding of the election.

This Clause has been curiously interpreted to mean that notice should be given 6 months before the holding of the election to choose a presidential candidate. But the literal meaning of Chapter 12 Clause 2 is that notice inviting applications or notice to open the filing of nominations should not be longer than 6 months.

It goes on to say that the closing date for nominations should not be longer than 5 months. The operative time frame here is one month. This means that the period for application of nomination should not exceed one month.

There is also another constitutional consideration. Chapter 12, Clause 5(a) of the NPP constitution states that “Where there are more than five contestants for nomination as the Party’s Presidential Candidate, a Special Electoral College shall cast their votes by secret ballot for the first five contestants to be short-listed.”

By some calculations, the Special Electoral College (SEC) should consist of not more than 588 delegates. They comprise of members of the National Council, the National Executive Committee, the Regional Executive Committees (160), the National Council of Elders (15), Members of Parliament (107), three representatives of each of special organs of the Party, past National Officers, 3 representatives each from every external branch (30), Founding Members during the registration of the Party at the Electoral Commission and all New Patriotic Party card bearing Ministers when the Party is in government.

Thus, whichever date is given could be affected by the number of people who opt to file in the period available for the filing of nominations. Yet, this need not arise if the SEC conference is held one day after nominations closed. The date for Congress need not be disturbed by the possibility of a conference of a Special Electoral College.

The root of the constitutional provision which seems to limit the period for applications to one month could be traced to 1992. One could even look at the 1998 Congress, the last Congress when the party was in opposition. The National Council decided to hold that crucial Congress in October 1998, two months after the new national officers, under Chairman Odoi Sykes, were elected. Thus, the candidates had only two months to campaign officially – a period which arguably contained and controlled a campaign that was feared to cause the party some irreparable harm.

This understanding is further underlined under Clause 3 (b), (c) of the same Chapter 12 which deals with nominations when the party is in government.

3 (b) When the Party is in government, the election of a Presidential Candidate shall be held not later than 11 months before the national general election.

It goes on to say that in that 11 month window, notice for applications shall be strictly 3 months, with nominations closing after the first month. It reads:

c) Notice inviting application for the members for nomination as the Party’s candidate shall be given three (3) months prior to the holding of the National Congress and shall close after two (2)months.

Here, aware of the shorter window that the constitution provides for the presidential nomination when the party is in power, it gives a clear unambiguous specific period of 3 months from the opening of nominations to the casting of ballots. Moreover, what is constant here and consistent with Chapter 12 (2) is the one month period it provides for applications to be opened.

This can be construed to mean that whichever date is chosen by the National Council it should give one month for the filing of nominations and an additional period for campaigning. Going by 2007, that additional period could be two months; going by 1998, that additional period should be at least one month.

To show that the relevant provisions under Clause 3 are dealing specifically with the period that the party is in office, Clause 3(d) stipulates:

d) Any Minister, National Officer, and District Chief Executive (DCE) who files to contest to become a Presidential Candidate of the Party shall resign his/her position

In interpreting the party’s constitution, the National Council should always turn to one cardinal canon before all others. It must presume that the framers of the constitution say in the constitution what it means and mean in the constitution what it says there.

As reasoned in Muller v. BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., 923 P.2d 783, 787-88 (Alaska 1996), "In assessing statutory language, unless words have acquired a peculiar meaning, by virtue of statutory definition or judicial construction, they are to be construed in accordance with their common usage."

There is no ambiguity in the NPP constitution as to when the National Council may decide to hold a National Congress. There may be practical and sectional-interest driven reasons why some may want it sooner and others later. But, let them not seek to advance that sectional cause by importing into the constitution words and meanings that are not there.

The author is the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, an ideological think tank based in Accra. gabby@danquahinstitute.org

No Ambiguity in NPP Constitution On Election Of Flagbearer

2010-03-29T11:52:00.001-07:00

JAKE, DELAY APPOINTMENT OF DEPUTIES UNTIL FLAGBEARER IS CHOSEN

2010-03-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

JAKE, DELAY APPOINTMENT OF DEPUTIES UNTIL FLAGBEARER IS CHOSEN

ASARE OTCHERE-DARKO

The intense lobbying started even before the Sunday thanksgiving service in Kumasi the morning after the National Conference which elected the new national officers of the New Patriotic Party.

The 2009 constitutional amendments of the NPP were well-thought through and far reaching. Apart from transferring more power to the rank and file, it introduced something that the NDC were first off the mark on – having deputies appointed for positions such as organisers from the constituency, through the regional to the national level.
Thus, apart from the 10 who won elective office at the Baba Yara Stadium last month, there are still 8 important deputy positions to fill. These are two deputy General Secretaries, two deputy National Organisers, two deputy Women’s Organisers and two deputy Youth Organisers.

The fundamental reason is to use the deputy positions to fill certain gaps which the election might not have taken care of. These are two fold: first is regional/ethnic/religious or gender balance and the second is expertise.
For instance, Sir John, as General Secretary may require two deputies, one in charge of administration and the other to focus on operations. The issue with having a deputy for Operations is to properly define that role so that it does not conflict with that of National Organiser. Alternatively the decision can be made to have two deputy General Secretaries with one in charge of the northern sector of the country and the other in charge of the southern sector.
This northern/southern division of responsibilities is even more necessary for the position of National Organiser. The position of organiser also calls for two sets of skills: a person who can think, plan and draw up organising strategies and a person who can get his hands dirty, go down to the ground to lead the actual grassroots mobilisation, train them and keep them fuelled, equipped and motivated.
The positions of Deputy Women’s Organisers give the party the opportunity to target some three female constituencies: the educated woman who is between 16-38 years of age; the rural, poor and large pool of women within the informal sector and; lastly, the significant group of religious women.
One of the deputy Youth Organiser positions must almost certainly go to a young woman who can also serve as a point of attraction for young women to the party.

Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the new national officers are spending more time entertaining aspiring deputies and their lobbyists than they certainly bargained for. The aspirants make an interesting bunch: those who contested for other party positions and lost, former office holders, those who believe they can do the job but had neither the stomach or resources to contest and those who are being pushed or encouraged by potential flagbearers to presumably serve their sponsors’ interest or bridge ‘divisions’.

With Jake, the veteran campaign guru, as National Chairman, and learning from the difficulties of past campaigns, especially 2008, there is a general determination on the part of Jake, all office holders in the party and even one or two aspiring presidential candidates to keep the 2012 campaign team lean and mean, using the recognised party structures.

This means that, for a start, the constitution of membership of national office holders of the party must have the experience, competence and balance required for an effective national campaign. What would ensure every gap is filled in this equation is the appointment of deputies.

Appointment of deputies should not be determined by who the substantive office holder merely thinks he can work with; it should be about who can help the party mount a winning campaign. It is the responsibility of the substantive heads to build, encourage and maintain a working environment of teamwork and camaraderie, devoid of their personal idiosyncrasies, whims and predilections.

In choosing who the deputies must be, the last thing the party should consider is how that could help resolve ‘divisions’ in the party. That would be a useless consideration which may even come back to hurt the party. Positions of importance must be held by people who want to work with all their heart, mind and strength.

How then can the party ensure this? I believe by simply delaying the appointment of deputies until the National Congress to elect the 2012 president candidate takes place and the flagbearer chosen.

By and large, those so-called divisions in the NPP are based on who becomes the next presidential candidate of the party. Those who say the divisions are based on Akyem vs Ashanti or UNC vs PFP should stop abusing history.

There is nothing in the leadership line-up of the two defunct parties to support this. Both UNC and PFP were dominated by Ashantis. The population of Akyems in Ghana is so small in comparison to pose any serious hegemonical challenge to Ashantis. The statistics show that Nana Akufo-Addo draws his biggest support from Ashanti. The Akyem vs Ashanti conflict is a convenient lie for those within and without the party who believe they can benefit from fanning it. Let the question of who leads the NPP be settled and see how exposed the ethno-mongers would be.

That question could be answered by June (before the World Cup) or latest at the end of July. In fact, the party needs to answer that question as soon as it is practical for minds to concentrate, not only on unity, but on the more pressing issue of the fiction of non-partisan district assembly elections which take place in August.

If the idea is to get the 2012 campaign ran from the party headquarters then the choice of deputies must be informed by one thing only: those who can do the job of winning 2012.

So Jake and co should seriously consider the call to put off the appointment of deputies until the flagbearer is chosen. If the party could go 18 years without deputies then it could surely do a few months without it.
qanawu.blogspot.com

JOHN MAHAMA, YOUR KOREAN DEAL DOESN’T ADD UP

2010-03-19T11:56:00.001-07:00

I was on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana with the Spokesperson to the Vice President of the Republic and he made some comments which I found most lamentable and I hope his boss shares this view.
John Abu Jinapor was asked by Shamima Muslim, the host, to comment on the visit to Ghana of John Clark QC, the lead counsel in the Mabey & Johnson criminal trial in the United Kingdom last year, where some Ghanaian government officials were among those mentioned by directors of M&J to have been receivers of bribes in the UK company’s bid to win multi-million pound contracts in Ghana in the past.
The man who speaks for our Vice President, John Mahama, described Mr Hardy as a discredited lawyer. “If I were the Danquah Institute I would not have invited this character to Ghana to deliver a lecture,” the young JJ said, with contempt in his voice and on his face.
On the same day, another NDC paper, The Post, had described Mr Hardy as a half-backed lawyer because a colleague apparently instructed by George Sipa-Yankey, the respected Owen Davies QC, who joint-heads the Garden Court chambers with the able Courtenay Griffiths QC (Charles Taylor’s lawyer), had, on instructions of the Ghanaian official, written a letter complaining about the name-dropping method of the prosecution.
Frankly, this reaction from Ghana’s ruling party, particularly, the Spokesperson, threw me into a funk. Was Mr Jinapor expressing the sentiments of the Castle to Mr Hardy’s visit? His comments that Mr Hardy was brought to Ghana “clandestinely” to, effectively, cause damage to the Government perhaps exposes his bosses’ sincere commitment to the fight against corruption. I could only ask: what does that say about our President’s commitment to fighting corruption?
According JJ and people who think like him, Mr Hardy’s crime was for mentioning the names of the Ghanaian public officials in court. The directors of M&J had confessed to bribing foreign public officials and volunteered documents, including payments made into personal bank accounts, as evidence of some of the individuals they allegedly bribed. Have the Ghanaians cited denied receiving any of the funds mentioned.
It is true that they were not given a right to reply because they were not parties to the case. That is rather unfortunate but they have every opportunity to ‘correct’ that.
It does not stop any of them from suing the directors of M&J in a UK court for defamation. One would also expect that the decision by CHRAJ to investigate the matter in Ghana should be seen as offering an opportunity to those who have been wrongly accused to clear their names.
John Jinapor and those who think like him have every right to describe the British as hypocrites for anonymising the names of the M&J directors (even under the pretext of pending individual prosecutions) and gleefully naming the foreign officials.
But, they should do their party’s stated commitment to fighting corruption a favour by, first, not discrediting an accomplished professional like John Hardy, and, second, by urging government to bring down the implicated M&J directors to Ghana to face prosecution. Thei anger should be directed at the directors who named their heroes rather than the prosecutor who used the information for the Crown’s case.
Ghana was the actual victim of the corruption to which the directors have confessed. The UK was not a direct victim. We have an extradition treaty with the UK, which is usually invoked for the benefit of the foreign party. For a change, this is an opportunity to invoke it for our benefit and bring those people to book right here in Ghana.
Indeed, Government would be better advised to not set loose its serial callers and hounds like JJ to use ‘half-baked’ reasoning to attack the character and integrity of John Hardy. They should, like CHRAJ, see how they can possibly benefit from the experience of people like John Hardy, to begin the process of extradition for those former directors to face trial here.
Mr Hardy, a recorder (part time judge) and Queen’s Counsel, can never be the sort of character the Spokesperson of the Vice President was struggling to portray him. He is a well-respected international criminal law specialist, an expert on mutual legal assistance, the very area that CHRAJ says it’s been struggling to get information from the UK SFO. His meeting with CHRAJ this morning is, at least, a clear indication that Emile Short and his team see his value to our national efforts against corruption.
He has instructed in a number of lengthy and complex fraud prosecutions as well as continuing his criminal practice, particularly in extradition where his expertise spans over 15 years.
He also appears for both prosecution and defence in major criminal trials and has extensive experience in money laundering cases. His lectures in Ghana were just following a trend. He is in demand as an expert witness on matters of United Kingdom extradition and criminal law in foreign jurisdictions, as well as being a regular contributor to lectures and seminars around the world.
Now let me move to the essence of the trip that Mr Jinapor accompanied his boss to Korea. John Mahama, we are told, went to Korea to sign an MoU for 200,000 affordable homes, valued at $10 billion to be built by STX, a Korean company. This is a five-year project that should lead to 40,000 additional homes built between now and 2015 yearly. This would be a major boost to tackling our housing deficit and I pray for its success.
But, how affordable is this deal? Secondly, we are dealing with a company which claims to have assets of about $2.6 billion and debts of some $7 billion. This is surely a company in crisis which is looking to Ghana for some miraculous salvation.
We are also told that the MoU requires the Government of Ghana to buy 90,000 of the homes in advance. Already it is music to the years of the police, prison guards, etc. Decent accommodation at last! The first 30,000 would go to the security agencies, with 20,000 for the Police Service.
But, let us apply the brakes and wipe the windscreen a bit. That Government pre-financing could cost Ghana $4.5 billion. From where does the Mills-Mahama government intend to raise that kind of money? We need to know now where and how.
This $4.5 billion would more than double Ghana's total external debt! Our total foreign exchange reserves are less than $2.5 billion! Something does not add up. If we had that kind of money why should we not be looking at building the units ourselves? If the Koreans are giving us a loan, we need to what the terms are.
Could, as predicted by the President, this trip by the Veep really be the final nail in the coffin of this Korean deal, meaning it has only exposed it as unreal?
Moreover, the $50,000 price tag at current HFC cedi mortgage rates over 15 years means that workers will pay some 15 million cedis monthly! How many workers can afford this? The questions only expose the lack of transparency surrounding this deal which has received more positive publicity than the IFC and CNTC loans put together.
The Koreans see this deal as good because it provides the company which is currently in a financial bind with some much needed liquidity from the upfront payment. If we have that kind of loose money lying around let us for a change believe in Ghana and make this project home-grown, because, after all, technology can be bought.
My advice to Government is to make the details of the MoU public and to stop the cheap politics and provide details of how this wonderful project would see the light of day rather than being coffin-nailed. As it is now, some things just don’t add up. qanawu@gmail.com

AKUFO-ADDO, BETTY, MILLS AND PARTISAN CLEANSING

2010-03-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko

On 24th December, 2009, I saw Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu and his wife Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu being among a group of beautiful people enjoying a special carol night in the house of Mr and Mrs Edward Akufo-Addo Jr. Three months later I am surprise to hear her opting to defend her cordial relationship with the Akufo-Addos and others in the NPP by telling what has been pointed out to be a lie about Nana Akufo-Addo.
“I was virtually hounded out of the Ministry of Justice by this same man who people say is my best friend. I had to leave the Ministry of Justice because I was attacked time and time again in 2000/2001 by the former Minister of Justice…I don’t think Nana would deny that. I don’t think that he can deny that he put extreme pressure on me to leave. He said that I was just too prominent a member of the NDC to be head of a division in the Ministry of Justice and so I had to leave… What happened to me was unpardonable. The hurt that it caused me and my family; I had to leave my family, I had to leave my husband, leave my children and leave Ghana in order to sustain myself. What happened to me, I will never do to any other state Attorney or any other public servant.”
The statement above is culled from a 60-minute interview that Attorney General Betty Mould Iddrisu, who last year held a press conference to inform Ghanaians that prosecutions were to flow this year on some 49 corruption cases, granted to Radio Gold Tuesday morning.
The response was straight to the point. “The Office of Nana Akufo-Addo wishes to place on record that this is an unfortunate, even if she sees it as a convenient, lie. Far from hounding her out of office, not only did she continue to act as Head of the International Law Division during the entire two-year period of his tenure as Attorney-General, Nana Akufo-Addo actually left the current Attorney-General behind at the Attorney-General’s Office when he left in March 2003 to take up his new responsibilities as Foreign Minister. Subsequently, he accepted her request for a reference letter to support her application for an international job. In fact, he gave her a glowing reference because he was satisfied about her competence and fitness for the job.”

But, Feisty Betty did not leave it there. In a press release, she shifted blame on to her colleague Ministers and investigators. She said, despite a memo from the Chief of Staff to the Ministers to provide her with documentary evidence on the 49 identified corruption cases arising out of the Transitional Team;s report, only the Transport Minister has been forthcoming, explaining why charges are reportedly prepared on Ghana International Airline dealings. Again, the CID, BNI, SFO and investigators, generally, have not been able to provide her office with enough evidence for her to prosecute the said cases.

Now, let us go back to Pretty (or is it Petty) Betty. According to the Attorney-General’s own CV, she worked with “Ghana’s Ministry of Justice from 1978 until her appointment at the Commonwealth Secretariat in November 2003. At the Justice Ministry, she headed the Industrial Property Law Division and was later appointed Ghana’s Copyright Administrator before leaving for the Commonwealth job, after serving as Head of the Ministry’s International Law Division.”

If Akufo-Addo left Betty behind and she stayed at post under another NPP A-G Papa Owusu-Ankomah for another 8 months before leaving for a more lucrative post at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, then how could she have been hounded out of office by her former boss?

And, why would she not go to Dr Obed Asamoah (the A-G before 2001) or Papa, her last boss, for a reference but chose rather perversely to go to the Foreign Ministry to seek a glowing reference from the very man who tormented her?

One would have thought her game was up. But, no! Not Betty. She has hit back saying she stands by her claim 100%. But, there is a subtle but significant shift. Her latest story is that, whilst working under Akufo-Addo, he kept harassing her that President Kufuor wanted her out. She said, for the two years that Nana was her boss, each time Nana met her at the office, he would say “Are you still here? There is too much pressure from the President and sections of government. Each time I go to the Castle, the President keeps asking me about you.”

Hmmm. So, both her immediate boss, the Attorney-General, and the President of the Republic wanted or reassigned or sacked and they could not do it for nearly 3 years until she resigned to take up another job in November 2003? President Mills must be thinking what a wimp his predecessor was. Why not? It took President Mills just a couple of months to get rid of people like Prof Ken Attafuah and several Chief Directors.

Now, let us take our time and analyse the facts well. (P)NDC had been in office 19 years. The impression in 2001 was that the civil service had been ‘bastardised’ and (P)NDC-ized and the whole government machinery had been booby-trapped against the new NPP government; there were moles everywhere. This mainly motivated the unhealthy ‘proceed-on-leave’ syndrome.

When Nana Akufo-Addo became the Attorney-General in 2001, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, then head of the International Law Division, was among the complement of staff he met at the Office of the Attorney General. Instructively, no significant personnel change took place in that sensitive office.

As his statement Tuesday points out, “It was common knowledge that Mrs. Mould Iddrisu was the wife of the former Defence Minister in the previous NDC administration, Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu. This fact led to some lobbying from some quarters for her to be reassigned to another portfolio within the civil service. Nana Akufo-Addo resisted such calls and defended his decision to maintain her at post on the ground that he had no reason to believe that her political affiliation was affecting either her professional judgment or her competence. Indeed, Mrs. Mould Iddrisu was given additional duties in charge of the de-confiscation of assets.”

It seems the more people seek to destroy Akufo-Addo the more they expose his virtues. This is a man who has been bastardised as a firebrand who would fire, arrest and jail his political opponents. Yet, his actions give an entirely different picture.

But, like the astute politician that he is, Nana Akufo-Addo used the Betty opportunity to attack him to hit back at President Mills, who preaches virtue but apparently not to the hearing of his government.

“Unlike the culture of partisan cleansing that competent Ghanaians in the public service have experienced under the current Mills administration, Nana Akufo-Addo stood firm to his principles that insofar as the Constitution of the Republic gave every Ghanaian the right to join a political party of their choice, he was not going to relieve any officer serving under him of their position solely on the basis of their political party membership, affiliation or sympathies,” the statement from Nana’s office read.

The statement goes on to advise President Mills that like Akufo-Addo, for the NDC, “the only relevant consideration” in appointments must be “competence and professionalism and so long as” public servants do “not allow their political sympathies to affect their competence, professionalism and judgment,” President Mills ought to have worked with the likes of Ken Attafuah.

While the response from Nana office concedes that there was pressure to get rid of Betty, the facts show that Nana did not get rid of her. There are hundreds of examples of Ghanaians who have been literally hounded and chased out of office in this era of a ‘Better Ghana’.

In fact, I remember when the pressure was fully on Nana’s neck in 2002-2003, with NPP hardliners calling for prosecutions to flow and NDC crying persecution, some procedural blunders led to some powerful calls for Nana to be sacked or reassigned. Betty’s current predicament is familiar territory. Nana’s friendship with people like Kojo Tsikata and ET Mensah were often cited as reasons for his ‘reluctance’ to act on prepared dockets.
I got to know of Betty Mould’s sensitive position at that time. People could not understand why she was still at post at the time Tsatsu was ‘winning’ interlocutory judgments in court. The charge was that the A-G’s was infested with NDC people. In fact, Betty today admits that even as a civil servant and against the rules she was a “too prominent member of the NDC.”
There were ‘strange’ and embarrassing happenings. On March 12, 2002, the NPP Government issued a public apology and added that it saw the distasteful attempt attempt to arrest Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), in Church was “a calculated move to embarrass it.”
Presidential Spokesman, Kwabena Agyepong, said there were certain elements within the security system bent on giving credence to the accusation by the NDC that the government was harassing former NDC government officials.
“The Attorney-General was emphatic on the day in question that they should not serve Mr Tsikata at the Church. For them to have gone back on his word to create a scene at the Church should be viewed as nothing but a calculated attempt to embarrass the government and to give it a bad name,” he said.
Two days later, it was reported that the Police Service had interdicted Police Commissioner in-charge of Legal and Prosecutions, Sam Awotwi, following the attempt by two policemen to arrest Tsatsu Tsikata in Church. The policemen involved, Detective Chief Inspector Hope Nyadi and Detective Inspector Ashitey Annang, were also interdicted.
The previous evening a security source purportedly told “The Evening News” that they were also investigating whether the interdicted Sam Awotwi’s “long association with the former GNPC boss might have influenced his role in the authorised arrest of Mr Tsikata”!
Such was the atmosphere in Ghana. Again, this happened two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Fast Track High Court was unconstitutional. It may comfort Betty to know that the pressure then was not only on Nana to resign, on March 2, 2002, the NDC called for the resignation of Chief Justice Edward K. Wiredu for setting up the ‘unconstitutional’ Fast Track Court.
On that same day, Tsatsu was back in court challenging the constitutionality of the charges against him. Before his plea could be taken, his counsel, EVO Dankwah, raised a preliminary objection that the act purportedly committed by his client was not an offence since it was committed in February 1993, whereas the law under which his client was purportedly charged came into effect in July of that year. The court agreed.
The Judge said, “I must tell the Director of Public Prosecutions that, our laws are stable and under no stretch of imagination could in or about February mean July.” It was difficult to convince the NPP that their celebrated lawyer Akufo-Addo could make such mistakes. The NDC elements of mischief were busily at work at the A-G’s.
There was another if not a more very basic error which only led NPP people to speculate even further that the NDC people at the A-G’s were deliberately doing what Kwabena Agyepong was accusing Sam Awotwi of doing. The summons which ordered Tsatsu's appearance before the FTC was issued in the name of the President and not the Republic.

“How could it be forgotten that by the Courts Act justice must be exercised in the name of the Republic and not the President? Did the A-G's office not know that by summoning Tsatsu in the name of the President, the independence of the judiciary was likely to be compromised? How come that this could not be detected by the whole machinery of the office the A-G? Was the A-G expecting us to believe him when he said that this error could not be traced to his office?” the Voice newspaper asked in its front page comment calling for Nana’s head.

Betty should take some advice from the concluding words of Nana’s statement, “While Nana Akufo-Addo may empathise with her predicament, whereby influential persons within the NDC are baying for her blood because of her alleged slowness in bringing former NPP government officials to trial, he believes that there are more responsible ways of handling the pressure than resorting to unnecessary fabrications.”

Who knows, may be Betty will follow her tormentor to the Foreign Ministry and make her presidential bid from there.

Don't mind the words consume the facts

2010-02-14T10:49:00.001-08:00

N OPEN LETTER TO TIGER WOODS

Dear Tiger:

Let me be the first to welcome you to your new found life as a Black man! Now that you have arrived, make yourself real comfortable, because as they say, "Once you go black, YOU NEVER GO BACK!

Now I know you're sitting up in that Florida mansion like, "Damn, why are all of these people who used to always speak so kindly about me and applaud every time I swing a golf club, turning their backs on me?” I've got the answer for you; but first, do me a favor: get up off that Alpaca couch, put down that Gatorade, slide on your Nike house shoes and take a walk up to your bathroom. Once you get there, look into that mirror above the sink and take a really good look at the brownish hew of the skin on that figure you see. In that reflection, if you look long and hard enough, you will find your answer.

Tiger, as I always say on this blog, I do not judge people, because we are all fucked up in a multitude of ways, but I do judge actions (including my own). While the rest of the world is quick to write you off as a villain; a poor husband; a cheater and even possibly a "Nigger" now, I say that I stand in full support of you as a man, and surprisingly, despite your beliefs to the contrary, a Negro brother.

You are surely not the first man in the world to be fucking somebody on the side, and damn sure will not be the last (Shit, I shamefully admit that I have been known over the years to have gotten a little head or ass on the side). Yet, even bigger than your "transgressions" as you put them, is the sin that is your skin.

I remember when you first came out screaming that, "I'm Cablasian (White, Black and Asian)" shit, and I remember how fucking stupid I thought you sounded at the time, and how much I wanted to slap the shit out of you. You have often reminded me of Uncle Ruckus on the TV show, The Boondocks, with that denial of your blackness shit. I wasn't mad because you choose to identify all the races from which you descended, because that is commendable, but rather, because of the fact that it really seems like you believe that this gives you some sort of racial ambiguity. We all know that you were raised by a strong black father, and regardless of whatever biracial ancestry you have, I am sure that he shared with you the perils of his life as a black man, and as such, you should have known better.

Yes Tiger, the real issue is not the creeping you did, but rather, the fact that you got TOO FUCKING COMFORTABLE with your "Magic Negro" status. You actually bought into your own corporate marketing hype and thought you could really transcend your skin color. You allowed your inner circle to consist of solely Caucasians, and instead of becoming "The Spook Who Sat by the Door", you really grew to be a House Negro. Shit, does Barack Obama ever look comfortable to you? We witnessed all his hair turn gray in less than a year, just running for the Oval Office. If the Black President can't chill for a second, how do you figure you can?

Now that shit has hit the fan, where the fuck are the majority of your white comrades? Busy consoling your wife (which I don't mean to infer for a second that she doesn't deserve); their Caucasian counterpart. Your homie and fellow (white) golfer, Jesper Parnevik, introduced you to your wife, but now says he didn't know that "you were that type of guy (what the fuck does that mean?)" Where is your ace-boon-coon Roger Federer right now? Trying to keep his ass as far away from you as possible, before his Gillette deal is in jeopardy too.

What's also sad is that it seems like you don't even pay attention to history. Kobe Bryant (Black man) gets accused of rape by a white woman, and he has to go on TV and shave his face clean to look less "intimidating" and cry one of those single tears like Denzel in Glory, then spend half the season flying across the country in G-4s from legal courts to basketball courts. However, Ben Roethlisberger (white man) gets accused of rape by a white woman and he isn't even late for practice once. David Letterman (white man) gets EXTORTED by some dude because he was fucking multiple women during his marriage, and he cracks some jokes and the shit blows over, and then you (black man) fuck some broads on the side and he is doing his opening monologue making fun of YOU.

The WORST part of it all? The chicks you was smashing out ain't even POPPIN'!!! These is some REAL EXTRA SO-SO broads at best, and you are about to GIVE UP HALF for them? Of course, NOT A DROP OF COLOR IN ANY OF THEM. It’s crazy too, because in looking at some of these texts, it appears that you were dead-ass in love with these chicks too, some of which were even PORNO STARS! How do you have a WIFE and a CHILD at home, and lying down with CAREER COCKSUCKERS?

In fact, you were so far gone with this shit, that you even let one of the chicks, Jaimee Grubbs, gas you up about how you are her "FIRST, LAST, AND ONLY BLACK GUY" and as such, "U SHOULD FEEL SPECIAL", as if this broad is some sort of White Cracker Jack prize or some shit. While it disgusts me that this ignorance didn't even bother you in the least, it was only made worse by your comical response: some stupid-ass comment about being "Bone Thugs in Harmony" (Like, what the fuck are you talking about)?

Now, after the dust settles and you see just how little White America REALLY loves your ass, you are gonna be left with us good old Negroes. One great thing about us as Blacks though, is that we forgive a lot of shit (Michael Jackson and R. Kelly are PEDOPHILES and yet keep iconic status). So while I would not be surprised to see you begin to make a couple of obligatory appearances at black events like the BET AWARDS, or maybe the NAACP Image Awards, I truly hope you wake the fuck up and come to grips with the fact that you are just like the rest of us Negroes, chinky eyes and all.

When all of this shit eventually blows over (and it will), remember the way you feel right now, cooped up in that kitchen like a project drug dealer, with the world casting you as the "typical black man" and don't ever think for a second think you are fully accepted by Caucasians - EVER. This isn't saying that all white people or any whole group of people is completely bad, but what I am saying is that you are not down by blood brother, just relation.

As I watch all of this tomfoolery unfold, I just ask myself, "Why?" Is it stupidity? Is it naïveté? I and everyone else who watches surely don't have an answer.

Then again, as you told your mistress Jaimee, maybe it’s just because you're "BLASIAN :) (Why the smiley face though?)"

Going the E-way and Yaw Amankwa's own-goal

2010-02-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

Going the E-way may be the only way, but…
A few weeks ago, when Yaw Amankwa, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party until last Monday granted an interview to the Chronicle there were many people, including myself, he commented that he should have come public like he did.
His problem was that Nana Akufo-Addo had addressed a meeting of selected constituency chairpersons in the region and allegedly told them that they should vote for F F Antoh as regional chairman and Jake Obestebi-Lamptey as national chairman.
Yaw Amankwa said that showed Akufo-Addo as a divisionist and not a unifier. Amoako Tuffuor, in whose house that meeting was held, responded by calling the regional chairman then as a ‘hypocrite,’ if not a diversionist.
There were many, including sympathisers of Akufo-Addo who were worried about the development. Mustapha Hamid and others were compelled to go out there and say such strategic meetings were normal in party politics. Competitive politics call for strategic meetings and consultations and secretly sharing views with like minded people, and on and on the explanations went.
My comments were that what was news about it was the fact that it had been made news at all - by the decision to disclose the meeting. It was probably a political calculation to win sympathy and to hurt one camp in this NPP turf war. But was it wise?
What Yaw Amankwa’s interview did was to tell the whole country that yes, Nana Akufo-Addo, was supporting other candidates for the regional and national chairmanship positions. So, who then were supporting the others? People the n drew conclusions or were helped to do just that.
Even before the polls were cast in Kumasi, the news out there was that Alan Kyeremanten was behind Yaw Amankwa and Nana behind Antoh.
Thus, by Tuesday, the real damage from Amankwa’s decision to go public was clear for all to see. Rather than giving credit for the victories to the individual candidates, the news was all about who between Alan and Nana won. Alan has suffered an unnecessary amount of collateral damage from what Amankwa did. But, it is far from fatal. A week can be a long time in politics if you have sustaining power.
That is why it is important to keep certain things away from the public in politics even if the itch to go public is excruciating.
But let me go to a programme that must be so dear to us all.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Danquah Institute, with support from others, will hold a 2-day seminar on the introduction of election automation technology to Ghana.
The Eastern Regional Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Alecs Agobo, in February 2009, at an EC-sponsored programme, called for ways of empowering security personnel deployed at polling stations to enable them enforce the right process at those stations.

He alleged multiple voting on the islands in the Afram Plains under the watch of a duty security man, who he said was helpless because he was alone and threatened not to intervene, else he would be drowned in the Volta Lake.

Mr Julius Debrah, Eastern Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), went even further. He called for the introduction of electronic voting system in the country to help avoid the issue of double registration.

Our conference next week is part of the responses to these issues. We aim to interrogate the viability of Electronic Voting and the challenges and advantages of a biometric voter register in Ghana for the 2012 general elections and beyond. It will be the first of Danquah Institute’s Annual Governance & Development Dialogue Series and the only national platform so far devoted to this important topic.
The two-day conference takes place at the Alisa Hotels, North Ridge, Accra, Ghana, on Feb 8-9, 2010. The first day will be devoted to Biometric Voter Registration; with Day 2 probing the question whether or not e-voting could work in Ghana and if so which model(s) would suit our environment.
While, the Electoral Commission has began with work on the processes leading to a compilation of a new voter register using biometric technology, “We fear that challenges with time, logistics, funds and unresolved issues about cross-sector coordination may still frustrate the implementation process”, observes Prof Yaw Twumasi, a member of the governing board of the Danquah Institute. The conference would offer a common public platform for the various stakeholders, including the voting public, to consider all these issues.
The conference will be chaired by Prof Ken Attafuah.
The fundamental question to be addressed at the seminar is how to protect the integrity of Ghana's future elections from the point of voter registration to the moment of winner certification?
The Danquah Institute believes that as a nation, we cannot dismiss without the benefit of a full domestic enquiry the viability of electronic voting and if we are to do so then it has to be now in order to allow the nation the time and space to make the necessary preparation for future elections.
Experiences elsewhere, from Asia to the Americas, have shown that countries take the e-voting way by first undertaking a pilot project at the local authority elections level. The conference will explore this option, along with its related costs and acceptability matters.
Ghanaians witnessed how the 2008 general elections got nearly marred by a bloated voter register which helped to fuel charges of vote rigging and increased opportunities for electoral violence and vote rigging.
For Ghana, the introduction of election automated technology could be the defence weapon against, not only systemic electoral fraud, but also the explosion of electoral violence in the future, which, if not checked, could ultimately deal a fatal blow to the entire democratic experiment here in Ghana and with serious continental consequences.
This programme is being supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the World Bank, with additional sponsorship from our media partners. If you want to attend please contact Nana Attobrah on 0244928999.

Yaw Amankwa, going the E-way

2010-02-14T06:07:00.000-08:00

5 Feb 2010
A few weeks ago, when Yaw Amankwa, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party until last Monday granted an interview to the Chronicle there were many people, including myself, he commented that he should have come public like he did.
His problem was that Nana Akufo-Addo had addressed a meeting of selected constituency chairpersons in the region and allegedly told them that they should vote for F F Antoh as regional chairman and Jake Obestebi-Lamptey as national chairman.
Yaw Amankwa said that showed Akufo-Addo as a divisionist and not a unifier. Amoako Tuffuor, in whose house that meeting was held, responded by calling the regional chairman then as a ‘hypocrite,’ if not a diversionist.
There were many, including sympathisers of Akufo-Addo who were worried about the development. Mustapha Hamid and others were compelled to go out there and say such strategic meetings were normal in party politics. Competitive politics call for strategic meetings and consultations and secretly sharing views with like minded people, and on and on the explanations went.
My comments were that what was news about it was the fact that it had been made news at all - by the decision to disclose the meeting. It was probably a political calculation to win sympathy and to hurt one camp in this NPP turf war. But was it wise?
What Yaw Amankwa’s interview did was to tell the whole country that yes, Nana Akufo-Addo, was supporting other candidates for the regional and national chairmanship positions. So, who then were supporting the others? People the n drew conclusions or were helped to do just that.
Even before the polls were cast in Kumasi, the news out there was that Alan Kyeremanten was behind Yaw Amankwa and Nana behind Antoh.
Thus, by Tuesday, the real damage from Amankwa’s decision to go public was clear for all to see. Rather than giving credit for the victories to the individual candidates, the news was all about who between Alan and Nana won. Alan has suffered an unnecessary amount of collateral damage from what Amankwa did. But, it is far from fatal. A week can be a long time in politics if you have sustaining power.
That is why it is important to keep certain things away from the public in politics even if the itch to go public is excruciating.
But let me go to a programme that must be so dear to us all.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Danquah Institute, with support from others, will hold a 2-day seminar on the introduction of election automation technology to Ghana.
The Eastern Regional Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Alecs Agobo, in February 2009, at an EC-sponsored programme, called for ways of empowering security personnel deployed at polling stations to enable them enforce the right process at those stations.

He alleged multiple voting on the islands in the Afram Plains under the watch of a duty security man, who he said was helpless because he was alone and threatened not to intervene, else he would be drowned in the Volta Lake.

Mr Julius Debrah, Eastern Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), went even further. He called for the introduction of electronic voting system in the country to help avoid the issue of double registration.

Our conference next week is part of the responses to these issues. We aim to interrogate the viability of Electronic Voting and the challenges and advantages of a biometric voter register in Ghana for the 2012 general elections and beyond. It will be the first of Danquah Institute’s Annual Governance & Development Dialogue Series and the only national platform so far devoted to this important topic.
The two-day conference takes place at the Alisa Hotels, North Ridge, Accra, Ghana, on Feb 8-9, 2010. The first day will be devoted to Biometric Voter Registration; with Day 2 probing the question whether or not e-voting could work in Ghana and if so which model(s) would suit our environment.
While, the Electoral Commission has began with work on the processes leading to a compilation of a new voter register using biometric technology, “We fear that challenges with time, logistics, funds and unresolved issues about cross-sector coordination may still frustrate the implementation process”, observes Prof Yaw Twumasi, a member of the governing board of the Danquah Institute. The conference would offer a common public platform for the various stakeholders, including the voting public, to consider all these issues.
The conference will be chaired by Prof Ken Attafuah.
The fundamental question to be addressed at the seminar is how to protect the integrity of Ghana's future elections from the point of voter registration to the moment of winner certification?
The Danquah Institute believes that as a nation, we cannot dismiss without the benefit of a full domestic enquiry the viability of electronic voting and if we are to do so then it has to be now in order to allow the nation the time and space to make the necessary preparation for future elections.
Experiences elsewhere, from Asia to the Americas, have shown that countries take the e-voting way by first undertaking a pilot project at the local authority elections level. The conference will explore this option, along with its related costs and acceptability matters.
Ghanaians witnessed how the 2008 general elections got nearly marred by a bloated voter register which helped to fuel charges of vote rigging and increased opportunities for electoral violence and vote rigging.
For Ghana, the introduction of election automated technology could be the defence weapon against, not only systemic electoral fraud, but also the explosion of electoral violence in the future, which, if not checked, could ultimately deal a fatal blow to the entire democratic experiment here in Ghana and with serious continental consequences.
This programme is being supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the World Bank, with additional sponsorship from our media partners. If you want to attend please contact Nana Attobrah on 0244928999.

NPP MUST CHOOSE FLAGBEARER EARLY FOR UNITY

2010-01-25T09:52:00.001-08:00

One of the major decisions that were taken at the 8th National Delegates Congress of the National Democratic Congress at the weekend was the constitutional amendment that ostensibly leaves no double entente doubt as to who is the leader of the governing party. Unlike previously when the roles of Founder and Leader were vague on who ran things, that incertitude has been checked (at least in theory) by the new provision that a sitting President of the Republic who is a member of the NDC is the leader of the party; unless there is no President then the flagbearer is the leader but in the absence of either a President or flagbearer then the national chairman leads.

The constitution of the second largest political party, the New Patriotic Party, is still even more polysemous on this issue. In fact it does not even mention the title 'Leader'. An attempt by Chairman Harona Esseku some years back to propose the President as the Leader was shot down by the blunderbuss of the conservative wing of the party leadership. The NPP maintains the apologue that the national chairman is its leader even in times of a flagbearer or a President of the Republic under the party's ticket. This fiction was sufferable before the party had a taste of power in 2001. But, the past 12 months have exposed the old folly. J A Kufuor's argument in the past that the party is mobilised, motivated, funded and its structures organised around a presidential candidate (or President) and not the national chairman is more valid today than ever. There is a leadership vacuum which not even the selection of a national chairman on February 27 can cure it adequately.

The NPP constitution provides for the flagbearer to be chosen before two years to the next general elections, when the party is in opposition. In 1998, the likes of Jake Obestebi-Lamptey, John Agyekum Kufuor and Odoi Sykes managed to persuade the party leadership on this issue. Thus, within two months of the new national executives being elected into office, the party held a nation congress in Sunyani, which had JA Kufuor winning a clear majority and taking that mandate to unite the party for victory in December 2000.

On page 16 of the Daily Graphic of Friday, January 22, I wrote an article arguing for an early election of the next flagbearer of the NPP (theose points would be repeated here). As if by design, on the very next page, P.17, of the same Graphic edition, aspiring national chairman of the NPP, Stephen Ntim, was pushing a contrarian view.

He argues that too much premium is being put on the issue of who becomes flagbearer rather than on building functional party structures. "Spending cash resources, energy and time on who became the flagbearer of the party without necessarily laying adequate and functional party structures would not help the party," he stated.

Mr Ntim described the NPP as a vehicle involved in an accident and "we need to fix the vehicle before looking for a driver."

Speaking on Kumasi's Hello FM the next day and on Metro TV the following Monday, I was compelled to disagree with Mr Ntim. The bottom line, you cannot build any functional party structures on a house that is divided. Ntim, like many of the other candidates, is preaching unity. This is in itself an admission that there are factions within the party.

By the end of next month, if all goes according to the decision of the NPP national council of Friday Jan 22, the NPP would have chosen its new team of national officers. The delegates should be demanding of all the candidates what programme they have in mind for both unity and victory. The contestants for the chairmanship slot should also tell delegates when would they wish to hold congress to choose the next flagbearer. At least, Ntim has come out to say that process must be delayed; must be set aside whilse he focuses attention on building a functional party. I

n fact, the election of party officers and candidates are very much at the centre of the process of building functional party structures. We all know how the influence of potential presidential candidates are being felt at every level of the party, from polling stations to national office. How does Chairman Ntim intend to build structures for so long as he continues to delay the elections for the very office which is at the zenith of divisions, tensions and diversion in the party?

For so long as the next national chairman, whoever it may be, chooses to delay the flagbearership contest, his own actions at reorganising the party would be frustrated by suspicions and mistrust. Odoi Sykes and his team, including Dan Botwe and the late Courage Quashiga took the wise decision to elect the 2000 flagbearer barely two months after they were elected into office. What is the Ntim timetable? What is Jake's timetable? What about Charles Wereko-Brobbey and Felix Owusu-Agyepong?

The truth, which J A Kufuor would tell Ntim for free, is that, the party has no clear collective focus and programme of action when the flagbearer has not been chosen. Imagine a situation where a proposal is up for discussion on how to organise the party at Constituency B2. The chairman there supports presidential candidate A and the two vice chairpersons are for Candidate B, the constituency organiser likes Candidate C, and the Women's Organiser and Secretary are in the camp of Candidate A, with the Secretary and Nasara Club Corodinator in with Candidate C, the Assistant Secretary and all the other deputies are with Candidate C. Only the youth organiser claims to be neutral. That proposal is likely to go nowhere. On the table, it would be first considered through the lens of each officers' sectional interest: how would that benefit my candidate? Suggestions given and decisions taken would always be veiwed with suspicion and frustration.

The longer the NPP delays in choosing its flagbearer, the more creative ways of negative campaigning would be devised and unleashed; the more money candidates would spend and the deeper the divisions would get. The only winner would be its main opponents, the NDC.

The argument is that the NPP should make this choice as soon as it is constitutionally possible. This should mean 3 months after the National Delegates' Conference of Feb 27 to choose national executives of the party or 4 months after if more than five candidates file their nominations. This means nominations must be opened within the first month of the national executives being sworn in. Their first task must be to elect a leader (flagbearer), cut short the nonsense about ‘whose faction is this or that’ and get to the business of being taken seriously by the general public.

The NPP must seek to elect not only its flagbearer early but that by August, parliamentary primaries of orphan constituencies must begin. The longer the party delays in going to congress the more the divisions would be, at least, exagerated. It is that kind of exageration that has the knack of even getting some candidates to overrate their own popularity in the scheme of things. Get it out of the way as quickly as possible and give the party enough time to begin the necessary process of reconciliation.

Everyday that the NPP delays the election of its flagbearer, the divisions within the party over leadership deepens and the race gets costlier. It is dangerously diversionary, however necessary, so the trick is not to prolong it at all.

Everyday that the party’s resourceful members spend time, text messages, strategy, energy and financial resources on how to outwit each other within the party on the flagbearership race, the main opposition party's ability and capacity to oppose the ruling party suffers and Ghana's democracy and governance are the ultimate losers.

Stephen Ntim and others may continue to argue that after the constitutional amendments, the NPP must focus first on 'building up its structures' and not rushing into choosing its next presidential candidate. My answer to them is: 'what do you need to build or strengthen structures with?' Money and more money. It is usually only when donors are convinced that the party has a clear presidential candidate and that he/she is winnable candidate that they will make their wallets generous.

To build functional structures you need to motivate party activists - that work is more effectively done by a presidential candidate than by any other party functionary. Are opposition parties able to raise any decent amount of funds when they don't have a flagbearer to showcase to donors? The answer is a big 'No!'

Again, to build functional party structures the party needs to have a communications strategy, which would be fed by programmes, strategies and policies of the party. So long as the party's human capacity is divided among presidential aspirants, it is difficult to mobilise brains around the strategy table. That is why strategies for organisation and victory are often created or revised radically after the new 'boss' is nominated.

The closer the period of presidential nomination is to the next presidential election, the more Ghana's democracy is about elections and less about what happens in between elections.

The facts show that party grassroots mobilisation really heats up only after a presidential candidate is nominated. Our political parties tend to lack a clear sense of focus, unity of purpose and direction when they don’t have a presidential candidate but several aspirants to contend with. They also need more time to design and promote alternative programmes to government . In this way we can deepen the substance and enhance the quality of Ghanaian political exchanges.

Wouldn’t it be great for Ghana’s democracy if by September 2010 the NPP presidential candidate is able to name his full shadow cabinet, with (as the 4th Republic Constitution demands) a touch more than half of the team coming from the legislature? The team can be reshuffled, of course, but such a refreshing approach to opposition politics would send a clear message to Ghanaians that in the NPP you have a government-in-waiting.

For more than a year and counting, President Mills has had no peer pressure, since his rivals in the 2008 elections seized to ‘lead’ their parties after December 2008 and he will continue to have asomdwe until the next ‘political campaigning season’ begins with the election of opposition flagbearers. This long vacuum of domestic peer pressure at the level of the presidency should be a matter of grave concern to all of us who are concerned by the quality of Ghana's political discourse and delivery. This creates not only a leadership vacuum at the top of the opposition political parties, but also reduces the fullness and effectiveness of the political parties to keep the President and his government in check.
In June last year, the Danquah Institute published its research findings urging political parties in opposition to consider choosing their flagbearers early (within the first 12 months after losing the last presidential election) and also to make their flagbearer the leader of the party. We pointed out, for instance, that no presidential candidate has won after less than four years exposure as presidential candidate and/or head of state in Ghana’s 4th Republic and, that, the earlier the presidential nomination process is brought to a close, the greater the opportunity of re-uniting the party and focusing on victory.

As at now, the ruling National Democratic Congress can speak of a clear leader in the President of the Republic. But, the same cannot be said about any of the opposition parties.Ghana’s democracy will be strengthened significantly if presidential candidates, who serve, effectively, as leaders of their respective parties, are elected early.
For the NPP to delay choosing its flagbearer until December 2010 would mean that for at least two years of his four-year term, President Mills would face no singular critical voice of ‘equal’ presidential material stature. This problem becomes more acute when, as has been the situation since 1993, the Executive controls a parliamentary majority. It would amount to at least two years of effective elective dictatorship in Ghana.
Democracy depends on strong institutions. But, it is also true that in order to grow and ensure strong institutions, there must constantly be strong peer pressure on the temporary custodians of power both at the legislative and executive levels. The deficit now is at the executive branch of government.
If the NPP is serious about party unity then it must be serious about not prolonging a contest that has the knack to exaggerate internal divisions and dyspathy to a level where they become a beast of a reality.

INFLATION = When Nobody Is Buying Prices Drop

2010-01-25T08:15:00.001-08:00

End-of-year inflation was 16 percent. It has been hailed as the best signal that President Mills´ tight fiscal policy is working. It has certainly worked - spending has been tight, consumption has been tight, chop money tight, tips tight, imports have been tight, the job market has been tight and the pockets have been tight. Even serial calling has suffered. I would sum the first year of Mills in economic terms as annus anorexia.

Ghanaians may recall that the Danquah Institute disagreed with the government and CEPA and forecasted that government would not even meet its revised end-of-year inflation target of 14.5%.

We went as far as to say that a better way to gauge the impact of government´s economic policy of 2009 on the average Ghanaian is to juxtapose the annual average rate of inflation to that of salary levels. On an average, Ghanaian workers received less than 10% pay increase last year. In fact the highest level of wage increase in the public sector was 17% in 2009. Some, like health workers and teachers, got about half of that figure.

We predicted that the annual average inflation rate for 2009 would be 19.47%. The figures from the Ghana Statistical Service last week indicated that inflation averaged 19.3% last year. I am proud to say
that DI´s research work and analysis on the economy last year were arguably more on point than any other. Yet, no one can be proud of the fact that Ghanaian workers in general got poorer last year - the first time this had happened en masse since 2003, at least, when wage increases started to out-pace the rise in prices of goods and services in real terms.

Despite, all these glaring statistics on the plight of the poor in Ghana, the NDC continues to call itself `social democrats´ who are there for the poorer masses. Now they are quick to say that the task
of sorting out the masses begins with sorting out the economy: stabilising the cedi and checking inflation. The concerns of the right are now the messages of the Ghanaian left!

But, really, should we be celebrating the fact that inflation has been falling consistently from the June 2009 high of 20.74% to the December 2009 rate of 15.97%? Inflation was 18.13% in December 2008. What was remarkable about the November and December 2009 inflation rates was that they went against the usual seasonal trend of higher inflation driven by Christmas shopping. Prices go up in December because everybody spends more, forcing demand to put pressure on supply.

The fall in inflation in the second half of last year has been driven by both non-food and food inflation. Food inflation was, of course, suppressed mainly by a good harvest. But another major cause of why
prices have not been rising is the simple fact that people are simply not buying enough. There is no money to spend; the disposable income of Ghanaians suffered severe beatings in 2009.

Figures of sales and purchases of the last quarter of 2009, if made available, would support this claim. I dare the Ghana Statistical Service to come out with figures on economic activity and let Ghanaians know whether or not we have anything to celebrate – apart from the fact that we survived it.

Basic economics tell us that inflation is primarily driven by demand out-pacing supply. So where supplies are available and people are simply not buying, retailers or wholesalers have no option but to
reduce prices to become competitive; even at the risk of not meeting their running costs.

Information from the Bank of Ghana last year indicated that both business and consumption confidence were low. We ended the year with some cautious flicker of ray of optimism that the economy had turned the corner and moving forward in the right direction to a Better Ghana.

Still, the data is curiously worrying. For example, interest rate on the 90-day treasury bill was 24.70% in December 2008, when inflation was 18.13%. By December 2009, with inflation at 16%, the yield was
higher at 25.90%. The Bank of Ghana has little option but to cut down the base rate by some two percentage points and impressed on the banks to follow suit.

Earlier last year, some of us were concerned about the trend which saw investors diverting their funds into T-Bills rather than investing in the productive side of the economy. Thus, by October 2009, the amount of cash invested in T-Bills by Ghanaians other the banks was GH¢800.20 million. It had almost doubled from the December 2008 figure of GH¢446.40 million.

However, by December 2009, while the yield remained high, non-bank holdings in T-Bills had dropped to GH¢661.30m. What this means is that people simply didn´t have the money to save despite the lure of high profits.

We are happy that our local currency is holding. Of course, it has been boosted by record high prices in both gold and cocoa - our main export commodities. This is good news. But, it is also true that people are simply not importing enough - either for production or consumption. When there is a fewer demand for dollars there is no reason for the dollar to be dearer.

A look at the following figures will tell us why. Total merchandise imports amounted to $6 billion in the first nine months of 2009, compared with $7.8 billion for 2008 (a decline of 23.4%). Non-oil import for the period was $4.9 billion compared with $5.8 billion in 2008. Oil imports for the period amounted to $1.1 billion as against the near double figure of $2 billion for 2008.

This is confirmed by lower foreign exchange purchases of $419.60m by December 2009 as compared to the higher figure of $482.50m by December 2008. The financial sector sold $414.50m foreign exchange in 2008 as compared to $405.70m by December last year.

President Mills has been able to achieve fiscal stability. But he did this by making Ghanaians poorer. The good news is that this low-demand-driven lowering of inflation should lead to interest rates falling and hopefully triggering higher economic activity. But, the signs have not been too promising - so far not so good.

Achieving partially impressive macro-economic figures on the back of mass impoverishment should not be the way for building a better Ghana. So far, the Mills of a better Ghana have been grinding slowly. We can only seek solace in the words of President Mills: "It will eventually get to its destination."

MILLS THE COOL POPULIST

2010-01-14T05:13:00.003-08:00

BY QANAWU GABBY

It is difficult to really put a finger on who President Mills is after listening to him on his 1st anniversary. Connecting the philosophy of Candidate Mills, with the actions and mixed-bag messages of President Mills is becoming rather tricky. My advice to him is to find quickly a bridge between these two ends or stand being hit for good with the hypocrisy tag.

As a report on the press conference of one year of the Better Ghana agenda goes, his performance was not top rank. In one statement he can defend a position and attack that same position!

I was intrigued by the way on his first annual anniversary of a ‘Better Ghana’, President Mills made a self-denying ordinance on not giving himself marks when a journalist asked him to rate his own performance. This time, he pointed out that it didn’t make sense for a school boy to mark himself in exams. Last year, he gave himself a modest 80% after his first 100 days. Then it made sense.

Statements like that give the impression that the President blows with the wind, he’s defined by events rather than defining events. I see him as a Cool Populist. He plays the populist card but with such humility that you are likely to take it with a gallon of sincerity.

I marvelled at the pomposity of the humble leader’s self-regard afterwards. “I'm proud of all my ministers for their wonderful performance in this first year of my administration. I sympathise with the other [political] parties. If NDC Team 'B' can perform this well, then they should wait for Team 'A' and when the Team 'A' comes, they would see what will happen,” he said, marking himself and his team high.

Here again after showing some modesty to make a point he makes a u-turn to brag to make another point. What matters to him is the point he wants to score and not how that point is scored. If it means forgoing a claimed principle then so be it.

As a social democrat, it was not surprising that when asked to name one item of major achievement of the year he mentioned but 4 social interventions: school feeding, capitation grant, free text books and free school uniforms. President Kufuor would certainly have recognised the first three items!

The associate professor gave Ghanaians a lecture detailing, as Simon Heffer would put it, some (but not all) of the attributes of contemporary politics and politicians that we find so distasteful. These included the adversarial nature of our democracy and the inability of those who participate in it to admit error.

The president said Muntaka did not resign because of corruption, “there wasn’t corruption, it was because of indiscretion on his part.”

Just a couple of weeks earlier, this same head of state scored high remarks with an international publicity stunt. ‘Ghana’s President John Atta Mills Rejects Christmas Gifts.’ The news item carried by Reuters, BBC, CNN, etc, was another showmanship on how seriously Ghana’s President intends to fight corruption.

It reminded one of the Graphic headline last year that the President had given his political appointees one week to declare their assets. A year later only a fraction of them had heeded to the declaration. The impression this gives is that things are said and done more for their publicity effect than their substantial impact on the agenda for bettering Ghana. This may not be fair, though. But in politics perception travels further than substance, as NDC may know so well.

The news item on hampers went like this: “Ghanaian President John Atta Mills is refusing to accept Christmas presents this year because he fears they may be intended to corrupt him. Sending hampers of food and gifts to people in authority is a Christmas tradition in the African country.

“But Mr Atta Mills's spokesman said the president felt it was better not to accept them in case the givers were seeking something in return. Mr Atta Mills was elected in 2008 on a promise to fight corruption.

‘“Some people bring the gifts and their motives are genuine,’ presidential spokesman Mahama Ayariga told the BBC's Focus on Africa.”

The President who would not even accept a traditional Christmas gift because of the fear of being corrupted is prepared to dismiss a case of corruption not tested in court as an act of indiscretion.

Sport Minister Muntaka was accused of corruption at a time that former government officials were visiting the offices of BNI like a diarrhoea patient visits the loo. But, Mills directed
National Security to handle Muntaka’s case – not the BNI specific.

In areas where the whistleblower had alleged that specific amounts of government cash was taken by the Sport Minister and the Minister denied, the investigation concluded that “the allegation could not be proved.” Instead, the whistleblower became a victim of persecution.
Even though the letter that sacked Ken Attafuah as head of the National Identification Authority stated he was being fired on the instructions of the President of the Republic, when the question was put to President Mills by a journalist his response was that he was not familiar with that particular case. “There is only one President”, he told Ghanaians fondly last year.

As a lawyer “if somebody makes an allegation against another person and is not able to give credible evidence…I have no option but to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who is being accused.”

Well, President Kufuor was also a lawyer when he called for evidence but Candidate Mills did not forgive him. “I would not hide behind evidence to shield corruption,” he said in 2008.

“So it was not a case of corruption, corruption could not be established. We felt that the young man was being indiscreet and that is why he felt that it was right for him to resign and he said so in his statement. In any case let me add this, we’ve been in this country for some time, you have reported on many cases [of corruption], since when have ministers, given these facts, had the courage to tender in their resignations? How many can you cite?”
Well, the truth is Muntaka’s was the first time in Ghana’s history that a Minister was accused of using state money to buy chinchinga (kebab) and pampers. But, it was not the first time Ministers were forced by circumstances of ‘indiscretion’ to resign.

President Mills reiterated his earlier stance that Muntaka should be commended for resigning his post for after all; “are we saying that this is the first time that ministers of state have gone abroad with girl friends, this is the first time that ministers of state have infringed the law, have spent state money on themselves?”

When a candidate campaigns on the ticket of morality and promises to better Ghana, the last thing we expect of him is to say: “I wish you asked me this question 8 years ago. This is not the first time that ministers have gone abroad with their girlfriends.”

What President Mills showed at the press conference was the type of intolerant temperament that an Akufo-Addo or Kufuor would have been accused of arrogance had they done so.

It was a farcical week. The President did not have to sack the Ashanti Regional Minister who incited his party supporters to assault those who criticise their President. But after acknowledging his Minister’s apology the President should have publicly rebuked the Minister and sent a clear ‘fatherly’ message to the country that people in responsible places should be mindful of what they say. That is the mark of a principled leadership committed to making Ghana better.

We must expect that with a new government successes of the past can be built upon, failures of days gone by can be learned from, new ideas can be tested, new solutions implemented and the nation continue to move forward in an ever constant course.

The route now remains uncertain. But, we must not lose hope.

MILLS THE COOL POPULIST

2010-01-14T05:13:00.001-08:00

MILLS THE COOL POPULIST

2010-01-14T05:07:00.000-08:00

DANQUAH INSTITUTE CALLS ON ECOWAS, AU TO SHOW CONCERN OVER NI

2009-12-24T14:19:00.001-08:00

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

DANQUAH INSTITUTE CALLS FOR URGENCY IN LOCAL CONTENT POLICY FOR OIL INDUSTRY

2009-12-24T14:13:00.000-08:00

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.

Overtaking the Elephant into the Bush - Arthur K's Communication of Complacency

2009-12-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

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

WHY GHANA MUST SOON DECIDE ON E-VOTING DI Reacts to David Kanga’s comments

2009-10-17T06:20:00.001-07:00

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

Who owns Barclays account in Geneva?

2009-10-02T20:08:00.000-07:00

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?

Will JJ and Spio battle Mills and John for 2012?

2009-09-29T12:01:00.001-07:00

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?

Will JJ and Spio battle Mills and John for 2012?

2009-09-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

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.

What the U.S. wants from Ghana

2009-09-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Why Nkrumah@100 was a flop

2009-09-28T07:57:00.001-07:00

It appears, nobody in Ghana is bold enough to face the truth. But, Qanawu will say it as it was. The centenary celebration of the `African of the Millennium´ was by all standards a big flop!

It was obvious from the start when the government announced members of the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Celebrations Planning Committee. Its focus was sectarianism rather than competence. Messrs Kwesi Pratt, Bernard Mornah and Agyemang Badu Akosah were on the team not because they have any known record in organising an event. They were there because they claim to be rabid Nkrumaists. To use people who can´t even organise a drink-up in a brewery to plan an important celebration like that is to say´ I´m not interested in the programme´s success´, I´m just interested in making a sectarian case.

The National Democratic Congress, led by a former student of Nkrumah´s ideological institute, saw this centenary event as another opportunity for the NDC to further eat into the CPP support base and claim the left side of the political divide for itself. To the NDC it was just a political strategy. The NDC knew it was on a winner, because so weak is the CPP today that to be its leader is like taking a job as a fitness instructor for a 43-year-old embalmed body.

Haunted by the NDC propaganda on Ghana@50, the government and the planning committee were even afraid to suggest things that were necessary to ensure a good show. Even the printing of t-shirts was problematic. They were afraid to be seen to be spending. So they ended up giving us a no show. Is that rather not causing financial loss?

They promised us several international guests, including many African heads of state. In the end, not a single foreign leader showed up.

The play on Nkrumah was a complete disaster. TV viewers gasped at seeing empty seats with a few occupied ones at the National Theatre, when news of the play was shown. It was like the attendance at a match between Berekum Arsenal and Berekum Chelsea at the 40-seater Ohene Djan Stadium, Accra.

Street vendors complained of lack of patronage for the Nkrumah souvenirs that they tried to sell. Months after Obama's visit, there are still billboards marking the visit to be seen. Few days after Nkrumah's centenary, not even a poster on the wall of the Ako Adjei interchange.

The night vigil at Kwame Nkrumah Circle on Sunday was embarrassingly dull, amateurish and had as many as less than 100 people in the audience. Well, may be 150, tops.Those of us who watched it on TV would have been forgiven to think it was an open audition for anybody on the streets to walk on stage to show what they can do - recite a poem or sing a song. Play a drum or tell a joke.Well, the Nayabingi song from the rastafarians was probably a ras-clat hit.

On Monday, the big event at the Nkrumah Mausoleum was nothing special. It had a lot to be modest about. In fact it bore the thumbprint of a presidency which believes that modesty - even in performance - is a godly virtue. The President looked very pretty in his three-piece abaja, with what looked like shoulder pads. Mahama was comfortable with his casual self. Even the MC, David Dontoh looked bored.

The free concert gala at the Independence Square was sparsely patronised. As one musician noted, "It attracted less crowd than the least attended of the `Believe in Ghana´ concerts done by the Akufo-Addo Campaign ´08.´

Perhaps the youth chose to stay away in protest to President Mills' advice to them during his dawn broadcast: 'What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul,' the President told the youth. I guess if they wanted a preacher for President they would have opted for Prophet TB Joshua.

Then comes Tuesday, the post-mortem was on. The national verdict appears to be strongly against the decision by the President to make 21 September a national day to be called Founder´s Day.

The hypocrisy of President Mills was all too apparent. The man who said the anniversary should galvanise Ghanaians to unite, started on the wrong note by passing that official decree that Nkrumah was the only founder of Ghana and that the day must be called Founder´s Day.

Those who listened to comments on radio Tuesday, especially Peace FM, should gauge for themselves whether indeed there is anything near a national consensus that Nkrumah was the only founder of Ghana. Mr Pratt made the case worse by taking on the man who never wrongs, Opanin Agyekum!

Kwame (Saturday born) Nkrumah, named Kofi (Friday born) at birth is said to be born on 21st September, 1909, which was in fact a Tuesday.

Even if we are to accept that fictitious date, should Ghanaians also accept the fiction of Ghana having a singular founder?

The poor patronage of the event should tell President Mills that Ghanaians do not accept his view that Nkrumah was the only founder of Ghana. Not even the obnoxious attempt by GTV to stuff our TV sets with only pro-Nkrumaists telling Ghanaians about a so-called golden age under Nkrumah could tilt sentiments in favour of that distortion.

Perhaps, Ghanaians should call for a probe of Nkrumah@100 if not for anything merely or the fact that resources were spent on a show that was honestly a flop! At least, with the probe we can get some idea how much the planning committee members spent on tea.

Of course, the NPP can be blamed for instigating the flop. The NDC in government is like a culprit, who is told that alcohol is responsible for his present sorry state.
"I'm glad to hear you say that. Everybody else says it's all my fault!"

21st September, in my view, could stay and be marked annually as a national holiday. But, the President should be humble enough to admit that it should rather be a Founders´ Day (putting the apostrophe where it belongs) if it is to receive national endorsement.

UK SFO Prosecution case against Mabey & Johnson involving bribery of Ghana govt officials

2009-09-28T05:07:00.005-07:00

10/2147845_2 1
IN THE SOUTHWARK CROWN COURT No.T2009 7513

BETWEEN:

REGINA

- v -

MABEY AND JOHNSON LIMITED

______________________________________________________

PROSECUTION OPENING NOTE
______________________________________________________

Note: This statement is provided for the assistance of the Court and the parties. While it
substantially sets out the Crown’s case, it is not, nor does it purport to be, a full and exhaustive
pleading of that case.

I. INTRODUCTION

1.
Mabey and Johnson Limited (“M&J” or "the Company") is a privately-owned,
family-run company, founded in 1923 by the Mabey family and incorporated in
1943. One of the original directors was a Mr Bevil Mabey who remained a director
of the Company until December 2007.

2.
M&J is an engineering company whose principal business over the last 35 years has
consisted of supplying bridging equipment in over one hundred countries, largely in
the developing world. In general, the bridges supplied consist of standardised and
interchangeable components which can be easily transported after manufacture in
the United Kingdom. Similarly, erection on site is a relatively simple engineering
process. On its website M&J proclaims that it manufactures “quick, simple, reliable
bridges” and goes on to assert “our modular steel panel bridge systems provide a
means of helping communities and markets connect reliably and safely”.

10/2147845_2 2
3.
Over the years - according to its website - M&J has become the “world leader” in its
field. Current turnover is around £50 million. During the indictment period
turnover was on average £56 million.
1
In the year to 30 September 2008, pre-tax
loss (before exceptional provisions) was c.£2 million. The Company employs
around 240 people, 210 of whom are based in the UK. Its manufacturing site is at
Lydney in Gloucestershire, where 160 people are employed in creating around
20,000 tonnes of bridging components annually. The Mabey family has reportedly
accumulated over £200 million pounds as a result of their ownership and
management of the Mabey Group, including M&J.

4.
M&J’s overseas clients consist principally of government departments and
highways authorities. Its contracts with foreign governments have often been
underwritten by the United Kingdom's Export Credits Guarantee Department
("ECGD") which is a statutory body whose role is to benefit the UK economy by
helping exporters of UK goods and services win business and UK firms to invest
overseas by providing guarantees, insurance and reinsurance against loss. The
Jamaica and Ghana contracts which are the subject of this indictment were in fact
supported by the Export Credit Guarantee Department (“ECGD”).

II: SUMMARY OF ALLEGATIONS AGAINST M&J

5.
In order to establish and secure its business abroad, M&J appointed agents to act on
its behalf in the various countries where it was seeking to win contracts to build
bridges.

6.
It is accepted by M&J for the purposes of sentencing that the payment of
commissions to agents was a routine aspect of the Company’s business, authorised
at director level. These payments were structured into the Company’s commercial
processes and were factored into contract pricing. Commission fees paid to local
agents or middlemen ranged from contract to contract and by jurisdiction. However,
historically, it was not atypical for agents to be paid between 5-15% by M&J,
although M&J maintain the average was about 8%.

1
Based on statutory accounts for the years 1992/1993 to 2001/2002.

10/2147845_2 3

7.
In Jamaica and Ghana M&J knew that its agents were involved in corrupt
relationships with public officials with influence over M&J’s affairs in those
jurisdictions. M&J accept that they agreed with their agents to pay bribes directly to
public servants in those jurisdictions. Those bribes were deducted from the overall
commission due to the agents.

8.
It is not asserted by the SFO, in this case and generally, that all payments to agents
are illegitimate or that all agents act corruptly. Agents, in some jurisdictions are
both necessary and play a useful marketing and other legitimate function to the
exporter. However it is equally beyond reasonable argument that unless properly
monitored and controlled, the employment of local agents and payment of
commissions is a corruption “red flag” exposing the company to risk. What it may
provide is a convenient smokescreen to deny corporate or individual knowledge of
arrangements conducted overseas. This was the reality of business practices of this
era.

9.
In both Jamaica and Ghana M&J’s agents were involved in corruption in those
jurisdictions. Their corruption was known to M&J and the SFO suggests, though it
is not accepted by M&J, that this would have been part of the rationale of their
appointment. The direct bribes were deducted from the overall commission to be
paid to the agent with respect to Jamaica and the majority were deducted from the
agent's commission for Ghana. In short it is the SFO’s case that the Company
therefore employed known bribers as agents for commercial gain from the outset.

10.
The SFO’s contention, based on inference from all the available facts, is that those
agents were appointed to facilitate corruption. The SFO believes this was known to
the directing minds of M&J. However this is not accepted by the Company.
Nevertheless in the light of the scope of what is admitted by the Company and what
is before the Court, namely bribes of more than £1 million on contracts valued in the
region of £60-70 million, it is the Director’s view that this difference is not so
substantial that it should require resolution by calling evidence. After all where
there are direct payments to public servants, it does not make much difference, for

10/2147845_2 4
the liability of the Company, if there were additional payments through the agents to
facilitate corruption. In some respects it may well be seen as aggravating where
modestly paid public servants are corrupted for relatively small amounts in
proportion to the commercial gain for the company concerned.

11.
In Jamaica M&J’s agent was paid 12.5% of the Jamaica 1 contract price. As will be
explained later, this was a headline figure as the Jamaica 1 contract was a Joint
Venture with Kier International Limited.

12.
For budgeting purposes in relation to the Priority Bridge Programme II in Ghana,
M&J created a notional fund of £750,000 called the "Ghana Development Fund"
("GDF") against which direct payments to public officials were made. In total from
the GDF and associated accounts, between December 1994 and 18 August 1999,
£470,792.60 were paid in bribes.

13.
In a lot of cases monies, represented on M&J's commission cards, would be
deducted from the agents' commission to be paid direct to the public servant. M&J
authorised these requests at director level and payments were processed both to UK
and overseas bank accounts.

14.
Although the appointment of agents to assist an exporter in obtaining overseas
contracts is commonplace and legitimate, payments to agents also carry an accepted
and obvious corruption risk.

15.
The Company does not accept that there was a corrupt intent in the appointment of
and subsequent commission payments to the agents in Jamaica and Ghana.
However it is accepted by M&J that in Jamaica and Ghana and in the countries
referred to below (where corruption has also been identified as a result of internal
investigations conducted on behalf of the Company) that in paying agents large
commissions there was a risk that unknown proportions of those payments might be
passed on to public servants as bribes. It also follows in countries with a similar risk
of corruption where M&J operated, such a system must have given rise to an
identical risk.

10/2147845_2 5
16.
Although, historically, M&J’s corrupt business practices appear to have been
carried on in a number of the countries in which it operated, for reasons which will
become clear the Company is indicted for its dealings in Jamaica, Ghana, and - in a
separate and distinct matter - Iraq. In addition the company has disclosed four
further jurisdictions in which corruption occurred, Madagascar, Angola,
Mozambique and Bangladesh, the relevance of which is described further later in
this Opening Note.

17.
A number of individuals, are the subjects of investigation with regard to the corrupt
business practices of M&J. Those investigations may be protracted. Currently,
however, the position appears to be that if any proceedings are to be commenced
against individuals associated with the Company, they will be contested, despite the
fact that the Company is pleading guilty to allegations which are largely evidenced
by the Company’s own documents.

18.
Given that the case against the Company could not have been brought before the
Court as expeditiously as it has been without the co-operation of and admissions by
the Company. Any long criminal investigation into the business affairs of a
company can have a damaging effect on it. The SFO are of the view that it is
appropriate to prosecute the Company before the completion of the investigations
into the conduct of the individuals.

19.
As will be described below, this is a Company that has replaced its board and is
changing and continues to review its business practices. It is, to a notable extent, no
longer the company that committed these crimes. Therefore mindful of both the
SFO’s domestic and international obligations, the SFO wishes to conduct its duties
in a way that does not unnecessarily damage the Company’s ability to trade. Of
course, that objective can only be fully discharged, as in this case, where the
Company fully and properly co-operates with the prosecuting authority.

20.
In this context it should be noted that the policy of the SFO under the present
Director, further referred to below and Appendix 1, is that boards of companies
should be encouraged to approach the SFO and make a full disclosure of fraud or
corruption they have discovered together with proposals about the changes and

10/2147845_2 6
monitoring needed in the future to re-assure the public that the behaviour of those
companies meet the highest ethical standards. If companies do this then the SFO is
prepared to discuss with them the pleas or other resolution that the SFO considers to
be in the public interest.

III: BACKGROUND TO THE REFERRAL AND INVESTIGATION OF
CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS RELATING TO M&J

21.
The referral of alleged breach of sanctions legislation is dealt with at section X of
this document. However, additionally during the last decade there has been some
speculation in the media and elsewhere concerning alleged corruption in relation to
M&J’s business practices abroad.

22.
The Metropolitan Police and latterly, the SFO, have sought to progress those
investigations, but, they could not be successfully progressed.

23.
On 11 January 2007 M&J commenced proceedings in the Chancery Division
against certain former employees and its agent in Jamaica. One of the Defendants in
these proceedings was Jonathan Danos. Amongst his other duties, Mr. Danos had
been responsible for negotiating commissions payable to M&J’s agent in Jamaica.

24.
In short, M&J claimed that Mr. Danos had acted in breach of his contract of
employment and his fiduciary duty by agreeing to pay an inflated commission figure
to the Jamaican agent in order that he and the agent could secretly profit at M&J’s
expense, and then direct those secret profits to their own commercial purposes.
What was involved was a “kickback” arrangement, by which Mr. Danos and his
co-Defendants not only unjustly enriched themselves, but then ‘invested’ that
enrichment in commercial schemes of their own.

25.
In his draft amended defence and counterclaim Mr. Danos asserted it was “common
practice” for M&J to pay government officials in order to secure contracts. In terms,
he further asserted that there was a bribery culture within M&J which was
sanctioned by certain directors. Given the nature of the evidence with respect to the

10/2147845_2 7
six jurisdictions referred to below which corroborates these particular assertions on
the part of Mr. Danos, the SFO agrees.

26.
On 9 January 2008, Herbert Smith LLP, solicitors for M&J, received from the Mr.
Danos’s draft amended defence and counterclaim. Although it did not contain a
signed statement of truth by Mr Danos those acting for Mr. Danos made it clear in
correspondence that it had been settled on his instructions. Subsequently, a decision
was taken by certain directors (including Director B, Director A and Director C,
who were directors of M&J at the time) to voluntarily report issues to the SFO. As
a consequence, on 11 February 2008, Herbert Smith LLP approached the SFO to
provide details of the evidence that the Company had been or may have been
engaging in corrupt practices. Documents relating to an internal investigation
undertaken by Herbert Smith LLP were provided to the SFO. Importantly and in the
spirit of exemplary and proper co-operation, the Company provided copies of
privileged notes of internal interviews of certain directors and employees,
conducted during the internal investigation. As an aside, the SFO regards this
approach, namely conducting an internal investigation which is then fully disclosed
to the SFO as meriting specific commendation. In cases where this is not the
practice of the suspect company, the SFO will not regard the co-operation as a
model of corporate transparency.

27.
Thereafter a process of disclosure took place by which M&J through its solicitors
progressively disclosed to the SFO Company documents which evidenced instances
of corruption in Jamaica, Ghana and other jurisdictions.

28.
Accordingly the SFO commenced an investigation into the affairs of M&J, its
directors, executives, agents and other employees.

29.
It is appropriate at this point to acknowledge the considerable level of co-operation
which M&J, through its solicitors, has afforded the SFO, enabling the investigation
into the affairs of M&J to be expedited. Indeed, the level of co-operation, coupled
with the Company’s readiness to admit its guilt, is one of the factors which
persuades the Director of the SFO that it is appropriate for the case against the

10/2147845_2 8
Company to be proceeded with and disposed of before allied investigations against
individuals are concluded.

30.
The SFO also recognises that since the commencement of the investigation M&J
has taken certain remediation steps. The SFO has been informed that five former
directors have stepped down as directors and ceased to be employees. They have
been retained as consultants to assist M&J in its co-operation with the SFO. The
SFO has been told that further training has been provided at both Board level and to
sales managers and commercial staff. It has also introduced new ethical procedures
and agreed to the appointment of an external monitor.

IV: M&J’s OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE

31.
M&J is one of a group of companies owned by the Mabey family. The majority
shareholder of the Mabey Group is Mabey Family Trustees Ltd., which owns the
majority of the shares in Mabey Holdings Ltd., which in turn owns Mabey
Engineering (Holdings) Ltd., a subsidiary of which is M&J.

32.
As of 3 September 2008, David Mabey was the Company Secretary and one of six
Mabey family members who were directors of Mabey Family Trustees Ltd.
Although his five sisters were board members, David Mabey, and his father, Bevil
Mabey, were the only family members who had taken an executive role in the
management and activities of the group of companies, prior to their resignation.

33.
Mabey Holdings Ltd. was incorporated in 1985. The Company's authorised share
capital comprises 550,000 ordinary shares and 2,000,000 preference shares. Both
types of share have a nominal value of £1.

34.
Mabey Engineering (Holdings) Ltd has 30,000,000 issued shares, all of which are
owned by Mabey Holdings Ltd. Mabey Engineering (Holdings) Ltd also owns the
entirety of the share capital of M&J – 4,000,000 shares. David Mabey resigned as
one of the three directors of Mabey Engineering (Holdings Ltd) on 2 July 2008, and
he resigned as a director of M&J and of Mabey Holdings Ltd on the same day.
David Mabey no longer has any executive role in the MHL group of companies.

10/2147845_2 9

35.
The reality of the ownership structure of M&J is that the Mabey family in general,
and David Mabey in particular, have at all material times been in exclusive control
of the affairs of M&J. Whilst directors within the Mabey group could be appointed
or removed at the behest of the shareholders, those same shareholders were David
Mabey and his family.

V: DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CONDUCT OF M&J’s OVERSEAS BUSINESS

36.
In 2002 the Company - evidently aware of the ramifications of sections 108 and 109
of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act 2001 – introduced new
anti-corruption policies and procedures for the conduct of its business.

37.
In May 2002 a “Group Gifts and Hospitality Policy” was distributed. Director A,
sent out two memoranda on 14 and 22 May 2002, defining the Company gifts and
hospitality policy. The Company also created an Export Committee to oversee the
appointment, remuneration, and conduct of its representatives in foreign
jurisdictions, as well as writing and publishing a policy set out in its Business Ethics
and Conduct Policy Manual (“BECPM”), which was circulated amongst its relevant
employees.

VI: THE WIDER CONTEXT OF THE CASE AGAINST M&J

38.
There are indicators, however, for asserting that the policies and measures described
above did not wholly bring about an immediate cessation of potentially corrupt or
unethical practices overseas by individual persons connected with M&J and its
business. Since the voluntary disclosure in February 2008, M&J, through its new
management, have undertaken a review for the purpose of maintaining ethical
standards within the Company.

39.
For the reasons developed at paragraphs 16 and 20 above, and further explained
below, the SFO is content to accept pleas of guilty from the Company to the conduct
alleged in this indictment.

40.
The indictment contains allegations pre-dating the coming into force of sections 108
and 109 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, and Security Act 2001. The issue of

10/2147845_2 10
jurisdiction has been considered by the SFO and M&J's legal advisers and it is their
respectful view that there is no jurisdictional bar to the prosecution of the indictment
before the Court.

41.
The Director of the SFO wishes to emphasise that by accepting the proposed pleas,
the SFO does not fetter itself in any way from investigating (and, if appropriate,
prosecuting) undeclared allegations of corruption against the Company if these are
discovered at a later stage. The SFO is also continuing with investigations
concerning a number of the individuals allegedly involved in corruption.
Prosecutions will be considered in due course if the tests in the Code for Crown
Prosecutors are satisfied. However given the admission of the Company of the
widespread historical corrupt practices within the indictment in relation to its
business affairs in a number of jurisdictions (see below), the SFO accepts that
having taken this feature into account in the sentencing of the Company, further
undisclosed criminality within the indictment period will not be the subject of
prosecution against the Company. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not the
position taken by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office in relation to ongoing
investigations against individuals.

42.
The policy of the SFO with regard to companies which 'self-refer' themselves to the
SFO for offences which can be described as - at least, relatively - historic, as in this
case, is to apply a proportionate approach to investigation and prosecution, both so
as to acknowledge endeavours at remediation, and to encourage other companies
which have a history of improper conduct to come forward and "clear the slate".

43.
Hence, in the light of the agreement of M&J to institute a system of independent
monitoring (see Appendix 1) of its overseas business activities and transactions on
the same model as that envisaged in the United States of America under the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act 1977, as well as certain steps it has already taken to remove
certain directors it views as "involved" in the corrupt practices, and further
improvements to procedures as outlined at paragraphs 19 and 20 above, the SFO is
respectfully of the view that the public interest is not best served - as against the
Company only - by what might well be long-drawn out litigation over remaining
unproven allegations of corrupt practices.

10/2147845_2 11

44.
Accordingly, the Director of the SFO is minded to accept the pleas proffered on the
part of M&J, without prejudice to its ongoing and unfettered investigations of
corrupt practices - on the part of individuals associated in various capacities with
M&J.

VII: THE JAMAICA CONTRACTS

(i) Relevant personnel

45.
The relevant Ministry responsible for bridge contracts has undergone changes of
name over time. In 1989 the department was known as the Ministry of Construction
(Works). In 1996 the department became known as the Ministry of Local
Government and Works and in 1998, it became the Ministry of Transport and Works
(“the Ministry”) and retains that name today.

46.
In 2001, the National Works Agency was established. This is an executive agency
working under the control of the Ministry.

47.
Joseph Uriah Hibbert was born on 20 July 1948 He served as a Jamaican
government official until October 2000.

48.
Mr. Hibbert joined the Ministry on 10 July 1972 as an engineer. By 1989 he had
risen to the position of Chief Engineer and in November 1993 he was promoted to
Chief Technical Director of the Ministry. He left the Jamaican Civil Service on 28
October 2000.

49.
During his tenure he held delegated powers to act on behalf of the Permanent
Secretary of the Ministry, including entering into binding financial commitments,
and where there was a vacancy in that position, he could lawfully act as the
Permanent Secretary. In short he held a very important and influential position in
regard to his principals affairs and respectively, M&J’s affairs.

10/2147845_2 12
50.
At all relevant times when Mr. Hibbert was in receipt of money from M&J he was
bound by the relevant Public Service Staff Orders. He was not entitled to receive
the money M&J paid him in respect of the exercise of his duties.

51.
Subsequently Mr. Hibbert entered national politics. In 2002 he became a Member
of the Jamaican Parliament as a Jamaican Labour Party member. When the
Jamaican Labour Party were returned to government in the general election of 2007,
Mr. Hibbert was appointed as Minister of State in the Ministry of Transport and
Works. He remains in that position today.

52.
As an official he occupied a position of influence in regard to the award of contracts
relating to Jamaica’s transport infrastructure. Indeed it might be said that his
appointment as Minister of State is testament to the influence he wielded in his
capacity as an official.

53.
What is plain beyond peradventure is that M&J paid Mr. Hibbert so that he would
exercise his influence corruptly on behalf of M&J. M&J paid him directly from
agreed commission payments earmarked for their Jamaican agent £100,134.62
between 20 November 1993 and 30 October 2001.

54.
In fact the direct bribes evidenced in M&J’s schedules year on year from 1993
onwards would have approximated something in the order of his annual salary each
year.

55.
Deryck A. Gibson is a director and chairman of Deryck A. Gibson Ltd. (“DAG
Ltd.”) which was incorporated in 1965, having originally traded as Deryck A.
Gibson Commission Agent. He is a former vice-president of the Jamaican Chamber
of Commerce and holds himself out to have been in business for over 50 years and
to be “a well-known and well respected figure by the private and public sector
leaders in Jamaica.” Mr Gibson acted as M&J's agent in Jamaica.

56.
M&J paid commission of 12.5% of the contract price for a contract which was
called Jamaica 1 (see below). M&J subtracted the direct payments to Hibbert from
Gibson’s 12.5% commission. It is accepted by M&J that Mr Gibson was involved

10/2147845_2 13
in corrupt activity with M&J within the indictment period and that Mr Gibson was
in a corrupt relationship with Mr Hibbert. When appointing and permitting Mr
Gibson to continue as an agent acting for M&J prior to 2002, M&J knew that there
was a risk that Mr Gibson might pass further commission money to Hibbert.

57.
Initially, Mr Gibson's commission was paid into accounts in his name. Later,
however, Director E, agreed that payments could be made to an offshore vehicle,
Montego Bay Enterprises Inc. for the payment of commissions to Mr Gibson. These
payments were made to a Bahamas account with Barclays PLC in the name of
Leadenhall Bank and Trust Company Ltd. These payments carry the reference
“Montego Bay” on an M&J commission card.

58.
Manager C was said to “have had the ear” of both Bevil Mabey and Director B, and
was capable of overriding decisions made by other board members. In terms of
global geography, Manager C’s duties were primarily concentrated in the Caribbean
and Latin America, although he also had some dealings with countries in Africa and
elsewhere.

(ii) M&J Jamaica Contracts

59.
M&J have obtained contracts for the supply of flyovers and modular pre-fabricated
bridges and associated technical services to the Jamaican Government.

60.
M&J have conducted business with the Jamaican Government from approximately
1993 and work is ongoing in respect of a current contract.

61.
Though M&J’s records are, because of the passage of time, sketchy in relation to the
earliest of its contracts in Jamaica, there appear to have been a number of precursor
contracts to a larger Priority Flyover Programme in Kingston, (the "Jamaica 1"
contract).

62.
Following Jamaica 1, there has been a subsequent, distinct, Jamaican project for
rural bridges (the "Jamaica 2" project). Only “Jamaica 1” and its precursors are
relevant to these, instant, proceedings.

10/2147845_2 14

63.
M&J entered into a contract referenced “OX93/081” with the Ministry of
Construction in 1993-1994 valued at £291,000. There were then two further
contracts in 1997 referenced as “0282R” and “0298R” with values of £547,000 and
£60,000 respectively.

64.
These early contracts were for the supply of various spans of modular pre-fabricated
bridging and spare parts for such bridging. The bridging equipment supplied under
these “supply only” contracts would have been sited and used by the Jamaican
Ministry of Construction at their discretion. M&J's business developed during the
1990's, so that in addition to this type of "supply only" contract of bridging
equipment, M&J was able to complete larger projects for the supply and installation
of more complex, flyover type, bridges, such as those provided on Jamaica 1.

65.
On 17 February 1999 M&J and Kier International Ltd (“Kier”), a British based
construction firm, entered into a Joint Venture, in order to facilitate both the
construction and civil engineering aspects of what became known as Jamaica 1.

66.
The Joint Venture ("JV") was conducted through an unincorporated vehicle called
the Kier/Mabey (Kingston) Joint Venture. M&J and Kier agreed that overall
revenue and profits from the JV in respect of Jamaica I would be divided 57% and
43% respectively. Under the terms of the JV a sponsor would have primary
responsibility for representing the JV. Kier was nominated to act as the sponsor.
There was a supervisory board of the JV comprising both Kier and M&J executives.

67.
The project effectively began as an unsolicited approach to the Ministry by M&J.
In December 1998 M&J made presentations to the Jamaican Ministry of Transport
and Works for bridge projects in the Kingston area including: Three Mile
Roundabout; Sandy Gully Bridge; Hagley Park Road/Maxfield Avenue and Half
Way Tree Rd.

68.
In January 1999 Mr Hibbert wrote back to the JV care of Deryck Gibson and asked
M&J/Kier to make a bid. There was no competitive tendering exercise.

10/2147845_2 15
69.
As the project developed the locations changed from the original plans and in the
end the proposal related to flyover bridges at Three Mile Roundabout; Sandy Gully
Bridge on Constant Spring Rd, Kingston and Montego River/NorthGully Bridge on
Howard Cooke Boulevard in Montego Bay

70.
Kier were responsible for the erection of the bridges and work of a general civil
engineering nature. M&J provided the steelwork.

71.
This was the only JV between Kier and M&J in Jamaica although there were other
proposals over time for work, for example, in Hunts Bay and certain rural bridges.

72.
The contract for Jamaica 1 was signed during December 1999. The contract was
entered into by the Ministry of Transport and Works on behalf of the Government of
Jamaica and Kier/Mabey (Kingston) Joint Venture. The contract was signed on
behalf of both M&J and Kier International Limited. Its value was £13.9 million.

73.
The Jamaica I contract was covered by a guarantee from ECGD.

74.
A change order varying the scope of the contract was sent under cover of letter dated
19 May 2000 by the Estimating Director of Kier International Limited.

75.
In the final contract the total value increased to £14,900,000. This price was broken
down into the cost of the specific bridging projects and an employer contingency
fund of nearly £1 million. The purpose of the employer contingency fund was to
meet costs relating to third party works, land purchase compensation and other
incidental costs arising during the building project.

76.
Within the JV costs commissions were 12.5%. M&J were responsible for
commission arrangements. In fact although the commission costs were 12.5% of
the total contract price/revenue, M&J bore all of the costs from their proportion of
revenue received, approximately £8 million, which represented 57% of the total
revenue under Jamaica 1. Therefore in reality M&J paid more than 20% of received
revenue in commission costs.

10/2147845_2 16
77.
The SFO has investigated the relationship between Kier and M&J in respect of this
contract. For the reasons given above, and all the evidence currently available to
the SFO, there is no evidence that Kier were privy to these corrupt practices. Kier
have co-operated with the SFO’s investigations.

78.
Moreover, it appears that Manager C was able to secure from the Jamaican
government an agreement to pay the ECGD premium on top of the contract price,
when in fact M&J had already factored some of this cost into the overall contract
price. In his memorandum to Director B of 30 June 2000, Manager C comments:

“I am pleased to confirm that we have now received from the Jamaican Government
£1,212,420 for the ECGD premium that has been paid in full. Please note that this
was included in our offer but nonetheless we have managed to get them to pay this,
which increases our profit on the contract by that amount.”

79.
As the overall contract price was approximately £15 million, this represented an
additional uplift on this contract for M&J and Kier. Prior to this memorandum, it
appears that, of the £1,212,420, the Jamaican Government had already agreed to pay
a contribution of £726,000 towards the premium amount, with M&J and Kier
paying the remaining amount of £486,420. It is not clear why the Jamaican
Government paid the full amount of the premium. M&J were evidently content to
treat it as a windfall.

80.
This windfall was again split between M&J and Kier according to the proportions of
the JV agreement. As you will hear, M&J agree that their share of this sum should
be properly paid back to the Jamaican Government.

81.
The Jamaica 1 contract was won by M&J and Kier. M&J had behaved corruptly.
They had already corrupted an important person of influence over these matters, Mr.
Hibbert.

82.
Mr Hibbert received relatively modest advance payments in his own name both in
cash and through bank accounts here in the UK. In addition, M&J made a payment
to Mr Hibbert's niece, a Faith Jadusingh, of £3,000. There was a payment to cover

10/2147845_2 17
the UK based funeral expenses for Mr Hibbert’s mother. Additionally, Mr. Hibbert
received monies via his National Commercial Bank account in Jamaica.

83.
M&J had corrupted Mr Hibbert from the time they first conducted business in
Jamaica back in 1993. Payments began at around the same time as he was promoted
to his position as Chief Technical Director in November 1993. M&J continued to
cultivate this relationship by bribing him in relation to the subsequent contracts in
1997. M&J made payments to Mr. Hibbert intending to influence him to act
corruptly in relation to those subsequent contracts and Jamaica 1. In short they had
bought Mr. Hibbert and in making payments to secure Jamaica 1 were doing so,
believing that they would have a corrupt effect.

84.
Monies were paid on a number of occasions from 1993 by way of “Advance
Commission”, and other such devices. Mr Gibson was connected with some of
these payments, as was Manager C. The payments illustrate the malign and corrupt
approach of both Mr. Hibbert and M&J: the request for payment and the willingness
to pay speak of an assurance on both sides that their “relationship” would eventually
bear significant fruit.

85.
In particular payments were made to Mr Hibbert in 1998 when M&J and Kier were
planning the project that Mr Hibbert later approved in January 1999.

86.
By 1 July 1998 M&J, Kier and another British construction company4 had begun
meetings discussing the prospect of work in Jamaica which ultimately became the
Jamaica 1 project. The Minutes of the Consortium Progress Meeting was attended
by Director E, Manager C and another representative for M&J and the Estimating
Director of Kier.

87.
The minutes note that some preparatory work had been done in drafting some
outline plans for the various flyovers and that it was proposed that,

4
WS Atkins

10/2147845_2 18
“This material could then be presented to Joe Hibbert (MoW – Chief Technical
Director) during his visit to UK in July – Manager C to arrange meeting”

88.
An action point was left for Manager C,

“ Manager C to arrange meeting with Joe Hibbert before he returns to Jamaica (but
after next consortium meeting).”

89.
The next consortium meeting was arranged for 15 July 1998 at 2.00pm at M&J’s
offices in Twyford.

90.
There is an Export Agents Commission Card in the name of Joe Hibbert which
shows a cash payment of £10,000 being made on 7
th
July 1998.

91.
This payment is supported by a memo of the same date from Manager C to Director
B,

“re: Joe Hibbert – Jamaica

As you are aware Mr Hibbert is presently visiting the UK with two other colleagues.
He has requested £10,000 cash to be deducted from commission due to him. Recent
commission statement is enclosed.
Please could you initial this memo as authorisation for the payment to be made.”

92.
The payment is authorised by Director B as requested by Manager C. Director B
then in turn requests Director E to amend Joe Hibbert’s commission card
accordingly. In a separate short letter, Manager C confirmed he received the
£10,000 cash sum on Joe Hibbert’s behalf.

93.
A further cash payment of £10,000 for Joe Hibbert during his visit to the UK was
requested for Director B’s authorisation by the Office Manager.

10/2147845_2 19
94.
Evidently Joe Hibbert was still in the UK by the 23 July 1998. In a memo dated 22
July 1998 the Office Manager stated,

“Please find attached the commission statement for J Hibbert for Jamaica which
indicates a total of £15,449.62. As you are aware Mr J Hibbert is visiting the UK at
the moment and he has requested via Manager C that he would like payment of
commissions due as follows:

The sum of £10,000 to be made available in cash (tomorrow 23/7/98)

The remainder to be transferred to his account in Birmingham.”

95.
These payments were made by M&J. In fact Director B and Director C authorised
the cash payment and countersign an instruction to their bankers that,

“In confirmation of instructions from the Office Manager we will require the sum of
£10,000 in cash (£20 notes) to be provided Thursday 23 July 1998 at 1100 hours.”

96.
This cash payment was made in person on the date of Joe Hibbert’s attendance at
M&J’s factory at Twyford on 23 July 1998. A further payment of £5449.62 was
paid on the same date to Joe Hibbert’s Birmingham account.

97.
All the payments prior to, up to and including the signing of the Jamaica 1 contract,
and following the contract’s delivery are recorded on an “Export Agents
Commission Card” kept at M&J’s Head Office. By the time of the last payment, the
Card had been re-named “Montego Bay” as opposed to “Joe Hibbert”. Montego
Bay was a company which M&J understood was owned or controlled by Mr
Gibson.

(iii) The role of M&J’s directors and management in securing Jamaica 1

98.
As with many of M&J's contracts, including Jamaica Phase 1, commission was paid
to a sales agent, and was integral to contract pricing. While commissions were
capable of being paid at agreed stages of a contract, a typical contract for the supply

10/2147845_2 20
of bridging equipment provided for payment of commission to be made pro rata to
revenues received.

99.
The majority of the payments made to Mr. Hibbert in his various accounts in various
jurisdictions were authorised by Director B. On a memorandum dated 2 June 1999,
Director B adds in relation to a payment to Mr. Hibbert of US$3,000 “This will be
the last one in advance.” Whether by way of advance or otherwise, one particular
payment followed the receipt of a memorandum from Manager C dated 30 June
2000 announcing that “Joe Hibbert, Technical Director of Ministry of Works,
Jamaica is due to arrive in the UK in July”. The sums sought were £5000 to be paid
into Mr. Hibbert’s Birmingham (UK) account, and £2500 to be paid to DAG Ltd to
cover Mr. Hibbert's travel expenses. One earlier payment, of £10,000, was made on
23 July 1998 to Mr. Hibbert while he was visiting the United Kingdom, and,
apparently at Mr. Hibbert’s request, consisted entirely of £20 notes. The M&J letter
of instruction to its bankers, Barclays Bank Plc regarding this payment was signed
by Director B.

100.
Director C signed the approvals of the majority of payments to Mr. Hibbert
relating to the two 1997 contracts, but apparently did not authorise any payments
relating to Jamaica 1.

101.
Director A signed approvals for payments in respect of both the 1997 contracts
and Jamaica 1.

102.
Director E authorised the entity Montego Bay Enterprises as the entity to which
Mr Gibson's commissions could be paid, as referred to at paragraph 57 above. His
status in the Company can be measured by the fact that on one document authorising
a payment of $20,000 to Montego Bay Enterprises, Director B writes “subject to
Director E approval”. Director E then went on to sign the document approving the
payment. His signature also appears on a number of approvals of payments to Mr.
Hibbert and he met Mr Hibbert at least once in the UK when he visited M&J’s
offices.

10/2147845_2 21
103.
Manager C wrote memoranda to Director B (and to the Office Manager - see
below) from 1996 onwards requesting payments be made to Mr. Hibbert, or DAG
Ltd. on Mr. Hibbert’s behalf. In some cases reasons are given, such as funeral
expenses for Mr. Hibbert’s mother (document dated 1 November 1998), or travel
expenses.

104.
The Office Manager, who has provided a witness statement to the SFO, has been
employed by M&J for a considerable period of time in various capacities. The
Office Manager was responsible for making sure that M&J were paid for the
products and services the Company provided to its customers. Within that role he
was responsible for transmitting “commission” payments when instructed to do so
by those in authority above him. He provides important evidence for the prosecution
in this case. That evidence shows that in relation to Jamaica, typically - though not
exclusively - Manager C transmitted requests to M&J for payments to be made
either to Mr. Hibbert or others, those requests were authorised by Director B and
another signatory, and the Office Manager then implemented the instructions for
payment. The Office Manager maintained and updated the “commission cards” for
all of M&J’s overseas agents.

105.
Other incidental payments were sought and paid - for example on 18 December
2000 Manager C wrote to Director B to the effect that M&J had been “approached”
and invited to pay Deryk A. Gibson a contribution of US$10,000 for “local party
funds”.

106.
It is plain and apparent that the payments to a public official in the position of
Mr Hibbert, often for expressed reasons which could have no conceivable legitimate
commercial purpose, are nothing other than bribes, which bribes were paid to
persuade Mr. Hibbert to use his influence in Jamaican government circles to secure
the Jamaica 1 contract for M&J. M&J accept that these payments were made with a
corrupt intent to so persuade Mr. Hibbert to act in a manner inconsistent with his
duties as a public servant of the Jamaican Government.

VIII: THE GHANA CONTRACTS

10/2147845_2 22

107.
M&J has conducted business with government departments in Ghana over a
number of decades. From the mid 1980’s until approximately 1996, M&J’s interests
in Ghana were represented by Kwame Ofori. During the early 1990's Kwame Ofori
acted as M&J's agent in Ghana. He controlled a Ghanaian bridge building company,
and apparently had influence within the ruling circles of the then ruling party in the
Ghanaian government - the National Democratic Congress (“NDC”).

108.
To promote its business transactions with government departments of Ghana,
M&J paid commissions to its agent or agents in relation to the business it won in
Ghana. It is accepted by M&J that through the creation of the GDF (the notional
fund created by M&J known as the “Ghana Development Fund”), its executives
facilitated corruption on behalf of M&J and that its executives were in (or sought to
create) a corrupt relationship with a variety of decision making Ghanaian public
officials with responsibilities affecting M&J’s affairs. These funds were
purportedly for the development of M&J business in Ghana but, in truth and reality,
were capable of and were understood to be capable of, being used for corrupt
purposes.

109.
When appointing and permitting its agents in Ghana to act on its behalf or for it,
M&J knew that there was a risk that unknown proportions of the agents' commission
totalling £750,000 might be used for corrupt purposes.

110.
The budget representing the GDF was managed by Director D, an executive
who later became a director of M&J. Whilst Director D had responsibility for
different territories during his career, in particular he had responsibility for Ghana.
Consequently during the material period, the affairs of M&J in Ghana were heavily
influenced by his direction and control.

111.
On 3 April 1996 Mr. Ofori and a relative attended a meeting at Twyford with the
Office Manager. It appears that Director B and other Directors made their excuses
for not attending. The Office Manager' note of the meeting records that Mr Ofori
did not have control over the "total 15% commission". Mr Ofori complained that he
had problems as he did not believe Director D had distributed 5% to the "relevant

10/2147845_2 23
personnel" or “local personalities”. The note records Mr Ofori saying that had he
been involved in the payment of the total amount of the 15% commission the
present difficulties would not have existed and said that this aspect had been dealt
with ably by him in the past.

112.
On 14 March 1996 Mr. Ofori had sent a fax on “Danielli Mabey Ltd” headed
notepaper (a Ghanaian company which was wholly unrelated to M&J and which is
understood to have been owned by Kwame Ofori). The fax was marked for the
attention of Mrs Margaret Ofori in Accra and appears to have been then passed to
M&J. The fax detailed how it was that “the situation in Ghana has been
deteriorating gradually ever since Director D came in to Ghana.” There can be little
doubt that the contents of the fax had become known at Twyford before Mr. Ofori
visited M&J’s Head Office. This is because Director D had himself sent a
“confidential memo” dated 25 March 1996 direct to Director B rebutting Mr.
Ofori’s assertions, and detailing how it was that he had had a meeting recently with
the only person who “can guarantee M&J’s position in this market”: Kwame Peprah.
Mr. Peprah was at that time the acting Minister of Finance and the Chairman of the
NDC Finance Committee.

113.
In fact Director D had been introduced to Mr. Peprah through Baba Kamara (aka
I. B. Ibraimah), who was the NDC Treasurer, and ‘political overseer’ for the
Ministry for Roads and Highways.

114.
The role of Baba Kamara and his value as an agent to M&J is made clear in a
document authored by a M&J executive, probably prior to July 1996, and sent to
Director A; Director B; Director C and Director E. The document is entitled
“Ghana” “Review of existing Agent and introduction of alternative Agent”.
Concerning the value of the proposed new agent,

“Kamara Ltd is a small Ghanaian contractor owned by Baba Kamara. He is the
NCE (sic) Treasurer and also the political overseer for the Ministry of Roads and
Highways. He is a member of the all powerful NDC Finance Committee which
includes Kwame Peprah (Minister of Finance and Minister of Mines and
Energy), Obed Asamoah (Justice Minister and Foreign Minister) and Mrs

10/2147845_2 24
Rawlings amongst others….[he] has considerable influence over Ato Quarshie,
the Minister for Roads, the Deputy Minister and other top ranking civil servants
and has been working with us since June 1994. This has been demonstrated over
the allocation of the extra Stg 1.3 mil for the Tano bridge and the Stg 4.5 mil
allocation for the Priority Bridge Programme.”
5

115.
Additionally, Mr. Kamara’s wife was secretary to the then President of Ghana -
the former Flight Lieutenant ‘Jerry’ Rawlings, who had originally achieved power
by means of a military coup in 1981. Unsurprisingly, a person in the position of
influence of Mr. Kamara was an attractive prospect to M&J as agent for their
business in Ghana, and the SFO contend, that M&J knew and intended that
commission paid to Mr. Kamara would be deployed as and when required to
corruptly promote M&J’s commercial interests. The SFO believe that because he
had demonstrated his effectiveness to attract business corruptly, he was appointed
by M&J. This is not accepted by M&J.

116.
Allied to the decision to use Mr. Kamara as their agent from some time early in
1996, M&J had plainly also decided to “sideline” Mr. Ofori, and to impose more
direct control over the payments made to “local personalities” by Director D
supervising and control from 1994 and the creation of the notional GDF.

117.
As will become apparent, whereas in Jamaica corrupt payments were directed
towards a specific individual, payments allocated against the GDF were more
general and numerous government ministers and officials were potentially in line
for a bribe. Each such payment required the authorisation of two M&J directors.

118.
Payments allocated against the GDF did not relate specifically to stages of
contracts in progress. The SFO says that they were obviously made with the
intention of securing and maintaining those contracts when it was deemed prudent
to do so. It is accepted by M&J that in creating and making payments from this fund
corrupt payments would be made to public officials in order to affect the decision
making process in favour of M&J. Thus payments were made for a variety of

5
MJN01 000131000056-7

10/2147845_2 25
purported purposes to a variety of ministers and officials. Some of those purposes
were self-evidently unrelated to M&J’s legitimate business such that the payments
can best - and, indeed, only - be described as bribes. Not only were the bribes overt,
so too was the means of collection on the part of the Ghanaian ministers and
officials, most of whom had UK bank accounts. Some, indeed, visited the UK in
order to collect their payments in sterling.

119.
During the 1990’s M&J entered into three principal contracts with the Ghanaian
Ministry of Roads and Highways (“MRH”) for the provision of bridges: Priority
Bridge Programme Number 1, worth £14.5 million, was agreed in 1994; Priority
Bridge Programme Number 2, worth around £8 million, was agreed in 1996; and the
Feeder Roads Project, worth £3.5 million, was agreed in 1998.

120.
Throughout the relevant period, and until the general election in 2000, the NDC
formed the Government of Ghana and many of the GDF payments were directed to
its members. Thus the then Minister at the MRH, Dr. Ato Quarshie, received a
cheque when he visited London in July 1995 in the sum of £55,000 for “contract
consultancy”. The cheque was drawn on M&J’s Clydesdale Bank account at the
Victoria branch in Buckingham Palace Road, and signed by Director A, and another
M&J director at that time. Director A also faxed the bank instructions to enable Dr.
Quarshie to cash the cheque.

121.
The payment to Dr. Quarshie and the following payments are but examples of a
wider-ranging series of bribes to various ministers and officials, which will be set
out in a schedule. Even relatively junior officials were the willing recipients of
bribes. In 1996 Saddique Bonniface was the ECGD desk officer in the Ministry of
Finance (he was recently until the change of government a highly placed politician
within the Ghanaian administration). He had a bank account at the National
Westminster Bank in Rickmansworth. On 29 February 1996 Saddique Boniface
received a transfer of £10,000 from M&J to an account at Barclays Bank Plc in
Watford. On 29 October 1996 the same account received a transfer of £13,970 from
M&J. On or about 29 October 1996 Amadu Seidu, the Deputy Minister at the MRH,
received £5000 in his Woolwich account held in St. Peter Port, Guernsey and Dr.
George Yankey the Director of Legal and International Affairs at the Ministry of

10/2147845_2 26
Finance, received £10,000 in his Midland Bank account in Hill Street, London W1;
and Edward Lord Attivor, the ex minister at the MRH, also received £10,000 in his
London bank account. This was the same branch of the Clydesdale Bank which was
used by M&J. Authorisation from M&J directors for each of these transfers was
requested by Director D. Amadu Seidu received a further £5,000 on 7 March 1997,
the same date on which Saddique Bonniface received a further £2,500. The latter
two transfers were authorised by Director B.

122.
Mr. Bonniface’s son was a student at Exeter University, where, on or about 26
March 1998, he received a cheque from M&J in the sum of £500. Although this is a
relatively small sum it is indicative of the nature of the corruption M&J was then
practising: it is a payment which could have no conceivable legitimate commercial
purpose.

123.
M&J's payments to Dr. Yankey were not confined to the payment on or about 24
October 1996, since his Hill Street account received £5,000 on 26 August 1998 from
M&J. Dr. Yankey was subsequently convicted in Ghana of conspiring to wilfully
cause losses to the state and served a prison sentence, along with Kwame Peprah.
Their convictions cannot be directly related to payments from M&J, but reflect the
culture of government corruption at the time, a culture with which M&J was only
too willing to engage.

124.
From December 1994 to 18 August 1999, M&J used the GDF and associated
accounts to pay bribes directly to named Ghanaian public officials totalling
£470,792.60.

125.
None of the payments set out above, obviously, could be said to have anything
remotely resembling a legitimate commercial purpose. Thus M&J was able to
engage in wholly corrupt business practices without any effective level of external
scrutiny being applied. Plainly, those who governed and directed the affairs of M&J
were responsible for arranging and authorising payments which, no matter they
were eagerly sought and accepted, were considered vital in securing M&J’s
business in a developing nation – at the expense of those least able to avoid the

10/2147845_2 27
expenditure that is inevitably involved in the making of corrupt payments: the
people of Ghana.

IX: M&J’s INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS

126.
The counts on the indictment are in one sense specimen counts. They fully
reflect the defendant Company’s criminality in the two jurisdictions concerned.
However, during the course of the investigation thus far, indicators have emerged to
the effect that corruption has been practised in other jurisdictions.

127.
The Company’s solicitors Herbert Smith LLP, have been instructed by M&J’s
present board to instigate an internal investigation into suspected corruption
practiced by M&J under its previous directorial and managerial regime.

128.
Their investigations are ongoing. Before they have been completed, what was
initially revealed by the Company’s investigations has caused the Company to come
forward and make disclosures to the SFO.

129.
Of necessity the investigations have been limited to a review of Company
documentation and interviews of current Company employees. It follows that the
internal investigations are incapable of inquiring into foreign bank accounts, the
activities of foreign agents and the like – which are matters which would ordinarily
be the subject of MLA requests.

130.
These investigations have revealed other corruption indicators. Some of these
might not necessarily be provable cases of corruption in this jurisdiction or at all.
The SFO is not in a position as of this date to determine with certainty whether
charges could be brought in all or the majority of cases.

131.
M&J accepts that in order to establish and secure its business abroad, it
appointed agents to act on its behalf in the various countries where it was seeking to
win contracts to supply bridges. Commission fees paid to local agents ranged from
contract to contract and by jurisdiction. In a number of jurisdictions; Jamaica,
Ghana, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Madagascar and Angola M&J did not pay all

10/2147845_2 28
those commission fees to its agents but in some cases it also used some of the funds
set aside for commission to make direct payments to public officials. Those
officials were either responsible for or involved in the allocation of contracts to
build bridges.

Angola

132.
During the 1990's M&J entered into a number of contracts with the Angolan
Government for the provision of bridging and associated services through which it
derived sales revenue worth in total approximately £6m.

133.
In a summary document prepared by a M&J employee it records that there have been
contracts and revenue in every year from 1991 to 1998 totalling £6,145,000. The
document records that the product sold was the C200 EW with “a few Hydromasters”
and that in 1997-8 the contracts were supported with Swedrelief (funding provided by a
Swedish Government aid body that is involved with U.N. projects).

134.
A Mr Antonio Gois was an official at the Angolan State owned entity, Empresa
Nacional des Pontes (National Bridges Company), and appears, at the relevant time, to
have been the direct contact for M&J along with another public official, Joao Fucungo,
also from the same department. Both Mr Gois and Mr Fucungo appear to have held the
position of Director of the Empresa Nacional Des Pontes. Details as to the exact dates of
their Directorships and their specific roles in the department are not available.

135.
In relation to Angola, in the 1990's M&J had an Export Agent's Commission Card in the
name of a company called Servicios Bella. Details in relation to the incorporation
(including country of incorporation), directors, and ownership of this company are not
available. At that time it was believed generally by M&J that Servicios Bella was owned
by or was for the benefit of Mr Gois. Payments made to Servicios Bella were made to a
French bank account.

136.
Manager C was the M&J employee with the primary responsibility for sales in Angola.
His position in M&J has already been set out at para 58 above (in relation to Jamaica).

10/2147845_2 29
Manager C requested M&J to remit commissions due under Angolan contracts to
Servicios Bella's account at the Banque Transatlantique in Paris.

137.
Details of the payments made to the French bank account of Servicios Bella are set out
in the table below:

Date Amount in US $ GBP equivalent (where
known)
23.11.1993 298,373.22
15.12.1993 348,816.81
28.04.1994 30,000.00
09.12.1994 44,664.62 29,003.00
09.02.1995 50,000.00 32,239.94
11.03.1995 67,246.51 42,029.07
10.04.1996 119,225.25 77,925.00
30.08.1996 171,795.22 112,400.69
08.05.1997 49,663.60 31,039.75
05.08.1997 27,593.41 17,257.12
10.11.1998 50,073.58 31,295.99
Total 1,257,452.22

138.
In relation to Angola, requests for authorisation of payments originated from Manager C
specifying that the amounts should be deducted from the commission account. In some
cases, requests were made by Manager C based on demands that he claimed were made
by Mr Gois.

139.
During 1993 calendars, diaries and other promotional gifts worth £3,124.80 and US
$2,208.51 were paid for in the UK by M&J and appear to have been provided for the

10/2147845_2 30
benefit of Mr Gois. In a faxed handwritten letter dated 24 November 1993 from
Manager C to the Office Manager; a Director of M&J and others he states:

“Please go ahead + purchase the two Land Rover for Gois from 2
nd
C payment invoice
from Hull, Blyth with this fax. Try + establish if Land Rover are imed avail +
advise me E.T.A.”

140.
Two Land Rover Defenders costing in total £28,646 were then purchased in the UK
during 1993 and shipped to Angola for Mr Gois' benefit. In 1994, further promotional
gifts worth £974 were paid for by M&J in the UK.

141.
In one fax to Director E dated 1 February 1995 Manager C writes:

“Further to our telecon I have been chased by G on several occasions for a
transfer of 50k U.S. as an advance for C for U.N. order. As this is a firm
U.N. order I recommend we comply with his request immediately. He
will not accept downgrading his C from 15 to 12.5 as 15 was the amount
1
st
agreed. As we are talking about a further 5 m U.S. package I’m not
inclined to argue. Pls advise what info you have on a fund the Angolan’s
are negotiating with European Development Fund”

142.
On 3 February 1995 further clarifying information was provided in a memo to Director
A concerning outstanding Angola orders which included a completed order for
Hydromaster units for which payment had been received in full from the Angolan
government and a pending order for various C200 bridges for the U.N’s agency, the
World Food Programme. The memo attached a copy of the abovementioned fax from
Manager C.

143.
The US $ 50,000 payment was made to Servicios Bella and authorised by Director A
and Director B.

10/2147845_2 31
144.
On 22 February 1995, Director A authorised a M&J employee visiting Angola to take
US$ 3000 cash for “local expenses”. These monies were paid to Mr Gois on 27
February 1995.

145.
In addition, $13,000 was paid to an account at Citibank in Berkeley Square to a
company called Unimedia Ltd in June 1997. This appears to have been a bribe for Mr
Gois' benefit.

146.
Cash bribes totalling US $13,000 were made to the public official Mr Fucungo in 1993
and 1994. It is not clear where these bribes were made. A payment of US$ 10,000 was
requested for medical treatment for Mr Fucungo’s wife in South Africa.

147.
The SFO has been informed by M&J that not all of the documentation relating to
payment approvals is available. However, Director A appears to have been involved in
the approval of a number of the payments in 1993 and 1994. Subsequently, Director B
was also involved in approving a number of the subsequent payments to Servicios Bella.

Madagascar

148.
M&J have supplied bridges to Madagascar since 1972. In early 2001 M&J won a
contract with the Madagascan Government worth approximately £1.1m to supply 11
bridges. This was a World Bank financed project.

149.
Manager A had responsibility for sales in Madagascar during 2000-2001 when the
contract with the Madagascan Government was being negotiated. M&J’s local Sales
representative had responsibility for a number of French speaking African countries and
he reported to Manager A who in turn reported to Director A and Director B. In a M&J
memorandum dated 17 July 2000, anticipating the business eventually won by M&J, the
local Sales representative states,

“As explained to Director A during his visit to France, we have alternatives to HFF and
we think it might be time to consider these seriously. A tender from the World

10/2147845_2 32
Bank has just been issued. It is supposed that the specifications have been
written as much as possible in our favour (though we have not seen them yet).
We think it is the proper thing for a visit to clarify the relationships with our final
client, Ministry of Public Works and to start the change in our local
representation.”

150.
Henri Fraise Fils & Cie Ocean Indien Ltd ("HFF") was the company that acted as M&J's
agent (the local representation refered to above) in Madagascar during the relevant
period. Initially HFF sought a commission of 17% of the contract value. The principal
of HFF was Ralph Fraise. However, M&J considered the level of commission to be too
high for the nature of the contract. During discussions regarding the commission HFF
disclosed that the commission being proposed was set at this level since it would need to
pay from the commission it received 6% of the contract value to Mr Jean Emile
Tsaranasy as a bribe.

151.
Mr. Tsaranasy was the Madagascan Minister for Public Works (or Ministere des
Travaux Publics) at the relevant time and was the direct contact for M&J in relation to
the £1.1m bridging contract. In the light of these discussions M&J decided that it would
seek to negotiate directly with Mr Tsaranasy to try to reduce the amount of the bribe that
would be paid to him. In the final event, HFF was paid approximately 11% of the
contract price.

152.
After entering into direct negotiations with Mr Tsaranasy it was agreed that he would
receive a payment of approximately 2.83% of the contract value. M&J's Export Agent's
Commission Card for Madagascar records the following payments that appear to have
been made to Mr Tsaranasy in the total sum of £33,250.00. These payments were
bribes.

153.
Details of payments to Mr Tsaranasay are set out in the table below:

Date Amount in

10/2147845_2 33
GBP
11.07.2001 £ 3,650
22.08.2001 £ 7,200
30.08.2001 £ 3,650
30.08.2001 £ 7,200
06.02.2002 £ 6,160
06.02.2002 £ 5,390
Total £ 33,250

154.
The bribes were made either by cash being given to Mr Tsaranasy or his representatives
in Paris or by M&J making bank transfers to Mr Tsaranasy's Swiss bank account, the
Banco del Gottardo in Geneva over a period from August 2001 until early February
2002. On 12 July 2001 Mr Tsaranasy picked up 39,098.07 FF (£3650) in a bank in Paris
and signed for the money.

155.
M&J also paid a bribe to Mr Zina Andrianarivelo-Razafy when he served as the
Madagascan Ambassador to the United States, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund in 2001. Mr Andrianarivelo is currently the Permanent Representative
of Madagascar to the United Nations.

156.
A M&J note, dated 24 November 1998, from the Manager B to Director A, Director B
and Manager A states:

“For your information Zina Andrianarivelo from Fraise has been appointed the
Madagascan Ambassador to the USA and will take up his position in
Washington from the 1 January 1999.”

157.
In a memorandum from Manager A to Director B dated 7 February 2001, he states,

10/2147845_2 34

“We have now been notified of the order … E00424. The full FOB value will be
£1,131,123…For his assistance we wish to pay Zina Andrianarivelo $10,000
(allowed in figures) of which $5000 to be paid now and the balance in due
course.”

158.
In a further memorandum from M&J’s local Sales representative to Manager A dated 7
February 2001 the same payment is referred to and is explained:

"Zina in Washington played an important role in the allocation of funds from the World
Bank to Madagascar for bridges. He also helped at some difficult stages in the
negociations [sic]; finally he will be helpfull [sic] in the future as well to
introduce us in Washington. I propose to reserve for him an enveloppe [sic] of
$5000 on the first job (7 bridges) and an additional $5000 if we actually get the
additional 4 bridges."

159.
Subsequently, after receiving a request directly from Mr Andrianarivelo-Razafy on 23
February 2001 a sum of $5000 was paid into his account at Credit Lyonnais in France on
23 February 2001.

160.
The SFO has been informed by M&J that not all of the payment authorisation forms can
be located. However, requests for payments to Mr Tsaranasy were generally made by
Manager A and Director B was involved in the approval of the payments made to Mr
Tsaranasy.

Mozambique

161.
During the 1990s M&J entered in to a number of contracts with Government
departments in Mozambique . M&J received sales revenues from contracts in
Mozambique worth approximately £6 million during the relevant period (1995-1999).

162.
A written report to the Directors of M&J of a visit to Mozambique in November 1995
refers to a number of projects, in particular in Zambesia, at various stages of completion.

10/2147845_2 35

163.
Mr Amerigo Fortuna was the Deputy Director of the Mozambique Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Co-operation and was involved in the selection of eligible recipients of
project grants. Carlos Fragoso was the national director of the National Directorate of
Roads and Bridges (DNEP) in Mozambique. Subsequently Carlos Fragoso appears to
have been chairman of the National Roads Administration (ANE) in Mozambique.

164.
It appears that M&J met with Mr Fortuna and Mr Fragoso and, inter alia, discussed the
extension of a contract for spare parts in Mozambique. This was a contract which
involved Crown Agent backing and the involvement of Japanese financing
arrangements. It is reported that,

“Met Dr. Fortuna who is involved to some extent in the selection of eligible recipients
of NPG, who confirmed that there probably will be $ 8 m of NPG available in
1996, and DNEP will be eligible for a further $ 2 m (max $ 5 m per
customer)…Mr Fragoso confirmed he will apply for further $ 2 m for Bridge
Spares in Feb/Mar 1996.”

165.
M&J retained an Export Agent's Commission Card for Mozambique which covers the
period 23 August 1997 to 10 April 2000 in the name of "C Fragoso". M&J's
commission card records that it made a number of payments to Mr Fragoso between 14
October 1997 and 10 April 2000 in the total sum of £286,978.54..

166.
M&J also retained an Export Agent's Commission Card for Mozambique which covers
the period 23 February 1996 to 23 January 1998 in the name of "Fortuna". This
Commission Card records a number of payments made to CKY Partnership, V&M
Tooling (Pty) Ltd and V&M Import and Export Agents (Pty) Ltd between the above
dates in the total sum of £42,475.88.

167.
It is possible that these were companies with which Mr Fortuna is connected. However,
it is not possible to confirm this connection; the SFO has been told by M&J that it does
not have any further information available about these companies; nor is it now known,
because records are no longer available, where these companies received payment.

10/2147845_2 36

168.
Another name appearing on M&J’s Export Agent’s Commission Cards for
Mozambique was a Mr Notece. Mr. Notece was an engineer employed by the DNEP
who it appears had some involvement with M&J's work in Mozambique. Mr Notece's
name appears on an unnamed Commission Card in relation to a payment of US$5,000
made in Mozambique in October 1999.

169.
Manager A was responsible for M&J sales in Mozambique. In a memo to Director B
dated 1 October 1999 he states,

“There are three recipients of commission and I believe it important that I can take USD
5,000 on my imminent trip to Mozambique…”

170.
M&J no longer has all the documentary records relating to its work in Mozambique
however it appears that this payment was made to Mr Notece and that in total Mr Notece
was paid $25,000 in Mozambique.

171.
Insofar as the payments to Mr Fragoso are concerned, these appear to have been made
by bank transfer to his Swiss bank account. M&J's records show that Director B would
have met both Mr Fragoso and Mr Notece during a visit to Mozambique in March 1996.
Insofar as the payments made to Mr Notece are concerned, it appears that these were
cash payments whereby Mr Notece received the cash in Mozambique.

Bangladesh

172.
M&J conducted business in Bangladesh between 1982 and 2001. Between 1997 and
2001 M&J received sales revenue from contracts in Bangladesh worth approximately
£20 million. Dates that these contracts were executed and their value are not available.
In part the requirement for these bridge contracts was in response to devastating
flooding in Bangladesh in 1998.

10/2147845_2 37
173.
Bangladesh is a country which has a reputation for widespread corruption and did so
during the period concerned. M&J made corrupt payments in connection with one of
the contracts obtained in this jurisdiction.

174.
In a M&J document concerning sales planning and development, believed to have been
authored by Director D, he states,

“High Marketing costs.
Our success has been based upon: Development of close personal relationships with key
personnel in the Roads and Highways Department, the Ministry of
Communications, the Planning Ministry and the Ministry of Finance. The use of
the “white man’s handshake” is extensive in building trust and confidence
before any contract is concluded in Bangladesh.
The drive and contacts of our agent. Our new agent has very strong contacts within the
Ministry of Communications. He has also worked hard at developing relations
within the other relevant Ministries where he was not known.”

175.
M&J entered into a contract on 29 June 1999 with the Ministry of Communications
(acting through the Roads and Highways Department) for emergency bridging under the
Emergency Flood Rehabilitation Programme (the "MOC Contract"). M&J's records
indicate that it received sales revenue of approximately £15 million in relation to the
MOC Contract.

176.
This was a contract for the supply of 25,000 rft of Bailey Bridges; “launching kits”; tool
kits and emergency floating bridges. This was a contract that was underwritten by the
ECGD.

177.
C. M. Nizamuddin (also known as Bulbul), was M&J’s local agent in Bangladesh from
at least 1998 until some time in 2002. M&J's Export Agent's Commission Card in the
name of "C. M. Nizamuddin" records that approximately £2.4 million in commission
payments in connection with the MOC Contract was paid during 1999 and 2000 through
accounts in various names.

10/2147845_2 38
178.
Transfers were also made in relation to Bangladesh which are recorded in a separate
M&J Commission Card entitled Asia Development Fund. Director D appears to have
made cash payments in Bangladesh and claimed these as expenses to be deducted from
the Asia Development Fund. On trips in April and May 1999, Director D made a
payment of £320, referenced as "TSC approval" and a payment of £640 referenced
"Purchase committee member". On a trip in June 1999, Director D made two further
payments of £1300 each to engineers.

179.
From 1997 to 2004 Khandaker Rahman was a Chief Engineer employed by the Roads
and Highways Department (RHD) in Bangladesh. He was employed in a number of
different capacities during this period. He had a role in procuring or approving contracts
for bridges in Bangladesh. In his CV, held on file by M&J, he states that between
1982-1986 he was a member /secretary and in 1997-1999 he was a permanent member
of the Roads and Highways Committee on Procurement (RHD COP). He stated that, in
respect of his involvement in the RHD COP his responsibilities included:

“To scrutinize, evaluate and recommend the procurement of all civil & mechanical
works/consultancy and supply works of Roads & Highways Department. The
construction of all Roads & Bridges have been dealt with and the
recommendations of the awards were made.”

180.
Khandoker Azad is Khandaker Rahman's son. There is evidence to suggest that
payments were made to accounts in Khandoker Azad's name for Khandaker Rahman's
benefit. M&J retained an Export Agent's Commission Card in Khandoker Azad's name.
Certain payments were also recorded on the commission card of C M Nizamuddin in the
name of Khandoker Azad. The available Commission Cards record payments totalling
£240,000; however these Commission Cards record multiple payments on the same day
and not all bank transfer documents are available, therefore there may be some
duplication of payments.

181.
Director D requested that a number of payments be made by M&J to Khandaker
Rahman and/or Khandoker Azad.

10/2147845_2 39
182.
On 4 October 2000 Director D requested that Director B authorise cash in the sum of
£25,000 to be made available for Khandaker Rahman. The arrangement was that
Khandaker Rahman would go with the Office Manager to M&J’s local branch of
Barclays in Reading to collect the cash. A letter signed by Director B was sent to
Barclays' Reading branch on 9 October 2000 requesting £25,000 in £50 notes to be
made available for collection on 12 October 2000. The cash collection is entered on
Bulbul's Commission Card for 12 October 2000.

183.
In addition to the cash payment referred to above, Director D also requested payments to
Khandaker Rahman to be paid to bank accounts in the name of Khandoker Abdullah Al
Azad. Payments were made to bank accounts at Barclays Bank, Jersey; Barclays Bank,
Richmond; National Westminster Bank, Richmond; and Standard Chartered Bank,
Jersey. Khandoker Azad's Commission Card also records two cash payments of
US$5000 made at Twyford on 8 May and 6 October 2000. Additionally Director D
claimed £500 (to be deducted from Khandoker Azad’s commission card) as part of his
expenses for a business trip that took in Bangladesh in late November – early December
2000.

184.
Not all documentation relating to payment approvals is available. However, Director B
and Director D appear to have been involved in the approval of a number of the
payments.

185.
The total value of the direct payments in these four jurisdictions are in the region of
£700,000 and the value of the contracts which were obtained by M&J in those
jurisdictions at the time of those payments was in the region of £22.5 million.

CONCLUSION

186.
The Court should note that in the relevant period of the indictment M&J’s annual
turnover would have averaged about £56 million and these investigations do not
purport to cover all the contracts M&J entered into during the relevant period.

10/2147845_2 40
Realistically in terms of time and cost, it is accepted it cannot and need not investigate
all contracts.

187.
The SFO is of the view that it is appropriate to prosecute the Company based on its
admissions before completion of the Company’s investigations and the SFO's
investigations into the conduct of the individuals. Pending that outcome, it is not the
SFO's case that the instances of corruption disclosed to date by the Company are the
totality of the corrupt activity.

188.
For the purposes of illustrating the pervasive historical picture, the Company accepts
and admits that in four other jurisdictions - Angola, Bangladesh, Madagascar, and
Mozambique - corrupt payments were made direct to elected or appointed public
officials.

189.
Deep consideration has been given by the Director of the SFO into continuing further
and lengthy investigations into M&J’s affairs. Those investigations may or may not
reveal further sustainable criminal charges. But in the light of the admissions today and
the other features of remediation that will be explained to this Court the Director of the
SFO has taken the view, in the public interest, that the Company should be sentenced
now and on this basis.

190.
What is clear from the evidence disclosed, and accepted by the Company in relation to
the six jurisdictions put before the Court today, is that there was a practice of corrupt
activity within the Company before 2002.

191.
The counts on the indictment are illustrative of practices that also occurred in the other
named jurisdictions. They cannot be seen as isolated offences. The consequences of the
Company’s recognition of this fact is that in considering the proper sentence, that the
Court can take into account that the Company engaged in more widespread corrupt
activity in the four other jurisdictions details of which are set out above.

192.
Furthermore, as is explained elsewhere, the SFO have sought where appropriate to have
regard to the model for corporate regulation adopted by the Department of Justice in the
United States of America under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977. That model

10/2147845_2 41
contemplates corporate remediation as an important factor in considering the propriety
and proportionality of lengthy investigations into companies that are willing to come
forward, engage co-operatively with the Prosecuting authorities and admit their guilt.

193.
Accordingly, given that the Company has engaged and is continuing to engage in efforts
at remediation, and can face only a financial penalty, it is felt that further investigation
of offending corporate behaviour would not be an appropriate use of resources nor be in
the public interest given how this case is being presented for sentencing.

194.
The SFO has decided not to name certain directors, executives and employees of M&J
at this stage because they may face trial in English Courts. The fact of the naming of
certain directors, executives, employees of M&J and any others should not be taken by
this court, the public and press as determinative of guilt of any of the persons named in
this Opening Note. In the interests of fairness to those who are under investigation, no
settled view concerning the culpability of individuals whether named here or not has
been made.

195.
The corrupt payments made benefited the recipients directly, and in all likelihood will
have benefitted the shareholders of M&J indirectly, in that they profited from business
they might not otherwise have obtained.

196.
The corruption, came at the cost of those least able to afford it: the peoples of the
countries in which M&J operated.

X: IRAQ: ‘OIL FOR FOOD’

197.
A separate Opening Note is being prepared in respect of the Iraq “Oil For Food matter.

10/21623009_2
42
APPENDIX 1

The following matters are intended to assist the Court. They are a non-exhaustive list of the
factors which the Director of the SFO takes into account when considering whether to
investigate and prosecute allegations of overseas corruption by United Kingdom based
companies and individuals.

1. The case of M&J is the first prosecution undertaken by the SFO’s dedicated Anti
Corruption Domain.

2. The present Director of the SFO has made clear his position in the public domain and to
the UK business community that companies can and should refer themselves to the SFO
where it appears they have previously engaged in corrupt practices overseas.

3. The SFO is committed to the interests of the victims of overseas corporate corruption.
Overseas corruption is not a “victimless crime”. As the present case demonstrates only
too well, the victims are all or any of the proper interests of the governments of the
countries where such practices are carried out, the integrity of their civil services and
public officials, and - more generally - the peoples of those countries, particularly the
poorer and poorest sectors of those populations.

4. The United Kingdom has ratified the OECD Convention of 1999 prohibiting overseas
corrupt practices. As a result, it enacted sections 108 and 109 of the Anti-Terrorism,
Crime and Security Act 2001. Furthermore, at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July
2005, the United Kingdom re-affirmed its commitment to the eradication of overseas
corruption, as did the world’s other leading industrialised nations. By virtue of the
multilateral approach to the problem, it can be seen that United Kingdom companies are
not disadvantaged in their endeavours to compete for overseas business. Equally, it is
the view both of the United Kingdom government and the Director of the SFO (amongst
others) that corrupt practices overseas distort proper competition and are wasteful and
damaging to the economies of, in particular, developing nations.

5. Where companies which have been engaged in corrupt practices refer themselves to the
SFO, the Director will consider the option of imposing a monitoring system to ensure

10/21623009_2
43
absolute compliance with UK law in particular and ethical standards in general.
Although UK law does not, at present, provide for monitoring as a means of
remediation, the Director will, where appropriate, seek to follow the model provided by
the United States of America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977. In particular, the
Director of the SFO will have regard to whether the instances of corrupt practices by a
self-referring company are relatively historic, and what the company itself has done to
remedy its past conduct, including whether the company remains in the same ownership
and/or whether the board of directors and the management remain the same as those
responsible for instigating and supervising corrupt practices.

6. The Director of the SFO does not necessarily regard monitoring as an alternative to
prosecution; nevertheless he acknowledges that a company’s agreement to being
monitored may constitute significant mitigation in cases which are prosecuted.

7. The Director of the SFO will consider where the public interest lies in deciding what
approach to take in dealing with a company in these circumstances. There will be cases
where the public interest is very firmly in favour of prosecution. There will be others
where alternatives to prosecution (which still impose significant penalties on the
company) will be appropriate. The Director has also made it clear that any resolution
will ultimately be subject to public scrutiny.

8. The Director of the SFO has also explained publicly that any resolution relating to any
company is entirely without prejudice to any investigation and prosecution of those
individuals who took part in unlawful activity. There are circumstances in which the
public interest will be in favour of investigation and prosecution of those individuals,
notwithstanding that the company is dealt with by way of an alternative or alternatives
to prosecution.

Full ruling on Scancem case involving bribery of Ghana govt officials

2009-09-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

ASKER AND BÆRUM DISTRICT COURT
JUDGMENT
Given: 08.09.2006
Matter no.: 06-147582TVI-AHER/1
Judge: District court judge Trine Standal
Matter concerns: Action for damages against ex-employee
Scancem International ANS Attorney Kyrre Eggen
v.
Tor Egil Kjeisass Attorney Vider Strømme

No restrictions on access to public reproduction

The matter concerns damages or a claim for recovery by Scancem International ANS against Tor Egil Kjelsaas, formerly employed by the company. Scancem International ANS alleges that Tor Egil Kjelsaas appropriated funds from the company and that he recklessly and disloyally had financial connections with the company's counterparty in Nigeria.

Scancem International ANS entered the writ of summons, received at Asker and Bærum district court, on October 20th, 2005. Tor Egil Kjelsaas entered his defence and applied that he be found not guilty. A number of pleadings have been entered. In preparing the case, right up to the proceedings in chief, Scancem International ANS applied that the court should order Tor Egil Kjelsaas to produce various documents and issue court orders to examine bank accounts etc. The Court gave this order on August 17th, 2006, ordering Tor Egil Kjelsaas to produce statements of account for his bank account at Unibank Luxembourg, but dismissing Scancem International ANS's application otherwise. This order was not complied with, allegedly because it could not be implemented during the few days left until the proceedings in chief.

The proceedings in chief lasted four days, from August 28th to 31st, 2006. Neither Tor Egil Kjelsaas or the party representative of Scancem International ANS attended. Tor Egil Kjelsaas has had a heart attack and kidney transplant. His health is poor. Scancem International ANS was represented by attorney Arne-Jørg Selen, who gave a witness statement and attended the whole proceedings in chief under § 213, para. 2 of the disputes law. The Court heard eleven witnesses and made the records which appear in the rolls.

Went to Nigeria in 1980

Background to the matter

Scancem International ANS was incorporated on September 1st, 1986, with international cementation as its aim. The owners were Euroe and Noroem with 50% each. The Heidelberg group took over as owner in 1998. Tor Egil Kjelsaas was educated in Germany. He has worked in the Noroem system and subsequently for Scancem International ANS when it was incorporated, since the late 1960s. He was head of Scancem International ANS's African division. He worked for Scancem International ANS until 1999, and then acted as a consultant to the company over a two-year period. The consultancy agreement was produced and shows a restraint of trade clause. His contracts of employment from his time at Noroem or Scancem International AS were not produced.

Scancem International ANS was involved in extensive bribery and corruption in a number of countries in Africa, including Ghana. This was Tor Egil Kjelsaas's responsibility as head of the African division. He was also the one with the local contacts.
Scancem International ANS's claim against Tor Egil Kjelsaas relates to two matters. The first involves appropriating bribes and corruption which were transferred to his own account at Unibank Luxembourg. Scancem International ANS alleges that Tor Egil Kjelsaas must be liable to reimburse the amounts transferred to that account. Tor Egil Kjelsaas did not inform Scancem International ANS that the moneys were actually transferred to an account in his name over which he had control, and he lied about this during Scancem International ANS's internal enquiry in the late 1990s. Nor was he willing to produce statements for the account.

The other matter involves Scancem International ANS's Nigerian involvement. In the late 1990s, Scancem International ANS decided to expand its involvement in Africa to include a project in Nigeria. It is alleged that Tor Egil Kjelsaas was one of the driving forces behind this, and that, in return, he received both a share of the commission Scancem International ANS paid to its counterparty in Nigeria and a share of the purchase price when Scancem International ANS bought out its co-owner in the project.

Scancem International ANS has alleged essentially that Tor Egil Kjelsaas unlawfully appropriated funds from the company. Kjelsas was behind payment of considerable amounts to his account at Unibank Luxembourg. He concluded the contracts and ordered outpayments. He was one of Scancem International ANS's most trusted managers. Some of the payments were also made twice, such as paying the rent on a guesthouse in Ghana which was both paid for locally and by transfer to Tor Egil Kjelsaas' account at Unibank Luxembourg. Kjelsaas told Scancem this account belonged to an African politician, concealing the fact that this account was actually his. This in itself is sufficient evidence for Scancem International ANS's claim against Tor Egil Kjelsaas, unless he can show that he did not keep the money himself, which he can only do by producing the statements of account.

While preparing the case, Scancem challenged [Kjelsaas] to produce statements for the account at Unibank concerned, but Kjelsaas refused to product those statements, even though they could be produced. The documentary evidence in the case shows that the moneys were paid into Kjelsaas's account. There is no other documentation in the case.

As evidence has been produced to show that Kjelsaas concealed from Scancem that he transferred significant amounts to his own account, it is Kjelsaas on whom both the obligation to prove and burden of proof rest to show that he did not acquire the moneys. This is particularly so as it is in within Kjelsaas's power to produce that evidence, such as via statements for the Unibank account. Kjelsaas's explanation which appeared in pleadings just before the proceedings in chief is not credible. Kjelsaas claims he did not want to state that the account was in his name in 1998 'because he did not want to put the recipients at risk'. But Scancem knew who the money was supposed to go to, and the purpose of the internal enquiry was to find out whether the moneys went to Kjelsaas. The enquiry was also internal in nature. Nor is it credible that the moneys were taken out of Kjelsaas's account and given to the right people either. Scancem paid amounts to other accounts during this period which were controlled by African recipients. Tor Egil Kjelsaas's travel accounts show that he was often in Luxembourg when travelling in Europe and when travelling home, but not en route to Africa. Scancem also paid out amounts in cash locally to a number of African recipients in Ghana. Those amounts were paid out via other channels.

Kjelsaas drained Scancem's involvement in Nigeria of significant funds. As head of Scancem's African business, Kjelsaas was in charge of the company's new involvement in Nigeria, which began in autumn 1997. When Kjelsaas left Scancem in 1999, he continued working as a consultant to Scancem until June 2001. He was also involved in the company's involvement in Nigeria during that time. The Nigerian business made major losses, and it was decided that Scancem should clear out. Under the contracts which were established during Kjelsaas's management, Scancem was committed to paying out significant amounts to the company Eastcoast Investment, which was Scancem's co-owner in the project. Scancem could not get out of its involvement in Nigeria without incurring more major losses. The only way Scancem could get control of the situation was to buy out Eastcoast Investment, even though its shares were worthless. Scancem International ANS would not have done this had it known that Tor Egil Kjelsaas was involved with Eastcoast Investment.

Scancem was told there were Nigerian investors behind Eastcoast Investment. Scancem decided to start making enquiries to find out whether this was correct, engaging HIBIS for this. The investigations showed that most of the commission moneys paid to Eastcoast Investment went to Colin Dixon and the company Tormead Ltd. Scancem found out that Tor Egil Kjelsaas was the real owner of Tormean Ltd. on July 21st, 2003.

Scancem bought Eastcoast Investment out of the project on December 1st, 2003, and also tried to trace where the money went. Investigations show that the money went mainly to another account Eastcoast Investment had, to General T.Y. Danjuma and The Volta Company. Kjelsaas was behind The Volta Company.

The money which was paid out to Eastcoast Investment was part of the loss Scancem suffered from its efforts. There is no reasonable or rational explanation as to why Kjelsaas should receive considerable amounts which Scancem paid via the Eastcoast Investment company.

Scancem International ANS has applied as follows:

1. That Tor Egil Kjelsaas be ordered to pay compensation at the court's discretion, but plus late interest in law from June 23rd, 2005 until payment is made.

2. That Tor Egil Kjelsaas be ordered to pay the costs in the case, plus late interest in law from when due until payment is made.

Tor Egil Kjelsaas has argued essentially that what the plaintiff says is incorrect. The matter is to a large extent about evaluating evidence, in terms of both general principles and more specific factors. The writ of summons implies an allegation that the basis for damages in the matter amount to serious criminal acts, so the burden of evidence on the plaintiff is increased. It is also up to the plaintiff to furnish the proof. The evidence must then be evaluated as if in a criminal matter, and the plaintiff must produce evidence for each and every allegation.

The plaintiff has only produced some of the documents which were produced or obtained in the course of its investigations. Kjelsaas has asked to be allowed to see all the documents on a number of occasions, and is afraid there are documents of importance which have not been produced.

The plaintiff's evidence as presented in a matter such as the present must be based on documentary evidence. There are many aspects of the documents presented which do not stand up. 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. Any doubt as to the evidence must go against Scancem.

Only copies of documents have been produced, some of them poor quality. It is impossible to say anything more about whether they are genuine. Given the serious nature of Scancem's allegations, it should be considered at the outset as at least equally likely that other players could do criminal acts – including giving incorrect names, accounts etc. This increases the demands on the documentation. The documents produced are also incomplete. Kjelsaas cannot know in what direction those not produced may point. Kjelsaas has repeatedly asked for them to be produced, something which was agreed. The reports are largely internal, drawn up by the plaintiff's own staff, based partly on sources and assumptions instated. Such documents and explanations which cannot be proven are of very little value. Parts of the evidence produced are on the borderline of what should not be admitted at all under the immediacy of proof principle and § 189 nos. 1, 3 and 4 of the disputes law. Some of the evidence is also immaterial.

The key witnesses have not been brought. Kjelsaas has requested information about Colin Dixon, about investigations against him, and to what extent Dixon still works or has contracts for Scancem. There was no reply to this during the proceedings in chief.

As to the payments to Kjelsaas's account at Unibank Luxembourg, there cannot be said to be any evidence that Kjelsaas appropriated the money. The reason Kjelsaas gave information about the accounts in 1998 which was incorrect was because he did not wish to put those who received the money at risk. What name the account is in is immaterial to the dispute. Kjelsaas was using an old account he had himself, as this was easiest. It was difficult for many recipients in Africa to open accounts abroad. Kjelsaas withdrew cash in London or Luxembourg and passed it on to the correct recipients. Kjelsaas took money to Africa by air. The movements in the Luxembourg accounts do not show who ultimately got the money. It was useful for the account to be in his name when taking cash out. Kjelsaas was shown the trust that he could transfer money like this, possibly with the 'disguise' which was appropriate in the individual case.

There are no complaints from those who were supposed to receive the money which would indicate they did not get what was agreed. The 'investments' Scancem made in this way also yielded a great deal. Be that as it may, it cannot be established that Tor Egil Kjelsaas keeps all the money which is transferred to the account.

Kjelsaas did not control the Eastcoast Investment company, Scancem International ANS did not look into why the company made the payments they claim Tor Egil Kjelsaas received. Presumably, to some extent, this is about contractual obligations, and also about bribery and corruption which took the 'routes' it was sensible to take in each case, given who the recipients were. Kjelsaas cannot remember any payment for around USD 190,000.00, and he denies owning The Volta Company. Kjelsaas denies receiving amounts unlawfully.

An action for damages based on bribes which were lost is unlikely to succeed. Kjelsaas sees the matter as objectionable. In reality, Scancem is claiming damages for corruption funds lost, for which no 'receipt' can be produced. As Kjelsaas sees it, Scancem's claim should be put in a class with reprehensible legal matters, something which is bound to affect how the evidence is evaluated.

There is no evidence of any financial losses or of a cause and effect for the Nigerian efforts. Nor is there any more detailed information on Eastcoast Investment, and it is hard to see how Scancem can have suffered losses because the company chose to use money one way or another.

Tor Egil Kjelsaas has applied as follows:

1. That Tor Egil Kjelsaas be found not guilty.

2. That Tor Egil Kjelsaas be awarded costs in the case plus late interest under the late interest law § 3, para. one, from 14 days from when judgment is pronounced until payment is made.

Observations by the court:

The parties are agreed that the bribes which were made were not contrary to Norwegian law or national legislation in Ghana or Nigeria. They are also agreed that the matter cannot be regarded as reprehensible, but such that Tor Egil Kjelsaas believes the evidence must be seen in the light of the fact that the matter is on a part with what could be reprehensible. The Court does not see any reason to go into the question as to whether this is a reprehensible matter in law in any more detail. The nature of the accusations requires that considerably more excess of proof is required to meet Scancem International ANS's demands.

The way in which evidence has been produced in this matter is unconventional. The matters were not reported to the police, and the company's own investigations have not been examined or quality assured by anyone outside it. The company's auditors were only involved in connection with the matter during internal examinations in 1998-2000. These external examinations were carried out by a British company, HIBIS, which works mainly on ordinary internal controls at its clients. HIBIS in turn engaged others to trace the cashflows, actual bank transactions etc. These conducted their investigations amongst other things by ringing the banks at lunchtime and claiming, incorrectly, that they were working at the bank's internal audit department or on a special assignment. So, if they obtained information and documents from the banks, they did so unlawfully. HIBIS was unwilling to state who they hired, nor how individual information or documents were obtained. The evidential value of HIBIS's reports is therefore low, as there is no way of checking the individual items of information, how they were obtained, specifically what was said or assumptions for the information/statements. It must also be borne in mind that the information which was obtained might be out of context or incorrect, without the data being corrected or completed later on. The documentary evidence HIBIS obtained is of greater evidential value. There is no reason in the Court's mind to believe that these documents are incorrect or forged.

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.

Scancem International ANS's culture of bribery and corruption in Ghana in the 1990s was built around Tor Egil Kjelsaas. It was Tor Egil Kjelsaas who had the contacts in Ghana, who agreed how much the bribes would be in each case, and who instructed the payments along with another member of staff. It was not the other members of staff's job to check Tor Egil Kjelsaas's information, or what amounts were to be used to grease who or how they should be greased. The system was based on an extremely high level of trust in Tor Egil Kjelsaas, even if Selen has stated that there were all kinds of gossip and rumours about him from 1993 onwards.

Payments were made in a number of ways. In some cases, payments were made directly in cash in Ghana by the company's financial managers once the money had been taken from Scancem International ANS's account, sometimes money was taken from banks outside Africa and shipped into Ghana to be handed over in envelopes and sometimes bank transfers were made to accounts in Luxembourg, Switzerland etc. No list has been produced of the total amount involved, or how this was treated for accounting purposes. Between January 1993 and March 1998, amongst other things, USD 2,680,000.00 was transferred to an account at Unibank Luxembourg, of which USD 90,000 every other month amongst other things. Scancem International ANS thought the account was owned by PV Obeng, a former Minister of State in Ghana.

Now [??] 19 m

In the light of Arne-Jørg's internal investigations amongst others, the company held an internal investigation into a number of matters in 1998-2000, including the transfers to this account. Tor Egil Kjelsaas stated at the time that he did not know whose name the account was in and that he had no control over the account, except that he knew that he had taken money out of the account on two occasions after the authorised signatory on the account had sent authority to the bank. The Court finds that Tor Egil Kjelsaas was aware that, or at least understood, that the investigations were directed against him, but that he still opted to give incorrect information about the account. The Court regards this matter as serious.

Scancem International ANS investigated in the same connection with PV Obeng whether the amount transferred to the account, noted that it referred to Nigeria, which appeared to be correct. Obeng confirmed this. It is not clear whether he was asked to confirm receipt of the other amounts transferred to the account at the same time. Obeng is still a consultant to Scancem International ANS, and the Court cannot understand how he was asked to confirm receipt of the moneys transferred to Tor Egil Kjelsaas's account or not. Nor can the Court understand how Scancem International ANS could accept a system well into the 1990s in which one man decided both on the rules for bribery, who was to be bribed and with what amounts, and also left it to him to make the bribes himself, without checking in any way whether those bribes were necessary or whether those to be bribed actually received the money. Scancem International ANS failed to establish any kind of control system, accepting on the contrary a system which meant that cashflows were hard to trace, partly because the money was handed over in cash and partly because it was transferred to bank accounts which could neither be traced nor controlled. It is in the nature of bribery culture that there is no way of tracing, either by the tax authorities or by those who receive the money who they are acting or working for. Seen in this light, there is no way of documenting who handed the money over in cash or that money was actually handed over.

The only thing which can actually be established in this case is that the money was transferred to Tor Egil Kjelsaas's account at Unibank Luxembourg and that he made incorrect statements about the account during the internal investigations. There is no information, however, on what happened to the money after that. While the Court regards it as serious that Tor Egil Kjelsaas did not assist in clarifying matters on this point, it also finds that Scancem International ANS is also to be greatly reproached that they did not ask PV Obeng whether he had received the money. What Obeng did with the money subsequently is none of Scancem International ANS's business.

It has been stated that there were duplicated payments, in that the same amount was paid out locally in Ghana and transferred to the account at Unibank Luxembourg. There is no evidence or proof what the amounts paid were supposed to settle, e.g. rent. It is therefore unlikely that the payment was divided in two, so it is a double payment. Scancem International ANS was also aware of these matters ever since the internal investigations, but the company did not make any further investigations this time.

The Court finds that, if Scancem International ANS itself accepts and assists in a system such as that described, it cannot subsequently use that system's shortcomings against its staff. Scancem International ANS made major payments and transfers on a relatively undocumented background, and did little to ascertain whether the money reached the right person, even if the company suspected that was not the case. The Court therefore finds that there is insufficient evidence that Tor Egil Kjelsaas retained some or all of the money himself, and finds that Tor Egil Kjelsaas must be found not guilty on this part of the claim.

As far as the Nigerian business is concerned, the Court does not find it in any way proven that Scancem International ANS suffered any financial losses for which Tor Egil Kjelsaas is liable. The Nigerian project is said to have made major losses, but the reason for this, or the amount of those losses, has not been proved to the Court. Information has been given that this is because of opposition from Colin Dixon, but it has not been proven in law that matters are such, still less that this is something for which Tor Egil Kjelsaas is responsible.

Scancem International ANS paid out contractual commission to EastCoast Investment. The Court finds it proven that USD 190,000.00 was transferred to Tormead Ltd. Tormead Ltd. is owned by Tor Egil Kjelsaas. From the copy of the bank statement which was produced, this is stated as a 'loan'. Tor Egil Kjelsaas does not remember the transfer, and cannot therefore explain it. It is clear that he was involved in some business in Africa, however, at least after he broke his ties with Scancem International AS.

As the Court understands it, Colin Dixon represented Eastcoast Investment on General Danjuma's behalf. Scancem International ANS was closely in touch with him and the former is still working for Scancem. The background to the transfer to Tormead Ltd. is unknown, but Scancem International ANS should have asked Eastcoast Investment, Colin Dixon or General Danjuma about that. As the matter is now presented to the Court, there is no considerable surplus of probability that Tormead Ltd. and Tor Egil Kjelsaas receiving the amount involved any breach of Tor Egil Kjelsaas's duty of loyalty to Scancem International ANS.

Once Scancem International ANS bought Eastcoast Investment out for USD 3.2 m, the latter transferred approx. USD 790,000.00 to The Volta Company. There is no surplus of probability that this company is controlled or owned by Tor Egil Kjelsaas, or that those moneys went to him. The information from HIBS on this point is both unclear and of little evidential value, and cannot be allowed any decisive importance. The Court does not therefore find as far as Scancem International ANS's Nigerian business was concerned that Tor Egil Kjelsaas is liable to pay damages to Scancem International ANS either.

Tor Egil Kjelsaas has therefore won the case, and remains to be found not guilty. He will in principle be awarded his costs in the case under § 172 para. one of the disputes law. On the other hand, the Court finds that the exception in paragraph two of this provision applies. Tor Egil Kjelsaas is to be reprimanded for not having contributed to clarifying the matter, and the Court has been somewhat in doubt as to the outcome of the case. As the Court sees it, it was a fact that the moneys which were to be used for bribery in Ghana were transferred to Tor Egil Kjelsaas's own account and that he failed to report this correctly, giving Scancem International ANS every reason to bring the matter to court. The same applies to that part of the claim which relates to the Nigerian business. Costs in the case are therefore not awarded.

The Court therefore finds:

1. Tor Egil Kjelsaas is found not guilty.

2. Costs in the case are not awarded.

Court rises.

Trine Standal

The translation above was done by professional translators:
1st Translation Company Ltd.
24 Holborn Viaduct
London
EC1A 2BN and certified by the firms Translation Manager, William Valero de Palma Translation Manager

Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi

2009-05-20T03:33:00.001-07:00

Ken Ofori-Atta

This paper is about investing in Africa's emerging markets, about the regulatory changes that have occurred and difficulties investors face. Some of the changes are: foreign exchange controls have been decentralized, currency redenominations have occurred, inflation targeting as a monetary policy tool has been adhered to, privatization continues without the previous history of violent protest. In the capital markets, security exchange commissions are stronger and credible. Circuit breakers have emerged in certain stock markets and to facilitate credit, credit reference bureaux are being established and regulations for microfinance institutions have been encouraged to facilitate the deepening of the financial industry. There is a positive and welcoming attitudinal shift. But the kernel of the story is different and much more profound than these mechanical changes.

And that is why I have labelled my talk with a quotation from Pliny the Elder - a Roman Historian who said:
Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi,
Out of Africa always something New!
Let's see whether we can discover something new from Africa in this period of global financial crisis.

Africa's GDP growth rate has stabilised around 5.7% in the past decade; dropping dramatically from a projected 6.4% in 2008 to 4.9% and for 2009 it is expected to drop further to 2.4% or maybe more. So we too are obviously facing a crisis and we cannot keep denying it. Though this is still double the expected growth rate in the West, it is regrettable because we should be growing at over 6% if not for the global credit crunch.

We have not seen such massive destruction of wealth in the history of modern civilization and I might add also such rapid recreation of capital in the past year. Africa is truly astounded at how quickly the West can mobilize to save their companies when a fraction of those amounts could reinstate the impressive growth trajectory which Africa had achieved.

My contention, however, is that Africa has never been better prepared for such a debacle. The past decade has seen a marked improvement in capital flows to Africa - the natural resources have always been there, so it is the economic growth, political stability and Africans reinvesting in their economies that has bolstered this. Examples from Ghana and Tanzania illustrate this turn around. Tanzania's Mkukuta development strategy has yielded FDI of 4% of GDP.

While Ghana which had averaged $28 million per annum in the past two decades had US$1.35 billion in 2008, even if you sanitize it by Vodafone's US$900m privatization transaction, you have a tidy US$ 435 million of FDI. I believe that already in 2009 some US$500 million has been registered.
In Senegal, President Wade's Investment Promotion Center is within proximity of the Presidency and his foreign trips are 70% commercially driven. Senegal is also closely following the Tamasek model of Singapore as it looks to build for the future.
Ethiopia - has branded its coffee as it seeks to capture as much of the retail price premium as possible. We know this can be significantly more but more importantly like Ghana's cocoa it stabilizes her prices. African governments are responding in a more competitive and market driven way.

Long term investors and partners for Africa should acknowledge the following changing investment contours of our land:
Improved Democratic Principles
- Politicians are more receptive to the private sector and market driven principles - Politicians give up power in properly run polls
- In Ghana, the political parties actually signed MOUs with the Association of Industries on the run-up to the elections
Sustained Economic Growth and Stability
- Good governance and fiscal prudence are common place - Expected growth rate in 2009 to be double the global growth rate
External Push Factors

The emergence of Sovereign Ratings has forced the ministries of finance and Central banks to be more sensitive to market principles. A number of countries have responded by issuing bonds on the International market. Both Ghana and Gabon have the following: - Ghana US$750 million (8.5%) - Gabon US$1 billion (8.2%)
While the following countries have postponed: - South Africa US$1 billion (Due 2012)

- Seychelles US$200 million (defaulted) - Tanzania US$500 million (postponed)
- Uganda US$1 billion (postponed) - Nigeria (postponed) - Zambia (postponed)
In addition new programs such as the MCA, AGOA, APRM have created more transparency and responsiveness to better governance. This is further consolidated by our entry to the International bond market.
All these create a discipline, predictability and narrows the information asymmetry which has dogged Africa in the past, but now enables you and I to transparently 'derisk' the continent. So the question really on this broken record Is this: Is this a matter of sheer stereotyping or is it unwillingness on the part of us professionals to do our work (difficult though it might be) to bring the story to our investors.

I believe that the most transformational actor in Africa's newness is the emergence of African Entrepreneurs. They have set us on an 'irreversible' path of modernization and confidence. They are well educated, they have international experience, they are well connected, they understand the world of finance and they are confident. Not unlike the Indians in Imagining India by Nilekani, these entrepreneurs are precocious and as Friedman says of Indian entrepreneurs , they are replacing the low aspirations and failed economic ideas with 'their own high octane energy and boundless aspirations'.

In Africa you can now talk of super Entrepreneurs such as Mo Ibrahim, Dangote and Tokyo, while we have an impressive critical mass of younger entrepreneurs such as Ali Mufuruki of Tanzania; Isaac Shongwe of South Africa, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede of Nigeria, Prince Kofi Amoabeng of Ghana, Alaone of Morocco, Joseph of Kenya, Rodriguez in Mozambique and many of my senior banking colleagues from Nigeria and many more others. Fortunately Africa has found a magic cycle of Diasporans to refuel this resource. For me this is the hope, this is the guarantee that is embedded in Africa's future prosperity and this should be the basis of our covenant with investors. Let me redirect this dialogue to some truths about Africa's current capital markets 'correction'.

I, like most capital markets professional in Africa, believe the selling is indiscriminate, obviously driven by the woes of hedge funds and imploding funds such as New Star. I don't believe that the nature of the fundamentals justify the extent of continuing sell-offs we are experiencing in our African capital markets, especially as earnings expectations are also reasonably robust. Forced selling, momentum selling, indiscriminate selling of defensive and non-defensive stocks seems to be the order of the day. Banks, breweries, staple foods, cement companies are all on the block.

But what is the reality? For example at Databank we created the first Pan Africa open ended equity mutual fund in Ghana and since 1996 it has increased from an initial value of US$25 to a peak of over US$100million with over 70,000 shareholders. In the past 10 years we have averaged a return of 32.43%, and in the past 5 years it has averaged a return of 20.36%

Africa remains the rare example in the current global environment which can illustrate significant growth on both the macro and micro (earnings growth) levels, and with relatively little debt. For most of us, low PE's, double digit dividend yields, forced downward rerating of the stock market coupled with growth signal significant capital appreciation in the coming years, especially as the credit contraction eases and hedge funds and bank balance sheets become fully deleveraged in the West.

I have to mention the Sino-Africa embrace which has created grave discomfort in certain quarters. Is China a benign economic and development partner or an exploitative force. China needs to grow its US$1.4 trillion economy by over 8% to maintain social cohesion. This is a country with 20% of the world's population, but with only 7% of the world's arable land, 3% of its forests and 2% of its oil while Africa produces 11% of the world's oil supplies and has 8% of all proven reserves. China Africa trade has experienced exponential growth in the past decade. Africa's exports to China have grown from approximately US$190 million per month in 1999 to US$5 billion per month in 2008. While total bilateral Sino-African trade has grown from US$10 billion in 2000 to nearly US 110 billion in 2008.

Africa's 850 million people, though poor, have a low debt profile and a voracious demand for consumer goods. With Africa's limited exposure to toxic assets we expect its demand for Chinese products to continue to increase even as global demand shrinks.
But it is not all trade. There is extensive investment in infrastructure: mining developments, construction of roads, railways, hospitals, schools, power plants and investments in Zambia, DRC, Angola, Sudan, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Liberia and many other countries across the continent.
For China, Africa is a business destination. This establishes a new working model for Africa not predicated on a colonial legacy of aid but of trade and investment. My view is that with China's entry, Africa's products, and investment opportunities will be better priced, thus giving us a better value proposition for our assets.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a rare and auspicious moment when Africa pulls itself up the J-curve and it is paradoxically, the events of the global financial crises that threaten to put us back into this old
Sisyphean cycle: Credit lines are curtailed, trade finance is drying up, remittances are declining and loans are being called in. Major FDI investments such as iron ore in Liberia, bauxite in Guinea, commercial agriculture in Ghana, real estate in Nigeria are being pulled and/or delayed. This is like removing sleepers from underneath a fast moving African train.

The West must recognize that it is in its own enlightened self interest to direct liquidity to Africa, because this will create the requisite demand for products from the West. Not only must the IMF and World Bank refine their interventions but the OPIC's, EXIM BANKs, KFW, and FMO etc must more creatively support and back their companies, not unlike China, to aggressively engage in critical private sector and public private partnership especially for infrastructure investments in Africa. .

But we do have our challenges, of which we must be impatient, and positively restless because we have the capacity to tackle them.
They include:
Low Financial Depth - Incomplete and missing markets
Market imperfection and asymmetric information - Gaps in capital markets integration - Lack of regional markets
Restricted Access to Financing
- Financial exclusion for most of the population (almost 50% on less than $1.25 a day) - Lack of financing for SME's and agriculture
- Poor linkages between the formal and informal sectors (80% of total employment)
High Cost of Capital
- High cost of equity and debt - Weak mobilizing capacity of Stock Market - Lack of Pension Funds - High Bank Charges

In spite of these challenges, I believe Africa is entitled to be at the table. If there was ever a time for a systemic review of Africa's place without it being viewed as pan-handling, that time is now. Financial markets, as we have all been led to believe, after all do not tend towards equilibrium. We are witnesses to the massive fiscal response to create money in order to loosen the credit crunch, recapitalize (nationalize) the banks and write off debts.
African countries in the periphery also require such care in significant doses. Allow me to propose therefore, that in addition to the G20 support to the IMF and World Bank for Africa, we must find a vehicle to guarantee long term sovereign bond issues of African countries.

This would enable Africa to also do the following:
- strengthen its banks - provide liquidity to Africa's capital markets and mutual funds and guarantee bonds/instruments denominated in local currency
Let us take advantage of easing of ideological financial paradigms and embark on fundamental systemic reforms which will serve Africa and the World's interest in the long run.

So sure there are difficulties facing investors, but I am not sure that that is the issue. Are there changes that can be made? Yes there are, and always will be. But what is unique in the New Africa that I see: A new attitude which has resulted in impressive political and economic reform;
A capital markets whose future fortunes can't be matched; A region of growth in a World of recession.

A China that is revealing the investment potential of the old continent and An alchemy that is being created by the new African Entrepreneurs on the continent and from the diaspora.
In Africa we must continue to make the Right Choices and maintain our confidence, and then our financial superstructure will become robust and support our increasing need for long term capital and a policy orientation which promotes regional growth and build strong local demand across Africa.

In Ghana our northern belt beckons massive agriculture infrastructure and industrial development to serve a regional sahelian market of over 80 million people. We must have the boldness to embark on such projects that could potentially transform the lives of many people and create a self perpetuating demand cycle.
It is a continent leaving the Jeremiah's and Cassandra's behind. Africa is moving forward. I am optimistic but not at all naïve after 19 years of being back at home.

As Friedman said of India in Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India, "it all depends: on governments as aspiring as its people; on politicians as optimistic as its youth; bureaucrats as innovative as its entrepreneurs and rural, district, regional and national leaders as impatient, creative, and energetic as their kids [and the world as excited and confident about Africa as the new African Entrepreneur]”.

The new African entrepreneur is our lodestone for a continent with renewed confidence.
'Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi'
Out of Africa always something new.

Thank you.
Ken Ofori-Atta, the Executive Chairman of Databank was the main speaker at last week's "Africa Investment Forum", organised by Chatham House, London. Also on the platform was President JEA Mills, who was the Special Guest.

PROVIDING HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE - HOW PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY WAS BASTARDISED

2009-05-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Qanawu Gabby
March 2009 is ending with agitation over Ga lands and the threat of a similar agitation in the Western Region. In my view all this could have been effectively avoided or neutralised if only the New Patriotic Party was steadfast and more radical in its realisation of the dream of a property-owning democracy.

In April 4, 2007, I wrote an article explaining ‘Development in Freedom’ – the slogan of the NPP –– the party of proponents of free market and developmentalism like Danquah, Busia and Dombo That article argues, fundamental to the doctrine of Danquah-Busiaism is the principle that freedom is the primary end as well as the active means to development.

The party’s policy, in the thinking of J B Danquah, "is to liberate the energies of the people for the growth of a property owning democracy in this land, with right to life, freedom and justice, as the principles to which the Government and laws of the land should be dedicated in order specifically to enrich life, property and liberty of each and every citizen.”�

President Mills and his Vice say, with tongue in cheek, that ‘Ghanaians have changed to move forward in the right direction.’ A violent twist of logic. ‘Forward’ is actually a direction – one that denotes positive or constructive mobility as opposed to being stabile - a state of motionlessness, static horizontal mobility or backward movement. You may it is still early days, however, you may require a superhuman sense of discernment to have anything resembling a remote idea of the direction that the NDC is taking Ghana. That is not to say that the Mills-Mahama team lacks a latent desire for success.

Providing free school uniforms to a ‘privileged’ few conveniently classified as ‘deprived’ in a nation where the majority is described as ‘poor’, is the only new clear policy initiative in tune with the NDC claim of social democracy . Worrying to some of us is that Ghana runs the risk of gaining a reputation as a nation where the gap between professed ideologies and practice is taken for granted as wide.

Ideally, in the thinking of the NPP, a primary duty of the state is to guarantee to individuals (who make up society) substantive freedoms to make them active agents of a positive change for prosperity rather than passive recipients of dispensed benefits. Crucial to this freedom is an inevitable social welfare foundation, which actively ensures the provision of an environment where every individual (particularly from childhood) has the opportunity (in freedom) to gain access (through decent, affordable education, housing and health) to climbing the ladder of self-development, prosperity and security.

Unfortunately, the jury is still out on whether or not the first eight years of NPP rule did anything distinctively and intrinsically profound to significantly promote the realisation of a property-owning democracy, as compared to what was achieved by previous regimes which has clear social leanings, such as the CPP, NRC and SMC. Apart from bettering the macro-economic environment, the underlining vulnerability of which has been recently exposed, very little was achieved in the area of reforming the housing system, from security of land tenure, through better town planning, to access to decent affordable homes.

Indeed, it became a campaign joke on the NPP that, besides grand mansions that deepened the perception of only a few getting richer, the disciples of property-owning democracy (NPP) could not boast of a single completed affordable home for the masses in 8 years.

But, how modest was NPP achievement in housing? The 2008 Manifesto captured it thus: The NPP has committed an unprecedented amount of government funds to address the nation’s housing shortage with GH¢30 million (¢300 billion) for the construction of affordable homes across the country… Within the conducive business environment, the private sector now provides an average of 40,000 homes a year. Government under its affordable housing programme is currently constructing a total of 3500 flats at Borteyman and Kpone in the Greater Accra Region (1,500 flats), Asokore-Mampong in the Ashanti Region (1,192 flats), Koforidua in the Eastern Region (400 flats), Tamale in the Northern Region (400 flats). The construction of an additional 1500 affordable housing units will commence in Sekondi, Takoradi, Sunyani, Cape Coast, Wa, Bolgatanga and Ho by 2009.

The Government now has land banks totalling 50,000 acres across the country for housing development by the private sector. It has also instituted a rural housing scheme for cocoa farmers starting in the Western Region. It has also instituted a housing scheme for civil servants with a US$10 million facility placed with the Housing Finance Corporation (HFC).

For the future, the NPP said, if re-elected for a third term: it would continue with the affordable housing scheme and extend it nationwide. It would create a special Housing the People Scheme to allow employers to receive tax credits for implementation of housing schemes for their workers. The NPP made a radical promise to provide 50,000 affordable houses every year for the next five years. Make many of these houses available for rent for those who can’t afford to buy; construct at least 13,000 units of decent, affordable housing across the North within the first two years; establish a mortgage culture to provide the loan facilities for more Ghanaians to own their own homes; name every street and number every property within our first term; create a new Department of Infrastructure and Physical Planning to ensure better land use and spatial planning in our cities; and, ensure cleaner streets with the development of 20,000 sanitation (Tankase) inspectors per year for the next five years in partnership with the private sector.
It would have been the most ambitious mass housing project ever undertaken on this continent – even relatively more than what South Africa did for poor blacks, during the first 5 years of freedom. The NPP was even able to estimate that the quarter of a billion homes in 5 years project it was presenting to the electorate would cost $1 billion, for which it was sure funds could be found. So why was the programme ridiculed or ignored by the media and the party’s own commentators, including the Flagbearer? The NPP campaign team treated it as if it was smuggled into the manifesto. A lot of work went into it, and yet it was made to lack credibility. Unhelpful remarks from the Manifesto Committee Chairman that it was not government’s job to provide homes for the masses, coupled with the faint attempt at doing so in the previous two terms, contributed to such a vital socio-economic programme not tickling the voter. This was a programme if believed and voted for and implemented could have surely modernised Ghana and directly connected the NPP full-square to the needs of the so-called ordinary Ghanaian.
It would have provided jobs for tens of thousands and direct homes for a million Ghanaians. The spiralling effect of creating a vibrant mortgage environment, expanding the building materials market and bringing down rents and house prices would have meant greater access to better shelter to some 10 million Ghanaians. Ghana would have clearly changed in 10 years!
The NPP was targeting mainly the bond market, with contributions from tax revenue and the housing project’s private partners to raise money for the 50,000 housing units per year project. Even in light of this year’s credit crunch, I posit that an Akufo-Addo government would still have been able to raise $1 billion domestically in five years by adding two percentage points to VAT. The government would have had the moral authority to demand some 15% rise in VAT to pay for such an important social programme, provided it could convince the people of its commitment to the project and spending discipline specific. In 2006, total VAT revenue was GH¢588 million. By 2008, it increased to a little over GH¢1 billion, nearly double in 3 years. Going even modestly under this trend, at least GH¢1 billion extra VAT revenue could be raised from the 15% rise in the next five years to help fund the scheme to house the masses. The difficulty in President Mills funding such a housing scheme mainly with VAT proceeds is the lid he placed on his own money-lending bucket. He has made a categorical manifesto promise that the individual tax burden on the Ghanaian shall not be increased, including income tax and VAT, during his four-year term..
The Tory government managed to build a property-owning democracy in the United Kingdom ( a policy continued by ‘New’ Labour) because the state had in decades past built ‘Council Housing’ for rent to the working class, which they were later encouraged to purchase, at subsidised prices, with the help of mortgage financing.

Margaret Thatcher
In June 1987, Times reporters Christopher Ogden and Frank Melville interviewed the just re-elected (for the third term) Prime Minister of Britian, Margaret Thatcher, after only four hours of sleep and a day spent thanking campaign workers and consulting with colleagues.
Below are excerpts from the interview:
Q. How do you interpret the election?
A. It means that the policies we were pursuing, which we put openly and frankly before the people, were thought to be right for Britain. They were policies which were a partnership between government and people -- namely, we do the things which only governments can do, running the finances in a sound way, keeping inflation down, cutting controls and giving tax incentives. And we got the response in an increasing enterprise and competitiveness from the British people. And that produced a higher standard of living.
Q. Why do people accuse you so bitterly of lacking compassion?
A. Some people think that to be compassionate and caring you have to talk a lot about it. We've always taken the view that you should be judged by what you do and not by what you say, and we're prepared to be judged on that -- any day of the week.
Q. What are the most important accomplishments of your first eight years?
A. First, we have reduced the fantastic number of controls that there were over the life of our society. The greatest driving force in life, which is individual energy and effort, was becoming really cocooned. Secondly, people do need incentives to encourage them to work harder, and if you take too much away in tax, then you will not get that driving incentive. Plus the trade union law…We now know that the spirit of enterprise is there. The economy is doing well and catching up with our European competitors.
Q. What are your plans for a third term?
A. I will extend opportunities to people who never had them before. As you know, we are building a property-owning democracy. Far more people own their own homes now. We are nearly up to the United States -- not yet quite -- but now one in five of our people owns company shares. Far many more people have savings accounts. That's all extending opportunity ever more widely. End
What comes out clearly from this interview was the ideological clarity and discipline in the programme of the Tory government for the two previous consecutive terms and for the new time ahead.
Within a week of President J A Kufuor’s re-election in December 2004, Franklin Cudjoe (a founder of IMANI think tank) observed in his article ‘Building a Property Owning Democracy’, “Even though four political parties sought the mandate of the electorate, three of them, all in opposition, had a social democratic agenda whilst the incumbent and re-elected, a liberal democratic party, believed it was practicing a property-owning democracy.”
He said one of the finest institutions that have the propensity to bolster a country's economy is property rights. “If there is one thing many Ghanaians praise the current government for, it is its unwavering commitment to free speech. But free speech ought to translate into free enterprise. Unleashing the potential created in property ownership into capital formation, combined with ease of transactions through very minimum taxation, will be helping to deepen the meaning of a property-owning democracy.”
A story published on the website, myjoyonline, on March 2, 2007 quoted a Professor Ata Britwum of the University of Cape Coast as saying that “the ideology of property owning democracy is inimical to Africans since it serves the interest of the west and not the continent.” Prof. Britwum went on to say that Ghana’s First President, Kwame Nkrumah boosted industrialisation during his rule by opting for a philosophy of communal property ownership.
Kwesi Pratt, Dr Tony Aidoo and others were allowed by the NPP’s tepid approach to realising the philosophy of property-owning democracy to preach to Ghanaians that property-owning democracy was a ‘feudal’ concept which reduced the eligibility to vote to the very few landowners. They cited new buildings in the plush areas of Accra, like Cantonments and Airport Residential Area, to bastardise the philosophy of the NPP to make the NPP ‘Property-Grabbing (-Looting) Democrats’.
This led the disciples of the ideology like Washington-based Baffour Ennin to ask a profound question in 2007: ‘What’s Wrong with Property-Owning Democracy?’
He pointed out in his article with the above title, “In Ghana, the most successful enterprise is privately owned. I’m not talking about giant factories. I’m talking about the cocoa farm. Next time you go to any farming village in Ghana, ask to see the communal farm…There is no truth to Professor Britwum’s statement that property owning democracy is inimical or pernicious to the African. In my ancestral towns and villages of Akrofuom, Akrokerri, Bobiriase, Sikaman, Domiabra, Ayaase all in Adansi and Techiman and Kwapong in the Brong Ahafo Region, every cocoa farm is privately owned. Every farm belongs to somebody. In the cocoa industry as a whole, every segment that is government dominated or owned is beset with corruption and mismanagement… I dare any government to follow his misguided advice and nationalise all cocoa farms in Ghana, make them communal property and see what happens.”
He charged, “A small minority within our academic clerisy is notorious for propounding unworkable and unsustainable political and economic models purportedly to advance and protect the interests of Ghana’s hoi polloi… These aging left wing ideologues should post on their bedroom walls Bernard Shaw’s favourite quote ‘a man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart and a man who is a socialist at age 40 has no head’. It should be the first thing they see when they get up in the morning and the last thing they see when they retire to bed each night. They need to examine their heads because the unexamined life is not worth living.”

There is nothing wrong in being rich, he said, adding, “Property owning democracy created the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Better than convincing Ghana’s 22 million people to stop chasing filthy lucre or looking for creative ways to confiscate it, we should understand that wealth is an enabler of everyone’s success. The so-called philosophy of communal property ownership rewards mediocrity, it also stifles initiative, creativity and competition and it almost invariably engenders laziness and dependency. What Ghanaians want is less government.”

For the sake of a better Ghana for the masses, property-owning democracy must come back in the shortest possible time and big time next time!

How the Global Financial Crises Impact on Businesses in Ghana

2009-05-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

British Council - Concern Universal Management Forum

How the Global Financial Crises Impact on Businesses in Ghana

UBI Estes? …….. Genesis 3:9

Ken Ofori-Atta
Databank Financial Services Ltd

UBI Estes?
Mr. Chairman
His Excellency the High Commission Nicholas Westcott,
Distinguished Panelists and Visitors affiliated with Concern Universal
Country Director of the British Council – Moses Anibaba,
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is a real honor to have this opportunity given by the British Council to be on this distinguished panel, to engage our young professionals and to discuss the financial markets’ equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall and its impact on our economy. I thank Moses and his team for making this possible; and sincere gratitude to Universal Concern for electing to come to Ghana at this time.
So how has the global financial crises impacted Ghana and on the micro side, our businesses? At the beginning of the crises, most countries in Africa felt sufficiently delinked and surmised they were likely to escape appreciable damage to their economies. After all, we were not part of the binge in credit in the US market; with their US $1.8 trillion of Subprime mortgages in a mortgage industry of over US$12 trillion and consumers carrying over US$800 billion of credit. Our banks had little or no “toxic assets”. Africa was enjoying reasonable political and economic stability while FDI was also increasing.
This head- in- the- sand paralysis continued until the fateful day of September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers, a Wall Street firm, was allowed to collapse (a tragedy, I might add). It seemed that the sluice gates had been left open, creating what Greenspan described as a “credit Tsunami”: The stock markets crashed, leading to massive wealth destruction. There was credit contraction, pure play investment banks literally vanished, banks were impaired, assets liquidated and confidence in the global financial markets was at its nadir.
The West, however, rallied and have, with breathtaking speed instituted in a sense, economic recovery and structural adjustment programs i.e. a fiscal stimulus packages (a la Breton Woods for Africa). Western Governments have essentially done three things for their economies:
-Created money to combat the credit contraction
-Recapitalized the banks and spurred banks to lend to each other and to businesses and consumers;
-Writing off/down the accumulated debt to deleverage the financial markets and thus sanitize the “toxic” assets i.e. mortgages and their derivative securities.
In addition, in the recent G20 meeting, there was a consensus on avoiding beggar-thy-neighbor policies and a strong stance against protectionism. A trillion dollar vote for the IMF/World Bank to facilitate trade credit and other liquidity interventions for emerging markets and member countries was also approved.
However Africa and Ghana for that matter has been caught in the “back draft”. Credit lines are frozen, trade finance is dried up, loans are being called in, foreign exchange is hard to come by, the currency markets have become less stable, inflationary pressures are increasing, the capital markets have taken a beating and FDI has slowed down.
After all the hard work, Africa once again is at the crossroad for a reversal of the impressive economic gains achieved in the past decade. In Ghana in the past three years (i.e. 2006-2008) exports have increased from $3.7 billion to $5.3 billion while remittances, including NGO transfers have increased from $5.8 billion to $8.7 billion. The number of Banks has increased to 26 with shareholder funds now over GHC 1 billion, with total assets of GHC 11 billion, credit to the private sector over this period has increased from GHC 1.2 billion to GHC 4.9 billion! Ghana, as you know has maintained a GDP growth rate of approximately 6% over the past few years with a historic 7.3% growth last year in 2008. Let us not for once delude ourselves into belittling the disciplined role played by our regulators: the Insurance Commission, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Ghana Stock Exchange and most importantly the Bank of Ghana. It is through their firm and prudent supervision of the financial industry that the impact of the global financial crises has been so muted. So we thank them for this foundation of a sound financial sector. If there is one lesson we have learnt from the global financial crises it is captured in Greenspan’s mea culpa to Congress in October last year “I made a mistake in presuming that lenders themselves were more capable than regulators of protecting their finances”….I still do not understand exactly how it happened”. I believe our regulators did better than Greenspan.
We as a nation, professionals, business colleagues, and academics, should be careful as we turn “inflation targeting” into a whipping boy; proclaiming its epitaph. These are not natural times and we are going to require a combination of both monetary and fiscal instruments to build a relatively sound economic base. How do we implement policies that will propel growth, create jobs and keep us on track with our Millennium Development Goals? And still guard against inflation?
Unfortunately the current situation is inimical to the average business person: inflation is climbing, the currency has weakened, our foreign exchange reserves have dwindled, government revenues are behind targets, and banks are being tentative about lending and getting into the old ways of buying Treasury Bills. Banks are unfortunately potentially setting themselves and the economy up for an adverse feedback loop, which contracts the economy, reduces demand for loans and thus compromising the financial industry. It becomes self reinforcing and unleashes a vicious circle.
So these are issues that our private sector, after 7 sound years, is having to deal with again. In reality they are problems that predated the current financial crises. We shouldn’t be immobilized as in my view there exists unique opportunities to make a transformational shift in our economy, even in these times. Almost every cardinal principle in the market driven economy has been demystified by the current global financial crises. Financial market it seems after all do not tend towards equilibrium and periphery countries such as Ghana faced with this contagion should seize the opportunity.
So I ask the question of us Ghanaians UBI Estes……. Genesis 3: 9, God’s question to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This is not because we have eaten from the tree of knowledge or that God did not know where we were. It is asking us to be introspective, to be truthful to seize this moment in our nakedness to work together as a country and to ensure that at these times, we protect our businesses, our millennium development goals, and move the ‘bottom billion’ up the ladder.
So what do we need? We have to manage inflation and we have to grow.
-We need short term money and trade finance. So let’s tap into the IMF’s Short Term Liquidity Facility and that of the AfDB.
- We need long term money for businesses to grow. Let’s tap into Special Drawing Rights to guarantee longer-term bond issues in the international markets.
- Government should create a liquidity facility for the banks such as the EDIF fund to enable them lend at sub-inflation rates to corporates and to buy long term corporate bonds.
- With the 16% decline in our stock markets, pension and provident funds and SSNIT should be actively buying shares, investing in mutual funds and providing liquidity to the market.
- The AGI, chamber of commerce, PEF, GUTA, GSIA, and all private sector associations, should come together to prepare a private sector growth agenda for input into government policy.
- We should not shy away from bold projects in agriculture and infrastructure in these times. Let us accelerate resource transfers even as we look to our regional markets to develop sustainable demand for our industry.
In conclusion, Ghana is a country of spirit and we are simply not going to win this by might and power but by national spirit – the spirit of courage, love for each other’s development and a self-disciplined and focused nation.
So when God asks UBI ESTES, we can say SUMUS HIC ‘we are here”!