WAHALA AHEAD: As Tariffs shoot up in 2014

ECG Boss Hutton Mensah

2013 has virtually come to an end and the focus is on what 2014 may bring to the people of Ghana.

Unfortunately 2014 does not look too different from the year which is drawing to a close in 28 days time.

2013 will be remembered largely as a year of political litigation and worsening economic conditions.

The litigation over the results of the 2012 presidential elections in the Supreme Court lasted for eight long months and some analysts say it created the conditions for the worsening economic situation.

2013 also experienced a prolonged power curtailment exercise which last for close to eight months lowering the level production and productivity throughout the economy.

Perhaps one of the most significant developments in 2013 was the astronomical increases in utility tariffs.

These increases have been reduced as result of the intervention of organised labour but Government and the Public utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) say there would be new increases by the end of the first quarter of 2014.

It is expected that utility tariffs will rise by minimum of 50 per cent in 2014 and this could push up prices significantly.

Although war has been almost averted in Iran, there are clear signs that the instability in the Middle East could push up crude oil prices in 2014.

If this should happen, the indications are that 2014 could very easily be a year of ‘Wahala” for the people of Ghana.

Other economic indicators are ringing the alarm bells over 2014.

Inflation has risen to a little more than 11 per cent and the cedi is continuing is fall against the dollar.

These would add pressures to an economy which suffers from its essence as a neo-colonial liberal contraption.

Ghana continues to import most of her needs including food, agricultural equipment medical supplies and even educational matericals.

The prospects for 2014 do not appear to be very good.

Editorial

SAVE THE SCHOOL

Reports of the financial crisis of the school for the Deaf at Mampong, Akwapim should be a source of shame to all Ghanaians.

That Ghana cannot effectively run one small school for people with special needs is a huge statement about the extent of decay which has engulfed the national life.

What does it take to raise Gh¢1,400.00 to pay the rent of such a school?

In any case why should the school should be accommodated in rented premises?

The Insight believes that if national resources are used for worthy causes, schools like the school for the Deaf will not suffer humiliation.

Why should funds available to the GETFUND be used to provide facilities for private universities established solely for profit instead of a school like this?

We call upon the Government to take immediate steps to rescue the school for the Deaf from its financial crisis.

It is imperative that efforts are made to provide the school with appropriate facilities.

Please stop the embarrassment now.

ROT AT MERCHANT BANK

 

Ernest Thompson, Ag. Director General

By John Milton

 As at August 2007, it had become clear that Merchant Bank needed urgent rescue operations if it was to survive.

A forensic Audit carried out by Price Water House Coopers found out that customers had defaulted in the repayment of a total of GhȻ87 million granted as loans.

As a result of this there was an increase in bad debt provisions and officers who made wrong credit decisions were not made accountable for their actions.

The Bank also allegedly phased out loan loss provisions over a number of years in order to show that it made profit

The provisions for bad debts were based on budget and not on an assessment carried out on the recoverability of the loans.

The bank also suffered liquidity problems caused by financing of foreign currency loans with borrowings in local currency from the interbank market.

As part of its recommendations Price Water House Coopers suggested that the internal audit function should be made autonomous from management and to report direct to the Board of Directors.

Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya

ICC and Kenya: The Hand of France

By Capt. (Rtd) Collins Wanderi, African Executive

I bet my money that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was going to reject the African Union (AU) motion for the deferral of the two cases facing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Time and history show that the United Nations is not about the furtherance of Justice, Democracy or Human Rights. It is an organization designed to further the political, economic and commercial interests of the 5 permanent members of the UNSC and other major economies of the world which fund the UN and its specialized organs. A few facts will illustrate that the UNSC often functions to promote the political and economic interests of its 5 permanent members rather than foster world peace and security.

Between April and July 1994 the UNSC failed Rwanda. It failed to intervene to save thousands of lives even when information available was clear that mass murder was happening in an unprecedented scale in recent history. Historians and commentators have suggested that the UNSC was acting at the behest of France, a permanent member of the UNSC. 

Of the 5 permanent members of the UNSC, France is the most anomalous. Between 1990 and 1994 the French government supported and propped up the regime of President Juvenal Habyarimana in Rwanda. It provided a safe haven for the Akazu or the War Council that was the power behind Habyarimana’s government. The French also gave funds and logistical support for the training and arming of the Force Arme Rwandaise (FAR), the gendarmerie as well as the interahamwe and impuzamugambi militia groups which eventually executed genocidal attacks against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus. When the murderous Hutu regime fell to the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), the FAR and huge populations of their sympathizers crossed into Eastern Congo DRC with the tacit logistical support of the French Government. In those camps the FAR organized the refugees into some form of a government in exile where they were fed and catered for the by the UN which had completely ignored the victims of their atrocities back in Rwanda. 

Interestingly it is the UNSC which allowed France to send its forces to Rwanda in 1994 under the guise of Operation Turquoise to essentially provide a safe passage to enable the genocidaires cross into Eastern DRC and eventually escape justice. As a result of this inflow of armed groups into its Eastern Provinces, the DRC experienced massive political instability and endured two non-international armed conflicts in 1996 and 1998.

 The situation almost turned catastrophic in 1999 and to forestall fresh genocidal attacks in the Great Lakes Region, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in conjunctions with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched the Great Lakes Operation (GLO) in early 1999 with the sole aim of resolving the issues relating to the Rwandan refugees caseload in Eastern DRC. Eligibility officers based in Nairobi recorded horrendous accounts of extreme suffering from the survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Almost all the survivors of genocide blamed the French government for supporting, training and arming the perpetrators of genocide and for sending its forces to provide a safe passage for the perpetrators to flee into Congo and escape justice. It is no secret that most of the political leaders who fanned the ideology of genocide in Rwanda fled to Belgium and France after the collapse of the Hutu regime.

Currently, reports from New York suggest that French envoy and economic strategist Batrice Le Fraper du Hellen is leading the onslaught against the African Union’s motion for the deferral of the Kenyan cases before the ICC. Being a member of the French government’s delegation to the United Nations she must have the express support of her government. It is paradoxical that a country that would readily host and protect genocidaires is now lecturing the African Union on matter relating to human rights, justice and democracy.

One of the key tenets of President Kenyatta and his Deputy Ruto’s campaign was ethnic reconciliation and harmony. The two leaders used the campaign platform to promote peace and harmony among communities that had hitherto been warring particularly in the Rift Valley. They managed to convince these communities to vote on one side and won the election. The two are the chief sponsors and guarantors of the peace and calm that is currently being enjoyed in the Rift Valley and many parts of Kenya. It would be naive for anybody to imagine that Kenya will remain peaceful if any of the two leaders is removed from the country by the ICC.

Renewed ethnic strife in the whole or part of Kenya would definitely be a threat to national and regional peace and stability. The long standing strife in Somalia which has now spilled beyond its borders is a good example. This is an issue that UNSC should seriously take into account in deliberating the AU’s motion for deferral.

But the French see things differently. Their behavior is not surprising. It is symptomatic of their attitude towards Africa where they support weak regimes and exploit fragile ethnic differences between opposing groups thereby gaining a political hold over fledgling regimes and a chance to advance their commercial interests. It is no wonder that most of the countries that have experienced political upheavals and inter ethnic conflict in Africa are from the Francophone sphere. Rwanda, Burundi, Congo-DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Ivory Coast, Chad, Mali, Madagascar and currently Central Africa Republic easily come to mind. 

Currently Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia and South Sudan are engaged in a number of multi-lateral infrastructural projects aimed at facilitating faster movement of good services to spur regional trade and development. It is no secret that a number of companies from France have expressed interest in some of these infrastructural projects. Kenya seems to be leaning towards the East precisely China thus denying France and other members of the European Union a chance to partake in these multi-billion dollar projects. This begs the question; is France using the ICC cases and its permanent membership in the UNSC to arm-twist the government of Kenya in order to obtain preferential treatment in matters relating to international trade? Time and space will eventually answer this question. Is France ready to risk the security of millions of Kenyans just to obtain a comparative economic advantage? Do the French care for the safety of Kenyan citizens who look up at the presidency to guarantee their peace and security?

Cost Of Investigating Scandals

By Idang Alibi

It was the late eminent journalist and one-time governor of Ogun State, Chief Bisi Onabanjo who once wrote that it is in the character of the government (particularly the Nigerian government) to use N1, 000 to investigate the loss or stealing of N100. If Onanbanjo had lived long enough to see and experience what passes for governance in this highly expensive, extremely wasteful and pathetically ineffectual presidential system of governance of this Fourth Republic, i am sure he would have wrote differently

I guess he would have had to say that it is in the nature of the obscenely wasteful Nigerian Federal Government to spend N1 billion Naira to investigate a fraud of N1 million. A new way of wasting government money has steadily evolved over the past few years and has now become accepted as standard practice. When there is a whiff or sniff of scandal in the air at any of the agencies of the bloated Federal Government, there emerges some kind scramble as to who has the right or duty to carry out the investigation. Every organ of the federal government will be fighting to conduct the investigation: the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation; committees of both chambers of the National Assembly, the EFCC, the ICPC, the serious fraud office of the Police, the DSS and a thousand and one others.

Take the current alleged scandal in the purchase of two armoured cars by the NCAA for the use of Aviation Minister Mrs Stella Oduah. I have lost count of the offices, institutions and organs of the Federal Government investigating this allegation. Given the way we do our things, it will be discovered at the end of the day, by anyone who is truly concerned for the public good that several millions would have been spent by the various investigators. The alleged misdemeanour may have become a good fertile ground for others to harvest a rich harvest in the name of public do-gooding. Nigeria, we hail thee! At the end of the day Mrs. Oduah may look more saintly than those who are shouting about her alleged misdeeds.

It is truly disgusting to have people who lack investigative skills; people who lack a patriotic heart to do something to safeguard public interest and people who lack holiness and have absolutely no business with a task that requires honesty and integrity scrambling to investigate others for alleged wrong doing. The image that gives me is one of ravenous vultures hovering in the nearby sky ready at short notice to descend in droves to devour the carcass of some unfortunate animal. For how long will we continue to deceive ourselves that we really care about the display of public virtues in conduct by our public servants? Who among us has the moral credentials to sit in moral judgement against another? It is only those without a twitch of conscience who dare to wear the rob of righteousness and who pretend to harbour righteous anger against those who have done wrong.

And what makes me feel so disgusted is that the scramble is not motivated by a hatred for fraud or other malfeasance but a desire to fulfil many self-serving causes. Some of those who play leading roles in these investigations are worse in terms of lack of honesty and integrity than the person(s) they are seeking to investigate. Note for example that during the so-called Patricia Etteh scandal which turned out to be false alarm (the lady never stole a kobo) Farouk Lawan was the spearhead. A few years later it was the same Farouk Lawan who was embroiled in the scandal of nearly 700,000 dollars.

Many legislators who seem so eager to investigate scandals involving others do so in order to place themselves in a vantage position to have a piece of the action and not necessarily because they hate wrong doing and want to protect the national interest. That is far from their minds.

There is nothing like frugality in the thinking of those running our government. I know our system seeks to provide checks and balances but I do not think that the system says that efforts should not be made to avoid duplication of efforts and the wasting of time and good money in chasing bad money. If these investigations actually protect public interest, I will not complain too much but if my knowledge serves me right, I cannot remember a single instance in our public life when investigation of fraud led to a refund of money by those who stole it .

My thinking is that since this is our story, we should not bother to ask or allow many institutions and agencies to scramble to investigate a fraud because in the end, we will lose a substantial sum of money on the investigation as well as the original money stolen. This is what is called double jeopardy.

Any smart thief who was not caught red handed while trying to steal should be decorated with garlands and allowed to enjoy his loot instead of spending some more money trying to understand how he stole it, much less hoping to retrieve his loot.

Faithful readers of my humble opinions on national issues would have realised that I hardly comment on stories or allegations about fraud. This is because my conscience does not simply allow to sit in judgment against any other Nigerian because we as a people seem to have no sincere hatred for bribery, corruption, fraud and all such things.

 Those who act holier-than-thou when stories of fraud break are some of the most despicable souls we have around us. Some of them, especially the most vocal among them in the social activists community live on hypocrisy and I do not want to dignify them by joining in calling for the head of anyone who is merely unfortunate enough to be exposed. I have also come to the realisation that many scandals break in our country only because in most cases the chief culprit is too greedy. He or she has not bothered to stick to a more 'just' or equitable ''sharing formula''. If not, for everyone scandal for which the beans have been spilt in our country, there are thousands of others which remain splendidly hidden as skeletons in the cabinet.

When we as a people decide that stealing of public funds is terribly undermining our efforts at national development, it is then that I will feel obliged to comment on fraud and other scandalous behaviour on the part of government officials. For now some of us will leave those opportunists who want to trample on others in order to rise politically and financially to carry out their game.

My pain as a patriot is that scarce public funds that should be used for development are often spent in the game of vendetta and hypocrisy in the name of investigation. If Mother Nigeria can speak, she would have cried out long ago that it is better to allow her rapists to go scot free than spending good money to pursue them because even when they are arrested and guilt is established against them, they will suffer no penalty.

Mossad's War On Peace Intensifies

Tamir Pardo, Mossad Boss

Over 80 years ago, the most famous and respected United States Marine, General Smedley Butler, declared all war to be a “racket.” He declared himself a “Gangster for Wall Street.” Nothing has changed, something that should be obvious to all who view the situation today.

Peace is threatening to “break out,” peace, tempered with redress of wrongs and even possibly “justice.” The racketeers and then “enforcers” are fighting full time to keep war, poverty, pestilence and death going.

In recent weeks and more recently, the last few days, a flurry of news stories, the poisoning of Arafat, US spying, some stories many years old, have been pushed to the forefront and threaten not just a Palestinian settlement but also the lifting of sanctions on Iran and the current rational moves toward removing WMDs from Syria.

War is a business and, as they say, “business is good.”

The two current threats are tied to strategic realignments enacted by the Obama security team during his second term.

Obama has decided to risk downsizing the American military and, painful to the racketeers, that can't be done without cutting loose the current regime running Israel, the Likudists, tied to world organized crime.

Some are simply so hate-filled and blinded that when a government acts independently of Israeli control, even when it is violently attacked by Wall Street and the Israeli lobby at home, when its moves are exactly what millions around the world have waited and prayed for, it is attacked.

Perhaps it is rabid cynicism. Perhaps it is blindness. Perhaps it is something else, something sinister.

Much of the world's press, now including the “paid blogosphere,” is part of the Israeli/Mossad effort to keep the business of war going.Thus, derailing any movement toward stability is key and it is done through use of advanced game or “chaos theory,” with Nobel Prize winning theorists that dot the landscape of Israel available and employed.

What should first be noticed is the swing by news agencies that are normally cheerleaders for the American government from support to continual criticism and even wild conspiracy theories. Leading this effort is, of course, the Murdoch empire, now gutted for spying and blackmail in Britain but strong as always in the United States.

However, the new leader is CNN. Their game is a simple one. Whenever the Obama administration moves against the Likudists, supporting lowering of sanctions in Israel, criticizing illegal settlements on Palestinian land or trying to block a settlement of the longstanding Wall Street war on Syria, invisible sources supported by long defunct politicians come out of the woodwork.

CNN continually bases stories fabricating secret and utterly bogus US policies based on invented sources. Only two days ago, CNN ran such a story attacking the Obama administrations cooperation with Russia over the question of Syrian chemical weapon usage. Not only did CNN quote former Vice President Dick Cheney, someone anyone knows is an enemy of the current government and its policies, they “ran home to mama” with another of their secret sources.

In every case, week after week, CNN has been wrong when using such sources and they use them continually. Bloggers, unaware or for reasons unknown, are drawn into parroting these psyops, some unable to understand the simplicity of what is going on, that these attacks are now being time to undermine new American policies that should be supported after decades of war crimes and insanity.

One simple story makes such things inexcusable. Those who know anything of American politics know the Tea Party is funded by the Koch Brothers. The Koch Brothers lead AIPAC and are at the center of the Israeli lobby.

The Tea Party is a failed invention of the Israel lobby, one of their mistakes, evidence of the hubris of Netanyahu and his “Mossaniks” who wrongly estimated that the American people would never tire of Islamophobia, continual war, cheap propaganda and blatant financial crimes.

However, many “anti-imperialists” now align behind Wall Street, the Koch Brothers, AIPAC and the Mossad because they simply don't know how to stop attacking a government even when that government does something right.

They have become like attack dogs that turn on their own masters.

In many cases, part of a highly organized psychological warfare operation, the conspiracy radio hosts, some now extremely powerful, have proven themselves not only aligned with Israeli policy but growing rich in doing so.

Where the mistakes are made is in failure, not just to “connect dots” but to understand the long-term political divides in America and to buy in on “both parties are the same” rhetoric, which is at the heart of the Israeli psyop.

Israel has lost control of even the “Jewish lobby” in the US. It is possible that Florida Jewish congressional representative Alan Grayson may now be a viable presidential candidate. Reviled by many because of his religion, Grayson is, perhaps, the most important voice against American imperialism in decades.

Few have heard of him. Why do you think that is? The most obvious of the efforts to derail.

One obvious problem today is the recent report out of Switzerland stating that there is a remote possibility that Yasser Arafat may possibly have been poisoned with polonium, a radioactive substance.

The Swiss report, filled with halfhearted uncertainty, is clearly timed to act as an excuse to end Palestinian talks. The United States has come down clearly against Israeli settlements in Palestine, declaring them illegal in language seldom heard from Washington.

The Swiss story only parrots findings from British scientists and, in fact, is not only watered down but curious in ways as well. It is obviously timed to be used to break down talks and is of no real use at all.

Everyone knows and has always known Arafat was poisoned.

What is most curious is that Israel most likely had nothing to do with it. Israel steals land--it has also used weapons of mass destruction against Gaza and even Syria.

There are uncountable crimes you could go after Israel for but this isn't one of them.

Israel was, in 2004, “flying high” using Arafat as a “branded terrorist,” drawing endless airtime in the west and billions in aid. Arafat was seen as a greater threat than bin Laden, even greater than Hitler to some, and was the justification for billions in military aid to Israel.

When Arafat died, many believe at the hands of political rivals, it was a blow to Tel Aviv.

Over the past couple of years it has become obvious that nothing from that period or this is what it seems to be. Recent stories in the American press now cite Saudi Arabia as having approached Pakistan to purchase nuclear weapons, not to be a force on their own but to act as a shield for Israel.

An Egyptian government was overthrown for acting as an Israeli puppet, while the world had cried for decades concerned that that same government was going to “push the Jews into the sea.”

The new government in Egypt, one now appearing to be counter-revolutionary, is curiously similar in backing to the one that had been removed in what was a glorious revolution.

More telling is the set of curious alignments in Syria. Israel is attacking the Obama administration for its efforts to seek a peaceful resolution. They want a full-scale war, as usual, fought by Americans, paid for by Americans and have shown themselves dedicated to starting it.

Aiding them in this is the American media, not just CNN and their endless imaginary sources but armies of “anti-Zionist” or “anti-imperialist” bloggers and radio hosts, some, just perhaps, not what they seem. Others are fools.

The real story to watch is Iran, whether sanctions will be lifted and who comes out attacking the US government when it is trying to redress a massive evil against people who suffered greatly due to CIA plotting and years of American-backed dictatorship.

No American apologies have been made, not to the degree deserved but cautious redress is under way.

Why would an American government seem so terrified to do what is not only right and just but good for the United States as well?

We expect Israel to continue to push for war, war is a business and the extremist government of Israel is aligned with war profiteers more than any other.

It is shameful that any time an American actually tries to support his own country, he/she quakes in fear of Israeli smears, some from the mainstream media but now also, the internet as well, from the stated “enemies of Israel.”

The US government has hardly earned blind support. Conversely, those who continually attack the American government, particularly when signs of enlightened policies are easy to see, do not deserve blind support as well.

After 9/11, the media tells us at least, President Bush, seen by many as a figure representing the basest instincts of humanity, had a 93% approval rating.

How many of that “93%” are now “repackaged” as “anti-imperialist” or “anti-Zionist?”