Ahead of Ghana’s Official Oil Outdooring Ceremony

Tomorrow will see Ghana’s oil officially outdoored to the merry of Ghanaians and the vigilance of the outside world.

Ghana found its oil in commercial quantities in 2007 by the help of the UK firm Tullow Oil after several attempts by the Ghana National Petroleum Commission to discover the ‘black gold’proved unsuccessful though the commission was able to collect relevant data that helped Tullow Oil in its discovery

This oil find has raised the expectations of many Ghanaians including the then President John Agyekum Kuffuor whom with joy said “with oil as a shot on the arm, we’re going to fly”.

As President Mills goes to officially outdoor the oil tomorrow, I want to say a big AYEKOO to Ghanaians and I pray that we come together as good citizens to protect this resource in order that it becomes benefitial to us.

Controversies have already stirred up with the collateralization clause in the petroleum law. The minority in parliament want the revenues from the oil to be banked for future use while the majority want part of the revenue to be used as collaterals in procuring loans in order to hasten infrastructural developments of the country.

As it stands now, the collateralization clause has been approved by parliament and all we can do as a country is to rally behind the petroleum law, safeguard it and ensure the oil revenue is used judiciously so that in the future will be able too tell our own unique positive  oil story.

Congratulations to Ghanaians and may God bless our homeland Ghana.

Newspaper Reviews: A Factor to Ghana’s Irresponsible Media

With the incessant call on responsible journalism and a positively functioning media in the country, I want to put to the fore the bane of all these media fallacies.

The too many newspaper review shows both on the televisions and the numerous radios stations across the country have put us in this state.

It is a surety that one will wake up each morning to the shout and outbursts on the various especially radio stations in the country and the unfortunate thing is that only the political news items take center stage of these discussions.

I must hereby commend such FM stations as X fm, Citi fm and Joy fm for keeping true to the course of national development in the country. I think so far they are yet to have partisan political newspaper review shows throughout the week.

It is a fact that the print media has shaped the kind and nature of discourse in the country through the help of the radio stations. It is also true that the political parties been aware of this are using their favourite newspapers to champion their political agendas.

What the political parties do is to contact these newspaper editors to put out stories that will be strategic and advantageous to their motives and most often than not these stories are very untrue. The radio stations then pick these stories up and go the extra mile contacting controversial persons who will add more flavor to the stories.

And our media is in this state because we have decided to reduce our national attention to who wins the 2012 general elections and in an attempt to outwit each other these political parties through their newspapers end up churning out falsehood. I ask myself, after 2012 do we again concentrate on who wins 2016?

While all these political stories are been debated, majority of us do not have access to pipe-borne water, the lights come and go anyhow, foreign investors are taking all the money away

It is my suggestion therefore that we restrict if not ban the partisan political discussions we have on the airwaves by taking out the representatives of the political parties from participating in these discussions for it is them who make the reviews unimportant and rather bring competent and non-aligned citizens to talk about national development.

As I write this article, I am listening to speeches of our founder Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and he is categorically confronting the challenges of his time.

God bless our Homeland Ghana.

The Irish: Copy Cats of Prez. Mills’ Austerity Measures

Ireland’s finance minister, Brian Lenihan is planning an initial $8billion of cost cuts in the toughest budget in the country’s history as reported by BBC on the 7^th of December this year.

This brings to memory, the path our president John Mills chose in order to save the economy as claimed by him; the path of austerity.

Since the coming into office of Prez. Mills, his government has always maintained that the 2009 and 2010 budgets that was approved by parliament were austerity budgets necessitated by the fact that the government needed to bring home the economy that was experiencing increasing inflation, destabilization of the cedi, high debt rates among others.

Another budget that is the 2011 budget has been read and approved by parliament. Though the finance minister Dr. Kwabena Duffuor claims this year’s budget is one that will foster economic growth and create more jobs, some tax components have been revised with the opposition alarming that the budget will rather make the citizens poorer.

Comparing what we have been through and hopefully coming out of to that of current happenings in Ireland, I think the Irish government has taken a cue from Prez. Mills’ policies.

The Irish finance minister is slashing down on child benefit and social welfare spending by 5%. Also thousands of public sector jobs will go, civil service pay freeze will be imposed and a reformation of the tax system that will bring more Irish people in the tax net.

These measures are not too different from those undertook by our government; freeze on public sector employment, introduction of new taxes, just to mention a few.

Even statements made by government officials from both sides concur. An Irish independent member of parliament  Mr. Michael Lowry said “ This budget is going to be harsh, it’s going to be extremely difficult”. He also said “People will be angry but if we are to survive into the future and if we want to restore our economy, these difficult and harsh decisions have to be made.”

Putting the MP’s statements side by side to that made by Prez. Mills and his vice that Ghanaians should fasten their belts for the tough times to come and after that economic growth.

Some people in Ghana are very comfortable comparing everything we do in our country to that done in the west. These people criticized strongly Mills’ measures and added that the president lacked initiatives because he did not go the path the westerners went in order to save the country such as bailing out the economy.

With these same policies coming from the west adding to that of Greece and the UK, I want to know if these people think that our president is vindicated or still lacks initiatives.

God bless our homeland Ghana.

A Service I Rendered to Mother Ghana

I have always seen myself as a patriotic and a dedicated child of our dear country. For this reason I have tried hard in contributing positively to the success of the country in Africa that will one day lead the world. I take inspiration from the selflessness of our founder and first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

In pursuit of this agenda I have never shut the door to volunteerism. At the close of last semester of last academic year I fought hard to get my department t the University where I study to issue me with an introductory letter for an attachment (you can call it internship). This was supposed to make it easy for me to render my services freely to one of the institutions in my locality.

Unfortunately my desire to work for a rural bank because of my area of study in Mathematics and Statistics was shattered when three to four attempts to get myself attached to the institution failed. I just could not believe I was refused to work freely for that institution even when I bore an introductory letter from a reputable university in the country. But for the fact that it is a private bank I was not so bothered.

Back on campus that semester, I had lobbied my student association (Mathematics Students’ Association of Ghana) to put me on the list of students there were sending out to the National Health Insurance Scheme for attachment.

Luckily this one worked out. I was offered a temporary job as a registration officer at the Adenta Mutual Health Insurance Scheme. I think it worked out  because it was a public institution and also that  I may have impressed the manager at the short interview conducted to test my competence.

I started work immediately, and before I could blink an eye I fell so much in love with the task assigned me. I was seeing to the new registrations, renewals and replacement of Insurance cards for all manner of persons in the society. I was particularly happy attending to pregnant women who came to register for the free maternal care cards.

But this was not to last forever, my time of three months was up and I was supposed to leave back to school. I learnt a lot and gathered enough  experience as I look forward to joining the world of work one day. Among the things I learnt are:

First , it is true what they say that we should for once as Ghanaians move away our eyes of scrutiny from the politicians and put them on civil servants. I believe  they come ,if not top of the list, second to the politicians when it comes to wastage of the country’s resources. Truancy, late arrival to work are some of the bad habits these people have.

Second, the Health Insurance Scheme should be given more attention. After one pays to be hooked onto the scheme it lasts a period of not less than five months for the applicant to receive his/her card and during this period, all the applicant can do is to pray he/she does not fall sick.

I also suggest all district schemes be networked to the main scheme. This will ensure all applications are processed in time. This will also make it easy for transfers from one scheme to another be easily monitored and done.

Aside these challenges, I really enjoyed my service to the nation. I was not offered any remunerations but I got satisfied from the fact that somehow someway my country is moving on.

God bless our homeland Ghana.