EXPOSED! ANTI-NKRUMAH LIES, FALSEHOOLDS AND PROPAGANDA

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

By Michael Nunoo

Introduction

My intention in this piece is to confront the lies, unfounded falsehoods and vile propaganda against Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah by ‘Mate Me Ho’ ideologues. I intend to use secondary sources and official statistics to confront the oft-repeated lies about the Nkrumah regime. By all accounts these sources have a semblance of detached independence from the bigotry and ideological bias that have become symptomatic of political journalism in Ghana.

1. Ghana was a prosperous country at the time of independence

Prosperity is a descriptive term that denotes affluence or success. Ukandi G. Damachi (Developments Paths in China and Africa. eds. Ukandi G. Darnachi, Guy Routh & Abdel-Rahman E. Ali Taha. 1976) describes the socio- economic conditions on the eve of political independence thus: "many Ghanaians were living at extreme poverty level. Education, health service, housing and social security were all at very rudimentary stages; and illiteracy was prevalent. The government therefore had the responsibility of raising the living standards of Ghanaians by promoting social and economic development." Damachi points out that "the economic development which had taken place during the colonial era was one-sidedly directed toward the production of primary commodities for export to non-African countries." He goes on to state that "there had been little industrialisation and little had been done to develop domestic markets for Ghana's own products. The structure of the economy at independence still reflected the colonial pattern which existed in the early 1900s."

John Sender and Sheila Smith (1986) also point out that the post-colonial African leaders faced regent and forcefully articulated demands for economic advancement because of the deplorable, socio economic conditions at the time of independence: "organized wage and salaried workers struggled for the removal of discriminatory differentials increases in real wages and improved working conditions; there were mass demands for better education, transport, water supplies, health, housing. etc.; most importantly the emerging bourgeoisie was in a strong position to insist upon the provision of a wide array of preferential discriminatory and protective measures from the state." Does the description given by these Africanist scholars paint a picture of Ghana as an affluent society in 1957? The answer is a clear no. In fact, life was no more prosperous for the privileged classes, who faced all manner of discriminatory practices during the colonial regime than it was for ordinary people.

The mining import-export and trading sectors were all controlled by white people. Ghanaian entrepreneurs and businessmen had little or no access to credits. It was mainly as a result of the objective experiences that the vast majority of our people supported the anti-colonial struggle.

Damachi further points out that the task of reconstructing the colonial economy was inherently fraught with problems because 62% of the working population was engaged in agriculture. There was high importation of food because of insufficient food production and the Gold Coast imported all her manufactured needs.

Foreign exchange for imports was in short supply and there was rising expenditure against falling cocoa prices. If Ghana was not an affluent society in 1957, then why is it that ideologues of the Danquah-Busia tradition have tried to paint a different picture of the period? Is it mischief, propaganda or an attempt to re-write or distort history?

Indeed if Ghana was prosperous in 1957 what did the UGCC think it was doing when the movement was launched? Was it because the Danquah-Busiaists wanted a changeover of the guards for the British to hand over power to an elitist group of people to continue with the same system of exploitation under the guise of flying a flag of independence? Did they want our people to live under the same backward conditions which would allow the intelligensia to dictate what they thought was good for the masses? Was Nkrumah invited to a tea party? These are questions the 'Mate Me Ho' propagandists have to provide answers to.

2. The British left Ghana a lot of money before leaving

All kinds of figures have been bandied about the amount of money the British left Ghana in 1957. In fact what the 'Mate Me Ho' people describe as huge monies left by the British were first the accumulation of cocoa surplus known as Cocoa Marketing Board sterling reserves, and second export duties on cocoa also known as Ghana Government holdings in sterling securities. 

Thus at the time of independence, these were the two foreign reserves held by Ghana at the Bank of England, which were very often used by Britain to support the pound sterling in times of financial crisis. Nkrumah did not touch these foreign reserves until 1960.

Queen Elisabeth II

The finances of the First Development Plan (1951-1956) costing £93.3 million, came from cocoa and internally generated resources, such as indirect taxes and duties. The Second Development Plan (1959-1964) was financed from the free reserves of £50m from Government holdings in sterling securities, £G25m from Cocoa Marketing Board sterling reserves and £G 15m from internal revenue, totaling £G90m. The balance of £G260m came from foreign resources and deficit-financing.

In a treatise on the agrarian basis of the post-colonial state for the period 1951-78, Bjorn Beckman (Judith Heyer, Pepe Roberts & Edwin Williams (eds.), Rural Development In Tropical Africa, 1981) points out that Nkrumah relied initially on reserves and later on foreign and local borrowing, including monetary expansion.

So, where is the huge sum of money that the British left Ghana in 1957? As a colonizing power, Britain was never benevolent to have left Ghana money to take care of itself after independence. Indeed, no colony the world over has benefited from the luxury of an imperial power leaving tons of money for reconstruction and development after colonial pillage. The French, as is well known, stripped Guinea naked, taking away everything including bulbs tables and chairs, Carpets. etc.

3. Kwame Nkrumah recklessly mismanaged the economy after Independence.

The Danquah-Busiasts claim to derive their philosophical orientation from the laissez- faire policies of free trade, private enterprise, unregulated economy, private profit and tight fiscal and monetary policies. They believe in state intervention if it is limited to the state creating conditions to enable private capital to make profit. They deride state funding for social investments and believe that the state has no business creating employment.

However, there are fundamental problems with the assumption that 'Western' economic models of capitalist' development can be applied to under-developed countries like Ghana.

Myrdal (1957) argues that the industrialization of advanced capitalist economies took place against the background of specific historical conditions that are totally different from under-developed countries. Moreover, while advanced capitalist societies are concerned with allocating resources within a given setting, the preoccupation of underdeveloped countries is to promote economic growth and development. Furthermore, in least developed countries, 'Western economic policies obstruct rapid economic growth which can be promoted through government central planning import controls deficit financing and other forms of state intervention.

One of the defining characteristics of politics is that political parties make policy choices depending on the political vision, ideology and values. Thus the world outlook of a political party informs the way it allocate resources to achieve the objectives it has set itself and its management of the economy. There is therefore no universally acceptable model for managing an economy.

Nkrumaist believe that private capital formation and the rate of private accumulation of capital in a developing country like Ghana is low and slow because the productive forces are largely under-developed. The objective is therefore to use the post-colonial state, because of its powers and capacity to generate wealth, as the main catalyst for creating social wealth and meeting the need and aspirations of the people.

According to Bjorn Beckman, Nkrumah had to change economic direction from 1960 because "the liberal oriented policies of the 1950's had failed to stimulate a major growth of private investment in those sectors which were considered to be particularly important for the transformation of the economy."

The contradictions in the philosophy of the 'Mate Me Ho’ tradition are many. While claiming to be opposed to central planning, the Busia regime introduced a one year development plan, but did not have time to implement a five-year plan before it was overthrown from power. The Progress Party government could not resist the temptation of creating a mass organ like the National Service Corp, while claiming to believe in individualism.

Last, but not to least, the Progress Party's claim to believe in an unregulated economy gave way to the introduction of a prices and incomes policy, and the setting up of the Campbell Commission. In short, the 'Mate Me Ho' philosophy, based on classical European conditions long abandoned, has never rooted itself in objective realities of an African setting.

4. Kwame Nkrumah squandered our money on irresponsible prestigious projects

The pre-1960 CPP programme drafted by a British economist, Arthur Lewis, has to be situated within the context of post-war world afflicted by poverty and unemployment. The policy orientation of the post-war government in Britain was to use Keynesian economic principles of spending and social investment to stimulate economic growth. It is therefore not surprising that the orientation of the CPP government followed the same pattern.

Measured against its 1951 Manifesto, the achievements of the CPP far exceeded expectation. According to Ministry of Education statistical data, enrolment in primary schools was 102,138 in 1950, that is, before the CPP came to power. This figure increased to 456,290 in 1961 and to a phenomenal 1,137,495 in 1966. During the period 1951- 61, enrolment in 12 assisted secondary schools including Achimota and non-assisted schools increased from 2,776 and 3,319 to 9,882. By 1966, enrolment in public secondary schools had increased to 42,111. Enrolment in middle schools also increased by more than three-fold in 1951 to 139,984 in 1961, doubling to a remarkable 267,434 in 1966. Two university colleges were set up in Accra and Kumasi.

Medical services were extended throughout the country via the establishment of regional hospitals. The entire system of communication was improved through the building of telephone and telegraphic lines, new roads, extension of railway lines, construction of bridges, a new port at Tema and extension of the Takoradi harbour.

Furthermore the CPP introduced fee-free compulsory education, free health and medical care, etc. In fact the list of CPP achievements is endless. It is only propagandists engaged in peddling lies and falsehoods who would deny the historic contributions made by Kwame Nkrumah.

5. Kwame Nkrumah was a tyrant and dictator. He introduced a one-party state and made himself life President

Between 1951 and 1960, Ghana was a multi-party democracy. It had a thriving democracy, an electoral body, a parliament, an opposition political party, parliamentary committees, independent judiciary, etc.

Indeed, the parliamentary records of the period show that there were lively debates in parliament, with the parliamentary opposition employing all kinds of tactics to register its disapproval of government policies and programmes, such as walk-outs, boycotts, heckling, representations to the Queen in England, etc.

In fact, some political observers of the Ghanaian political scene have aptly described the Danquah-Busia opposition of the time as the most irresponsible opposition grouping in Ghana's political history. They did not only send a deputation to England to veto Ghana's political independence, they went on a globe-trotting campaign against projects like the Accra-Tema Motorway, Volta hydro-electric scheme and many others that now constitute the bedrock of our infrastructure.

The dominant trend of thought in Africanist politics in the early 1960’s was the integration model as opposed to the conflict model. In the latter case, social and political conflicts are institutionalized and consciously reinforced in political pluralism and multi-party system. In the integration model, society is viewed as an association of individuals and groups that complement each other in the achievement of collective goals.

Indeed, the belief in progressive circles in those days was that newly-emergent African states were too weak politically to allow the bitter contest for political power to divert their attention from the principal tasks to transformation and reconstruction of the colonial economy.

It was envisaged that the one-party state would enhance national unity and stability, bring about the effective mobilization and utilization of resources for nation development, ensure consistency in the implementation of programmes and policies, encourage mass participation in governance and eliminate corruption associated with the financing of political parties. The belief was that a one party state would provide a platform for a national collective ideology, devoid of the conflicting clash of ideologies in a multi-party system.

The one-party state that emerged in Africa was not adopted only by the usual radical states such as Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Zambia, Guinea. etc. Countries like Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Cameroon and others whose leaders had a right-wing conservative orientation also adopted it.

It is certainly the case that some newly-independent African leaders, and the men in Khaki used the one-party state to transform themselves into corrupt tyrants and dictators, but can anyone say with any degree of historical accuracy or intellectual honesty that Nkrumah or Nyerere was a Mobutu Sese Seko, Eyadema, or Kamuzu Banda or Bokassa?

It is interesting that the Danquah-Busiaists have had no problem dealing with one-party state leaders in the Ivory Coast and Togo over several decades.

Ghana was a thriving multi-party democracy between 1951 and 1960. The CPP won all three elections in 1951, 1954 and 1956 with thumping majorities, including a plebiscite on the future of British Togoland.

Indeed, it was a democratically elected parliament of Ghana that took the decision to make the country a one-party state and Nkrumah President for life.

6. The 'liberators' who staged the 1966 coup did so because of their love for freedom and democracy

Declassified documents of the Central Intelligence Agency released by the USA government show that Afrifa, Harley and Kotoka were paid $13,000,000 in 1966 to stage the coup against Nkrumah. In fact they were promised more money if they could assassinate Nkrumah. Are we to conclude that those who staged the 1966 coup are mercenaries, bearing in mind that a mercenary is a soldier of fortune? For a political tradition that claims to believe in freedom and democracy, the coup plotters introduced the Protective Custody Decree which retained all the essential features of the Preventive Detention Act. Not only that; the National Liberation Council banned Nkrumaists parties from contesting the 1969 elections.

Editorial

MAGIC BUDGET

Perhaps Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, knew more than the rest of us, when he said that like Jesus-the-Christ, the Akufo-Addo administration would use five loaf of bread and two pieces of fish to feed 25 million Ghanaians.

Only Mr Ofori Atta can explain his optimism in the face of the reality that total tax revenue is only enough to cover three line items in the budget.

His recourse to magic budget and prayer as a means of securing the well-being of the people of Ghana is clearly understandable.

The only problem is that if the instruments for resolving Ghana’s economic problems are magic and prayer, then perhaps the people we need at the Ministry of Finance may not include him.

This must be a task for Kwaku Bonsam and the likes of T. B. Joshua.

The budget ought to be based on sound economic and financial principles and not voodoo.

Government Committed To Prioritising Youth Development – Rockson

Rockson Bukari

By Jerry Azanduna

Mr Rockson Bukari, the Upper East Regional Minister, has said the development of the youth was one of the top priorities of the government.

To meet that challenge, he said government was providing quality and accessible education including technical and vocational training that would unearth their natural talents. 

Mr Bukari was speaking at the 14th Daanjuar festival of the Bimoba chiefs and people at kpikpira in the Garu-Tempane District of the Upper East Region.

The Bimoba festival, which is celebrated annually to remember the origin of the people, discuss development projects and unite the people attracted other Bimobas from the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District in the Northern Region and those in neighboring Togo and Burkina Faso.

Speaking on the theme for the festival, “Using Daanjuar as a tool for the creation of an enabling environment for the youth and small scale business development”, Mr Bukari said planting the youth in an economic and political environment would provide them the opportunity to use their talents to make a living while contributing to national development.

He said the President had since assumption of office, been outlining his vision to create jobs for the youth and the general public and was supporting the agriculture sector with an amount of $125 million dollars to implement a planting for food and jobs campaign which would create 750,000 jobs for the youth.

Mr Bukari said government was a friend of entrepreneurship and would create the enabling environment for all to develop their skills and earn a living.

He called on the youth to eschew negative habits such as unreasonable migration, teenage pregnancies, and early marriages which had negative consequences on them and their families.

Naba Danzuur II, Chief of the Kpikpira traditional area, said the area was faced with development challenges such as poverty and invited NGOs and investors to the area to do business.

He said the people were ready to collaborate with development partners to fight poverty, diseases and ignorance.

The Chief called on the Ghana Health Service to extend the Community Based Planning and Services compounds (CHPS) to the area in order to bring quality health care to the door steps of the people.

He pleaded with them to elevate some of the CHPS compounds to maternity homes to help promote quality maternal health in the area.

Mr Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tempane Constituency, said he would concentrate on improving health care, agriculture development and education as part of efforts to fulfill his mandate. 

Mr Kpemka said he was prepared to liaise with the central government, district assemblies, non-governmental organisations and the international bodies to carry out a well-planned health, agricultural and education policies to liberate the people from their economic doldrums.

He said he was committed to developing the area and would use his share of the MP’s common fund for development projects.

GNA 

Call for alternative journalists’ association needless – MFWA

By Mohammed Awal

The call by the Editors’ Forum Ghana for an alternative journalists union is needless, the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah has said.

The status of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) as the umbrella body representing journalists in Ghana appears threatened following demand for a rival body by the Editors’ Forum Tuesday to champion the cause of journalists in the country.

Expressing worry about the plethora of occupational challenges confronting media practitioners in the country, Dr. Doris Yaa Ghartey, the Deputy Chairperson of the Forum and a member of the National Media Commission (NMC) said it is important for a rival union to be created to adequately cater for their peculiar interests.

But speaking Wednesday March 1, 2017, Mr. Braimah said the call by the Forum is needless saying: “I wouldn’t say yes to that.”

For him, if there are concerns about the “capacity of the effectiveness” of the GJA, what will be prudent will be “for all of us to recognize that deficit” and try to strengthen the GJA rather than thinking of creating another one.

“What is the guarantee that whatever is going to be created will be able to serve the purpose for which we think that it is important to create a new Union?” he asked.

He said the challenges facing the GJA are a phenomena facing similar associations across the region.  “It is a general phenomenon that unions or journalists association across the region are getting weaker [and that] it is important for us to look at how do we strengthen the existing ones rather than using the weakness  as an opportunity or as a platform to demand for the creation of other unions. I think that will be a further attempt to weaken the position of journalists in the country.”

Source:StarrFMonline.com

Blame Bawumia for cedi fall – Adongo

Mahamudu Bawumia

By Kobina Welsing

A minority Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central says Ghanaians should blame vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for the recent depreciation of the Ghana cedi.

According to Isaac Adongo, recent comments by the vice President that some 7 billion cedis is missing from the national coffers sent a wrong signal to the investor community.

The member of the finance committee in parliament in an interview with Starr News’ Ibrahim Alhassan said the Vice President must refrain from negative comments about the economy.

“The first thing this government needs to do is to seriously advise the Vice President that he is no more a runningmate but now a Vice President because certain utterances that he made in the past that affected Ghana in terms of inflow of resources, cost of borrowing, he could get away because he was in opposition but today if u make the same statements…you will find what is happening to the cedi.

But his colleague from the Effutu constituency Alexander Afenyo-Markin, however, disagreed.

According to him, the fall of the local currency will soon stabilize.

Source:Starrfmonline.com

Mahama Is Our Best Bet For 2020 – Ablakwa

By Delali Adogla-Bessa

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has declared his support for former President John Mahama should he decide to contest the presidency again in 2020.

“He is my candidate; I can confirm that to you. If he throws his hat in the ring, he will have my full support. And I think that he is our best bet because on what record, who’s legacy will we be running on? It is his record,” Mr. Ablakwa said on Eyewitness News.

Former President Mahama suffered the worst election defeat of a sitting president in Ghana’s democracy, where he recorded 44.40 percent of valid votes cast, losing to the New Patriotic Party’s Nana Akufo-Addo, who was endorsed by 53.85 percent of the electorate.

But that doesn’t diminish his prospects for the presidency in the eyes of some NDC members, as there are some murmurs within the party nudging him towards a 2020 flagbearership bid.

Some other party members came out publicly in support of Mr. Mahama with the NDC’s National Organizer, Kofi Adams, saying that Mr. Mahama was the best candidate for his party in the next election.

“President Mahama in today’s NDC is the best material that we have,” he said.

The NDC Member of Parliament for Kumbungu, Ras Mubarak, also said he believed Mr. Mahama, is the man to lead their party to victory in the next four years.

“In the next election, I do not see any other candidate who can best lead us to victory other than John Dramani Mahama. He has been there; he knows what we need to do to get it right.”

Iran announces major Oil, Gas Discoveries

(Right Photo) An aerial view of the platform of Phase 18 of Iran's South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. (Photo by Shana)

Iran has confirmed the discovery of 15 billion barrels of new in-place oil reserves, but a top official says huge investments and state-of-the-art technology are required to exploit those reserves. 

   

Ali Kardor, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), was quoted by domestic media as saying that around 2 billion barrels of the newly-discovered reserves were “recoverable”.

Kardor added that around 1.8 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of in-place reserves of natural gas – around half of which he said were recoverable – had also been discovered.  However, he did not specify when and where the new discoveries had been made. 

Meanwhile, NIOC Director for Corporate Planning Affairs Karim Zobeidi said the overall volume of Iran’s oil reserves stood at 771.53 billion barrels, of which around 102 billion barrels would be recoverable at a rate of 24.6 percent.

Zobeidi added that Iran’s in-place reserves of natural gas stand at 55 tcm of which 33 tcm could be recovered at a rate of around 70 percent.

The NIOC chief was further quoted by the Persian-language newspaper Iran as saying that a new round of tenders – scheduled for the next few weeks – would pave the ground for international energy companies to help develop the country’s oil and gas reserves.   

Kardor also said that Iran’s production of high-quality oil would reach four million barrels per day (mb/d) before April – what could be a landmark success for the country after the sanctions that had kept production a little above 2 mb/d were lifted in January 2016. 

Israel under Fire

Human Right Watch Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir

Palestinian rights groups have roundly condemned Israel’s recent decision to deny a Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigator a work visa, calling for an end to the regime’s crackdown on human rights activities in the occupied territories.

“The refusal reflects a larger policy of repression of human rights work by Israeli authorities through movement restrictions, arbitrary arrests, travel bans, and denial of entry,” the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) said in a statement released on Monday.

The statement further pointed to the cases of United Nations experts who have been denied entry into Israel, noting that UN officials are faced with a “shrinking space for human rights work” in occupied Palestinian territories.

“PHROC stands in solidarity with Human Rights Watch and calls for the protection of human rights work, the freedom of movement for human rights staff, and an immediate end to repression and that serves to inhibit vital human rights work in Palestine, Israel and globally,” the statement concluded. 

Last week, Israeli authorities rejected a request from Human Rights Watch to grant a work permit to its New York-based Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir.

According to Shakir, Israeli authorities told HRW that the visa ban was not targeting him alone, but would be applied to all foreign members of the organization.

Earlier, Ramallah-based al-Haq human rights organization censured the Israeli regime’s decision in a separate statement, saying, “Israeli officials seek an environment devoid of criticism while disregarding their duties under international human rights and humanitarian law.”

Israel’s Interior Ministry, in a letter dated February 20, said HRW reports “have engaged in politics in the service of Palestinian propaganda,” highlighting that the measure was taken on a recommendation from the Foreign Ministry.

In return, Deputy Executive Director of Program at Human Rights Watch Iain Levine said “this decision and the spurious rationale should worry anyone concerned about Israel’s commitment to basic democratic values.”

Levine added that the Israeli regime’s “efforts to stifle the messenger signal that it has no appetite for serious scrutiny of its human rights record.”

Israeli forces injure two Palestinian minors

The developments come amid tensions between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

On Monday, two Palestinian minors sustained gunshot wounds after Israeli military forces raided Shuafat refugee camp in the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.

Local sources said dozens of Israeli police officers stormed the camp and ransacked several stores, prompting young men and teenagers to engage in clashes with them.

Israeli forces then used excessive amounts of tear gas and indiscriminately fired rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse the crowd.

As a result, a teenage schoolboy was struck in the chest with a rubber bullet. According to locals, Israeli soldiers kept the injured boy at a checkpoint for more than half an hour before an ambulance, followed by a military jeep, arrived at the scene, and took him to a hospital.

A 9-year-old girl was also hit in the foot and received treatment at a medical center in the camp. 

Moreover, Israeli soldiers detained and violently beat up a young Palestinian man during the scuffles.

The tensions first broke out in April 2015, when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Nearly 280 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces since the beginning of October that year, when the violence intensified.

Saudis lose South Korea oil market share to Iran

Figures show that Saudi Arabia has lost a significant share of South Korea’s oil market to Iran.   

The latest market figures show that South Korea’s imports of crude oil from Iran doubled in January.

Preliminary customs data show that Iran exported around 1.79 million tons of crude oil to Asia’s fourth largest oil buyer in January. 

The figure – which is equal to around 425,000 barrels per day (bpd) – is almost two times higher than that of the same period last year, Reuters said in a report.

This development takes market share away from Iran’s key rival, Saudi Arabia, added the report which was also carried by OilPrice.com.

South Korea’s imports of crude oil from Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia dropped by 17.3 percent in January compared to December 2016, to 785,084 bpd, as the Saudis are complying with a supply-cut deal agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).  

South Korea’s total crude oil imports from all oil-exporting nations increased by 14 percent annually to 2.93 million bpd in January, add the report quoting preliminary figures released by South Korea’s customs office.  

But the total January imports were 6.3 percent lower than the imports for December 2016, it said.

Among producers, Iran was the biggest beneficiary of a recent rise in South Korea’s consumption, with imports from it skyrocketing by 147.7 percent on Q3 2015.

Last December, OPEC reached a Saudi-proposed deal to reduce production by 1.2 million bpd but exempted Iran from any production cuts. 

Among producers, Iran was the biggest beneficiary of the rise in South Korea’s consumption, with imports from it skyrocketing by 147.7 percent on Q3 2015, Reuters further added in its report.

Platts energy news service in a report last week announced that Iran’s exports in January rose by 3 percent.  It added that Iran was the only Middle Eastern producer to see exports rise last month, as others, like Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, saw a fall in loadings, in line with agreed OPEC-led output cuts by crude producers.