AU Chairman Yayi Bone Consoles Nana Akufo-Addo After A Gruesome Defeat

CLIENTS OF VODAFONE SPEAK OUT!

Ag Chairman Christian Azu of IUAG

As clients of Vodafone Ghana Limited, we write to seek redress over poor service delivery, lackadaisical response to customer complaints, and implementation of cap broadband system recently introduced with the intent to amass profits.

On numerous occasions that we individually had problems with our fixed broadband lines it took well over 21 days for technical staff to attend to us and sometimes, they would virtually fail to attend to our complaints. We are of the view that instead of hurriedly capping its clients, Vodafone Ghana Limited should be thinking of improving service quality by being proactive.

The Internet Users Association of Ghana (IUAG) writes to express its disapproval of the price hike as well as impress upon all stakeholders, particularly the National Communication Authority (NCA) and the Ministry of Communications (MOC) to intervene and have these issues resolved amicably.

On 14th November, 2012, Vodafone Ghana sent text messages to some selected clients to inform them of their intent to change their billing system to a capping system. Vodafone indicated in the correspondence that “Dear Customer from November 28Th 2012 your fixed broadband package will have 15GB of internet allowance valid for 30 days. Your monthly fee will be G¢65.00 per month.”

Additionally, on 15th November, 2012 Vodafone once again sent a message with the following content; “Dear Customer yesterday’s fixed broadband text message was for new customers only. Your new 15GB allowance starts on 15th December, 2012, Thank you.”

Following the text messages stated above, we the Internet Users Association of Ghana are of the view that Vodafone Ghana Limited is trying to grab more profits from the growth in Internet Services. We are also of the view that even though Vodafone has the right to cap, it would have been appropriate to involve all stakeholders especially when the increase in price goes beyond 270%.

We as a group think that Vodafone Ghana Limited is only being abusive by trying to take advantage as first movers (because of the Monopoly they enjoy). Instead of providing clients with faster speeds for users and encouraging the growth of services that would require users to upgrade to those speeds, they have taken control of the last mile and have started changing bytes. Inadvertently, instead of paying more for better services, customers are being forced to pay more for what they use. This model works for certain industries like the petroleum and electricity industries.

When it comes to “encouraging more usage and innovation” through the internet, with the aim of bridging the global information divide, the utility model seems short sighted and they should think this same way. For example what would have happened if Intel had told game developers or even Microsoft not to write software that would stress its chips or penalize programmers for every megahertz of data they used over a certain threshold? We would have ended up with crappy software running on slower machines. However, Intel encouraged people to write software for its chips and invested billions of dollars in making them faster so people would migrate.

Judging from Vodafone’s action, we the clientele want to draw the attention of all stakeholders and Ghanaians to the fact that it is high time we looked at the internet as a source of continued innovation instead of a means of amassing unrealistic wealth to the detriment of the ordinary Ghanaian.

We need to categorically state and draw your attention to the fact that we have as a group made frantic efforts to meet the management of Vodafone Ghana Limited to express our disapproval and also have a dialogue with the aim of coming to a compromise, but they (Vodafone) have thwarted all our efforts to meet them.

On 20/12/2012, we moved to the corporate offices of Vodafone and requested to meet management or schedule a meeting for the amicable resolution of this issue. We were met by one Kofi Mbro (The Head of Corporate Security) who promised to take our plight up to the right quarters and thus scheduled a follow-up meeting that was to discuss our grievances. This meeting was to take place at the Vodafone Head Office, Circle, on 24/12/2012 but the management of Vodafone failed to turn up. Rather they re-scheduled the meeting to 27/12/2012. We obliged to their delay tactics and when 27th December, 2012 finally came they once again failed to show up. This attitude has made us to come to the conclusion that the management is using this trickery to buy time and to refuse to heed to our request for a meeting with them.

Conclusively, we are of the view that whilst other businesses like stores or general commerce gives loyalty rewards to customers who keep coming, Vodafone now sees its clientele as “Bandwidth hogs”.

It is also a known fact that the cap implementation which has just taken place is seriously harmful to innovation due to the price hikes.

We therefore wish to appeal to all stakeholders to impress upon Vodafone Ghana Limited to:
1. Provide quality and reliable service at all times
2. Give quick response to clients’ complaints at all times.
3. Allow old pricing to stand, thus GH¢70.00 for unlimited access to Data at 2mbps or GH¢180.00 for unlimited access to Data at 12mbps rather than cap at ¢65.00 for 15GB of data (a situation that will widen the global information divide).
4. Give clients prior notice on Policy changes as well as have an avenue to address client grievances before the implementation of such policies.
5. Avoid the imposition of harsh price/tariffs on clients with the aim of amassing wealth for them to the detriment of the ordinary Ghanaian.
6. Give clients a one month compensatory data package losses which came as a result of inefficient communication and abrupt disconnection of service.

Signed
AG.CHAIRMAN (Christian Azu)
SECRETARY (Reeston M. VONDEE)
Organizer (Kingsley Iheme)
Member (Isaac Yeboah)
cc:
National Communications Authority,
Ministry of Communications,

EDITORIAL

COMMENDATION

The Insight is starting the new year with something unusual and yet so very important.

We highly commend Parliament especially the minority during the president’s delivery of the state of the Nation Address.

This commendation is unusual because in the past we have castigated parliament for the unruly behaviour of some of its members during such addresses.

The Insight believes that parliament ought to be a platform for serious debates on the national situation and should not be reduced to a den of rabble rousers.

It is our hope that parliament will continue to demonstrate a very high level of maturity from now on.

We salute parliament.

CPP NEW YEAR MESSAGE

We have entered a New Year and the Convention People’s (CPP) wishes each and every one a Healthy, Happy and Prosperous  New Year.

Much has happened during the past twelve months with many events and incidents, which have impacted on many lives. Our hearts are with the families and friends of all the victims of accidents and tragedy.

Samia Yaba Nkrumah

Though we have had the all-important 6th election of our 4th Republic, some challenges remain for our democracy.By all standards however we have every reason to be thankful for good fortune in many homes, in many respects and for the continuing peace of our nation.

The aspirations of every Ghanaian can be summed up in a single sentence:  to achieve a higher living standard by improving living conditions for people, and providing increased opportunities for employment.

While some have found hope, a great many more are affected by the consequences of the common evils of poverty, disease, ignorance, mismanagement and corruption. The increasing cost of living, soaring unemployment, constricting space for economic opportunities and generally economic difficulties confront the majority of Ghanaians.

Our aspirations for every citizen are for a better healthcare system, a better access to quality education and easier and equal access to opportunities, particularly for the youth.
The role of the youth in particular is critical, they must be strong, of good character, of great moral courage, humble, hardworking, polite, responsible, reliable and scrupulously honest, for these are the virtues on which we can build Ghana and make it a prosperous and happy place to live.

 The Youth must remember that the world is still a parasitic one in which ten per cent of the world’s population live in luxury on the labours of the other ninety per cent. It is against this system that the CPP exists to fight.

In or out of parliament we will continue to be the voice of the voiceless, champion the cause of the weakest and disadvantaged in our society. We will continue to be the Social Conscience of the nation.

The CPP will march forward with Ghana’s youth who must at all times remember that the Convention People’s Party will stand behind them as the bulwark of their assumptions.

We must look to this New Year and in the next four years as a new age for our country, a new age to hold government truly accountable, as a new opportunity to restore hope and optimism.

As we learn from the failures of the past, we must use lessons learnt from this election to ensure that our country is taken on a path of self-reliance, self-sufficiency and away from dependency.

This is the time for everyone who loves this country to reject apathy, indecision and mismanagement and help shape in our country, an age of delivery, delivery on the basics of life.

An age where the national wealth must be built up and used for the welfare and happiness of our citizens. An age where the citizens of this country share in the economy of the country and have control over it.

True to its tradition the CPP has lead the way with women in Leadership. We will now break new ground with the youth in leadership.

We remain strong, united and determined to live up to our aims and objectives to enhance Ghana’s development and prosperity.

We wish all Ghanaians a PEACEFUL, HEALTHY, HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.

God bless you

God bless Ghana

Samia Yaba Nkrumah

Chairperson and Leader

Africa, the contested land

By Kwesi W. Obeng./ African Agenda.

IN the middle of the ongoing global economic crisis, natural resource endowed

African countries from Angola through Ghana to Zambia continue to record staggering

economic growth rates, an average of six per cent.

But not only have these heady expansion of African economies been without jobs, the spread of the newly created wealth is controlled by a tiny minority (mainly multinational extractive companies and a small part of local elites).

With an insignificant exception, these natural resources mainly minerals, oil, fisheries

and forestry products are shipped out of the continent in their raw state. As a

result, these high growth rates are both not sustainable and can never transform the

structure of the African economy to benefit the larger population.

It is against this backdrop that minerals, land, fisheries and forestry headlined

this year's edition of the biannual African Development Forum (ADF) held in Addis

Ababa, Ethiopia from October 23-23, 2012. The rational for the four thematic areas go,

of course, far beyond the simple fact that the price of mineral commodities and other

natural resources of which, Africa is heavily endowed are going up as global demand

remains high and set to remain so in the foreseeable future.

Jointly organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

(UNECA), the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank

(AfDB), the forum, eighth in the series, was on the theme “Governing and Harnessing

Development” and the working document was effectively the African Mining Vision

(AMV). The AMV, adopted by African leaders at a summit in 2009, is a pragmatic vision

designed by Africans and broadly sets out a framework for the structural transformation

of the continent's economy using the minerals sector as the catalyst.

Focused discussions at the forum were held in four parallel sessions over the four thematic areas of minerals, land, fisheries and forestry. The land parallel session was on the theme: Land and Africa's Development Future: Governing the Risks and Opportunities of Large-scale Landbased Investments.

Sessions

At the parallel thematic breakout session on land chaired by the African Union

Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Rhoda Peace Tumisiime, participants expressed worry over the rush on African lands, the accelerated pace at which African countries where parceling their most valuable and arable lands to external actors, the lack of comprehensive land policy in most African countries and the poor land administration systems.

Indeed, as the pressure on Africa's lands from both local and international actors increases, it is estimated that by 2025 Africa's population will converge with both China and India, the world's two most populous countries. The continent's population will then surge ahead of these two countries from 2030 and become even more dependent on land.

In Africa, unlike many other parts of the world, land is a fundamental socio-economic and cultural asset. A rising population across Africa will inevitably impose an even greater pressure on the continent's land.

Up to two-thirds of Africans depend on agriculture and land for their livelihood and

income. The last few years have been marked by an intense competition for land in Africa by both local and international actors as countries short of agricultural land

look to Africa as an alternative.

With the sharp rise in international investor interest in the continent's lands, states in Africa have come under enormous pressure to allocate arable lands for a range of activities with a sizeable share going to export-oriented crop production to satisfy the home countries of the investors and local elites. In some cases the acquisitions are for speculative purposes and not necessarily for use in productive ventures to create jobs, produce food and generate incomes contrary to promises leading up to these acquisitions.

The rush on Africa for arable lands by both local and international investors is complicated by the complex governance of land including aspects of its ownership, use and management across the continent and Africa's soaring population, urbanization and industrialization. These problems are compounded even further by the limited definition and recognition of customary and religious practices in modern law, ill-defined roles of land management public institutions.

A number of studies including one by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and some IFIs, show that Africa has become the site for the most speculative land deals. A 2011 World Bank study “Rising Global Interest in Farmland” indicates that large-scale farmland deals amounted to about 45 million hectares and half of this was acquired in Africa in 2009 alone.

Africa holds an estimated 60 per cent of the world's non-cultivated land area that is suitable for cropping major staples of the continent. The notion of land availability has contributed a great deal to the local but more importantly international interest and investments in African lands.

The food crisis from 2007 triggered a scramble for land in Africa but also elsewhere in the developing world. The rising food prices and quest for cheaper and more sustainable sources of energy have turned global attention to Africa to produce food and biofuels for export even as it relies itself on importation of food.

Drawing a link between the composite factor that land is, as it embodies other vital resources such as water, fauna and flora, Dr Abebe Haile Gabriel, Director of the

African Union Commission (AUC) Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture, said changes in the direction of land degradation are faster than in regenerations and Africa needs to think even more seriously about its future generations.

Speaking on the legal and regulatory issues of land in Africa, Dr. Haile Gabriel said 'African futures' should take central stage in any discussion of land policies and governance.

He said just as other countries have done, African countries could put a larger section of their working populations in land-based employment in the short term at least to reduce their dependence on foreign imports of food.

Across much of Africa, land policies do not treat land as a central determinant of

economic growth and sustained development. Equally disturbing is the fact that most African countries have no comprehensive land policy.

AU Chair, Yayi Bone

Indeed, land policy needs to be comprehensive to better reflect the multi-sectoral perspectives as land policy is really not just about land. In West Africa, a sub-region of 15 member states, for example only four countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea and

Sierra Leone) have land policy documents to inform the process of formulating land

laws and establishment of land administration.

The remaining 11 countries only have land laws dealing with various aspects of land

issues. Land policy formulation is complex and has highly sensitive political

implications. At the same time however there is little baseline data. But the problem of inadequate baseline data is also compounded by a lack of capacity in land policy development.

Ownership

There is also the question of ownership of land policy. National ownership, Dr.

Haile Gabriel argued is critical to future successful implementation. Other challenges

faced by the sector are the absence of adequate land policy implementation strategies

(i.e. where some kind of land policy exists), lack of capacity to manage change and drab

land administration systems.

All of these challenges are complicated by the rush into Africa for land by global capital. The Pan Africa Parliament has urged African governments to adopt a moratorium on large-scale land acquisitions. There is no evidence that an African country has heeded the continental parliament's call.

Large-Scale Land-Based Investments (LSLBI) in many African countries are not

subjected to domestic planning. Against this background Samuel Nguffo of the Cameroon-based Centre for Environment and Development suggested at the parallel

land thematic discussion the need for African countries to reverse the current demand-driven selection of locations for LSLBIs and subject land based investments to domestic planning.

Presently, investors, both local and foreign essentially determine which locations they want to acquire. And most often as revealed by a 2009 FAO-led study in five African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali and Sudan), the LSLBI investors go after the choicest arable lands.

The FAO report is entitled “Land grab or development opportunity? Agricultural Africa”. The global carbon market is at moment in a tailspin but Nguffo emphasized the need for African countries to take carbon into account in the decision making process of LSLBIs. Citing an analysis of a proposed land concession in Central Africa, Nguffo said estimates compare the state's revenues from land concession (CFA 900million) and from carbon (CFA 18 billion over 25 years), if the proposed land concession was turned into a REDD project.

Danger

Indeed, the FAO's 2009 study of land grabbing in Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Sudan and Mali indicates that large-scale land acquisitions pose a particular danger to Africa's poor. Citing the preliminary conclusions of another study in a central African country, Nguffo revealed that yields of small-scale holders were similar in two (out of three) arge scale palm oil plantations and revenues of small-scale oil palm farmers were 1.5 to two times higher than incomes of a worker in an oil palm plantation.

In spite of the challenges around land and its administration on the continent, Africa remains a target because of widespread perception that land is plentiful along with a climate favourable to crop production and availability of inexpensive labour. Records from multiple sources indicate that in 2009 Ghana had up to 452, 000 hectares of land under large-scale landbased investments, Mali 162, 580 hectares and Tanzania 809,371 hectares also under large-scale land-based investments. Many rural Africans, in particular women, derive their income and livelihoods from cultivation of food crops.

The conversion of land to uses other than growing food for local consumption thus poses a grave threat to women, other vulnerable groups and food security. Additionally, a disproportionately large number of African states rely essentially on food imports. The danger posed to food security set off by the rising prices of 2007 and 2008 degenerated into violent street protests in many countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

It is within this context that Margaret Banda, executive director of Women Legal Resources Centre, Malawi, counselled deals in LSLBIs must balance pro-poor priorities with the market by integrating land rights issues into development and other poverty reduction strategies.

Interests

“Governments in Africa will also have to reconcile competing interests of various groups. The responsibility falls with the state to hold corporations to a set of nonnegotiable rights-based investment principles which protect citizens - women and

men equally”, Banda said.

Africa's smallholder farmers and rural communities are indeed the main investors in land and agriculture on the continent as such African governments would need to put them at the centre of agriculture and natural resource development programmes.

At the moment this is arbitrarily conceived and done.

The joint AUC, UNECA and AfDB Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa completed in 2010 lays the basis for the development of robust land and natural resource governance systems but of course this would necessarily require sustained investment at the national level.

Memo to Doyin Okupe: What is President Jonathan Hiding?

By Chido Onumah

After the first part of this piece appeared last week, I received a couple of emails accusing me of several wrongdoings, from “disgracefully cherry-picking your press statement” to “being an agent of the opposition”. One responder noted that “ it is morally wrong to ignore all Okupe pointed out as regards progress in the fight against corruption. It is disgraceful to say the least. You don’t have to kick the president at every twist and turn, just because you hate him”.

President Goodluck Jonathan

Another intervener said matter-of-factly, “the President has complied with the law by declaring his assets, making it public is another thing entirely. There are many reasons it may not be desirable to make same public. One of the reasons is family pressure and the need to protect (his) investments”. I don’t know if the two responders above were speaking on your behalf, but one thing is clear: the issue of publicly declaring his asset is something President Jonathan can’t wish away as long as he lays claim to fighting corruption.

It is true that you said a lot of things during your press conference of Thursday, December 6, 2012. For example, you averred that “since the present administration under President Goodluck Jonathan took charge of the affairs of this country, it has worked assiduously not only to transform the lives of Nigerians but also enhance the image and prestige of the country abroad.

“A lot has been achieved in the intervening period with the transformation agenda of the administration. Despite these achievements, there is unbridled cynicism on the part of some individuals who have taken it upon themselves to mislead Nigerians by making unfounded and baseless allegations against this administration. The purpose of this campaign of misinformation and disinformation is to blind Nigerians to the sure and steady progress President Jonathan’s administration has made in the eighteen months that it has been in power, to improve the quality of governance and deliver on the promises it made to the people.

“We seem to be living in a socio-political atmosphere of cynicism where theatrical actions, showmanship and other grandstanding are misinterpreted to mean political will in addressing a situation. This government does not believe in just arresting people for the sake of drama or playing to the gallery nor does it harbour the idea of deploying the anti-corruption agencies as tools to witch hunt political opponents, which were undisputable familiar practices in the past.”

That was you waxing eloquent about President Jonathan’s anti-corruption effort. Now that I have captured the essence of your message, I can go ahead to critique it. I decided to dwell on the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) as referenced in your speech because, in my estimation, it provides a practical demonstration of the current government’s fight against corruption or the lack of it. And the reason is simple: it touches President Jonathan directly.

You noted, and rightly too, that “all over the world, governments seriously desirous of tackling the menace of corruption usually adopt a holistic strategy which encompasses some or all of the under-listed benchmark: Enacting enabling laws, which clearly define what corruption is and spell out punitive measures; creating by law, the enabling environment for whistle blowing (FOI)”.

It is on the strength of this that the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) should comply with the request by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy and other organisations asking it to make available the asset declaration of the president. It is convenient for you to talk glibly about creating the enabling environment for whistle blowing, but nothing is more convincing than walking the talk. I am not being frivolous when I insist that the public needs to know what our transformative president is worth.

I have written about this before, but it is worth repeating. In 2007, President Jonathan, as vice president, declared his asset after much pressure from his boss, the late Umaru Musa Yar'Adua. In the intervening period (2007-2011), he did not do any other job (constitutionally, he is not allowed to) apart from being vice president, acting president, and president. So what could the president have acquired in four years that he doesn’t want Nigerians to know about? In a sentence, what is President Jonathan hiding? If the president doesn’t care enough about Nigerians to make his assets public, why would he care about steady power supply or good roads?

Of course, there is no law that says President Jonathan should declare his asset publicly. But for someone who preaches transparency and accountability, he has a moral obligation to do so. Beyond this, however, it is important to emphasize that there is a law that says those who want access to public information (including asset declarations of public officers) can request such information. It is called the FoIA. The president himself assented to it a year and half ago. 

On this issue, the CCB which is the custodian of asset declarations is under obligation to make available the president's asset declaration and those of other public officials on request. That is what the law says. There can’t be any excuses or exemption. Nigeria is what it is today because we think the law is only applicable to certain people.

As the president’s adviser, beyond laundering his image, it is also important that you give him genuine feedback and tell him the truth. The truth is that Nigerians (the much touted happiest people on earth) are not happy. 

When I say Nigerians are not happy, I know am speaking the mind of millions of ordinary people, not those who are queuing to take the president’s job or those you refer to as “cynics, ‘latter-day saints’ and emergency activists”. 

I am talking about the millions of Nigerians who are paying the price for the grand corruption and wanton pillage that have become the hallmark of the Jonathan administration; those Nigerians that do not have the luxury of going to die in India or Germany because of the comatose state of healthcare in Nigeria.

If it is unpardonable for President Jonathan to say he doesn’t “give a damn” about publicly declaring his asset, it is disingenuous for the CCB to say it is not in a position to act. It is equally contemptible for Labaran Maku, Minister of Information, to ask Nigerians, as he did recently during a workshop organised by the Federal Ministry of Information on the FoIA, “to examine the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act in the fight against corruption by demanding for information on governance from public institutions”.

Nothing typifies the impunity in Nigeria than the CCB’s obfuscation on President Jonathan’s asset declaration. Sam Saba, chairman of the CCB, claims protection under the 1999 Constitution for his organisation’s refusal to  accede to public request for the asset declaration of President Jonathan. He argues that the FoIA conflicts with the Constitution and has requested “the National Assembly to enact an Act prescribing the terms and conditions under which the CCB could make assets declared by public officers available for inspection by Nigerians” as provided for in Section 3(c) of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution which empowers the CCB to "retain custody of such declarations and make them available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe" (emphasis added).

I thought that was exactly what the National Assembly did when it passed the FoIA. What else does Mr. Saba want the legislature to do? Make another law specifically for the asset declaration of President Jonathan?  To think that it is the same CCB that wants the public to act as whistle blowers. I have spoken to some legal scholars on this issue and the consensus is that the aim of Mr. Saba and the CCB is precisely to subvert the objective of asset declaration.

Since the CCB that is legally bound to act won’t do so, it is important that we look to the president to lead by example. I know the president is a good man at heart and that he aspires to be the most liked president, as opposed to his current status as the most abused, when he leaves office. His likeability will, however, depend on how he deals with the cancer of corruption which has made any form of progress impossible. And that begins with him publicly declaring his asset.

Nothing you say or do will convince us to the contrary.

Concluded.