FANTOM OR REALITY?

Asongtaba’s Version Of The GH¢15 million Guinea Fowl Project

INSCEPTION OF THE GUINEA FOWL PROJECT

Published on April 3, 2012

The concept of guinea fowl production was conceived in 2009 when management of ACI&EP resolved to draw a Five (5) year strategic plan in various areas of the company's operational scope. Guinea Fowl production was one of the numerous skills training and development projects the company had ear marked to implement in specific regions of Ghana in partnership with either government or donor agencies.

In 2010 after conducting further research in the economic potential of guinea fowl production in the three (3) northern regions and realising the positive gains that lay untapped, the company resolved to develop and implement an independent comprehensive guinea production and marketing project in a few areas in the three (3) northern regions.

Essentially, the strategy was to commence in the Upper East region for Two (2) years before spreading to the Northern and Upper West regions. This culminated in the establishment of a Four Thousand (4,000) bird capacity guinea fowl out grower farm, located in Sumbrungu a few kilometres from Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. The implementation of this independent project by ACI&EP sought to achieve a number of critical objectives which are:

• To develop and operate a guinea fowl production, processing, and marketing business that will serve as the cash caw of the company.

• To operate guinea fowl production on a large scale using a semi intensive system .

• To introduce and operate modern processing and packaging of guinea fowls within the farm premises under strictly hygienic conditions.

• To develop a well-coordinated and effective distribution network that will ensure that guinea fowl products are readily available in all the ten regions.

• To provide some form of support to existing farmers to enable them Increase their productivity for onward sale to sale to the ACI&EP farm at going market prices.

To introduce produce professionalism in the industry as well as increase the dwindling guinea fowl population in the region.

Production has since the establishment of the farm been very impressive with an annual approximated output of Twelve Thousand (12,000) guinea fowls.

PARTNERSHIP WITH SADA

Following the commissioning of the ACI&EP guinea fowl out grower farm to the general public, a number of organisations including SADA expressed interest in the project.
Eventually, management of ACI&EP resolved to partner SADA to implement this project on larger scale within the SADA Ecological Zone.

JOINT VENTURE COMPANY SET-UP

a. Name of Joint Venture (JV) Company:

Ø  SADA Asongtaba Guinea Fowl Production & Marketing Company Limited

b. Date of the Joint Venture Agreement:

Ø    28th November, 2012

c. Date of Incorporation:

Ø  4th December, 2012

d. Date of Commencing Business:

Ø  5th December, 2012

e. New Area of coverage demanded by SADA as JV Agreement:

Ø  Northern Ecological Zone

·         In all Five (5) Regions (Northern Volta, Northern Brong Ahanfo,
Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions)

·         In each of over Fifty ( 50) Districts in the Zone

f. Purposes

Ø  Commercializing the production of guinea fowls using the out grower system to provide jobs for at least One Thousand and Five Hundred (1,500) youth and women out-growers who will be developed and equipped to produce over Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand (250,000) guinea-fowl birds annually over a five year period.

g. Objectives of JV

Essentially, the broad objective of the guinea fowl out grower's project is to organize and empower the youth of the SADA Zone to adopt modern methods for increased guinea fowl production as a strategy for sustainable social and economic development. Specifically, the project will seek to
achieve the following objectives.

Ø  The Objectives of the Company are:

·         To commercialize the production of guinea fowls using the out-grower system and thereby provide employment and generate wealth in the SADA Zone.

·        To import poultry equipment such as cages hatcheries, incubators and other products needed in the poultry industry.

·        To market and distribute guinea fowls and other poultry products in the domestic and international markets.

·        To create a new crop of young entrepreneurs in the SADA Zone engaged in the agricultural sector.

·        To export guinea fowls and other poultry products.

·         To develop and equip the out-growers to produce over Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand (250,000) guinea-fowl birds annually over a five year period.

Implementation Stages

The project is implemented in Five (5) stages, that is:

·         Establishment Regional Farms

·         Out grower Enrolment and Training

·         Set-up

·         Recovery of cost of set-up

·         Micro-credit

CURRENT STATE OF PROJECT

Branding

Essentially, a comprehensive brands manual has been developed for the Joint Venture Company. This covers all critical aspects of branding ranging from beneficiary working gear, vehicle branding, bill board, signage, and souvenir branding. The following are a pictorial presentation of some of the items.

It is very critical to indicate that full scale production of beneficiary working gear is currently underway and would be ready for distribution to beneficiaries in August when the training commence. The same can be said about the remaining items. Appendix A presents the brands manual for the joint venture company.

Human Resource & Office Acquisition

The Joint Venture Company has appointed over 90% of the essential staff required to commence the project. Regional Project Coordinators for the Five (5) regions within which SADA operates are at post with the requisite logistics to facilitate their work.
Further, the company agreed to appoint Five (5) specialist consultants for the project out which two have already been appointed. These Two (2) are Mr. Augustine A. Adongo (retired MOFA Director-NR) and Mr. Emmanuel Abazaami Nabson (retired Chief Animal Health Officer-UE/R). Additionally, all regional office spaces have been acquired and are in use in the Five (5) project regions.

Construction of Regional Farms

The project seeks to establish Five (5) major regional farms with ultra-modern processing units. Notable among the major departments in the regional farm are:

Layers/mother stock
Broader house
Hatchery

Bird processor
Packaging

Cold storage
Fertilizer processor
Further crusher
Feed processor

These farms will act as the nucleus farms in the region when all out growers sell their birds at the going market price for onward processing. The nucleus farms will provide out growers' technical support, supply day old chicks, medication etc.

Presently, all land requirements for the farms have been duly met with all necessary legal documentation satisfied to the latter in the name of the Joint Venture Company.
The land size ranges from 2.5 acres (in UW, NV, & NBA regions) to Five (5) acres (in NR). Additionally, the structural plans/drawings for the nucleus farms are completed with the bill of quantities estimated at One Million Three Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis (GhC 1,300,000.00) per farm.

Thus, construction of the farms has commenced and is scheduled to be completed by the end of August 2013. However, the nucleus farm in the Upper East Region has been completed and production is ongoing with training yet to commence.

Appendix B presents the farm structural drawings and picture impression.

Stakeholder Meetings

In recognizing the critical role existing guinea fowl farmers would be playing in the project implementation, stakeholder meetings were held in the project regions to sensitize them on the project.

Essentially, the stakeholder meetings sought to achieve the following; Officially educate farmers on the key objectives of the project Spell out the role existing farmers are most likely to play in the implementation

Identify areas where the project can intervene to improve the productivity of farmers

To establish good working relation with existing farmers and to enlighten them on the various departments within the regional farms which will add more value to the products

To generate a comprehensive data base on existing farmers that will pave way for farm inspection to ascertain the existing farm capacities of these farmers.

Inspection of Existing Guinea fowl Farms

A total of 44 farms were inspected in the Upper East Region to assess the farmer's capacity to be engaged as facilitators in the training of beneficiaries and their output capacity when production and processing of birds commence.

The farm inspection exercise in the Upper East Region revealed that the existing farms in the region where of very low capacity and farmers also practiced sub-standard farm practices. Farmers also complained of non-existing financial support either from government, donor agencies, or the banks. This has actually accounted for the low farm capacities since guinea fowl production has been more of a hobby than a commercial venture. Previous studies of existing farms in the remaining regions in the project zone presented the same result. Clearly, the existing situation calls for the need to provide some sort of support in favour of these farmers to enable them produce on a commercial scale.

YEAR 2013 PLAN

The following activity schedule depicts the way forward for the joint venture company for the next 9 months (2^nd, 3^rd, and 4th quarters of 2013).

ITEM

Activity

March

April

May

June

July

August

Sept

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Complete Stake

1

holder

meetings

Complete

2

Inspection

of

Existing Farms

3

Construction of

Farms

4

Set-up Farms &

Branding

Beneficiary

5

Recruitment

&

Orientation

6

Project Launch

7

Beneficiary

Training

Set-up

5

8

Regional

Cold

Stores

Commercial

9

Production

&

Operations

Production

&

10

Airing

of

1st

Documentary

 

EDITORIAL

GUINEA FOWLS AND ALL

Who can dare rubbish the establishment of large guinea fowl farms in Ghana?

The point is that those fowls have long become delicacies and the rate which they are being consumed both locally and abroad can only lead to extinction if no effort is made to produce than on a large scale.

We are also told that guinea fowl meat is much healthier than chicken and turkey especially the imported variety.

The production of Guinea fowls on a very large scale in Ghana will undoubtedly help to cut down on chicken imports from Europe and elsewhere and help Ghana to conserve its limited foreign exchange.

In spite of all these question are legitimately being raised about SADA’s guinea fowls project.

The major question is are we getting value for money?

Last week, the people of Ghana were told that the three Northern Regional Ministers are investigating the project and will report to us very soon.

This raises another question; why the three northern regional ministers?

All Ghanaians are waiting for the report of the investigation.

The Elusive African Dream

Map of Africa

Anyone who is familiar with American politics must have come across the expression: “the American Dream.” This term essentially conveys the idea that anyone in America can succeed through hard work and has the potential to lead a happy and successful life. Indeed, the American dream was one of the stepping-stones for American revolutionaries like Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Like the American people, Africans have always had a dream. This dream however is not the so-called “democracy” which is usually proclaimed in the corporate media. It is not African leaders running to Europe every week for expensive “routine medical check-ups” while the ordinary African is left at the mercy of the collapsed health infrastructure. It is not African leaders running to China and America, begging for loans to help fight malaria and HIV/AIDS. It is not seeing young children of school-going age hawking in the streets, selling dog chains, sachet water, and doughnuts among others in search of school fees, while our leaders rob public coffers and deposit stolen wealth in offshore accounts. It is not Africans surviving on less than $2 a day while politicians and their families swim in luxury, holidaying and shopping in Dubai.

It is never an African dream to have many educated Africans stranded in Europe, sweeping the streets, cleaning and obediently washing dishes abroad despite having degrees and qualifications that can tremendously transform the African continent. Who said it was an African dream for Africa to import toothpicks, genetically modified food, chemically induced chicken, second-hand clothing (including underwear), refined crude, shoes and clothing, when Africa has what it takes to locally produce these things?  Is it an African dream for the African people to continue borrowing from the World Bank and use the money to import American rice at the same time? Is it an African dream to be living in darkness when Africa has what it takes to provide electricity for herself and the rest of the world? Is it an African dream for the annual salaries of African teachers to be insufficient to purchase a simple laptop or car when their colleagues in politics have enough to buy luxurious four-wheel-drives and several mansions abroad?

After 50 years of our flag independence, almost every single project that could potentially bring relief to the African people has either been abandoned or is pending. Thanks to IMF-imposed policies, our local oil refineries have shut operations. Our raw crude is shipped to European refineries after which the refined product is imported back to Africa. Many of the factories which were built in Africa to process strategic resources like bauxite and copper have been forced by IMF-imposed policies to shut down and rot. Africa has remained the producer of raw materials and dumping ground of European, American and Chinese products. Is this the African dream?

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama

Look at Ghana, the so-called "model of African democracy." Ghanaians have been living in total darkness. All major power generating projects initiated by Nkrumah have been abandoned. We have many rivers and lakes, yet we cannot generate reliable electricity for the people. We have too much sunlight that shines across the country 350 days a year, yet we don’t generate solar energy to augment the power shortage which has become a major crisis for more than 25 years. Electricity in Africa, especially in Ghana, operates like disco lights. Even within the capital city, people are forced to stay in darkness for at least fifteen hours a day. Is this the African dream? I find it so hard to imagine that there are many public officials and engineers at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Volta River Authority (VRA) whose main duty is to ensure that several parts of the country are shut down without electricity on a daily basis for the past 15 years. They get paid for doing this job. What a country!

When are we going to have visionary leaders in Africa? We’re still struggling despite our plenteous gold, diamond, timber, bauxite, crude oil and cocoa, the resource which Nkrumah used to transform Ghana in less than 8 years.

While Asian and Latin American leaders are busy building gigantic roads and bridges, our leaders here in Africa are only interested in building gigantic statues which serve the ordinary person no useful purpose. African leaders are quick to mount statues in honour of Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Patrice Lumumba and Thomas Sankara, among others, while they ignore the social intervention programmes launched by such revolutionary leaders that were to bring about relief to the African people until their assassination/overthrow. African leaders are measuring their level of success by the amount of Chinese loans or World Bank grants they are able to lobby for, although a high percentage of such money ends up in the respective leaders’ offshore bank accounts.

The African child, like his American and European counterpart, is yearning for a 3-square-meal a day without necessarily being the son of the president, politician or some wealthy African king. The African child also deserves to dwell in a clean environment and a comfortable home. The African child is yearning for equal access to quality education, quality healthcare, portable water supply, reliable electricity supply and security, among others.

The African youth need jobs and a framework within which they will harness their talents; not political speeches. The current level of youth un-employment in Africa which stands at 50% is simply unacceptable. African youth have brilliant ideas and excellent innovations, yet there are no proper systems to support such people. No wonder, armed robbery, internet fraud, prostitution and other social vices are becoming the order of the day.

In 2012, the World Bank gave $100m to Ghana “to help fight malaria and other communicable diseases.” Shockingly, the sector minister suggested that the amount was still not enough for the said purpose. Yet within the same year (2012), Ghana spent more than $600m on democracy. This does not include the amount which the various political parties wasted on political rallies, TV commercials, and gigantic billboards and so on. In the same period, it was reported that many students could not write their final exams due to lack of funds. Are we serious? Is Ghana truly the model of good governance and Africa’s democracy?

The African dream is found in our rich cultural heritage, the rich minerals of Africa and in the minds of the young talented African youth whose burning desire has been ignored by our leaders. Our old men in government have hijacked this beautiful dream and handed it to their foreign donors to whom they owe their loyalty and allegiance.

The African dream has remained a pipe dream for far too long. It is imperative that incompetent leaders quit the corridors of power to pave way for dynamic and vibrant leadership. The time to live the African dream is now. Governments must concentrate on setting up infrastructure that will lift the living standards of the citizenry instead of mounting gigantic statues. We need to reform our colonial educational system to place more emphasis on practical science and technical education. The current book-oriented educational system has failed Africa. It is time for real practical solutions that will enable Africans to confront their challenges to be taught in the classrooms. It is time the African dream was taken back from foreign capitals and donors and nurtured here in Africa. It is time African leaders invested in their countries instead of stashing money abroad. It is time it was legislated that Africa’s looted funds be repatriated to Africa, used for the benefit of the African people and the assets of individuals encouraging capital flight be frozen. Let us begin to live the African dream from today.

Honourable Saka

The writer honourablesaka@yahoo.co.uk is a Pan-African analyst and the founder of the Project Pan-Africa (PPA), an organization that was established to unlock the minds of the African youth to take Africa’s destiny into their hands.

Mysterious murder of American conspiracy

theorist

By Vitaly Salnik

Phillip Marshall

 A well-known author, who dedicated his work to the events of September 11, Phillip Marshall, was killed. His two children and even his dog were killed too. The first version said that the man killed his children and then himself. However, the Americans have strong doubts about this version. Recently, quite a number of strange murders have taken place in the U.S.

The bodies of Phillip Marshall, his two children and the dog were found only on the fourth day after the murder. This is very strange, given the fact that the man lived in a small elite town, predominantly with white population, where everyone knew each other well.

All victims were shot from the same gun, which was discovered on the crime scene. The finding allowed the police to put forward the version of the double murder, followed by suicide.

Phillip Marshall was well known in the States. He was a retired captain, a former helicopter pilot and a military veteran. He became known for a series of books, in which he set out the versions of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Marshall's versions differed greatly from the official one.

According to Marshall, there was a secret deal between government officials and Saudi Arabian aristocracy to tighten the screws in the U.S. and fabricate a pretext for foreign military operations by American troops.

Recently, Marshall had been working on his fourth book. He promised that the book would be a bombshell. He also said that publishing the book, he signed his own death warrant.

It seems unlikely that the writer was serious when making such statements. It more looks like the promotion of a new book, which was the fourth one in a row under his authorship. The subject was thus a bit moth-eaten.

There are many other strange things in this murder... Let's not forget that Marshall was closely linked to intelligence agencies. They know how to fix it all quietly.

It is an open secret that dead bodies "sell best" under the conditions of modern mass culture. After this terrible incident, there is no doubt left that Marshall's fourth book, if published, will receive huge circulation. But if the author described a close version of events in his books, why would secret services make such an advertising campaign to his work by killing the writer?

This means that the book will be published with necessary editing. It can also be possible that Marshall's version of 9/11 events was good to high-ranking organizers of the WTC attacks. Possibly, the sources and curators of Phillip  Marshall need the controversy about this book, and his mission was considered to be fulfilled ...

Logo of the CIA

Continuing the theme of the mythical al-Qaeda, one can remember the "special operation" to destroy terrorist No.1, Osama bin Laden. The whole world was giggling about that.

The Americans have not provided one single proof of Osama's death. They only released a photo of the man, who looked like Osama, in which experts easily found traces of montage. "The analysis showed that the picture was obviously a montage. They put the beard and the lower part of the face from Bin Laden's old photographs to the disfigured face," said Mladen Antonov, editor in chief of AFP's photo department.

The participants of the operation, in which US SEALs allegedly killed Bin Laden, were killed afterwards too. A couple of months after the elimination of Bin Laden, on August 8, 2011, the helicopter that for some reason had all the participants of the operation on board, was downed. The crash killed 38 people, with 22 SEALs among them. Such one-time loss of the U.S. Army in Afghanistan have never occurred either before or after.

The Decline of Marriage and the Rise of Unwed Mothers

By Derek Thompson

This was the most shocking statistic I read this weekend: 58 percent of first births in lower-middle-class households are now to unmarried women. Meanwhile, two in five of all births are to unwed mothers, an all-time high, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why?

The thesis of this fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal says the real mystery here isn't "Why so many babies?" but rather "Why so few marriages?" -- particularly among less-educated men and women.

This is a complex economic mystery that we've explored often at The Atlantic, but we can take a big bite out of it by focusing on three factors: (1) The changing meaning of marriage in America; (2) declining wages for low-skill men; and (3) the declining costs of being a single person.

A New Union
Marriage has changed. Once upon a time, the typical marriage, as Justin Wolfers has explained, involved special roles for the husband and wife. He would work. She would stay home. It was an efficient arrangement where opposites attracted. Men who wanted to be executives would marry women who wanted to be housewives. And, since almost half of women had no independent earnings 40 years ago, there were a lot of women who just wanted to work at home and raise a family.

Several factors mussed up this traditional union. Today women expect to work much, much more than they used to -- and they do. They make up the majority of new college graduates and their labor participation rate has soared over 60 percent. Since 1950, hours of work by married women have increased by roughly a factor of three, according to the Minneapolis Fed. 

Now that women are better educated, with greater control over both their fertility and their earnings, modern marriage has changed from an arrangement where men marry for a housewife to a "hedonic" model where both partners can be the breadwinner. As marriage has shifted from opposites-attract to like-attracts-like, researchers have found that sorting has increased all along the educational scale. College graduates are more likely than ever to marry college graduates, as Charles Murray has written. High school dropouts are more likely to marry high school dropouts.

Think of marriage like any other contract or investment. It's most likely to happen when the gains are big. So we should expect marriages among low-income Americans to decline if women perceive declining gains from hitching themselves to the men around them.
That's precisely what we've seen...

Cheap Wages, Cheap Technologies
Low-skill men have had a rough two generations. The evaporation of manufacturing work has gutted their main source of employment, while globalization has held down their wages. Marriage has declined the most among men whose wages have declined the most. Here's a remarkable graph from the Hamilton Project comparing change in earnings (the RED LINE) and change in likelihood to be married (the BLUE BARS). 


In a dating pool where poor women are more likely to be surrounded by men with low and falling fortunes, more women have ditched a union for good economic reasons: It could be a financial drain. In The Truly Disadvantaged,  William Julius Wilson, argued that "high rates of unemployment and incarceration meant that the local dating pool was populated by unmarriageable men--and the result was that women chose to live independently."

It is hardly easy to do anything with earnings near the poverty level. But it is relatively easier to raise a child and keep up a home with modern household innovations. The connection between Lunchables, detergent and marriage rates is not often made. But perhaps it should be. The development of time-saving technologies -- cheap prepared foods, cheap clothes, machines to wash, dry, and vacuum -- has not only encouraged more women to seek work, but also made it relatively easier for single parents to raise a child. Put starkly, technology makes it cheaper and easier than ever to be single. It makes marrying a financially unstable man even more risky. 

That women find themselves drifting "unintentionally" into parenthood with men they have no intent of marrying creates another generation of problems. Children raised in two-parent households are more likely to go to college, more likely to be employed, and more likely to earn a high wage. The rise of unwed mothers might be logical for many of these women. But there is too much evidence that it deepens the divide between the haves and have-nots in America.

In step with present-day Cuba
 • Organizational changes in communications sector

Cuban President Raul Castro

The updating of Cuba’s Central State Administration and the need to develop a system of government which responds to the country's needs have led to a change in structure, mission and functioning of the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication.

As a result, the Council of State recently approved Decree Law 308, published in the state bulletin, Gaceta Oficial Extraordinaria No. 7, according to which the current Ministry of Information Technology and Communication becomes the Ministry of Communications.

This restructuring should strengthen the new Ministry and allow it to better fulfill its principal mission of managing, supervising and controlling state and government policy in relation to the Single Integrated Communications System.

Previously the mission and government role of the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication did not address its central responsibility regarding this development. In addition, it was subject to a complex, prescribed budgetary system. Its management system was complicated, highly specialized and geographically dispersed, all of which affected its ability to manage key tasks effectively.

The former ministry’s operation, and that of related enterprises, was hampered by the amalgamation of government and enterprise management roles which were shared by the Ministry’s central body and enterprise directors. 

Therefore, in accordance with Economic and Social Policy Guidelines approved at the 6th Party Congress, the new Ministry will only be responsible for carrying out its governmental role, while enterprise management will be assumed by two new central management groups, to be served by the Ministry. 

Map of Cuba

These are the Cuban Mail Enterprise Group and the Information Technology and Communication Enterprise Group, composed respectively of enterprises involved in activities related to mail service and those linked to telecommunications, information technology, industrial procurement and system services.

The Communications Ministry will occupy the headquarters of the former ministry, with several companies and a number of non-essential functions being transferred to Central State Administration (OACE).

The transfer of the Computer Sciences University (UCI) to the Ministry of Higher Education was also approved, and plans made for a change to include the electronics industry among the responsibilities undertaken by the recently created Ministry of Industries.

As a result of this updating process, also approved were the elimination of the Ministry’s provincial delegations and the creation of provincial offices, which will oversee monitoring and inspection in their geographical areas. 

These changes allow for a clearer definition of the mission and role of the organization, a more efficient structure, composition and scope; as well as structures which effectively and systematically assure communications and information technology for the country’s leadership, government bodies and institutions, as well as the population.

These new measures, as a whole, will allow plans for workforce reduction and rationalization of staff to be implemented, leading to greater efficiency within the new organizational structures, a more effective allocation of staff and executive roles, thereby providing savings in terms of the state budget and other economic resources.