Although some persons in the opposition National Democratic Congress [NDC], have punched holes into the vision, Hanna Tetteh in a twitter post  said the vision must be pursued in a “bipartisan and inclusive manner” because it is about Ghana and not the governing New Patriotic Party [NPP].

“Ghana beyond Aid” should be a national aspiration as it would mean self sufficiency & prosperity but it is not achievable during the 2 years left of this govts term, it’s essentially a medium term goal & therefore the effort to get there should be bipartisan & inclusive

— Hanna Tetteh (@HannaTetteh) March 15, 2018

Hanna Tetteh made the remark in response to Citi FM’s tweet about the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, calling on directors of the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies not to sabotage the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ initiative.

[contextly_sidebar id=”YfI8BpJI5A1rqc3GhApz2ohMfApiOWRI”]“Our Chief Directors and other heads of ministries, departments and agencies who are at the helm of affairs have the arduous task of leading your respective institutions towards the success of these programs,” Bawumia said when he addressed the Chief Directors at a recent dialogue session.

Hanna Tetteh also urged the governing party to put Ghana first while seeking to make the vision possible.

It’s not about the NPP Government, it’s about our country Ghana & we should distinguish between the two. We may not agree with them on how to achieve that goal & can criticise their policies, but we should also want good things for Ghana that make us stronger & more prosperous

— Hanna Tetteh (@HannaTetteh) March 15, 2018

About Ghana Beyond Aid 

Since he assumed office, Akufo-Addo has reiterated his resolve to grow the country’s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence, and ensuring its development using local resources.

Nana Akufo-Addo, who has on various national and international platforms emphasized his belief that Ghana, like many other African countries, is endowed with enormous resources to guarantee its growth, recently caught global attention when he made a strong case for his position at an event which had French President Emmanuel Macron as a guest.

Many have declared their support for the agenda which the government says is without a timeline, but hopes that it becomes a paradigm and an approach that will ensure the country is able to internally mobilize enough resources to finance its major policy and programs.

Ghana aid mantra a mere rhetoric – Amissah-Arthur

Some members of the opposition National Democratic Congress have also been expressing their views on the vision.

Former Vice President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur described it  as a mere rhetoric.

“I’m comfortable if ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is saying we will only borrow for capital investment and not recurrent obligation. But the problem has not been defined for me to understand it. It is just the rhetoric. It sounds nice, but what goes into it? People will support it, if they understand what the objective is. As at now, everybody is left to define it how he understands it, and then to decide to support it or to oppose it,” he said.

Ghana Beyond Aid: ‘We won’t say no to gifts’ – Oppong Nkrumah

The government has clarified that its ‘Ghana Beyond Aid agenda is not intended to reject support from donors, but rather depend on local resources for the execution of its planned programs.

A Deputy Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who made the statement on the Eyewitness News on Thursday said the government had outlined major policy pillars to drive the agenda by ensuring that enough resources were generated locally to enable the government carry out all its major developmental programs.

–

By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is about Ghana, not NPP – Hanna Tetteh appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Although I’m suspicious of politicians who always say the right things, I found Nana Addo’s speeches on the campaign trail inspiring. There was a sense of urgency in his statements, something that said he believed Ghana could do better for its citizens. I suspect this is because his predecessor, an alleged communications expert, rarely said anything profound and was stunningly incompetent. There was something else too: I recognized from all his speeches that Nana Akufo-Addo meant well and wanted to do more with the little that Ghana had. His inaugural address at the Black Star Square where he said many refreshing and uplifting things, such as, “Sixty years after attaining nationhood, we no longer have any excuses for being poor,” had me swooning. Finally, I thought, we had a man who hated mediocrity and was going to right the wrongs.

It has been one year and three months since President Akufo-Addo’s awe-inspiring inaugural speech and my faith in him is flickering at best and extinguished at worst. Here is why: In 2017 he established a Sanitation Ministry, promised to spend 200 million Ghana cedis to clean Ghana and then announced that he was going to make Accra the cleanest city on the continent. I didn’t consider the Sanitation Ministry a useful creation, but I yielded, believing it may be what the government needs to finally free us from the filth drowning us across the country. But a year after that declaration, Accra is still submerged under piles of rubbish and I don’t see a coherent way forward. To think that donor agency recently paid for adverts in newspapers urging Ghanaians not to practice open defecation! (A 2012  United Word Bank report revealed that 19 percent of Ghanaians practice open defecation)

Not only am I horrified that Accra, the capital where the president lives, still stinks, but I’m also disappointed that all the excellent talk has yielded nothing. If a government cannot assemble a team to achieve one of its key promises, why should I believe it can change how we live in four years?

Again, in February 2017, a month after taking office, he launched activities for the celebration of Ghana’s 60th Independence anniversary at the Flagstaff House. The plan was for the 30-member planning committee to raise the 20 million Ghana cedis budgeted for the year-long celebration from the private sector.  We were supposed to get monuments (libraries, schools, and museums), what the president termed legacy projects, in all ten regions in addition to concerts, plays and football matches. But very little happened after the grand celebration on March 6, which according to Ken Amankwah, the chairman of the planning committee was because they could not raise funds. End of story.

These failures are significant because he has promised us a Ghana beyond aid, a promise for which he has received huge applause from both Ghanaians and the donor community. The premise for this new maxim is that Ghana(ergo Africa)  has enough resources to fend for itself to be entirely independent of aid. This same man whose team couldn’t complete basic year-long celebrations wants to end Ghana’s dependence on foreign aid. Speaking at the presser with Emmanual Macron, the president called for a change of mindset, saying, “Our concern should be what do we need to do in this 21st century to move Africa away from being cup-in-hand and begging for aid, for charity, for handouts. The African continent, when you look at its resources, should be giving money to other places.”

I wish I were as impressed as the people who have been praising Nana Addo for this decision. But I resent how he and his team have framed the narrative to the delight of many Western ambassadors in Ghana (the US ambassador to Ghana has called him a visionary) as though we depend entirely on aid and the West is doing us a favor by giving us support. It’s irritating because, like all countries that suffered slavery and colonization, Ghana deserves donor aid. We’re entitled to it, and we should take it until we get reparations for the plundering of our human and natural resources. Finance blogger, Jerome Kuseh, captures the context in this tweet: “The failure to properly contextualize why Africa needs aid is to play into the historically and economically conservative western ideology which portrays African states as leeches of European nations.”

Aid to Ghana has been decreasing too. Currently, direct foreign aid to our government is estimated at a mere 3.43 percent of government revenue, or 0.7 percent of our GDP. That means a little more than 300  million dollars or a quarter of the stolen money that the Auditor General wants back.  The picture Nana Addo paints is therefore incomplete. Our problems do not exist because of our dependence on aid. We have housing, education, healthcare, and transportation challenges because our leaders waste whatever we make from our natural resources and taxes, they fail to plan, and they’re inept at executing.

To be fair, Nana Addo’s government has done quite a bit since it took office. It has stabilized the economy and the cedi-dollar relationship isn’t giving business folk as many headaches. The cost of living hasn’t gone down, but we are not paying a different price for toothpaste every month. They have not added as much to the enormous debt stock left by his predecessor; instead, they are paying off some of the debt. The government has started the process of making the National Health Insurance Scheme and the Pension fund, which were mismanaged and nearly bankrupted, solvent again. And they have established the Office of the Special Prosecutor and implemented their free senior high school education policy.  Given that this government inherited an almost empty treasury and an unstable economy, these accomplishments should be celebrated.

Given the low bar set by John Mahama, I can understand why Nana Addo is earning massive praise for these achievements, but as they say, the devil is always in the details. In the period Nana Addo claims to be working to end our dependence on aid, he is giving prime state lands, worth tens of millions of dollars, for the construction of a national cathedral even though Ghana has more churches than factories. Factories, the base industrialized nations used to create viable economies so their citizens can live in dignity. On Ghana’s 61st independence anniversary, he launched the design for the cathedral while his government still hasn’t provided the plan or the template for its so-called one-district-one-factory project.

Instead of harping on about the future of Ghana without aid, I would greatly appreciate it if Nana Addo spent more time completing simple tasks like getting us road signs, street lights, passports and licenses without bribes and clean towns and cities. And to be more honest, making sure our country is free of filth, a situation that endangers our lives and costs the government tens of million dollars would be more appropriate and reasonable.  I want Ghana to be free from handouts and foreign control, but if a government cannot even raise funds locally to fund a year-long independence celebration, can we even trust it to tackle public corruption? And possibly free us from the grips of western donors?

–

By: Nyamewaa

The post How about Ghana beyond filth? [Article] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

“He was my very good friend in Parliament, but I completely disagree with him because the development partners are completely confused as to what we mean by that.”

Mr. Bagbin, who was speaking to the media after a radio programme in Accra, said the propaganda that had become the personal gospel of the President has jolted the country’s donors into confusion that could possibly lead to an abrupt disengagement of badly needed help.

[contextly_sidebar id=”DFZdIPmoWqTBggaDJS4wAvQC4Af5s4zl”]“Due to the confusion within donor circles, people have become expectant of an unavailable blueprint from the NPP government in respect of the rhetoric.”

The Second Deputy Speaker, who is also the MP for Nadowli/Kaleo, warned government to reconsider the sloganeering.

Mr. Bagbin had called on government to come out with a comprehensive official document on Ghana Beyond Aid to put to rest various speculations that were making the rounds.

Giving a historical background to the important global aid culture, Mr Bagbin said “Aid does not just come out of the blue, not from the magnanimity of the donor countries, aid comes out of a struggle by the oppressed, the exploited and the poor nations.

“You will recall that after the first and second world wars, the economies of these (less developed) countries, were so devastated that they were struggling to survive and they had to look back at these poor nations and to use their might at that time to support the poor nations. And it is the economies of the poor nations that sustained them to develop. So when the poor nations started putting pressure for compensation, the developed nations quickly decided to respond,” Hon. Bagbin said.

Mr. Bagbin said Ghana did not need aid to develop because the aid that the country was receiving over the years was in a way misapplied.

“Again, aid is not just giving out without being attached to a programme of government. If rather we present a programme and end up not doing exactly that, then you can raise such issues, but they are attached to programmes that are even approved by development partners.”

He said anybody that wanted evidence about Ghana’s dire need for aid, should go to the health sector where many Ghanaian children were dying of childhood killer diseases because donor countries had cut back on vaccine donations.

He also dismissed claims that Ghana had enough natural resources to ride on into the sunny days of “Ghana Beyond Aid” pointing out that in the digital age, natural resource is not what is needed for development.

“You don’t develop by relying on your natural resources, you develop a nation by relying on your education; developing your minds to be able to create things, not just the raw materials, no! You have to add some value to what actually you market and that comes from your mind. And that is why research, technology, mathematics and science are key to the development of every society.

“And so the natural resources we have to renegotiate the agreement, but how do you do that when you don’t have the mind power to negotiate properly…You don’t need natural resources to develop software!” Hon. Bagbin said.

–

Source: GNA

The post Donor partners confused over ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mantra – Bagbin appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He noted that the government’s quest to build an economy independent of foreign aid and support will greatly rely on the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MMDAs.

[contextly_sidebar id=”fGorVmDr7OOst80wrTcobW6L39SWTYvL”]Speaking at a dialogue session with Chief Directors, the Vice President said the government has committed itself to achieving the agenda, and will do everything possible to ensure it becomes a reality.

“Our Chief Directors and other heads of ministries, departments and agencies who are at the helm of affairs have the arduous task of leading your respective institutions towards the success of these programs,” he noted.

The Vice President further said he was optimistic that most of the government’s major promises will be achieved if the civil servants support it.

President Akufo-Addo since assuming office has reiterated his resolve to grow the country’s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence, and ensuring its development using local resources.

Nana Akufo-Addo, who has on various national and international platforms emphasized his belief that Ghana, like many other African countries, is endowed with enormous resources to guarantee its growth, recently caught global attention when he made a strong case for his position at an event which had French President Emmanuel Macron as a guest.

Many have declared their support for the agenda which the government says is without a timeline, but hopes that it becomes a paradigm and an approach that will ensure the country is able to internally mobilize enough resources to finance its major policy and programs.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Don’t sabotage ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda – Bawumia tells Chief Directors appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The former Vice President had indicated that government’s Ghana Beyond Aid mantra raises questions about what it wants to specifically achieve, given that adequate information had not yet been provided.

[contextly_sidebar id=”aRxXLbtvFDbaArTRk4PyOSYNz4jDRmCK”]“I’m comfortable if ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is saying we will only borrow for capital investment and not the current obligation. But the problem has not been defined for me to understand it. It is just the rhetoric. It sounds nice, but what goes into it? People will support it, if they understand what the objective is. As at now, everybody is left to define it how he understands it, and then to decide to support it or to oppose it,” Mr. Amissah Arthur had suggested.

Casely Hayford on Citi FM’s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issue, however, rubbished Amissah Arthur’s suggestions, saying he was only being disingenuous.

He questioned why Amissah Arthur had suddenly become a vocal critic of the NPP government when his party could not implement viable policies despite being in power for 8 years.

“It is very disingenuous for Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur after having been a Deputy Minister of Finance, a governor of the Bank of Ghana and a Vice President of a country in charge of Economic Affairs to come and say he does not understand what the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda means,” he said.

‘Amissah Arthur was fair’

President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe in a rebuttal, however, disagreed with Casely Hayford’s stance, saying the Vice President was only seeking clarity when he questioned what the mantra stood for.

He believes Amissah Arthur’s comments were “very fair.”

‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda 

President Akufo-Addo, since assuming office, has reiterated his resolve to grow the country’s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence, and ensuring its development using local resources.

Nana Akufo-Addo, who has on various national and international platforms emphasized his belief that Ghana, like many other African countries, is endowed with enormous resources to guarantee its growth, recently caught global attention when he made a strong case for his position at an event which had French President Emmanuel Macron as a guest.

The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, who is the head of the country’s economic management team, has been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring all key government projects aimed at making the concept of ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ a reality, but his predecessor, believes the government has not done enough to show it is serious about the concept.

Amissah Arthur insists that the government must provide timelines for the achievement of the policy to make it measurable.

“It is good to have a policy, but you must also have a time-frame. That after 10 years, even if someone offers to pay for AIDS medicine, because we don’t have money, we will reject it because we have to pay on our own,” he said.

–

By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah

The post Ghana Beyond Aid: Amissah-Arthur’s critique ‘dishonest’ – Casely-Hayford appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to Amissah-Arthur, the government must learn to weigh various forms of assistance and intervention, and reject those that are “too small that we are able to do ourselves.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”ebjmt2GqnUN84kmDGZbFGm3VvOoj3AZD”]Speaking in a Citi News interview, the economist and former Bank of Ghana Governor indicated that the New Patriotic Party government’s ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda is ambiguous and fails to indicate what exactly it means for the country’s development.

“Ghana Beyond Aid, but we are accepting a Microsoft computer…. So when is aid not aid?” he quizzed.

33-year-old Richard Appiah Akoto, an ICT pupil teacher at Betenase M/A Junior High School at Sekyedomase in the Ashanti Region, went viral on social media last month after he posted photos of himself improvising by drawing the entire Microsoft Word window on a blackboard to enable his pupil to understand how the software functions.

His story got to the attention of Microsoft and they promised to equip Owura Kwadwo’s school with a device and offer him the opportunity to undertake a free professional development program.

While most people are applauding Microsoft for the move, the former Vice President believes that the support is not one beyond the government, and proposed that the government provides the school with four computers.

He said, “I saw last week that there is a very creative teacher who had drawn the window [of MS Word] and was showing how a computer looks like. I heard that Microsoft has offered to provide him with a computer and so on… So culturally what are we saying, we accept it. ‘Ghana Beyond Aid, but we are accepting a Microsoft computer. There are many ways we should be able to say that no, this one is too small, that we are able to do it ourselves.”

“We [can] give the school some four computers….One for the teacher and for the children to also learn… But we accept the thing from Microsoft, but we are also going through the period of Ghana Beyond Aid, so when is aid not aid?,” he added.

While calling on the government to come clean on ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ concept, Amissah-Arthur said the government must provide timelines for the achievement of the agenda to make it measurable.

“It is good to have a policy, but you must also have a time-frame. That after 10 years, even if someone offers to pay for AIDS medicine, because we don’t have money, we will reject it because we have to pay on our own,” he said.

Ghana Beyond Aid: ‘We won’t say no to gifts’

But a Deputy Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has said that the concept of ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is beyond any government program hence cannot be timed.

He described it as a paradigm and an approach the government seeks to have imbibed in Ghanaians, especially those holding public office, to ensure that they work primarily towards mobilizing local resources for the country’s development needs and not be expectant of foreign support.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post If you don’t want ‘Aid’, reject Microsoft’s donation – Amissah-Arthur appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

A Deputy Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who made the statement on the Eyewitness News on Thursday said the government had outlined major policy pillars to drive the agenda by ensuring that enough resources were generated locally to enable the government carry out all its major developmental programs.

[contextly_sidebar id=”2UmFM9GffmT7Ch9dzooS6R8EoozqK3Jl”]He said the government among other things was working to ensure value for money in all its spending in order to save money that could be invested into its developmental projects.

He added that other investments such as human capital and revenue mobilization through taxes, were part of the pillars the government was using to drive the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ agenda.

“The first operational pillar is in the area of revenue where we focus on getting adequate domestic resources mobilized so that we are able to have a bigger resource envelope as a first step to being capable to manage our own affairs… we are trying to very quickly close the tax to GDP gap. For a benchmark that should be about 20 to 25%, is currently about 15%. So what are the compliance measures that we roll out to close that gap so that we will be able to have adequate domestic resource mobilized, then we don’t need to resort to aid to fund the major things that matter to us as a country,” he said.

“We say that we want to get to a Ghana Beyond Aid, we want to get to that point where were are able to fund what that teacher is doing with domestic resources of our own,” he added.

President Akufo-Addo since assuming office has reiterated his resolve to grow the country’s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence and ensuring its development using local resources.

Nana Akufo-Addo, who has on various national and international platforms emphasized his belief that Ghana, like many other African countries, is endowed with enormous resources to guarantee its growth, recently caught global attention when he made a strong case for his position at an event which had French President Emmanuel Macron as a guest.

But a section of the population have expressed concern over the ambiguity of the agenda, calling on the government to provide public clarification on it.

A former Vice President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, also described it as a mere rhetoric since the government had not provided adequate information about it.

In a Citi News interview, he said, “I’m comfortable if ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is saying we will only borrow for capital investment and not recurrent obligation. But the problem has not been defined for me to understand it. It is just the rhetoric. It sounds nice, but what goes into it? People will support it, if they understand what the objective is. As at now, everybody is left to define it how he understands it, and then to decide to support it or to oppose it.”

But Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said, the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda’ is an approach the government seeks to imbibe in its work and not a one-time program.

“It means that we will get to the point where the things that Ghana determines to do, it can fund out of its resources and not depend on other persons. That does not mean, if somebody on his own volition opted to gift something to Ghana, Ghana will say no,” he said.

The deputy minister however noted that the government does not seek to add a timeframe to the agenda but wants it to lead to shift of government and public mindset geared towards seeking primarily to fund local projects from internal sources rather than plan them with foreign donations in mind.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ghana Beyond Aid: ‘We won’t say no to gifts’ – Oppong Nkrumah appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, the government is yet to provide adequate information about the mantra, and this raises uncertainty about what exactly it seeks to achieve.

[contextly_sidebar id=”IKs0yw2TyL76MbG4uuDC3p4CnrimXvwX”]Speaking to Citi News, the economist said the mantra “has not been defined” for the understanding of the public to enable them to support it.

“I’m comfortable if ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is saying we will only borrow for capital investment and not recurrent obligation. But the problem has not been defined for me to understand it. It is just the rhetoric. It sounds nice, but what goes into it? People will support it, if they understand what the objective is. As at now, everybody is left to define it how he understands it, and then to decide to support it or to oppose it,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo since assuming office has reiterated his resolve to grow the country’s economy from one of dependence on foreign aid to independence, and ensuring its development using local resources.

Nana Akufo-Addo, who has on various national and international platforms emphasized his belief that Ghana, like many other African countries, is endowed with enormous resources to guarantee its growth, recently caught global attention when he made a strong case for his position at an event which had French President Emmanuel Macron as a guest.

The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, who is the head of the country’s economic management team, has been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring all key government projects aimed at making the concept of ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ a reality, but his predecessor, believes the government has not done enough to show it is serious about the concept.

Amissah Arthur insists that the government must provide timelines for the achievement of the policy to make it measurable.

“It is good to have a policy, but you must also have a time-frame. That after 10 years, even if someone offers to pay for AIDS medicine, because we don’t have money, we will reject it because we have to pay on our own,” he said.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Akufo-Addo’s ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mere rhetoric – Amissah Arthur appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

I extend, on behalf of all Ghanaians, a warm welcome to our guest of honour, that sterling champion of the battle against one of Africa’s most pernicious diseases, corruption in public life, Muhammadu Buhari, President of the great Federal Republic of Nigeria, and his delegation. We are delighted that he has accepted our invitation to share this special day with us. Nigeria oman panyin, Muhammadu Buhari, yɛ ma wo ni wo ahokafuor akwaaba surunko. Sanda zua, Muhammadu Buhari, shuugaban kasa Nigeria, da mutaanin ka.

Last year, at the 60^th independence anniversary, I announced that, on my way here, I had cut the sod for the construction of a National Cathedral, which would serve as an inter-denominational place of worship for important national occasions. This year, I am happy to announce, that, on my way here, I have unveiled the beautiful design of the cathedral that has been done by the world-acclaimed Ghanaian architect, David Adjaye. God will see the project through for us.

At its birth, great things were expected of this nation of ours, and even greater things were expected of those who would have the honour to be called Ghanaians. This is the country, after all, that blazed the trail for independence on the African continent, and, with it, came a grave responsibility to be forever used as a measure of how the continent was doing.

In many ways, we rose to the occasion. The many and varied peoples that came together, through happenstance or deliberate actions, to form the modern state of Ghana, have crafted a common identity.

We might be Dagartis, Sissalas, Dagombas, Mamprusis, Gonjas, Konkombas, Frafras, Grusis, Kusasis, Gas, Krobos, Ewes, Fantes, Denkyiras, Gomoas, Guans, Nzemas, Ahantas, Sefwis, Akyems, Akwamus, Akuapems, Kwahus, Brongs or Ashantis; we might sometimes even lapse into ancient rivalry modes; but, as Ghanaians, we are comfortable in our skin.

This sense of identity shows in our clothes, in our foods, in our music and in our politics. Sixty one years after this nation pledged itself to the total liberation of the continent, in the immemorial words of our first leader, Kwame Nkrumah, on that unforgettable night of 5^th March, 1957, at the Old Polo Grounds, a few hundred yards from here, that “our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa”, we have remained faithful to our pan-African vocation. We know that our struggle for economic growth and independence cannot be for our nation alone, but for the entire African continent. A few weeks ago, in the hallowed halls of the United States Congress, as their President came to deliver the State of the Union Address, a group of congressmen and women wanted to make a statement of support for African nations. They draped kente strips over their clothing, and that said it all.

Ghana’s kente has come to identify the African continent and its peoples. The kente best spells out the fact that we are a dynamic people, unafraid to put our best foot forward, and unafraid constantly to adapt our cultures and traditions. We wear it with pride and in style.

That quintessential Ghanaian patriot, scholar and cultural icon, Ephraim Amu, would certainly be looking on now with admiration and satisfaction. At least, as far as clothing is concerned, we seem to have accepted his admonitions to be self-reliant, and to take pride in what was ours, rather than copy others. During his time, Owura Amu fought a lonely battle but, today, it seems strange to us that anyone ever suggested that you had to be dressed in European-style clothes to be accepted as a scholar or even to show up in church.

Apart from the physical, outward things that identify us, there are the more subtle, but important things that define us as Ghanaians. Everybody’s list will doubtless be different. Let me cite a few of my favourite ones: we are a hospitable people, we make strangers and visitors feel at home, it is part of our DNA.

We Ghanaians look out for each other even in modern, chaotic urban settings, and even when we find ourselves outside our country. We still regard the upbringing and training of children as a group responsibility for the public good, and the most sophisticated amongst us is not embarrassed to show respect to the elderly.

We might have become famous or infamous for being great travellers, who can be found in all parts of the globe, but I can safely say that, deep inside us, we love our country. We love Ghana. We take seriously the words of our national motto, and have a passionate love for freedom and justice.

Fellow Ghanaians, there is a long list of honoured personalities that have played remarkable roles in getting Ghana to where she is today. Many of them have been publicly acknowledged, and justifiably honoured in various ways. The role of the Big Six – Joseph Boakye Danquah, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, Edward Akufo-Addo, William Ofori-Atta, Ebenezer Ako Adjei, and Kwame Nkrumah, our first President who led us to independence – in the struggle for and attainment of independence will never be forgotten. There are others such as George “Paa” Grant, Komla Agbeli Gbedema and Kojo Botsio, whose efforts deserve to be acknowledged, and we should continue to give honour where it is due.

But I must also pay homage to the many Ghanaians, who simply continue to do their jobs and execute their tasks competently, without any fuss. They do not ask to be recognised or recompensed in any way.

For, as the Prime Minister of the erstwhile Progress Party Government of the 2^nd Republic, Kofi Abrefa Busia, put it, and I quote: “It is by the devoted day-to-day service of many ordinary and unnoticed citizens that a nation achieves greatness.” I pay homage to the many millions who routinely do what is right, what is virtuous in their daily activities to elevate the common good, and do not come to the attention of a President.

On a day such as this, when we celebrate the official start of our nationhood, we should also pay homage to those who have led the fight for individual freedoms. The fight that has made it possible for the present generation to believe that multi-party constitutional form of government is part of our makeup. The fight that led to the changing of the words of our National Anthem, in 1967, to include the sacred injunction to “help us to resist oppressors’ rule”. I pay homage to all those who have led the fight to resist oppressors’ rule every time attempts have been made to take our freedoms from us. I salute also those who insisted that the concepts of probity and accountability should be part of the governing principles of the Constitution of the 4^th Republic, whose Silver Jubilee we celebrated on 7^th January by an inter-faith service of thanksgiving to Almighty God, for having ushered us into the longest, uninterrupted period of stable, constitutional governance in our history.

Fellow Ghanaians, it is important that we never forget our history, and we try not to distort the truth about our past; the ugly and beautiful parts, they all deserve to be faithfully recorded and told. As our elders say, if you do not know where you are coming from, you are not likely to get to where you want to be. Our brothers and sisters in Nigeria probably capture it best: “to forget is the same as to throw away.”

We should make an honest assessment of ourselves, and the situation of our country and our continent. This puts a lot of responsibility on those who tell our daily stories. In these days of social media, the task is on all of us, and not only on the journalists and writers. A deliberate falsehood, posted on a social media platform, poses a great danger to all of us, and undermines the credibility of the Ghana story.

On a day such as today, our thoughts invariably stray to the past, but, as the 2^nd President of the 4^th Republic, His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor, once put it, and I quote: “we do not intend to live on past memories, nor the Ghana story to be only what can be seen on old newsreel tapes, nor our sporting glories to be recounted only through the exploits of past heroes”. To paraphrase Ephraim Amu, in that great, patriotic song, yen ara yen asaaseni, it is now our turn to build upon those past glories – aduru me ne wonso so, seyebeye bi atoa so. The litmus test is simple: every day must bring some improvement in our lives, today must be an improvement on yesterday, and our tomorrow must certainly be better than our yesterday.

Fellow Ghanaians, on this our sixty-first anniversary of our independence, it is important to remind ourselves that, around the time of our independence, we had peers such as Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore. Our per capita incomes were very similar at around four hundred and fifty United States dollars ($450) in 1960, and our economies were dependent on the production of primary commodities. Today, these countries, once our peers, have significantly transformed themselves into industrialised economies. Income per head in Singapore is now at fifty one thousand, four hundred and thirty one United States dollars ($51,431), South Korea at twenty nine thousand, one hundred and fifteen United States dollars ($29,115), and Malaysia at nine thousand, six hundred and twenty three United States dollars ($9,623) compared to Ghana’s at one thousand, one hundred and fifty two United States dollars ($1,512). We are still dependent on the export of primary commodities, as was the case at the time of Gordon Guggisberg. We must admit, sadly, that, in the area of economic development, we have underachieved, relative to our peers at independence.

Even though underachievement may have been a major part of our history thus far, it should no longer be part of our destiny. The only nation we are destined to become is the one we choose, and decide to be. We do not have to accept someone’s definition of Africa or Ghana. We must define and craft our own destiny. As the American politician, William Jennings Bryan, once put it, and I quote: “Destiny is not a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

But achieving our destiny requires a deliberate, qualitative change in all aspects of our lives; especially, in the structure of our economy, the nature of our infrastructure, the education of our young people and acquisition of skills, and, above all, in our attitudes and holding firm to the values that define us.

The change in our fortunes will only happen when our economy improves. Since I became President, I have been advocating for a Ghana, indeed, an Africa, Beyond Aid, and I am keen to have the support of all of us in this enterprise.

Nobody needs to spell it out to us that the economic transformation we desire will not come through aid. We have been on that trajectory for most of the past sixty one years, and it has not happened. We are told there is “aid fatigue”. The taxpayers of the aid-givers have a right to decide how their tax money is spent. The truth is that, even if there were no aid fatigue, and with the best will in the world and the most charitable governments in place in the so-called donor countries, there will never be enough aid to develop Ghana to the level we want. Aid was never meant to be what would bring us to the status of a developed nation.

I do not, by advocating a status Beyond Aid, want to inflict poverty on us, or thumb our noses against those who have helped us and continue to do so. There is nothing to be gained in celebrating an ideological victory in poverty. There is no pride or dignity in poverty; there is no dignity in having hungry children, or mothers dying needlessly in childbirth, and there is no dignity in drinking dirty water. We need no lessons in that.

My fellow Ghanaians, ours is a country that is well endowed with many natural resources such as gold, bauxite, iron ore, diamonds, oil, natural gas, timber, cocoa, water, fertile land etc. The truth, however, is that the state of our nation does not bear out that we have these natural endowments. Poverty continues to be our lot. Mismanagement, corruption and high fiscal deficits have become the hallmarks of our economy, which we finance through borrowing and foreign aid.

It is time to pursue a path to prosperity and self-respect for our nation. A Ghana Beyond Aid is a prosperous and self-confident Ghana that is in charge of her economic destiny; a transformed Ghana that is prosperous enough to be beyond needing aid, and that engages competitively with the rest of the world through trade and investment. It is possible.

It is not a pie in the sky notion, because other countries, including some of our peers at independence, have done exactly that.  It is doable, and we must believe that, what others, with less resources, have done, we can do.

However, we are not going to achieve the transformation in our economy, which is necessary for a Ghana Beyond Aid, by just talking about it. We have to DO something about it!

As a start, we have to do things differently to realize this goal of a Ghana Beyond Aid.

Business as usual will not do it. It cannot happen by waving a magic wand. And it cannot be achieved overnight. Indeed, the most rapid cases of economic and social transformation in history, those in South East Asia, generally spanned a period of about 30 years; about a generation. We cannot wait that long; we have wasted enough time already. It is time to get on with it, and the time is now.

You have heard me say on a number of occasions, I am a man in a hurry, but I am also a realistic man.

To get to a Ghana Beyond Aid, we will have to harness effectively our own resources, and deploy them creatively and efficiently for rapid economic and social transformation. As I said in the Independence Day address last year, this will require “hard work, enterprise, creativity, and a consistent fight against corruption in public life”. It will also require that we break from a mentality of dependency and adopt a confident can-do spirit, fuelled by love for our dear country, Ghana.  We cannot subordinate the common good to build a prosperous nation to the selfish interest of a few.

Moving Ghana Beyond Aid means ensuring that future generations of Ghanaians have a healthy environment to inherit. We must, thus, be determined to protect our environment and water bodies by joining hands in the fight against illegal mining, also known as galamsey, in order to bring an end to the devastation of some of our landscape, and the pollution of our water bodies, occasioned by the activities of illegal miners. We have to win that fight to keep our environment clean, and protect our heritage for our descendants.

Fellow Ghanaians, we have started on the right path towards a prosperous future with the concrete steps we are taking to restore macro-economic stability and economic growth. After a year of disciplined and innovative economic management, the results have been remarkable. Our economy has grown from 3.6% in 2016, the lowest in 22 years, to 7.9% in 2017, and is this year expected to grow at 8.3%, which would make it the fastest growing economy in the world. Inflation has gone down from 15.6% at the end of 2016 to 10.3%, as of January this year. Ghanaian industry has witnessed a spectacular revival from a growth rate of negative 0.5% in 2016 to 17.7% in 2017. Interest rates are on the decline, the cedi is stabilising, and the fiscal deficit has gone down from 9.3% in 2016 to 5.6% of GDP in 2017, with a projection of 4.5% for 2018. Fiscal discipline has been restored, and fiscal consolidation has taken hold. For the first time since 2006, government has been able to meet its fiscal deficit target. We will continue to manage the economy in a disciplined and sound framework so that we maintain fiscal and debt sustainability. This, in the long run, is fundamental to moving Beyond Aid.

An improving, disciplined macro-economy is essential for expanding the economy, and, thereby, creating jobs. This year, we will see vigorous job creation in the public sector, beginning with the recruitment of one hundred thousand (100,000) young men and women in the Nation Builders Corp. But, what I am seeking, above all, is the rapid growth of private sector jobs, both in industry and agriculture, i.e. in the programme for Planting for Food and Jobs, which should generate a lot of rural sector jobs. Moving Beyond Aid demands that effective measures are taken to address widespread unemployment, especially amongst our youth. We are on the right path to do so.

Fellow Ghanaians, corruption, or more specifically, the stealing of public funds, continues to hold back the development of our nation.  A recent audit by the Auditor General into the liabilities of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies led to the disallowance of some GH¢5.4 billion of claims. These are fictitious claims that would otherwise have had to be paid, but for the eagle eye of the Auditor General. Can you imagine what we can do with GH¢5.4 billion? It can certainly finance the Free SHS for five years.

Corruption is not a partisan matter, and we must all act to protect the public purse. In the words of the 1^st President of the 4^th Republic, His Excellency Jerry John Rawlings, and I quote: “Combating corruption is not beyond us. Imagine the effect on our nation and our future if, for just a few months, all decent Ghanaians would put aside their own convenience, apathy and faint-heartedness, and challenge every corruption, no matter how petty, which comes their way.” With the office of the Special Prosecutor now in place, we can expect more prosecutions for corruption in the coming months, and public officials, present and past, should be on notice that they would be held accountable for their stewardship of our public finances.

Government has also made, in 2017, significant savings of some GH¢800 million in government procurement, as we depart from sole sourcing as the primary method of public procurement. That departure will strengthen our public finances, and make it possible for us to finance our development ourselves.

There is, however, one piece of the anti-corruption framework that is yet to be put in place: The Right to Information Bill. It would increase transparency, and add another critical weapon to the armoury in the fight against corruption. After many years of hesitation, we intend to bring a Bill again to Parliament, and work to get it passed into law before the end of this Meeting of Parliament.

The protection of the public purse is a social common good, and it depends on all of us. It is in all our interest that corruption does not thrive, and we police each other’s behaviour. Going Beyond Aid means Ghanaians should not serve as fronts for foreign companies to defraud our country. It will mean we all pay our taxes, as provided by law, and it will mean we all help to take care of government property, as though it were our own.

Fellow Ghanaians, getting our country to a situation Beyond Aid means we add value to our exports, and stop the export of materials such as cocoa, gold, bauxite, manganese and oil in their raw state. Our cocoa farmers, for example, get less than 10% of the value of a bar of chocolate, and yet cocoa is the main ingredient. On the world market, bauxite in its raw form is worth about $42 per metric tonne. Processing it just one stage further into alumina oxide will fetch twice that amount. Refining the alumina oxide into alumina will increase the value by seven times, and smeltered aluminium fetches one hundred fold what it gets in the raw state. Aluminium, we are told, is the metal of the future.

It is for this reason that Ghana has, since independence, sought to establish an integrated bauxite and aluminium industry. Thus far, this has remained a fond hope. But we are determined to make it happen within the next three years. Work on the law establishing an Integrated Bauxite and Aluminium Development Authority is far advanced, and will be submitted to Parliament very shortly. Government also hopes to reach an agreement soon with potential partners to establish an alumina refinery, and expand the VALCO smelter. A successful execution of this project will be key in moving Ghana Beyond Aid, as will be the successful exploitation of our iron ore and manganese deposits to build a steel industry for our country and the region.

We are all aware of the vast sums of illicit financial flows from our continent that attend the exploitation of our natural resources, especially of our mineral wealth. We can no longer continue to blame others for that. We have to take our destiny into our own hands, and design and carry out the appropriate policies and measures that will ensure that we get our fair and proper share of the value of that wealth. Government will be rolling out such policies as an integral part of our determination to move Ghana Beyond Aid.

Fellow Ghanaians, we have huge infrastructure needs in the areas of roads, bridges, water, electricity, housing, hospitals, schools, etc. The problem has always been where to find the money. However, where there is a will, there is a way. My government is going to implement an alternative financing model to leverage our bauxite reserves, in particular, to finance a major infrastructure programme across Ghana. This will probably be the largest infrastructure programme in Ghana’s history, without any addition to Ghana’s debt stock. It will involve the barter or exchange of refined bauxite for infrastructure. We expect to conclude this agreement and start its implementation this year. This will represent a paradigm shift in the financing of our development priorities, and make it possible for Ghana to move Beyond Aid.

Ladies and gentlemen, we now live in a digital world, and to be competitive, we have to be a part of and take advantage of digitization. Since assuming office last year, we have undertaken deliberate policy reforms to digitize Ghana to formalize our economy, and leapfrog in some key areas. The national identification and address system, the drivers licence and vehicle registration, the paperless operation at the ports, inter-operability of payment system in the financial sector, are all geared towards modernizing our economy, and we should begin to feel the difference when all these measures become operational this year. I am looking forward, particularly, to the digitization of the land registration process to help the mortgage market, and release hundreds of billions of cedis to finance our development.

Digitization would also allow the delivery of education and health services to remote areas, reduce corruption, expand the tax base, expand e-commerce, make credit more available as uncertainty is reduced for financial institutions, and increase domestic resource mobilization.

Fellow Ghanaians, at its core, the poverty gap is a technology gap. The mastery of technology is what, at the end of the day, separates developed from developing countries, or rich from poor countries. This is a gap we have to bridge. We are laying a strong foundation for an educated and skilled workforce of the future through the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme, which this academic year enabled 90,000 additional young Ghanaians to enrol in SHS. These are our future scientists, engineers, modern farmers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and transformation agents!

In the years ahead, the principal thrust of national development policy must be to ensure that science, technology and innovation drive all sectors of the economy. We are going to commit resources to basic and applied science and engineering, that should result in the development of the capacity to manufacture machinery, equipment and component parts for industry, agriculture, especially machinery for planting, harvesting and processing of produce.

Fellow Ghanaians, as a government committed to the growth of the private sector, we believe that the private sector should be the critical partner in moving Ghana Beyond Aid. In truth, part of our problem has been that government tries to do too much, tries to take on far too much beyond its capacity. There are many projects in roads, railways, water transport, agriculture, etc. which, if properly structured, will attract private sector financing. Key to attracting private sector investment is a conducive, business friendly and peaceful environment.

My dear fellow Ghanaians, all these plans and big dreams I have outlined will come to naught, if we do not have peace in our country. The primary requirement for prosperity is peace. The first obligation on any government is to ensure the safety and security of the citizenry.

As your president, this is an obligation I accept, and I am determined to discharge faithfully. The recent spate of armed robberies is totally unacceptable. I will work to ensure that citizens are able to go about their daily duties in the confidence that they are safe. No miscreant will have the space to terrorize citizens, and generate a sense of insecurity in our country. The police have the primary responsibility of maintaining peace and keeping law and order in our society, and, in exceptional cases, with the backing of the armed forces. The government is doing, and will do whatever it takes to enable the police discharge their duties effectively. We are providing the means for them to modernize their equipment, and learn modern methods of policing, and their numbers will be rapidly increased to match our growing population, and the sophistication and audacity of the criminals.

We should not forget that the police need the help and support of the community to be able to do their work. We dare not lose our reputation as a haven of peace and security. I urge you all to join in making sure there is no hiding place in our midst for those who would disturb our peace. For my part, I will do whatever is necessary, within the confines of the Constitution and the laws of the land, to ensure the peace of our country. Let us, on this joyous occasion, salute the leadership and the gallant men and women of our security forces, who, in the various Operations, Calm Life, Cow Leg, and Vanguard, are putting their lives on the line to protect our environment, and guarantee our safety and security. They are patriots, indeed.

Fellow Ghanaians, Ghana Beyond Aid is meant to be more than a slogan. It is meant to propel us into the frame of mind that would quicken our pace of development. It is meant to change our mindset from one of dependency, to one of achieving our destiny. It is meant to put us in charge of our own affairs, and make us truly independent. Above all, Ghana Beyond Aid will give us the respect and dignity we deserve.

Let us believe in ourselves.

Let us believe in Ghana and in Africa.

God bless us all, God bless Mother Africa, and God bless our homeland Ghana, and make her great and strong.

Thank you for your attention.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Akufo-Addo’s 61st independence day anniversary speech [Full text] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The government has been tough on working to reduce the over-dependency on donor support for development.

In the build up to President Akufo Addo’s State of the Nation Address on Thursday, February 8, 2018, Citi Business News takes a look at how far government has come in reaching this goal.

Indications however suggest that more needs to be done to attain this feat.

Prez Akufo Addo leads agenda

President Akufo Addo, has been leading the charge of building a ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ is convinced that the abundant mineral resources shouldn’t permit Ghana to seek support from donors to implement key policies.

Speaking in an address with the French President Emmanuel Macron in Ivory Coast as well as delivering a speech as part of the Royal African Society’s leadership series in London, the President stressed the need to add value to traditional exports.

“This is not right; we need to change the statistics. If we simply ground and sold the cocoa in paste form, instead of selling the cocoa beans, we double our earnings. In much the same way we will double our earnings from gold if sold it refined than in the raw state. We are determined to process these products.

These thoughts have been reiterated across several platforms by the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

Gov’t works to grow Ghana Beyond Aid

The recently one constituted the theme for the third Aliu Mahama Memorial Lectures presented by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta.

For Mr. Ofori Atta, working to improve critical sectors like the financial, oil and gas, rail and road infrastructure, among others should propel the plans to attain a Ghana beyond aid.

For instance, the Minister highlighted the need to attract investors to revamp operations at the Tema Oil Refinery.

But this might have to be triggered as TOR has been compelled to suspend its operations few weeks into this year due to operational challenges.

Also, the estimated 21 billion dollar investments into the railway sector is yet to be completed to fast track the carting of agricultural goods such as cocoa from producing centers to market centers.

The EU Ambassador to Ghana, William Hanna admits that donor support has reduced hence the need for Ghana to improve her trade with other countries.

“It was up to over 16 percent in 2004 but declined to about 2.2 percent in 2013…this fall is due to a change in Ghana’s income status as well as a change in view on our side to call for a change in view on our side that we should call for new ways of doing things innovative financing and increased role for the private sector,” he stated.

Although government is saddled with huge records of revenue leakages estimated at 10 billion cedis, Ken Ofori Atta is confident of reversing the trend.

Economist at the University of Ghana, Dr. Ebo Turkson however suggests that the government would need be tough on addressing corruption if it is to reach this goal as expected.

“If we fight corruption, we can do a lot of public sector savings because a huge amount of public sector resources get fizzled out due to corruption. If we are able to fight corruption, these are huge amounts of monies that we can save and that would be an alternative to aid and those monies can be channeled into other productive sectors.”

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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana

The post Ghana Beyond Aid achieved yet? appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.