KT Hammond: Government is ’sitting’ on reasons for fuel shortage

A former Deputy Energy Minister, KT Hammond has blamed the continued shortage of fuel on the shut down of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).

He said the refinery supplies more than 60 per cent petrol to the public and its shut down has had a devastating effect on the country.

Fuel stations in some parts of the country have been hit by fuel shortages in the past few days, coming with its attendant queues.

Government sources have attributed the shortage to delays in the arrival of oil vessels expected to supply petrol to the country and promised to end the shortage by close of day, Monday, 28th September, 2009.

Joy News checks at a few of the stations in Accra on Tuesday, revealed improvements but the situation is yet to normalize.

Speaking to Joy FM’s Dzifa Bampoe on Tuesday, the former Deputy Energy Minister under the Kufuor administration said the shortage is a clear case of the “chicken coming home to roost.”

The vociferous critic of the NDC accused the government of peddling falsehood and hiding the real reasons for the shortage.

TOR has been shut down for nearly eight months, a decision government explains is to manage a colossal debt inherited from the previous government.

But that, Hammond insists, is a flimsy excuse.

He argued that the Kufuor administration was confronted with a similar challenge of indebtedness but was able to resolve it within a few months in government.

Even though he conceded that government had succeeded in reviewing the contract with Nigeria to provide 45 barrels of crude oil instead of 30 initially agreed with the Kufuor administration, he said the barrels have been held up because TOR has been shut down.

He has called on government to be forthright with the people of Ghana.

Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana

Ghana Pundit

A question for President Mills, Who doesn’t owe?

I heard our dear President Atta Mills on peacefm addressing the chiefs and people of Tain telling them how the debt his predecessor incurred is preventing him from delivering on his campaign promises.

I was surprised because I have heard the same complain from the President when he addressed the Chiefs and people of Goaso.

I still do not know why the President and his vice are spending a lot of effort telling Ghanaians about the debt we owe when farmers need irrigation facilities. Is Ghana the only country that owes money?

Even Banks and powerful multinational corporations whose entire asset may be bigger than Ghana’s economy do owe.

Even big super power nations like US, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, Canada, Italy and France owe hundreds of billions of dollars but we do not hear them complain or blame their predecessors everyday.

Rather we have heard the numerous efforts they are making to solve the many problems confronting their citizens. Healthcare, education, investment in roads, energy, fast electric trains, harbours, telecommunication, irrigation, silos, housing and many others. This is the direct opposite of what my President and his ministers have been doing for the past six months.They have spent ours and days telling Ghanaians about how much we owe without doing anything concrete to alleviate the sufferings of Ghanaians.

I would like the President or his Minister of Finance to ask the US authorities how much they owe China. According to Ron Paul, a member of the US House Banking Committee, US owes China about 2 & 1/2 trillion American dollars but do we hear Obama using every opportunity to complain to Americans how Bush built over one trillion dollar debt for them to pay? No. He is bussy selling his policies and programs to the American people.

Since taking office Obama has implemented a stimulus package aimed at helping struggling businesses to stay in competition and to stabilise the US economy. He has directed that Guantanamo Bay detention Camp be closed. He has reached agreement with Russia to cut down the number of nuclear arsenals that each country has. He is working hard to withdraw US combat forces from Iraq by 2011. He is working with Congress to send more American troops to Afghanistan to contain the Taliban and bring stability in that war torn nation. He has made US a key player in the fight against global warming and Climate change, an unthinkable thing under the Bush administration. He is working hard to get US Congress to pass his Healthcare Bill that would overhaul US Healthcare system and makes it more affordable to all Americans at a cheaper cost. He has sent his envoys to the Middle East to get the Palestinians and Israelis talking again in the hope of finding solution to the ME problem. His Ministers are everywhere in the world to repair broken bridges in the international system. In what has been called US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue he has acknowledged that the future of our planet and what happens in this 21st Century would be shaped by what goes on between his country and China, as a result he has declared a new era of cooperation, not confrontation with China.All these he has done within six months of taking office, the same period that your Excellency President Mills has occupied our Castle. What makes Obama’s efforts so enviable is that these are the issues he campaigned to address when elected and he seems pretty anxious to deliver.

On the other hand since President Mills tool office, inflation has been soaring hitting 20% in May. Fuel prices are up 30% today than they used to be 6 months ago.Unemployment is rising steadily with companies like Vodaphone promising to slash over 950 jobs.

Our currency the cedi has lost more than 30% of its value. Simply put Ghanaians cannot associate President Mills’ administration with a new project, programme or a maintainance of what was existing before he took office.

All that we have been hearing from the President are complaints of debts, pleading for more time and confiscation of cars which are relatively less important compared to the many daunting problems confronting Ghanaians and our nation. Readers should not get me wrong. I am not saying confiscating stolen state assets or asking former ministers to account for their stewardship are not important, what I am saying is that it should not take 80 to 90% of government time, energy and resources.

Religious over zealousness + illiteracy + ignorance+poverty = Northern Nigeria Violence

Northern Nigeria is burning. Over 400 hundred people have perished with their lives. Churches and police offices have been torched while properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been destroyed.The violence was started by a group of a bunch of illiterates and over zealous Muslims called Boko Haram – which means “Western education is prohibited”. The group frowns on anything western.They preach against people who receive education, and are having dignified standard of living. They advocate for the use of Sharia law but have no understanding how it works. Newspapers in Nigeria have written extensively about how bad educated women in Northern Nigeria are treated. They are often denied jobs and made to endure 17th Century slavery style environment.Northern Nigeria attracted a lot of media attention when polio immunisation programme was stopped because Imams and local leaders thought it could make the people impotent. Lack of understanding and appreciation of scientific innovation was largely responsible for the immunisation saga. Northern Nigeria still remains one of the areas in the world where polio still remains wide spread. Religious and communal violence in northen Nigeria is very common. It is very difficult to dignose the causes of violence in Northern Nigeria but there is one effective way to pin down the cause{s} of the ever present violence and that is religious over zealousness, illiteracy poverty, and ignorance combined with religious beliefs and practices that the people have little or no understand of as the main text of the Quoran is written in Arabic and very few can read and understand the text.

Northern Nigeria is burning. Over 400 hundred people have perished with their lives. Churches and police offices have been torched while properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been destroyed.

The violence was started by a group of a bunch of illiterates and over zealous Muslims called Boko Haram – which means “Western education is prohibited”. The group frowns on anything western.They preach against people who receive education, and are having dignified standard of living. They advocate for the use of Sharia law but have no understanding how it works. Newspapers in Nigeria have written extensively about how bad educated women in Northern Nigeria are treated. They are often denied jobs and made to endure 17th Century slavery style environment.

Northern Nigeria attracted a lot of media attention when polio immunisation programme was stopped because Imams and local leaders thought it could make the people impotent. Lack of understanding and appreciation of scientific innovation was largely responsible for the immunisation saga.

Northern Nigeria still remains one of the areas in the world where polio still remains wide spread. Religious and communal violence in northen Nigeria is very common. It is very difficult to dignose the causes of violence in Northern Nigeria but there is no doubt that religious over zealousness, illiteracy,  poverty, and ignorance combined with religious beliefs and practices that the people have little or no grasp with have contributed to the violence.

Should ACP Kofi Boakye be reinstated Director of Police Operations?

The Vice President, John Dramani Mahama, has given the strongest indication yet that government would soon consider suggestions for the reinstatement of the former Director of Operations of the Ghana Police Service, ACP ACP Kofi Boakye. This follows the swearing-in of the new Police Council by President Mills at the Castle on Tuesday. ACP Boakye was indicted in 2006 on the recommendations of the Georgina Wood Committee which investigated the famous MV Benjamin cocaine saga. The recommendations led to successful prosecution and conviction of Musa Abbas and Amaning but the conviction was quashed upon appeal on 24/07/2009. Former President Kuffour before leaving office recommended that the former director should be reinstated. However, given the scale of drug related incidences in Ghana and more especially the cocaine saga in which ACP Kofi Boakye came to be associated do you think that the government should reinstate him?

Ghana: Mr. President please find some work for BNI to do

Mr. President I hope you agree with me that at the moment the Bureau of National Investigation has lost it focus and has nothing to do for the nation’s internal security despite the millions of dollars that is being spent on its personnel and operations. And you also agree with me that the idle hands of members of the BNI have forced them to engage in activities that can only be described as unconstitutional. I strongly believe that because the BNI has nothing more important to do that is why its operatives have resorted to harassment, arrests, detentions and engaging in activities that are prerogative of our police force.

I am no security expert but I do know that the work of BNI should not be snatching of cars or getting involved in matters that are the prerogative of the office of state protocol. I think the BNI as an internal security Service is responsible for protecting Ghanaians against organised crime syndicates. I also believe the work of the BNI is to provide intelligence to counter threats to our national security as well as provide information on the current major threats facing Ghana such as armed robbery and drug trafficking. I also think the BNI is responsible for providing security and expert security advice designed to help businesses and organisations protect themselves against rogue persons and institutions operating from within and outside the country. I believe BNI was established as an intelligence gathering institution and not to engage in investigations of petty crimes.

Mr. President let your security team inform you on the work and operations of M15 and other major intelligence organisations and compare it with what BNI is doing to see whether car snatching and seizure of passports are what BNI should be doing. Look at the Act that created the BNI carefully and see if it is acting in accordance with the powers and functions that the Act sets out.

Again lets us carefully read President Obama’s speech over again and see if the recent actions by BNI are in line with the issues President Obama spoke about. Just consider this comment, “history offers a clear verdict: governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not”. I do not believe the will of many Ghanaians is to see opponents of NDC harassed, arrested and detained. That is not the wish of Ghanaians, that is the wish of a few individuals in the ruling government who are hell bent on using the BNI to cause mayhem to members of the opposition.Is the actions of BNI not more likely to cause political stalemate in the country which I believe the people and our economy do not want? How successful will your government be if it continues on the path of arrests and detentions?

President Obama praised Ghana and said: “Time and again, Ghanaians have chosen Constitutional rule over autocracy, and shown a democratic spirit that allows the energy of your people to break through. We see that in leaders who accept defeat graciously, and victors who resist calls to wield power against the opposition”. The above statements by Obama are true except the part that talks about victors. Mr. President you and your party are the victors Obama was referring to. But just be sincere to yourself, is it true that you have resisted calls to wield power against members of the opposition? Ex-President Kufoour, Adim Odoom, Albert Ampong,Wereko Brobbey, Mr. Asamoah Boateng, Mrs. Asamoah Boateng, Dr. Ken Attafuah, Col. Damoah, Mpiani, Kwasi Osei-Adjei are these the people you have resisted calls to wield power against? Why are they in court then, why do they report to the BNI almost on a daily basis and why have you terminated their appointments despite the fact that they were capable of what they were doing unlike some characters in your government that Ex-President Rawlings described as mediocre? http://ghanapundit.blogspot.com/2009/07/ghana-finance-minister-arrested.html

Again Obama said: “Repression takes many forms”. Do you agree with me that the actions of BNI against some citizens of our nation fit perfectly in what Obama calls repression? Obama said the repressions are “not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end”. Will you end it?

Is the BNI not behaving as if we are under an autocracy as former President Kuffour said in his recent interview with the BBC?http://ghanapundit.blogspot.com/2009/07/kufuor-laments-over-poor-govt-treatment.html

I want you to seek some opinion from the Diplomatic Community in Ghana about what the BNI is doing. Let us ask ourselves whether our development partners are happy with the treatment of former president John Kuffour and ex-ministers of state by your government and the BNI. In the interest of our young democracy let us ask ourselves if there is any legitimacy in the claim by Kuffour that he is being disrespected and mistreated by your government and agents of the state. And let us ask ourselves whether arresting former ministers and denying them lawyers during questioning can help us to build the prosperous nation that Obama spoke about.

Mr. President, even if the BNI has a role to play in the ongoing issues involving former ministers, I do not think the scale and magnitude of their alleged crimes warrant the involvement and heavy handedness of the BNI.

We know how drug barons, traffickers and peddlers are using the country as a hub for their illegal activities. Our ports and harbours have become den of drug barons and traffickers. It is an indisputable fact that drug barons pose more security threat to our democracy, economic and political cohesion of our nation than Mrs. Asabea Boateng and her children. Just yesterday 24/07/2009 the Appeal Court freed two convicted drug barons and we know the threat organised drug syndicates pose to our dear nation. Wouldn’t it be right Mr. President, to devote resources to the BNI and direct them to fight the ticking time bomb that is waiting to explode which has already claimed casualties in places like Guinea Bissau?

We know how the problem of armed robbery is seriously eroding the confidence the business community have in Ghana. It is without question that armed robbers pose unimaginable security threat to the economic foundation of our dear nation than former ministers, their wives and children.

I am suggesting to you that if you cannot find anything better for the BNI to do other than snatching cars, then please do the honourable thing by dissolving that unit and let us not waste tax payers’ money on it. At least that money can better be used to provide clean drinking water for the people in Cape Coast whom you campaigned to save from poverty and hunger but who are yet to receive any help from your administration.

Mr. President you must know how sensitive it is to use State Security agencies like BNI to arrest and detain former officials, more so when we claim to be a democratic nation that advocates for rule of law, protection of human rights and human dignity.Besides, what at all is the BNI doing at the moment regarding the financial investigations that our Justice Ministry cannot do? Doesn’t the Ministry of Justice have enough men and resources to conduct the investigations that BNI is conducting?

I want you to find time to read all the messages you delivered during your election campaign and marry what you said at the time with what you and your men are doing. Do not be blinded by power and remember that just seven months ago the NPP was in power.

We cannot build a prosperous nation based on witch hunting, harassment, confiscations, threats of imprisonment, revenge and mistreatments. Those belong to the AFRC and PNDC era but you know that it is past and gone. So anytime you send your attack dogs to the camp of your opponents remember Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Gunea, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Central Africa Republic for they were all once peaceful nations.

I would like to end here but the next time I write you I will find out what percentage of our exports is high tech. I will find out the number of young entrepreneurs your government has helped to start their own businesses. I will find out about the number of jobs you have created and whether illiteracy has fallen. I will find out whether the fuel shortages has gone away and whether energy problem that is driving away investors has been solved.I will find out whether Accra, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Sunyani, Ho, Koforidua and Kumasi have been connected with fast electric trains. I will find out how many Ghanaians will earn $ 20,000 annually and whether child malnourishment and mortality have fallen.

I hope your government will spend the rest of its remaining time in office to make the nation more secure, more peaceful, more united and more prosperous than ever before, for this is the sole reason why you were elected and it continues to remain your sole duty as government.Think about these and compare it with BNI harassments and see which of them will advance the cause of peace for Ghana and make Ghana and Ghanaians better off.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

Armed robbery in Ghana: Is the Police winning the war?

Who is telling the truth about the economy, NPP or NDC?

As NDC moves to take over from the NPP following their electoral victories the NDC bigwigs are claiming that Ghana’s economy is broke. NPP has however countered those claims as false and points to 7.3% expansion of the economy and the GDP which quadruppled in 2008. The economy is broke, no it is not broke debate between NDC and NPP looks set to continue as the NDC begins to go through documents handed to her by the out-going NPP government.

So who is telling the truth about the economy NDC or NPP?

Which is most Corrupt Party in Ghana NDC or NPP?

When they were in opposition the National Democratic Congress [NDC] constantly accused the New Patriotic Party [NPP] of being corrupt and the accusation continued when President Mills government took office. The NPP has been accused by the NDC for appropriating millions of dollars during the celebration of Ghana@50. The NPP has also been accused of making profits from the building of the Jubilee House built to house the presidency. The allegation has forced President Mills to delay moving into House. The allegations against the NPP seem to go on by the day with P.C. Appiah Ofori a member of the NPP party going public to accuse Members of Parliament belonging to the NPP. He accused them of receiving $5000 each during the sale of Ghana Telecom in which they were asked to vote to support the motion.

The NPP too has countered the NDC’s accusations by pointing to the massive corruption that existed during the 11 years of PNDC and 8 years of NDC. They also point to recent revelations that suggest the NDC transition team spent a whopping 3.61 billion cedis on tea and water within two months.

NPP also points to revelations in Nigeria and Ghana newspapers that the Governor of Rivers State of Nigeria Mr. Rotimi Amaechi paid $3.5 million to ex-President Rawlings which was used to bankroll their 2008 election campaign that brought them victory.

NPP says the NDC is like a silver calling the kettle black and points to recent information in public domain that Mahama Ayariga the spokesperson for President Mills has illegally acquired five tractors meant for poor Ghanaian farmers. He took five tractors meant for underprivileged farmers and paid for only one whose price was further reduced for him.

NPP says the NDC should shut because it has no moral right to accuse its members of corruption. They accused the NDC of shady deals and point to Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak who used his office as a charity buying pampas, khebab and travelling around with his girl friend.

And as if that is not enough Nana Ohene-Ntow, the General Secretary of the NPP in a hot exchange with Kofi Adams has called on Jerry Rawlings to come clean if he is not corrupt. Nana Ohene-Ntow told Adams who doubles as the spokesperson for Rawlings and NDC Deputy Youth Organiser, “he [Rawlings] should tell Ghanaians how he got money to build his mansion at Agyirigannon, how he financed his children’s fees abroad, and those who provided him the 4 wheel drive vehicles.If he fails to provide the hard facts, he should desist from disturbing the peace of this country”.

With no ending sight to accusations and counter accusations of corruption in Ghana which party can be considered most corrupt?

Story by Lord Aikins Adusei

Sorry It is a Promise I cannot Keep – ‘ Atta Mills’

During the 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections the ruling National Democratic Congress in Ghana which was in opposition accused the then ruling New Patriotic Party of being insensitive to the plight of Ghanaians especially regarding the the price of fuel and other petroleum products which the NDC considered too expensive at the time. The NDC supported by Committee for Joint Action gurus made drastic reduction of fuel prices and putting money in people’s pockets core campaign messages.

Ghanaians taking drastic reduction to be drastic reduction AND NOT INCREASE voted for the NDC hopping that the NDC would keep its promise. When the budget was read in 2009 there was sadness and anger in many homes and a complete disappointment in the Mills administration as the drastic reduction turned out to be a 30% increase in fuel prices.

When reminded of the promise he made to Ghanaians during the elections, President Mills denied knowledge of the 30% increase and officials of NDC were caught trying to put a public face on what was clearly an embarrassment. Kwesi Pratt a hardcore member of CJA and ardent NDC campaigner has publicly condemn the increase. Despite the call for the government to review the increase nothing seems to have been done. Most Ghanaians now consider the increase as another deceit and lies of NDC and the political establishment saying we voted for the NDC because we thought they would deliver.

But what many Ghanaians have not realised is that promises and pledges of we will do this and that are just words. In short what President Mills is saying with the 30% increase is that “It is sad I made that promise but I am sorry it is a promise I cannot keep”. So if he is sorry he cannot keep his promise will you advice yourself when there is an election today?

Despite the increase Accra was yesterday hit by fuel shortages with taxi drivers and other motorists moving from one filling station to the other just to fill their tanks.

Will you vote for a party based on promises?