Thursday 5 May 2016

PROF SAWYERR SAYS NO



Prof. Akilagpa Sawyerr
Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, chair of the Government Team for the Review and Re-Negotiation of Stability and Mining Agreements has distanced himself and his team from the recently concluded Goldfields Ghana Limited Development Agreements.

The Full text of a statement he issued to that effect is published below unedited;

The Government of Ghana recently concluded Development Agreements with Gold Fields Ghana Limited, in relation to the Tarkwa and Damang mining operations of the latter.

In a recent letter the Third World Network-Africa (TWN) asked the Mining Review Committee (the Government Team for the Review and Re-Negotiation of Stability and Mining Agreements - to give it its full name) to clarify its role in the development and negotiation of the Gold Fields agreements. Further to this, I am aware of the perception in some quarters, arising from the mandate of the Mining Review Committee (MRC) that those agreements had been negotiated by that Committee.

In the circumstances, I feel obliged, as Chairman of the MRC, to state categorically that the MRC was not involved in the development of positions, nor the conduct of the negotiations that produced the Gold Fields Development Agreements ratified by Parliament on 17 March, 2016. Indeed, those negotiations were carried out on the blind side of the Committee.

Dr Yao Graham, Third World Network
As chair of the MRC, I did not get to hear about the negotiations till after they had been concluded, even though I was in regular contact with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources at all times. When I finally got the news I asked for, and was given a copy of the proposed agreement, together with a request from the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources for a review of the documents. After a hasty review I sent critical observations to the supervising Ministries (Lands and Finance) and to the Minerals Commission on two separate occasions.

The essence of my observations, which were subsequently endorsed by the Mining Review Committee, can be summarised as follows:

1.The negotiations with Gold Fields had been conducted on the basis of fundamental misconceptions about (i) the limits of the powers given the Minister under the relevant provisions of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703); and (ii) the import of the revised Newmont Agreements, negotiated by the MRC and signed less than a year ago;
2.The tax and royalty concessions granted Gold Fields in the stability clauses [reportedly estimated by Gold Fields to be worth $26 million this year] were serious fiscal give-aways, for which no justification was apparent;
3.The entire approach to the negotiations, especially the by-passing of the Mining Review Committee and the rush to conclude had the tendency to undermine the national position in future negotiations.
I concluded that, on the basis of a quick review, the Gold Fields Development Agreements
"[made] needless concessions to Gold Fields ", "[were] unsupportable, ... should not have been sent to Parliament, nor should they be ratified by the latter.


In spite of information that my detailed comments had been received and favourably considered at the highest levels of government, the agreements remained essentially unchanged, and were subsequently ratified by parliament in an expedited process, which dispensed with the Standing Order requirement of a minimum 48 hour period between notice of a motion for ratification and its movement and acceptance-for reasons that are not stated.

Akilagkpa Sawyerr
20th April, 2016

IN WHOSE NAME, AND FOR WHOSE WELFARE

Dr Wereko Brobbey
By Dr Charles Wireku Brobbey
The President of Ghana, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama has embarked on a nationwide tour, ostensibly to account for his stewardship of the last four years and to ask for a fresh mandate on November 7, 2011. The account has consisted largely of inauguration of infrastructure projects ie roads, schools, hospitals, as well as cutting sods for the start of new projects, albeit more infrastructure.

The President’s tour has generated a lot of heat from the chattering classes. Unfortunately, all the hot air has been directed at whether there has been an abuse of incumbency by the President, when the chatter should be about the impact of the President’s efforts to the welfare of the people.

Impressive as the infrastructure projects are, they are being rolled out in an environment of deteriorating and deleterious effects on the people of Ghana. It is rather unfortunate to build shining new hospitals and watch trained nurses going on strike to be employed.  What use is a well equipped hospital, which turns away desperate patients because the Government has failed to reimburse the cost of treatment supposedly covered by the NHIS?

It is an utter disgrace when doctors have to abandon their patients to come to Accra to chase their unpaid salaries when we have a bloated public service. There is no rhyme or reason for teachers to teach for more than three years without being paid and expect them to deliver instruction to very high quality on empty stomachs.

Don’t get me wrong. Infrastructure development is good and constitutes a very important component of the development of a nation. However, it is only a means to an end, which end being to improve the welfare of the people.  So without connecting the dots to demonstrate without equivocation, how the infrastructure will lead to improvements in the welfare of the people, it becomes a mere show. 

As I write, the government has put out a tall litany of jobs that have been created since 2013. It apparently adds up to a gargantuan total of about eight hundred thousand in just about every sector of our economy and in every corner of our country.   Unless of course, this ‘impressive achievement’ is completely cancelled out by the number of jobs lost from closures of manufacturing companies and other challenges to the private sector.  

Given that the President won the last election by just about 500,000, if this job creation figure were to be real and net, the President might as well abandon his accounting tour now and simply wait for all of these beneficiaries to show their appreciation and love on Election Day.

The fact that the President has to embark on a nationwide tour to account for his stewardship is a clear indication that there is a real gulf between the figures on paper and those whose welfare has been improved.

But the shortcomings of the incumbency’s message should not be construed to mean that we are bound for an inevitable change of baton on November 7, 2016; far from it.  The case for replacing the ‘Change that is happening’ with the ‘Change that is to come’ still has to be made convincingly to the people of Ghana.

It is not good enough to exhort the people of Ghana to give you a chance without making a convincing case as to how giving you a chance will lead to an improvement in their welfare. Simply invoking the achievements of a predecessor from the same political tradition is not enough to convince the people that you will deliver to the same or better levels; especially when you are unable to maintain order within your own ranks. 

The notion that the” business of the opposition is to oppose and offer no alternatives” is no longer tenable.

In the dispensations that are well practiced in democratic politicking and elections, it is required, nay demanded, that those who are offering themselves as offering better governance, present policies and programmes demonstrating the happy days yet to come. These are then subjected to scrutiny for deliverability and fitness of purpose.

So the people of Ghana deserve something more from Nana Akufo-Addo than ‘just trust me to do better than this’.  Promising to build more SHS schools than NDC’s 200 without addressing the related issues of what else you will do to ensure that more teachers are not only trained, but employed to produce quality education to our children, will not do.

The opening article of the 4th constitution of the first Republic is very clear and unambiguous about why we elect governments: “The Sovereignty of Ghana resides in the people of Ghana in whose name and for whose welfare the powers of government are to be exercised in the manner and within the limits laid down in this Constitution”

Governance should be in our name and more importantly for the betterment of our welfare, rather than the betterment and welfare of the governors, which is what happens when it’s all about putting up infrastructure without squaring the circle of how that infrastructure would actually work with other factors to improve the welfare of the people.

Our Constitution also reminds us that choosing our governors is based on the principle of universal adult suffrage, or ‘one person, one vote’. Therefore, those who are competing for us to give them the powers of government should know that whatever it is they do or want to do in our name must ultimately be for our welfare.

Weather change will continue to happen or Change is now coming will be based on the principle that all powers of government springs from the sovereign will of the people.  Will  the ‘grateful’ 800, 000 overcome the as yet uncounted thousands of unemployed nurses, unpaid teachers, unemployed graduates and the now redundant private sector workers? It is the perception of improved welfare of these people that will decide whether Change will go on Happening or Change will come.

Charles Wereko-Brobby (Dr)
Chief Policy Analyst, GIPPO
Twitter; @eyetarzan


PEASANTS ARE SUFFERING!


Victoria Adongo, Programmes Director PFAG, Nana Ameyaw Menu, Vice President PFAG and Asiedu Biney, Regional Focal Person of PFAG for Brong Ahafo
By Duke Tagoe
The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) has drawn attention to the deplorable conditions in which peasants and many indigenous people live across the world.

According to them, land grab by giant agribusiness for bio-fuel production and the forced ejection of farmers for estate housing and mining is noted as the leading cause of the poverty and the further marginalization of many small holder farmers in Ghana and in other parts of the world.

Victoria Adongo, Director of Programmes of the PFAG made these assertions at a press conference in Accra to mark the international day of solidarity with peasant farmers which fell on April 17.

20 years ago some 19 peasant men and women were murdered in El Dorados dos Carajas in Northern Brazil for defending their land against corporate interest, by government security forces.

Since then, on 17th April every year, peasants and rural folks all over the world hold numerous activities to observe this day as one of the darkest days in the struggle of small and landless farmers over right to seed, land and water.

Attacks by Fulani herdsmen

The PFAG has also expressed outrage at the atrocious crimes committed by cattle herders popularly called “Fulani herdsmen”, in many farming communities across the country.

According to them, January and  March of 2016, witnessed a surge in the destruction of farmlands and the brutality of small farmers in Agogo, Kwahu Afram Plains and in the Northern Region. Whilst several farmers were killed in the attempt to prevent the destruction of their farms, women farmers were maimed and raped in the process.  

The farmers have blamed policy makers for the escalation of the problem  due to their inability “to put in place appropriate policy that would lead to proper ranching and designated grazing lands for cattle,” they said.

Farmers Swindled

The PFAG has also raised issues at the failure of the government to retrieve sums of monies lost to fraudulent financial institutions certified by the Bank of Ghana earlier this year. According to the PFAG, hundreds of farmers have lost millions of Ghana Cedi to unscrupulous micro-finance institutions, leading to the death of some of the farmers. They committed suicide.

Yaw Opoku takes the media and farmers through the PBB
GMOs do not increase yield and control pest

Mr Yaw Opoku, Director of Agriculture Sovereignty Ghana, revealed that proponents for the adoption of GM seeds into farming in Ghana confuse biotechnology with Genetic Modification.

According to him, whilst biotechnology constitutes a collection of methods that are used for product development involving biological organisms that are of economic benefit, GM biotechnologies and Bt varieties of crops on the other hand involve gene transfer across the normal borders imposed by sexual reproduction with dire consequences for farmers

Mr Opoku adds that the widely publicized failure of Bt cotton in Bourkina Faso and the damage to farmers’ livelihoods has exposed the lie behind GM seeds that they increase yield and draw farmers out of poverty and misery.

He called on peasant farmers to reject the trial and commercialization of Bt Cowpea and rice in Ghana to avert a repeat of what has happened in Bourkina Faso.

Plant Breeders Bill will increase cost of seed

Mr Opoku explained that following the genetic engineering of Cotton, Cowpea and Rice, the companies that produced these seeds have introduced an avalanche of legislation to supervise and to control the use of the seeds towards the maximization of profit.

He also revealed that giant agribusiness have begun the set up of commercial offices in Ghana to begin the trade of modified seeds to Ghanaian farmers and their counterparts in the sub-region.

According him the Plant Breeders Bill will make it illegal for farmers to continue the age old practice of saving and sharing seeds adding that the bill authorizes a plant breeder to destroy and prosecute all farmers on whose farms traces of Bt varieties of crops are found.

Yaw Opoku emphasized that the plant breeders bill in parliament will not benefit Ghana and her farmers, but will lead to a reckless and exorbitant increases in the price of seed and farm inputs and will carve away the real value of wages and salaries of farmers, increase the cost of agricultural production in all areas and contribute significantly to driving farmers out of farming.


Editorial
WE WANT TO CELEBRATE BUT…
According to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Seth Tekper, Ghana’s agriculture will continue to grow at 6 percent for the foreseeable future.

The announcement has not generated much enthusiasm because the news while positive is not very meaningful to the ordinary Ghanaian in terms of how his or her life will change.

Ordinarily an extra growth in any area means more products available than before. Assuming that scarcity is the only problem we should expect a reduction in food prices over time.

Such assumptions would however be naïve if we do not add other variables as population growth, transportation costs and the state of storage facilities.

Because all these factors matter, it would have been easier to digest the information if the Minister had included them in his delivery because statistics by themselves can easily be used to confuse the unsuspecting.

We get the indications that work and resources are going into making things better, but it is difficult for the ordinary Ghanaian to draw conclusions only from his view of his surroundings.

Ghana produces a number of staples and often the individual crops do not grow at the same rate at the same time. It is possible for instance to have a particular crop do extremely well while others struggle. However, when growth rate, which in truth is the average of an entire basket of different things are given, there is a tendency to assume that it applies to every product in the sector.

This can lead to confusion, distrust and skepticism.
We believe we will all gain from relevant details about such growth or fall statistics.