Does Ghana need an affirmative action law for women?

In the Ghanaian Chronicle, I. K. Gyasi says no tokenism is necessary for Ghana’s women.

I admit that Ghanaian women still face obstacles and suffer injustices. Ideas of male physical and mental superiority, inhuman widowhood rites, unjust accusations of witchcraft against older women with consequent confinement and even torture of such women, attempts to deprive widows and their children of a portion of the deceased husband's property, female genital mutilation and other injustices still plague our women, whether educated or not.

However, those agitators who create the impression by implications that our women have achieved nothing and that there is a deliberate policy to keep women down ought to face two realities.

In the first place, there is no official national policy that deliberately sets out to keep our women down. Secondly, Ghanaian women, both the educated and uneducated, have demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that they have what it takes to make a success of their lives without affirmative action or tokenism.

A common charge brought up by women's advocates is lack of education or lack of educational advancement for our women.

…Of course, I am willing to admit that, perhaps, here and there, a female appointment may have been the result of political patronage or some other consideration. But can we honestly say that, if that is even true, some male appointments have also not been the result of political patronage or some other considerations?

In any case, did the women not have to be qualified first? Were they appointed because they had beautiful faces or could talk?

As I admitted above, there are still obstacles that slow down or prevent women's advancement in certain areas. But women's rights advocates should accentuate the positives by showing how far they have come instead of indulging in self-pity and self-denigration. They can make it if they want to.

Liberian refugees in Ghana to be repatriated in six months?

From The Inquirer:

Latest reports from Accra, Ghana say the Government of that country and Liberia in collaboration with the UNHCR have signed a tripartite agreement for the repatriation of Liberian refugees from that country within six months.

The tripartite agreement was signed last Wednesday at the Ghanaian Interior Ministry, following discussions between the three sides.

According to Deputy Information Minister, Gabriel Williams, who is currently in Accra, Ghana, he told this paper yesterday that the agreement spelt out that the repatriation process began as of April 15, 2008.

Mr. Williams, who spoke to this paper when he was contacted on the issue to provide details of the agreement, said the Ghanaian Minister of Interior, Mr. Kwanena Dartels, signed on behalf of his country while the Deputy Internal Affairs Minister of Liberia, Madam Estelle Liberty who is heading the Liberian delegation to the talks signed on behalf of Liberia.

…

In a related development, a court in Ghana is expected to rule next Friday on whether the Ghanaian government acted correctly or wrongly over the issue concerning the repatriation of the refugees.

The court's ruling comes against the backdrop of a petition filed with the court by some human rights groups who contended that the Ghanaian authority acted wrongly and reportedly mal-handled the refugees.

Talks over Liberian refugees in Ghana concluding

The News:

Discussions among the tripartite committee set up to conduct an orderly repatriation of thousands of Liberian refugees from the Buduburum Camp in Ghana are concluding, Information Minister Dr. Laurence Bropleh has disclosed.

Minister Bropleh told a news conference at his Capitol Hill office Wednesday that discussions among representatives from the Liberian government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Ghanaian government have being cordial.

"The government wants an orderly repatriation of Liberians living in the camp and has ensured that our citizens are treated fairly while awaiting their final repatriation back to Liberia," Dr. Bropleh noted.

According to UNHCR official record, there are about 42,000 Liberians currently living in the Buduburum Camp following the expiration of the voluntarily repatriation exercise last June.

Liberian refugees have been living in the Buduburum camp since the civil war erupted some 18 years ago.

Ghana celebrates noise awareness day

Concerts and speakers planned?

From Accra Mail:

As we mark this year's noise awareness day, we need to pursue noise reduction as a poverty reduction strategy to reduce our outpatient visits to ear clinics.

To pursue a better institutional collaboration, the police would have to be equipped to respond to persistent noise nuisances rapidly since most regulatory authorities do not work 24 hours and on weekends and holidays.

A national agenda to undertake massive noise education should be the priority of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies with support from the Environmental Protection Agency. This will help citizens to know their rights and responsibilities to reduce noise when the peace is breached by the lawless few in our communities.

As a way of further enhancing our existing land-use schemes, there is a need for authorities to weed out or refuse permits to noisy development projects that find their way at the wrong places. Every community especially residential areas and other sensitive facilities should have permissible and prohibitive levels of noise scribbled on buildings. Slogans prohibiting noise making and others that encourage noise reduction should be mounted at entry points to various communities.

As we commemorate the 3rd National Noise Awareness Day, it is our fervent hope that noise reduction will be everybody's priority to reduce its stress related symptoms and save our hearing. We must call on all communities to desist from activities that expose the youth and aged to excessive noise. We want return to pristine times when pleasant and soothing sounds like birds singing and wind movements in trees are heard.

A revolution for Ghana’s schools

Why Ghana needs to change its education system:

1. The Education system is too European orientated.

2. The current education system teaches Ghanaians as a whole to become consumers rather than producers and creates a dependency culture.

3. The education system results in many of its products wanting to leave Ghana for the West.

4. The current education system tends to concentrate more on theory as opposed to practical application.

5. The current system of education does not equip the Ghanaian with the core skills that are imperative in the global context.

The writer, Dr. Kwame Osei, stops short of saying how this change will come about, but it’s an interesting argument, where he claims Ghana’s system sets the bar too low and produces a nation full of small scale shop keepers, while foreigners arrive to take all the “important” jobs in mining, manufacturing, banking, agriculture and tourism.

Osei suggests schools should better equip students in basic customer service skills, better numeric skills, typing skills, presentation and better understanding of the English language. Most importantly, graduates need to be better versed in analytical and problem solving skills.

Presently, 50 percent of Ghana’s children attend school. While that’s pretty OK for West Africa (Niger posts a 22 percent education rate), Ghana is in that strange position where putting more bodies in classrooms could actually damage the quality of education unless the government goes out and hires new teachers and upgrades facilities. Of course, developing some of the suggestions people like Dr. Osei have proposed would also be beneficial.

Human rights groups in Ghana sue government over treatment of Liberian refugees

A coalition of Ghanaian human rights groups has sued the Accra government for its treatment of Liberian refugees.

Ghanaian police arrested more than 600 Liberian refugees – mostly women and children – on March 17 at the Buduburam camp after a five week sit-in strike in front of the camp. A few days later, police reentered the camp and arrested about 30 men who they claimed were causing trouble.

Nearly 40,000 Liberian refugees reside in Ghana, some who have lived there since 1990 when the country’s civil war began. Most of them live in Buduburam camp, just outside of Accra.

The protesters were demanding UNHCR, the UN refugee organization, either resettling them in a third country – like the U.S. or a European country – or increasing their repatriation allowance from $100 to $1000 if they were to return to Liberia.

From IRIN:

The Human Rights Coalition is filing a suit on behalf of one of the detained refugees, Chucider Lawrence, asking the Ghanaian government to release her and provide justification for her arrest and detention.

“We want to test the law with this case and depending on the outcome we will proceed with a general suit to compel the government to answer to the gross human rights abuses of the [all the detained] refugees,” said Amuzu.

Under Ghanaian law no one can be detained for more than 48 hours without being arraigned.

The Ghanaian government has justified its action saying the refugees have violated laws by protesting to the police without notice.

“Further deportations have not been discarded,” said Ghana deputy information minister, Frank Agyekum, however he also said the deportations have been suspended pending the outcome of diplomatic discussions with the Liberian government.

Ghana has attempted to invoke the 1951 Refugee Convention claiming that once conditions improve in person’s country of origin, it is no longer necessary that the host government supports them.

In other news, the UNHCR has asked Ghana’s government to cease forcibly deporting refugees who are registered with the organization.

"It is very unfortunate that the unacceptable actions of a few have led to this situation,” said George Okoth-Obbo, the UNHCR Director of International Protection Services. “Refugees of course have the duty to respect the laws of the country of asylum established for good public order. Any further sit-ins, demonstrations or other unlawful acts must cease unconditionally. At the same time, while fully understanding the frustration of the authorities, I would like to reiterate UNHCR's call to the Government not to make any further deportations and to work with us to address the situation through other mechanisms available within the laws of Ghana. Unfortunately, the victims in all of this are the innocent majority of Liberian refugees who call Ghana home".

Liberian refugees in Ghana: Protests are only tip of the iceberg

On February 19, a group of women refugees from Liberia began a sit-in protest on a soccer pitch directly in front of the Buduburam refugee camp, which lies just west of the capital Accra. The women were demanding immediate resettlement to third countries, or if they were returned to Liberia, UNHCR, the United Nations refugee organization should increase their return grant from $100 to $1000.

After four weeks, the sit-in protest had gathered steam, and the government of Ghana claimed the refugees were violating the public order by blocking traffic and preventing students from attending school. On March 17 police entered the camp and arrested nearly 700 women and children. The government of Liberia condemned the protestors’ “unruly” conduct and apologized to the Ghanaian president. (Here’s a second-hand version of the police action.)

Five days after the first arrests, Ghanaian police swept again through the camp, this time searching for men officers had accused of further fomenting dissent, with rumors swirling that they had cached weapons and were trafficking cocaine. (Neither weapons nor drugs were found.) Press reports claimed many of the wanted men had fled to the bush, yet police arrested around 35 people. (Reports from refugees claimed that the arrests were carried out at random.) At least half of those arrested were not registered as refugees, the Ghanaian government claimed, so officials deported 16 people to Liberia, a move that raised the ire of human rights groups and UNHCR.

Civil wars
Liberian refugees first began arriving in Ghana in 1990, and the refugee population exploded later that decade when the country’s civil war broke out full bore. As recently as 2006, 40,000 Liberians were living in the camp. Delegations of the two governments recently met over the refugees’ status and are working out a plan to repatriate the more than 24,000 Liberian refugees still living in the country.

Semantics King jr., a six-year resident of the Buduburam camp, currently lives in Minnesota in the United States. A journalist working in radio, he fled to Ghana in 2000 after receiving death threats. When he was living in the camp, he launched The Vision newspaper, which provided news to refugees and training to young journalists. Since moving to the U.S., he began the New Liberian.

He said the women began the soccer-pitch protest because they had heard the UNHCR was sitting on the money intended to repatriate the refugees back to Liberia. Rumors began spreading through the camp from the Liberian legislature, he said, claiming Sierra Leone refugees currently living in Liberia were to receive $15,000 per family to reconstruct their homes. The women argued that if the UNHCR could spend $15,000 per Sierra Leone family, the organization could easily spend $1,000 per Liberian refugee.

The UNHCR began a voluntary resettlement project in 2004, but very few refugees took the group up on the offer. Most people worried the $100 repatriation fee would not adequately cover resettling in war-scarred Liberia. Other refugees worried about returning to a country where they had no family ties. Continuing ethnic violence is yet another reason so many remain at the camp. Instead of returning to Liberia, some refugees would like to be resettled to a third country, like Canada or the United States.

The heart of the matter
The UNHCR’s resettlement program was not the only factor in the protests, King said. “The conditions of the camp are appalling,” he told me by telephone. “I lived there for six years and I came to realize that UNHCR has done nothing good for the refugees.”

He said that from 1997 to 2003, the UN group all but pulled out of the camp, hoping that refugees would begin resettling after Charles Taylor officially took power after the 1997 election. Since the agency has returned, refugees continue to provide for their own basic needs. “[Refugees] fend for themselves at the camp,” he said. “There is no food. There is no water to take a bath. You have to pay to educate your children.”

Some people questioned why Liberian refugees could not simply repatriate in Ghana, another Anglophone West African country. King says many scoffed at the idea mostly because of the little protection the Ghanaian government has offered refugees. Not only is paying school fees an issue, but he maintains that Ghanaian police often drag their feet when investigating crimes against Liberians, including more than a few grisly murders that have taken place inside and outside the camp. “People in Ghana don’t like the refugees, he said. “How can you talk about integration when there is no protection for refugees?”

One of the reason for the prosecution of refugees, he said, is the Ghanaian press often paints them in a negative light with blatant one-sided reports (another reason he began The Vision). “Until recently no Ghanaian journalist ever set foot in the refugee camp to take a look at what these people were (and are still) going through,” he said. (Here is an example of reporting on the refugee situation in the Ghanaian press.)

With the demands of the refugees hardening, along with the position of the Ghanaian government, the UNHCR has to find a solution soon before the atmosphere at the camp reaches a tipping point. “If they don’t act now,” King said. “And people are allowed to stay in that camp, we are going to hear from very bad things in the next one to three years. The international community really needs to look at the demands of the refugees.”

As Ghana mulls purchasing presidential jet, priorities are questioned

Debate has broken out in Ghana over a proposal to purchase a $37 million 12-seat aircraft that will serve as a presidential jet. As with any (minor) political scandal, it's not so much about the jet, but a question of priorities.

From writer Godwin Yaw Agboka in Accra’s Public Agenda.

When a JOY FM reporter allegedly asked [Press Secretary Mr. Andrew] Awuni why the country would spend over $20 million to celebrate Ghana@50, $60 million to build a presidential palace, and now $37 million on a presidential jet, he asked the reporter: "how will you explain to Ghanaians that we are spending $600 million building the Bui Dam when we don't have water?" He added that Ghanaians should move away, from what he termed, the 'poverty mentality.' He argued further that if Ghanaians questioned the purchase of the jet, "then we should stop building the roads, because we don't have water, we should stop building the Bui Dam because we don't have water." "Is that what we are saying?" was his rhetorical question.

Such answers from Mr. Awuni made me want to puke! In fact, his demeanor and unbridled, headstrong approach to responding to the reporter's questions just reminded me of the last days of the NDC, when the likes of Dr. Tony Aidoo and some individuals within the NDC had become so arrogant and near larger-than-life, until Ghanaians proved to them that they did not send themselves to power. It was Ghanaians that did! Who does Mr. Awuni think he is addressing, here? Some uneducated Ghanaians? Some people who have lost touch with what is happening lately in the country? Some unwavering loyalists, who will keep mute even when they are starving to death?

The problem is not about the purchase of a Presidential Jet or building a Presidential Palace. I believe every well-meaning Ghanaian would love to see the President live in a structure and an environment that befit his status as the President of the Republic of Ghana. After all, he is the one who has spearheaded all these many debt-relief processes for the country, in addition to doing some wonderful work on the economy that has seen so much macro-economic stability, since his government took over. It will be ridiculous for anyone to think that the safety of the President is no one's concern, especially so when the jet would serve the interests of future presidents.

The questions hinge on priority and timing. What baffles me about this decision and the passion with which government officials are moving from media house to media house defending this decision is the blind eye they have turned to the basic needs that most Ghanaians are struggling, daily to access. The last time I heard Ghana had only one Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment for undertaking scans, and even when a player of the senior national team needed an MRI done on him, during the just-ended African Nation's Cup, he had to be sent to Nigeria. Just recently, the new CEO of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital was crying badly for some equipment that needed replacement at the hospital. How does Mr. Awuni justify the need for a Presidential Jet-and arrogantly so-when materials and equipment needed in our nation's hospitals, that will benefit the majority of Ghanaians are ignored?

Who's to blame for brain drain?

Who's to blame for Ghana, and Africa's, doctors and health care professionals leaving for better paying jobs in rich countries? It depends who you ask, writes New York University Professor Jonathan Zimmerman in the International Herald Tribune. He cites a World Bank study that claims 47 percent of college-education Ghanaians live abroad; This includes more than half of doctors who received their training between 1999 and 2004, which has created an acute shortage in medical personal.

With numbers like these, it's no wonder this debate is very emotional.

Ghanaians will tell you, there are more Ghanaian physicians in New York City alone than there are in Ghana. I've never been able to confirm this statistic. But people here repeat it so often that it has become part of national lore. It speaks to the larger truth of the brain drain, even if the actual number is false.

So who's at fault for this grim state of affairs? Like the African-American speaker at my conference, many Ghanaians blame their own "greedy" professionals. Ghana gave them skills, the argument goes, but they won't give back. They value their pocketbooks more than their patriotism.

Never mind that they remit millions of dollars back into Ghana, or that large numbers of overseas professionals return home. By some estimates, for example, 60 percent of Africans who go to the United States eventually come back.

No, the real question is whether any human being has a greater duty to his or her "own kind" - be it race, ethnicity or nation - than to humanity as a whole. Compared to other Americans, do middle class blacks have a special responsibility to lift inner-city African-Americans out of poverty? Do Ghanaian physicians have a higher obligation - than any other doctor, in any other nation - to treat Ghanaian patients?

I think not. The greatest humanists of history -think Schweitzer, Gandhi or King - all emphasized our shared moral duty to one another, no matter where we live. Even more, they reminded us, holding some groups to a higher duty lets the rest of us off the hook.

There's also the argument that African health professionals aren't so much "pulled" to Western countries as they are "pushed." From Wendy Glauser in World Politics Review.

[Judith] Oulton of the International Council of Nurses noted that while South Africa currently suffers from a nursing shortage, it also hosts 30,000 unemployed nurses. In Uganda, meanwhile, many health care workers are migrating out of the sector, rather than out of the country. "We have trained doctors who become lawyers, doctors who work for NGOs," said Stephen Malligna, the minister of health for Uganda.

On the bright side, international health funding bodies like the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization have pledged to support basic health care systems in the countries they give aid to, according to Dr. Francis Omaswa the head of WHO's Global Health Workforce Alliance. Up until now, donor money has been focused primarily on the purchase of medicines or the implementation of isolated projects.

And successful initiatives by governments in India and Ethiopia, cited several times during the conference, prove that developing countries can go a long way toward addressing the health workforce gap without outside assistance.

Decentralize this: If one takes away power from the federal government, where does it go?

“Decentralization is moving in full swing in Ghana,” writes journalist and researcher Kofi Akosah-Sarpong in the Accra Mail (via AllAfrica.com). “The practice, as a development venture, is to broaden the provision of public goods nation-wide by involving the citizenry in their progress.”

People have long talked about decentralization in Africa in many different government sectors: education, politics, budgeting and health. There are those who claim that Africa’s very centralized states are remnants from colonial times, where European powers had to build a formidable authority through government structures so a few people could rule over vast territory. Some will argue that these powerful federal systems felt right to the newly independent African leaders because pre-colonial Africa was mostly ruled by Kings and traditional leaders with near absolute power. I say that’s a bit of an oversimplification.

But let’s stay with generalizations, anyway. After Africa’s first generation of leaders was overthrown by military juntas, this new generation of dictators cultivated and maintained these highly centralized states. Centralization requires building a vast bureaucracy, making sure that power flows only from the capital to the provinces. But it also hands some power over to those little people who run the levers of this grand machine: the civil servants. Once the machine is embedded with this influence, it is hard to put a stop to it.

How it works elsewhere
Speaking to someone fluent in the health system in Burkina, centralization means keeping the power of budget allocation in Ouagadougou. When the little village health centers come up with their budget, they must first send it to the district level where it is weighed upon and then incorporated into the grander project. This is then sent up to the regional level, where its merits are again debated upon. Finally, it is sent to the national level, where people then decide where to dole out funds.

Staffing is another centralized activity. Unlike teachers, who can work around the country provided they understand different grade levels, health workers have developed different specialties depending on the region they work. Those in the south may understand river blindness, while those in the north may deal more with guinea worm (or whatever). However, these areas of expertise may prove irrelevant when a minister in Ouagadougou transfers the southern health professional to work in the far north.

There has been much chatter about decentralizing many government sectors, but my people claim it is still mostly talk. Centralization means the government holds a lot of cards, and it’s very hard for a bureaucracy to willingly pass this power down the line. In a more philosophical, political economy bent, what does this centralized system do to a government’s legitimacy for those at the local level? Is the government seen as a blind tyrant or a benevolent all-powerful force? Another question I’ve always had: What do local people think about their politically neutered local leaders? I understand even local préfets (governors) enjoy a bit of power (I’ve seen one put people in jail and another hold a lot of responsibility for a very important government project), but how much authority do they really have?

The Ghana plan
Let’s get back to Akosah-Sarpong’s piece about Ghana, where it appears decentralization will play into an election issue. If I get him correctly, unlike the bread-and-butter argument for political decentralization in Burkina Faso, Akosah-Sarpong favors using decentralization as a way to increase power not to politically created departments, but to the more historical (and cultural) districts and groups.

Though decentralization may be part of the emerging global development architecture, it is how it is implemented that differs from one local to another. This is informed by the local's history and culture, as the World Bank and other experts argue. That makes Ghana and the African region peculiar, for it is the only region where its development processes are dominated by foreign development paradigms to the detriment of its traditional values and histories. And the peculiarity tells the development troubles of Ghana.

Part of the solution is decentralization, as a way of involving the people in their development process by understanding their needs that are seen in their values based on their history and culture. But because of Ghana's colonial heritage and its peoples' culture much of the work of the decentralization process wheel around the mixing of Ghana's traditional values with those of its ex-colonial Western orthodox ones. The global development design is replete with this…

But this is where much of the challenges will come in a Ghana where policy-making and bureaucratization, for the past 51 years, despite its history and rich culture, has been one-track - more ex-colonial neo-liberal Western paradigms running the development show to the detriment of Ghana's traditional values.

Kufour is aware of this and reveals that the decentralization "transformation would require a new type of assembly members to comprehend both local and native issues that could give leadership and direction to the staff of the local government service in the district." And that may mean reading from the locals and mixing them with the global prosperity construction.

Should I stay or should I go: The question facing Liberian refugees in Ghana

A friend who was in Ghana last week asked me “do you know why the Liberian refugees are protesting in Accra?” I had heard nothing about it, but apparently the people of Accra have heard plenty.

A group of refugees demonstrating at the Buduburan camp claim they are dead set against integrating into Ghanaian society and would like to be resettled somewhere else, preferably a western country. For those refugees willing to voluntarily return to Liberia, they demand to receive $1000 to do so. The Ghanaian government issued a statement condemning the demonstration, which according to Vibe Ghana, has closed all schools in the camp and halted food distribution for neglected populations. (I can’t confirm this.)

Liberian refugees have lived in Ghana since 1990. Today, Buduburan, just outside the metropolis of Accra, is home to some 24,000 Liberian refuges spread out over 141 acres. As of December 2007, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, admitted it is promoting the idea that the Liberians may be better off remaining in Ghana and integrating into the community. (Ghana hosts the largest refugee population in West Africa, mostly Liberians and Togolese.)

Voluntary repatriation
UNHCR did launch a voluntary repatriation program in 2004, but it has been fraught with problems. Geography, for one. Ghana and Liberia are separated by Cote d’Ivoire (and Guinea, for those returning to the North West part of the country), making it complicated to for refugees to return home. (A group of refugees returning to Liberia by a convoy of vehicles were stranded at the border between Mali and Guinea because the Guinean government – themselves a host of many refugees – refused the group entrance into the country.) This forced the UNHCR to consider returning Liberian refuges by plane or by boat, which they began late in 2004.

According to a 2007 story in the Vision, a newspaper printed in Buduburan refugee camp, the simple truth is that some refugees don’t want to return to Liberia.

“How do you expect me to go back to a country where I have nobody alive, no place to stay, and no basic skills to improve my life?” wondered a 20-year-old Charles Willie who said his parents were killed in 1996 during a factional battle for control of Monrovia city center.

“I will never go back to Liberia and if the Government of Ghana and the UNHCR won’t support me [I have been here for the past 10 years without support from any of them] here once there is life, there is hope,” he added.

For some refugees, they have been surviving in a delicate limbo. This is from a story originally published in the NYU (New York University) Livewire, and reprinted in the Vision:

For many, Liberia is by now a distant, wild unknown. Others are spooked by rumors, memories and failed attempts to repatriate.

Christian Doebo, Jr., a 28-year-old orphan who fled Liberia alone and on foot when he was 12, said he’ll never go back.

“The only thing I remember about Liberia is rebels burning down our house and abducting my parents,” he said. But he scoffed at the idea of settling in Ghana. “If you don’t speak [the local language] Twi, you don’t move, you don’t have work, you are not in their society.”

Edison Padjibo, a Research Fellow at the University of Education in Central Ghana at Winneba, himself a refugee in Buduburam since 1990, told the Vision that the UNHCR helped create this problem with its policies of double-standards: While the UNHCR urged Liberians to return, at the same the UN body encouraged resettlement to third countries of asylum, notably to the United States of America and Canada.

Earthquakes a special concern in southern Ghana

From Public Agenda:

Mr. Philip Yaw Oduro Amoako, a Geologist with the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), has warned that the threat of an imminent earthquake rocking the Southern part of Ghana, especially along the coast, is still real and that Ghanaians should always prepare up for it.

"Those living in the Southern part of Ghana should always prepare against an imminent earthquake, it could happen any time, but as to the exact day and time nobody can tell. The prediction is still relevant," he warned.

… He mentioned Weija, Accra, Ho, Axim, Elmina, and Cape Coast as some of the earthquake-prone areas and advised that residents in these places should seek advice from structural engineers when putting up buildings in order to meet earthquake resistance specifications.

"Buildings with arches without any support are likely to collapse in the event of an earthquake and this should be avoided," he advised in a later interview with the Public Agenda.

Red in the face: Ghana again threatens boycott of Burkina Faso’s tomatoes over GMO claims

After members of the Ghana Tomato Traders Association once again alleged that some Burkinabé farmers are illegally exporting GMO-enhanced tomatoes into the country, the Ghana’s government has threatened to ban the its northern neighbor from delivering any more of the bright red vegetables, Ghanaian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Burkina Faso’s tomatoes enter the Ghanaian market between four and five months a year, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, whose research shows that Ghanaians prefer Burkina tomatoes to local varieties.

“The threat to ban the importation was issued at a sitting of the Judicial Committee of the Ghana Traditional Council, Commodity Online reported. “There could be a looming tomatoes crisis if a threat to ban the importation of tomatoes was effected.”

Like Ghana, farmers and scientists in Burkina Faso experiment with various forms of biotechnology and GMO crops. However, Ghana does not experiment on tomatoes, while Burkina Faso does.

Here is what FAO claims are Burkina Faso’s experiments on tomatoes:

Abbreviation for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. An immunoassay, i.e. an antibody-based technique for the diagnosis of the presence and quantity of specific molecules in a mixed sample. It combines the specificity of an immunoglobulin with the detectability of an enzyme-generated coloured product. In one form, the primary antibody (specific to the test protein) is adsorbed onto a solid substrate, and a known amount of the sample is added; all the antigen in the sample is bound by the antibody. A second antibody (conjugated with an enzyme) specific for a second site on the test protein is added; and the enzyme generates a colour change in the presence of a substrate reagent.

Buy your loved ones a Ghana savings bond

It’s really called a Golden Jubilee Savings Bond, and it is expected to raise 50 million GH Cedis ($53 million) to pay for infrastructural development of the country.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra yesterday, Mr Mawuli Hedo, Senior Corporate Advisor of SAS Finance Group, said in addition to the launch, the experts would spend some time to educate Ghanaians living in the Diaspora the prospects of the bond.

He said: "the bonds offer a good investment opportunity for Ghanaians living abroad due to its high rate of interest. "In the face of falling interest rates, the effective rate of 16.1 percent on these bonds is very attractive," Mr Hedo said.

The jubilee savings bond would be issued at a face value of 10 GH cedis and in multiples of 10 GH cedis thereafter. Interest rate for the bond would be fixed at the prevailing five-year Government of Ghana rate on the issue date for investors.

Retail investors would receive additional interest of 0.5 percent plus the prevailing rate on the Government of Ghana five-year Bond.

It has a five-year maturity period, which would be fixed on the purchase date with a minimum holding period of three years after which they might be redeemed at face value plus accrued interest. There is an early redemption charge of 1.5 percent in the fourth year and one percent in the fifth (5th) year.

Ghana prepares for a peaceful 2008 election

With more than a slight nod to the post-election crisis in Kenya,

“Our collective efforts, physical, psychological and spiritual should be harnessed positively to ensure a trouble-free pre-election campaign and a post-election atmosphere based upon results that are transparent, justifiable and sustainable.’’

“Political Parties should grow more matured into a state where they can identify more concretely with the national interest; they should again graduate from politicians to statesmen in the national interest.’’

The former National Security Co-ordinator, Mr K. B. Quantson, made these observation at a roundtable discussion on the topic, “Towards a Peaceful Election 2008: The National Security Environment,’’ last Thursday, in Accra.

The roundtable discussion was organised by the Center for Democratic Development (CDD) and aimed at providing a platform for informed discussion of issues pertaining to the National Security environment and its implications for peaceful and credible elections in Ghana in December 2008.

Expanding economies allows Ghanaian media company to plant its flag in foreign countries

A Ghanaian group of radio stations have slowly been moving into markets in Sierra Leone, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gambia. Most recently, this group has moved into Liberia.

The group, Multimedia Group Limited, operators of Joy FM and five other radio stations in greater Accra and the Ashanti Regions, also has two online news websites. The company provides satellite-distributed programming for all its stations, including another 38 African and 13 stations in Europe where it shares affiliation programs.

In an interview with ModernGhana.com, Kwasi Twum, the group’s CEO, said that a globalized media environment has forced the company to look beyond Ghana’s borders to continue growing.

From the interview:

Discounting the claim that local companies do not have the capacity to challenge competitors in the sub region and beyond, the CEO asserted that Multimedia Group Ltd has the organisational capacity to grow, not only in West Africa but in Africa as a whole.

“Ghana has become a net importer of media; the time has come for us to change that,’ Mr Twum stated.

With a strength of 279 full time and 66 part time staff, the company has built internal capacity by focussing on training and development as the core feature of its operations, spending 4% of annual turnover on training, with staff benefiting from both local and international training programs.

Touching on challenges facing the media industry in Ghana, Mr Twum mentioned low advertising rates, pointing out that rates in Cote d’ Ivoire, are four times higher than in Ghana, while they are 12 times higher in Nigeria. The CEO said the potential for development in the broadcasting industry exists but for this to happen, the regulatory authorities would need to create a more conducive growth environment. A conscious effort should be made to promote the growth of individual private businesses to reach the world class standards which will make them competitive anywhere.

The Multimedia Group CEO intimated that the company had looked at the possibility of listing on the Stock Exchange in 2004 but the stock market went soft.

He said the idea had come up again and there has been support from its various quarters, given that it would give the Ghana bourse a boost but the company was of the view that the taking of such a step should be determined by the its long term objectives.

“The motivation for floatation should be very clear because the ultimate aim would be to create real value for the prospective shareholders,” he said.

Automation project underway at Ghana Stock Exchange

In a move to bring Ghana’s Stock Exchange closer to international standards, trading and other activities will be automated in the next few months.

According to My Joy Online:

This will replace the current manual trading system, where the brokers have to place their orders and bids on a white board during trading sessions on the floor for allotment to be done.

The platform, being executed at a cost of 1.88 million-dollars, will allow trading to be done on line and on real time basis by the touch of a button.

Trading commenced at the Stock Exchange on November 12, 1991. Presently there are 34 listed companies traded on the exchange and total market capitalization (as of June 30) is more than $12 million. On January 10, 2008 (yesterday) some 77,800 shares were traded. The exchange has 16 licensed stock broking firms, and custodial services for non-residents are provided by Barclays Bank of Ghana.

1.2 million children in Ghana engaged in workforce

From Ghana Broadcasting Corporation:

More than 1.2m children are engaged in child labour out of the 2.4m economically active children in Ghana. The National Programmes Coordinator of the International Labour Organization, Matthew Dally, who made this known this at a child labour workshop in Kumasi, expressed grave concern about the continuous abuse of child rights in the country.

He said any work performed by a person below the age of 18, which deprives him of the basic human rights, and is exploitative and harmful to the development of the child is not permissible.

He noted however, that the causes of child labour are primarily rooted in poverty, created by social and economic inequality as well as inadequate educational facilities.

Ghana's forest conditions not so dire after all; growing canopies seen in Volta District

Just after reports of Ghana’s disappearing forests, the country has some good news: Forest cover is up in 15 districts in the Volta Region. From the Ghanaian Chronicle:

The Volta Region has been able to increase its forest cover as a result of bilateral cooperation between the Government of Ghana and the German Government, to rehabilitate destroyed forest areas, dubbed Forest Protection and Resource Use Management Project (FORUM).

The project, which has been implemented for the past fifteen years, would come to an end on 28th February 2008, after successfully increasing the forest cover in fifteen districts of the region, including the Nkwanta, Ho, Kpando, Jasikan and South Tongu districts.

Statistics available indicate that, there was an increase in forest cover in forest reserves from 6,000 hectares from 1976 to 14,000 hectares in 2007, and increase in wood-fuel production from small scale plantations from 0.00m3 from 1994 to 50,000m3 in 2007, in the Region.

Ghana not seeing the forest for the trees

Ghana’s forest ministry said the country is rapidly losing its forest cover.

Today, forests make up 2.47 million acres of the country, which is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Oregon. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ghana’s forest took up nearly 20 million acres. By the time the country gained independence in 1957, that amount had dwindled to just half that. Since then, the Forest Ministry estimated the forests are being depleted about 160,000 acres per year.

According to Public Agenda in Accra:

Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, Clement Eledi once attributed the problem to the failure of Ghana's Forestry and Wildlife policies and strategies to ensure that forest and wildlife resources were managed on economically viable, socially beneficial and environmentally sound principles.

Mining alone is said to deplete two million acres of forested land each year.

Currently very little closed forest is said to remain outside the forest reserve network with much of it in small-scattered patches in swamps and sacred groves. Environmentalists say that granting the miners permits to enable them operate in the reserves will result in the decimation of the remaining forest tucked away in the reserve.

Other reasons for the fast pace of the deforestation in the country according to the commission are " a phenomenal increase in population leading to pressure on forests and forested lands, expansion of agriculture, wild fires and uncontrolled logging as well as the production of wood fuel". The FAO country report on Ghana confirms that two thirds of the population and most of Ghana's economic activities are concentrated in its forested areas

Meanwhile it is said that forests play an important role in the nation's socio-economic development. Timber exports alone is said to have fetched the country an estimated $214 million in revenue.