Another 419 Economic Policy on Spare Parts

Cassiel Ato Forson

By Cassiel Ato Forson

Parliament has passed the Customs Amendment Bill 2017 into law subject to Presidential assent. Surprisingly, the object of the bill is to provide for a zero-rate of duties on SELECTED vehicular spare parts only.

Selected Spare parts:

It is interesting to note that the budget statement on page 136 paragraph 796 under tax incentives, the government proposed to abolish ALL duties on the importation of spare parts.

The government never said they were going to abolish duties on only selected vehicular spare parts.

It is, however, deceptive for a government that promised to abolish all duties on spare parts to turn around to abolish duties on some selected spare parts only.

Selected Duties:

In the budget statement page 136 paragraph 796, the government proposed to parliament to abolish all duties on the importation of all spare parts only for them to present a bill to Parliament that seeks to abolish only import duties on selected spare parts.

Duties such as 15% VAT, 2.5% NHIL, EDAIF levy, etc etc were conveniently excluded from the list of duties that the should have been abolished as communicated by the policy statement of the President.

Temporary Tax:

It is important for Ghanaians to understand that because Ghana has elected to be part of the ECOWAS Common Eternal Tariff, Ghana can only ask for exemptions up to 170 exempt lines for a period of 5years since 2015. After the expiry of the 5-year period, the exemption ceases to apply. This tax exemption can only be applicable until the year 2020. And cannot be a permanent tax exemption as we are made to believe.

ECOWAS EXTERNAL TARIFF:

It is also interesting to note that this government in their policy statement to parliament and other commentaries after the approval of the budget have maintained that this spare parts exemption are being delayed because they are waiting for an approval from Ecowas Common External Tariff Secretariat (CET).

Today, we are being informed that Ghana does not require CET approval because Ghana has 170 exempt lines which we have not exhausted. Is the government not aware that it would not require CET approval before using it as an excuse for the delay in its implementation, or it is because they wanted to collect the revenue as has been their stock-in-trade, that they announce a tax reduction with speed but fails to implement it?

I rest my case.

#419   #419   #419

Editorial

CUBA

It is obvious that US policy towards Cuba is about to change for the worse after President Obama came to the realisation that the Cuban people cannot be defeated.

Unfortunately the new man in the White House is not different from all those who have occupied the seat of government in the United States of America for more than 50 years.

They all believed that they could harass the Cuban people into submission to the dictates of imperialism.

Donald Trump is perhaps the worst of all those who have occupied the White House.

He has refused to learn the lessons of history and is determined to plunge his country into a needless confrontation with Cuba.

The Insight will continue to solidarise with the people of Cuba because their cause is just.

They want to be left alone to decide their own future and this is not too much to ask.

Local News:

Provide funds for Inclusive Education - PWDs

Some persons with disability in Ghana

Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) have appealed to government and relevant stakeholders in education to "immediately" make funds available to implement the inclusive education policy.

Mr Brandford Tay, Member, Steering Committee of Coalition of NGOs for Disabilities in Volta Region, said it was not enough for government to formulate the policy and challenged it to demonstrate commitment to it through funding.

He said the lack of funding to implement the policy had made most disabled children “passengers in schools...being promoted or repeated severally because they have no idea of what was being taught in class”.

Mr Tay was speaking at a PWDs stakeholder forum on special educational needs for children with disabilities.

He noted that some schools continued to reject children with disabilities with the excuse of no teaching and learning materials or special needs teachers, and described it as unfortunate.

Mr Tay bemoaned the non-conformity of key stakeholders in the educational sector and called on authorities to help address the challenge because there was the "social need" to integrate children with disabilities.

Some participants noted that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in filling forms prior to the final paper of this year's West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination made special arrangements for candidates with disabilities, but same was not done in previous papers and feared the candidates would be marked down.

They reiterated the call on government and district assemblies to involve PWDs in the preparation of budgets and allocation, especially in relation to education for all persons.

GNA

SIC Insurance supports 100 medical students for exchange programme abroad

Acting Managing Director Mr Faris Attrickie presents package

SIC Insurance, Ghana’s largest insurer as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, has presented a travel insurance sponsorship package to about one hundred Medical Students for this years’ exchange programme abroad organized by the International Federation of Medical Students’ Association (IFMSA).  

A total premium of $5,000 was paid by SIC Insurance to support the medical students with a sum insured of €30,000 per student.

Presenting the package to the medical students, the Acting Managing Director, Mr. Faris Attrickie, said education and health are priority areas for the company’s CSR activities. Adding that the gesture shows SIC Insurance’s commitment to help build the capacity of the nation’s medical practitioners.

He further added that training our young medical students must be paramount on the nation’s health care agenda and regardless of where the students study abroad, evidence have shown that the exposure is usually a defining moment in a young medical person's life and continues to impact the participant's life for years after the experience.

Mr. Attrickie challenged the medical student to use the opportunity as a catalyst to sharpen their maturity, empathy, support skills, and to gain related work experience that will equip them with the tools and on-the-job training needed to serve mother Ghana.

Speaking on behalf of the medical students, Mr. Asabere Kwabena Asante, the President of the University of Ghana Medical Students Association in the company of Ms. Efua Bridget Martin, the General Secretary and Mr. Aggrey Prince Amoabeng, the Organising Secretary, thanked SIC Insurance for the kind gesture.

I’m against scrapping Ghana Law School – Sophia Akuffo

Justice Sophia Akufo

By Mohammed Awal

The chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo has rejected calls for the scrapping of the Ghana School of Law.

“I’m not one of those who subscribe to [calls that] Ghana School of Law be scrapped,” she told the Appointments Committee of Parliament Friday during her vetting.

According to her, the Ghana School of Law “is a professional training facility…where the theories learnt in classrooms are supposed to be taught from a more practical point of view.”

Touching on the controversial issue of lawyers advertising on social media, Justice Akuffo said she considers the act despicable.

“I Am a 67-year-old woman and I believe that dignity at the bar is as important as dignity at the bench…the idea of lawyers touting themselves on Facebook is distasteful and aside that the law is clear and the law is against touting. Lawyers can have websites but the law doesn’t allow for advertising on social media,” Justice Akuffo told the committee.

Her comment comes in the wake of the suspension of popular Human Rights lawyer Francis Sosu for advertising on Facebook by the General Legal Council.

His suspension sparked a debate amongst a section of the public and some lawyers who argued that the law preventing legal practitioners from advertising was outmoded and needed to be repealed.

She also promised to leave a legacy that will ensure every Ghanaian feels secured to resort to the courts to settle disputes.

She said her utmost priority in terms of vision is to produce “quality judges” who will resort to technology to dispense justice to all.

“I’m sure people have been asking what my vision is, it is to ensure quality judges delivering quality justice with technology,” Justice Akuffo said during her vetting Friday, June 16, 2017 before the Appointments Committee of Parliament.

She promised to look into the working conditions of judges as she takes over the judiciary from her predecessor Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, who retired June 7, 2017.

Foreign News:

The Cuban Revolution: Still in motion

The late Commandante Fidel Castro

By Danny Haiphong

The author’s recent trip to Cuba confirmed his confidence in the power of people to transform their lives. It is also clear that “the US government has not stopped its ceaseless attack on the Cuban Revolution and probably never will as long as the US possesses an imperialist system.” Nevertheless, every Cuban he spoke to “reiterated how the revolution remains non-negotiable.”

A recent trip to Cuba by this author inspired the following letter. It is directed to the Cuban people. However, the deep connection between struggling workers and poor people here in the US and the Cuban revolutionary process compelled this author to write the letter for audiences in the US as well. In this time of crisis, it has become all the more important for people in the US to begin to see themselves as part of an interconnected humanity and not merely as the beneficiaries of empire. This letter seeks to strengthen the idea of solidarity toward this end.

To the Cuban People,

The people of the US owe a great debt to Cuba for the damage done by the empire that we live in. Because of US imperialism's continued hostility toward Cuba, millions of struggling workers here in the US have been stripped of the ability to learn from its neighbors just ninety miles away. The US empire's blockade has caused immeasurable suffering for the Cuban people and wasted precious resources better spent on the many needs of the poor and oppressed on the US mainland. My visit to Cuba not only confirmed many of the aspects of the revolution that I have admired for years, but also taught me about the nuanced challenges of a revolution in motion.

What is striking about the Cuban Revolution is how deeply it is embedded in the fabric of society. It is easy to wander upon the many monuments celebrating internationalist solidarity in Cuba. Monuments to Bobby Sands, Malcolm X, Salvador Allende, and Ho Chi Minh were a sight to see, indeed. In a conversation with a representative at the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), I learned that 60,000 Cubans are currently stationed throughout the African continent for medical and technical assistance. Such assistance is in keeping with the decades of solidarity Cuba has provided to African liberation movements fighting the scourges of colonialism and apartheid in Angola, Guinea Bissau, and Mozambique.

In the US, internationalist solidarity is the enemy of the ruling class. The tenets of private property and profit accumulation ensure that endless war is a requirement for the empire. While tens of thousands of Cubans give their lives to assist in the liberation of Africa, the US spends billions on maintaining instability on the continent via AFRICOM. In contrast, it was a beautiful experience to walk into a museum in Havana dedicated to African revolutionaries such as Kwame Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral. There is no question that Cuba takes great pride in its solidarity with Africa. The revolution has developed a socialist, humanistic people so desperately needed in the homeland of war and empire.

The people of the US have much to learn from Cuba's commitment to international solidarity. However, during my trip it became increasingly clear that the people of the US also have much to learn from the Cuban revolution in the field of domestic achievement. Walking the streets of Havana, one cannot find a single person who sleeps on the street or shelter due to homelessness. The United States is home to millions of homeless children and families. It is also the home of a crumbling, private healthcare system that privileges the profits of corporations over the health of the people. This is why the US healthcare system is without advancements like Cuba's Heberprot-B diabetic ulcer treatment or the lung cancer vaccine, medications that would benefit large numbers of people struggling to afford care for these ailments.

Housing and healthcare are well-known achievements of the revolution, at least outside of the United States. What is even less known in the US, however, is the vast amount of progress the Cuban revolution has made on the questions of sexuality and gender. My trip coincided with the national campaign against homophobia and transphobia led by CENESEX. To bear witness to the thousands of people in the streets dancing in celebration of trans and queer people was one of the most stunning sites I've witnessed in person. In the US, Black trans and queer people are murdered at alarming rates. In Cuba, I witnessed Afro-queer Cubans marching and dancing freely without fear of reprisal.

Of course, Cuba is not a utopia and the Cuban people were the first to let me know. Many challenges exist in maintaining the gains of the revolution and building upon them. Socialist democracy can be a slow process. New foreign investors in the hospitality industry, like Air B&B, do not always meet their end of the bargain. Salaries remain low and economic growth slow. Yet despite these challenges, every Cuban that I spoke to reiterated how the revolution remains non-negotiable. A high level of political debate was evident among the people, a testament to the strong sense of ownership Cubans possess over the socialist arrangement.

My trip to Cuba also reinforced how the decades-old US blockade against Cuba continues to shape the daily lives of the Cuban people. New infrastructure can be found next to crumbling infrastructure. Transportation across the island has been made more difficult since the fall of the Soviet Union. When President Raul Castro reported the need for economic growth to meet the needs of the people in 2016, he was not being dishonest. There is a general desire among the Cuban people to increase their productive and consumptive capabilities. However, a general consensus also exists that any such improvements must occur within the revolution.

But the blockade was not designed to advance the revolution, it was designed to strangle it. The hundreds of billions of dollars of potential wealth that has left the island since 1960 has made certain raw materials and supplies difficult for the island to obtain. By October of 2016, Obama had already fined forty-fine companies for a total of 14 billion dollars in damages for attempting to do business in Cuba. The US government has not stopped its ceaseless attack on the Cuban Revolution and probably never will as long as the US possesses an imperialist system. This makes US solidarity with Cuba all the more important in these changing times.

The single most important task for the people of the United States is to demand an end to the criminal blockade against Cuba. But first the people must understand why the blockade is criminal. They must understand how the blockade impedes the interests of not only the Cuban people, but the interests of the majority of people in the US as well. As the struggling masses in the US continue to suffer the maladies of capitalist rule, they will no doubt search of an alternative. My trip to Cuba confirmed that an alternative does exist. And I have the Cuban people to thank for that.

Long Live the Cuban Revolution!

* Danny Haiphong is an Asian activist and political analyst in the Boston area. He can be reachedatwakeupriseup1990@gmail.com This article previously appeared in Black Agenda Report.

Source: Pambazuka

Breaking ties with Qatar: A strange Arab conflict

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, then Yemen and Libya have announced a decision to terminate diplomatic relations with Qatar. As it was said, the reason for the move was Qatar's support for Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorist organizations (both are banned in Russia).

Egyptian officials said that the decision of the authorities to break off relations with Qatar was made after Egypt failed to persuade Doha to refuse from the support for the Muslim Brotherhood organization (banned in Russia as well). Representatives for the Yemeni authorities said that the relations with Qatar were terminated after it became clear that Qatar had ties with the groups that conducted a coup in the country.

On Monday morning, it became known that the UAE and Bahrain gave Qatari diplomats 48 hours to leave the country.

Later, representatives for the diplomatic mission of Qatar said that they regretted the decisions made and considered them as "unjustified measures based on unfounded allegations."

Pravda.Ru requested a commentary on the subject from Boris Dolgov, senior researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, candidate of historical sciences.

"How is the rupture of diplomatic relations between a number of Arab states and Qatar going to affect the political situation in the region?"

"First of all, it must be said that disagreements, even confrontations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have existed before for a long time. These are Islamic ideological differences, because Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia adheres to the Wahhabi ideology in its interpretation of Islamic dogma.

"Speaking of politics, Qatar was supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere. Presently, as is known, the Muslim Brotherhood proceeded to terrorist actions in Egypt. Qatar continues supporting them, albeit covertly. In Syria, Qatar also supports Islamist groups that stick to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Saudi Arabia also supports Islamist groups, but the ones that do not stick to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. There were incidents in Saudi Arabia when members of the Muslim Brotherhood would be arrested and accused of acting against the security of the country. This is happening in Bahrain now as well.

"This is an old conflict that has now aggravated. I do not think that it will dramatically change the state of affairs in the Middle East, because these contradictions have existed before.

Nothing is going to change considerably in the military situation in the Middle East either. Saudi Arabia announced that it would stop Qatar's actions in its military coalition against Yemeni Houthis. In general, however, Qatar's participation in those military operations was not serious at all. This will affect Qatar's covert financing of Islamist groups of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia's support for other similar groups.

"Diplomatically, the decision to break off diplomatic ties is very important, given the fact that Qatar is a member of the Council of Cooperation of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. This will have a very significant economic and political influence."

Pravda.Ru

Crisis of capitalism hits women workers hardest: whatever happened to women’s wage equality?

By Fred Weston

Working women have been struggling for complete equality in the workplace for over a century. In fact, a common thread running through many countries throughout the 20th Century was the struggle for “equal pay for work of equal value”, which meant irrespective of gender a worker should receive the same wage for the same kind of work. We are still not there, and with the onset of the crisis in 2008 things have begun to get worse.

According to a report published by The Economist in November 2011, “Back in the 1990s women in rich countries seemed to be heading towards a golden era.” It added that “Almost all rich countries have laws, passed mostly in the 1970s, that are meant to ensure equal pay for equal work, and the gap did narrow noticeably for a while when women first started to flood into the labour market.” It points out that in the United States for example, the differential between women’s and men’s wages has been reduced from 40% to 20% since the 1970s.

Significantly, however, it points out that most of this reduction came in the early years, and since then the process has slowed down. This one statistic underlines one important aspect Marxists have always maintained: class struggle, a generalised movement of workers for better wages and working conditions, is enormously beneficial for women workers.

The generalised rise in class struggle globally in the late 1960s and 1970s produced many reforms to the benefit of women, and not only in terms of wages and conditions. Other basic rights, such as the right to abortion or divorce, were won in many countries where they had not been previously recognised.

In the 1980s the class struggle declined as a result of the defeats on the trade union front, the British Miners’ Strike being one of the best examples of such defeats. With that defeat came an onslaught on all the gains of the past, both on wages and democratic rights, affecting male and female workers. But women, and working class women in particular, were hurt the most.

Impact of 2008 crisis

Over the past decade, in fact, a male graduate has had expected earnings on average 20% higher than a female graduate, but the gap was even wider for non–degree holders – i.e. less qualified labour – at 23% [source: http://gender.bitc.org.uk/].

The 2008 crisis, even The Economist admitted in its 2011 article, “has thrown a spanner in the works”. This was a reference to the effects of the cuts in public spending affecting public sector workers, which were “beginning to hit female employment disproportionately hard.”

In Britain the impact of the crisis on wage differentials between working men and women has been dramatic. Economists at the World Economic Forum in 2014 looked at the gender wage differential. Ranked out of 136 countries for gender wage equality, between 2006 and 2013, Britain went from 9th to 18th, but in one year alone, from 2013 to 2014, it dropped even more sharply to 26th.

Just in 2014 the average wage for women in the workplace fell by £2700 [€3500, $3800]. It is the first time ever that Britain has fallen out of the top 20 for gender wage equality. In fact, in 2014 average annual wages for women fell from £18,000 to £15,400, while for men the figure was stagnant at £24,800. Thus, the overall average annual wage differential increased from £6800 to £9400!

Situation even worse for young women workers

This big differential between female and male workers starts right at the beginning when young people enter the “labour market”. According to a poll commissioned by the Young Women’s Trust [Source: the Evening Standard, 7 September 2015], wages for male apprentices are 21 per cent higher than for their female equivalents. Young women earn on average £4.82 an hour compared to £5.85 for young men. On an annual basis, young women are £2000 worse off.

The Young Women’s Trust represents women in low-paid jobs under the age of 30. The reason for this situation is the same for women of all ages, i.e. women tend to work more in low pay sectors, such as healthcare, childcare and retail.

Dr Carole Easton of the Trust explained: “It is staggering that in the 21st century, certain employment sectors are hardly welcoming any young women; less than two per cent of construction apprentices are female and less than four per cent of engineering apprentices. Women are funnelled very early into a narrow range of opportunities, that are stereotypically gendered.”

The significance of this is that jobs in construction and engineering come with higher wages, which confirms the general point: there may well be gender equality in wages in these sectors, but very few women are employed in those high wage sectors.

Dr Easton added that “Women’s concerns may also be different, perhaps needing flexibility to look after children or for other caring responsibilities.” This highlights another discrimination women suffer from, the unspoken rule that they cannot have a career in certain sectors because sooner or later most of them will have children. For the capitalists, this is looked at in terms of cost. They would prefer not to have women who will at some point need to take time out of work, either to have children or later on to look after them. This channels women towards lower paid jobs.

It also explains another aspect which emerged from the same poll: close to one quarter of the women interviewed complained about not receiving any other training outside of work. The equivalent figure for young men was only 12%. This means that basically these young women are being used as cheap labour legally. They are employed to do work which often requires very little training, condemning them to a life of low-wage jobs.

More women in low wage sectors

How can all this be so, when there are laws that govern wage equality? The answer is clear when one looks at how the presence of women is not evenly spread across all types of employment, although they make up 47% of the overall workforce. For example, data from the Department for Education shows that in 2012 only two per cent of the early years workforce was male. Much of early years childcare is provided by private nurseries that pay most of their staff the minimum wage.

Women are also forced by family circumstances to take up low-pay part-time jobs. While 2.11 million men are employed in part time jobs the number of women is 5.85 million.

Today’s cleaning industry is another example. It has massively expanded since the 1970s and contributes annually over £8 billion to British GDP. It employs an estimated 446,000 people. Of these, an estimated 79 per cent are female and 78 per cent work part-time, and a large part is made up of immigrants. Most cleaning firms apply the law by having “equality policies”, the point is that most of them also “respect the law” by applying the National Minimum Wage! [Source] Those employed illegally – and on much lower wages – are clearly not included in these statistics.

The 2008 crisis has had a similar impact worldwide on male to female wage differentials. According to an ILO report, a similar process has taken place to what we have seen in Britain: “Globally, gender gaps in unemployment and employment trended towards convergence in the period 2002 to 2007,” but then “grew again with the period of the crisis from 2008 to 2012 in many regions.”

If we were to look at the real position of women globally, the picture would be even worse: slave-like conditions exist in some countries, with no legal rights to fight back. Women are often forced to sell themselves merely to survive day-to-day. The present crisis for them is an utter nightmare.

However, there is good news for some women! The Economist, being what it is, the mouthpiece of the British capitalist class, in its 2011 article dedicated a part of its analysis to women who make it up the ladder, to the top of companies as CEOs, etc. The “good news” here is that in 2014 “there was a small increase in the percentage of women in senior official and managerial positions up from 34% to 35%...” [The Independent, 28 October 2014].

Role of trade unions

Like in all questions, women’s living conditions are determined by the class they belong to, only the situation is far worse for them. As in the 1970s, it is only through united working class struggle that women’s rights in the workplace can be defended and improved. The problem we have is that today’s trade union leaders are not leading the fight, either for men or for women. They are accepting rotten deal after rotten deal. Left to them real wages for all workers will go down, and for women it will be even worse!

However, in spite of the limitations of the trade union leaders in Britain, “The wages of women union members are on average 30% higher than those of non-unionised women” [Source]. This reveals how historically the trade unions have been essential in raising women’s wages. Although there remains much to be done, the trade unions have played a key role in improving women’s wage levels and working conditions. This applies to workers in general, both men and women: “The average hourly wage for non-unionised workers in the private sector is £12.64. For union members, it’s £13.67. The ‘union premium’ is even bigger for young workers from ages 16-24, who earn 39% more than their non-unionised colleagues (that’s £7.84 to £10.18)”

The overall workforce in Britain is now over 29 million strong. Of these 6.4 million are in a union - less than 25%. Working women are therefore around 15 million (47% of the total). Up to the mid-1980s, trade union membership had been growing, having reached around 45% of the overall workforce. Especially since the defeat of the miners’ strike, however, membership has been in decline. This simple fact alone reveals how a defeat for the miners (male workers) was also a defeat for women workers in general, as the statistics for wage levels between union and non-union jobs clearly demonstrate.

An interesting development on the trade union front is that now in Britain women make up a majority, 55%, of the trade union membership. That means there are 3.5 million women in the unions, making the trade unions by far the largest women’s organisations in the country. The problem is of course that there are over ten million women who are not organised.

These millions of downtrodden working women are forced to keep their heads down for fear of losing their jobs. But all of history shows that once the working class as a whole reawakens, women are at the forefront. In the coming period, millions of young women will be forced to stand up for their rights and they will lead the struggle. They have a lot to fight for, both in terms of defending what is left of the past gains and fighting for real wage equality and for a living wage for all. Together with demands on wages will also come demands such as good quality childcare available for all parents, more flexible working hours, and the right to take time out of work – for both mothers and fathers – without this endangering women’s jobs and careers.

The women in the unions today and the millions who will come into them in the future will also play a key role in transforming the unions and breaking with the culture of moderation and collaboration with the bosses which many union leaders had become accustomed to in the past. In the process of struggle they will also draw the necessary conclusion that a system based on maximising profits is never going to grant full equality, but will continue to use every means possible to divide workers not just according to gender but also according to nationality, colour of skin, religion and so on. The system itself needs to be uprooted and replaced with one based on the real needs of men and women. That system can only be socialism.