Mr. Cudjoe argued that some of the existing ones are struggling and that government should have put measures in place to boost their capacities instead of bringing new ones on-board.

“There’s basic geographic information that tells you that even if you want to do these type of division, at least look for some agglomeration of activity. You assume that you have to create it before the activities come, no. The districts are barely $1.5 billion worth averagely. You need to build the capability of the existing ones,” he noted.

[contextly_sidebar id=”Qqm6uwDlfrJI5ujF8GoDH14TaSzwJKy6″]Franklin Cudjoe made the remark on Saturday on  Citi FM’s current affairs and news analysis programme, The Big Issue.

Government last Thursday, [March 15, 2018], simultaneously inaugurated all the 38 new districts including others that had been elevated to municipal status across the country.

The Local Government Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama, had explained earlier that most of the new districts were existing constituencies, but were only carved out from their mother assemblies to make them stand alone.

But Franklin Cudjoe insisted that if government had done feasibility studies on the revenue generation capabilities of the existing districts, “they [government] would have seen that there is no need to add more to it.”

“With proper information…we would have seen that we probably don’t need to do all of these. I was driving from Kumasi all the way to Tamale and I was amazed at the vast expanse of lands I was seeing lying idle. Then I asked myself, 38 new districts have been inaugurated, possibly some of these districts will fall within this vast expanse of lands. There will be human beings supervising vast waste lands. And we will be paying the person so they will be DCEs over nothing,” he remarked.

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According to him, it is standard international practice to offer table sponsorship packages to attendees of such an event in order to raise funds.

[contextly_sidebar id=”RH7WKVVNFhiFAiKpn8hxI1nlN9lqu3tu”]Mr Cudjoe, however, added that it would be wrong if the expatriates were compelled to pay those amounts in order to get seats at the event.

He noted that the reason the issue became a public discussion is that the Trade Ministry did not handle the whole process well.

“My personal opinion is that the Trade Ministry handled this thing quite poorly. Secondly, I have to also say that if you organize a formal programme with business people, there is actually nothing entirely wrong if they paid for tables…unless of course, those sums were indeed extorted. We have to differentiate the two.”

Franklin Cudjoe argued that “if the sums were not extorted and to the extent that it was a business meeting, and people wanted to sit close to the president there is nothing wrong.”

“I would have thought that if the tables were sold in a manner that made people feel that I’m being made to pay a sum that I don’t like, that’s the difference here. It’s standard practice but I think it was poorly executed by the Ministry, of course that is what I feel,” he added.

The IMANI boss made the remark on Citi FM’s new analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday when the issue came up for review in relation to the setting up of a five-member Parliamentary Committee to investigate the matter.

Background

The Ministry of Trade allegedly charged expatriates between $25,000 and $100,000, to enable them sit close to the President at the awards ceremony, which was organised by the Millennium Excellence Foundation.

Despite the President clearing the Trade Ministry of any wrongdoing in the matter, the Speaker of Parliament recalled the House on Friday, January 5, 2017, to consider a motion submitted by the Minority Chief Whip in Parliament, Muntaka Mubarak for the setting up of the adhoc committee which was then tasked to probe the claims.

The Committee has until January 25, 2017 to submit its report.

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The rankings, captured in a report tagged “Inspirational Public-Sector Leadership Awards” ranked 45 MDAs on five main pillars, namely Engagement, Transparency, Social Inclusion, Innovation and Management Effectiveness for the period between October 2016 to October 2017.

IMANI Ghana, in the report named five MDAs; the Ministry of Communications, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) the Gender, Children and Social Protection Ministry, the Food and Agriculture Ministry and the Ministry of Finance as the most inspirational.

Five others, the Ministry of Justice & Attorney General, the National Youth Authority (NYA), the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), the National Media Commission (NMC) and the National Sports Authority (NSA) ranked least inspirational.

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources was one of two public institutions that were specially acknowledged for being the most transparent in 2017.

The other was the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation which was also noted as the most socially inclusive public institution.

At an event held last week, IMANI Ghana awarded the five inspirational MDAs for their hard work.

In his acceptance speech, the Deputy Minister of Communications, George Andah said such rare recognition for his Ministry’s work was testimony that they had chartered a new path to truly serving the public.

He urged his fellow awardees to be spurred on by the awards to help the government realize its objective of impacting the lives of Ghanaians in a positive way.

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Djaba, in her acceptance remarks, said she and her ministry have resolved to be consistently named in the top five list of IMANI’s inspirational public-sector leaders.

The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Frimpong Boateng, The CEO of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Mr. Yofi Grant all took turns to express gratitude for the honours awarded them.

Speaking at the ceremony, President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe said the report was geared towards recognizing some government institutions that go beyond their limits in serving Ghanaians.

“While self-appraisal exercise by any government is noble, it seems we can make maximum use of external evaluations of our public institutions by civil society actors. After all, it is not the duty of members of civil society to be praising governments, so you can expect sincere feedback. However, at IMANI we have also learnt that often rare praise for befitting public-sector conduct can be inspiring and in this particular case, spur on the public reform effort,’ he added.

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The first year of the New Patriotic Party’s administration has been rocked by a number of corruption allegations including the BOST contaminated fuel scandal, allegations of corruption by A-Plus against the two deputy chiefs of staff, allegations of conflict of interest against the Finance Minister over the issuance of a Bond, and recently the allocation of GHc800, 000 for the creation of a website for the Special Development Ministry.

[contextly_sidebar id=”DLRMmMfpsb2dbwHO0sVsIscrnAty8S6h”]According to Franklin Cudjoe, President of IMANI, such perceptions may sink the Akufo-Addo government if pragmatic measures are not put in place immediately to correct the impression of corruption against a president who promised to protect the public purse.

Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Franklin Cudjoe noted that, Ghana’s political landscape thrives on “a lot of hot air and a lot of allegations,” adding that due to this, despite the good things done or being done by a government “what tends to happen is that, allegations of corruption actually swells at some point, and swallows the government irrespective of how well they are doing.”

“And I think if care is not taken, in spite of the yet to be proven allegations of corruption within this [NPP] administration, it is the perception of people that may eventually sink the administration if they don’t take care. That has been the trajectory in this country. In instances where they’ve even been proven…you end up having government appointees defending what I call the indefensible. So for me, the perception is what we really need to be dealing with. Unfortunately, with corruption, perception seems to be the reality,” he added.

Mr. Cudjoe made the remark when panelists on The Big Issue were reviewing President Akufo-Addo’s first year in office.

He noted that although the macroeconomic indicators look good, “If they [NPP government] don’t take care, these allegations of corruption which incidentally are mostly emanating from their own camp are the ones that will sink them.”

GHc800,000 website row

There is currently intense pressure from the Minority in Parliament for the Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, to resign following revelations that her ministry intends to blow GHc800,000 on the creation of a website.

Her Ministry had requested for about GHc1 billion to undertake a number of projects including warehouses, boreholes, procurement of ambulances and vehicles, among other things.

But the GHc800, 000 budget request for the creation of a website has caused public uproar, with the Minority accusing the government of negligence.

False corruption claims will not distract us 

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in responding to these accusations of corruption which he described as attempts to tarnish his government, said they will not be distracted by the claims.

He feels there have “been systematic efforts to try and tag [his] government with corruption.”

Speaking at at Kyebi during his tour of the Eastern Region, the President stressed that attempts to falsely accuse his hardworking officials of corruption will not deter him from carrying out his mandate.

Nana Addo’s appointees showing signs of corruption – Rev. Martey

This comes on the back of an observation made by former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Reverend Professor Emmanuel Martey, who said some officials of the NPP administration, are already showing signs of corruption.

The man, who blatantly criticized officials of the erstwhile Mahama administration for being corrupt and having mismanaged the country, appears to be turning the heat on the Akufo-Addo administration.

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“The Ministry for Special Development Initiatives should not have existed in the first place. We could have saved GhC300 million of that budget if we had allowed the other ministries to do the things in the budget,” he argued.

[contextly_sidebar id=”WiQ2yysCma2esvdIRKvG54GI8MtLBSe4″]The Ministry requested for about GHc1 billion to undertake a number of projects including warehouses, boreholes, procurement of ambulances and vehicles, among other things.

The revelation of a GHc800, 000 budget request for the creation of a website has caused public uproar, with the Minority calling on the sector Minister to resign.

Although government has since attempted to clarify that the GHc800,000 for website was a typographical error, many believe it was an attempt to fleece the national coffers.

Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Franklin Cudjoe said most of the projects the embattled ministry is requesting funds for are the work of other ministries and hence, it should not have been created in the first place.

“If you look at the expenditure of this ministry, it seems to be the amalgamation of other ministries,” said.

The December 22 edition of The Big Issue saw members of the panel review President Akufo-Addo’s first year in office.

The first year of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration has been rocked by a number of corruption allegations including the BOST contaminated fuel scandal, allegations of corruption by A-Plus against the two deputy chiefs of staff, allegations of conflict of interest against the Finance Minister over the issuance of a Bond, and recently the allocation of GHc800,000 for the creation of a website for the Special Development Ministry.

Franklin Cudjoe used the opportunity to advice President Akufo-Addo to be wary of the corruption allegations that have rocked his administration saying they are likely to sink him.

“There is a perception of people that may eventually sink the administration if they don’t take care. That has been the trajectory in the past. One year of Akufo-Addo’s administration, the macroeconomic indicators look good…but I think if they don’t take care, these allegations of corruption, most of which are emanating from their own camp will be the ones that will sink them,” he added.

Embattled Special Dev’t Ministry engages Zoomlion to distribute recycling machines

In another development, it has emerged that the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives has entered into a contract with the Zoomlion Ghana Limited to distribute plastic recycling machines to some districts in the country.

A letter signed by the sector minister, Mavis Hawa Koomson and sighted by citifmonline.com indicated that District Chief Executives (DCEs) in areas selected to benefit from the program were to allocate land areas for the project.

“The Ministry of Special Development Initiatives, in order to realize the Government’s vision to transform rural and urban communities, identified sanitation as one of its priority areas. This aims at instituting proper sanitation and waste management system, which will improve health and the general living standards of the people,” it said.

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The North African country has been plunged into chaos nearly years after its leader; Muammar Gaddafi was killed in an operation carried out by the United States and its allies during the 2011 uprising.

[contextly_sidebar id=”uqLH7ARsGnAaueT3qMPIv5DwVrrB7d1E”]Former US President Barack Obama admitted in a 2016 interview, days before his handing over that his regime’s toppling of the Libyan president was his worst mistake.

Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue over the weekend, Franklin Cudjoe said he believes that “maybe the AU let him [Gaddafi] down in a way.”

Franklin Cudjoe also added that, mistakes Gaddafi committed while in office also led to his downfall.

“I believe he also made mistakes. I think he shouldn’t have been totally repressive, calling his people rats,” the IMANI Ghana boss added.

Slave trade in Libya

Mr. Cudjoe made the remark on the back of a supposed modern day slave trade ongoing in Libya.

About two weeks ago, footages from CNN of youth from Sub-saharan Africa being sold at slave markets in Libya went viral, attracting International criticism.

The heartbreaking images also showed some migrants being tortured to death by individuals in Libyan military wears.

There has been a wave of condemnations across Africa, especially due to the silence of the continent’s leaders and groups like the AU and ECOWAS over the incident.

127 Ghanaians repatriated

Some 127 Ghanaians were last week rescued from Libya after reports that these Ghanaians and some other black Africans were reported to have been subjected to inhumane treatment after giving away their life’s earnings and making torturous journeys through the Sahara hoping to make it big in Europe.

Group petitions AU to investigate ‘slave trade’ in Libya

In a related development, a civil society group known as “The Future Group,” has petitioned the African Union (AU), to investigate reports of a supposed modern day slave trade in Libya.

The group said the reports are “heart wrecking” and are “very serious crimes against humanity” hence AU must take up the issue.

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According to the think tank, although the mode of financing the programme has not yet been put out, the GHc600 million set aside to pay wages of graduates who would be captured under the NBC is too much and a “waste of money.”

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, whilst presenting the 2018 budget statement in Parliament last Wednesday, announced the policy, projecting that the initiative will give jobs to 100,000 graduates by the close of 2018.

[contextly_sidebar id=”P8GgtHk85iB9MjuodFoI4ZBoCxUBbKsd”]But President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, said the amount can be pumped into the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NIEP) or better still the agricultural sector.

“We are yet to see the details of the financing arrangement, but what we’ve seen so far unfortunately may be going to a lot of sectors that have been in existence long ago. It means that if people are going to employed to be taking care of our healthcare institutions, I don’t know if they will be doing extensive services in education because that has also been mentioned and revenue generation which have all not been clearly defined. It appears to us that these are not necessarily different from what the national service really does.”

“So in a way, we were thinking that to spend a hefty sum of almost GHc600 million to create jobs that are transient jobs basically, and not necessarily adding to the productive capabilities of the country, looks as if it is a waste of money,” Mr. Cudjoe added.

IMANI’s President also explained that, his team believes the NBC budgetary allocation could have been used to support the NEIP, saying “we think that is about the most truly entrepreneurial entity, I mean let’s do something and get money and get out of the way.”

“We would have thought that the GHc60 million that went to NEIP could have seen some complementarity with this nation builders corps. Truly if it were to be entrepreneurial, it also means it has to be competitive. Unfortunately, these funds that will be used as payment for graduates who will be employed in these sectors are not going to be competitively sought for, and we feel that is not truly entrepreneurial,” he added.

Policy incoherence

IMANI Ghana had in its assessment of the 2018 budget statement described the NBC as a “reflection of policy incoherence, and a myopic approach to solving the graduate unemployment challenge.”

“The focus of the 2018 budget is to revamp agriculture for food sustainability and feeding the numerous factories to be established under the 1-district-1-factory policy.  Interestingly, the amount allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture, which is annually inadequate, was cut by 21 percent. The decrease is likely to affect productivity outcomes in the sector. However, the elephant in the room is the ageing cocoa and food crop farmers and the low interest of the youth to venture into agriculture. One would have thought a policy to engage graduates across the country would centre on finding innovative solutions to encourage graduates into agriculture,” the think tank said in its report.

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Speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme ‘The Big Issue’ on Saturday, President of policy think tank, IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, said although reduction in electricity tariffs “is a good thing, we must be very cautious.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”egb7Tw5GJABrEXffKBD7V97GJdGD0ozH”]The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, while presenting the 2018 budget statement to Parliament last Wednesday, said government has recommended to the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) a review of electricity tariffs by between 13 and 21 percent.

But according to Franklin Cudjoe, government must make sure the review does not adversely affect Ghana’s debt profiling of the energy sector.

“There is a debt profiling known as ESLA in place, and we ought to be careful because we are not out of the woods yet, when it comes to our generating capacity. The fact that some persons do not pay the tariffs on time, the fact that there are technical and commercial losses, this may as well affect the debt restructuring procedure,” he added.

Government in the past subsidized electricity tariffs aimed at cushioning businesses and domestic consumers following intense pressure from the public.

Some had described the tariffs as “killer tariffs.” Meanwhile, the subsidy cost government millions of Ghana cedis.

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Mobile data subscription in Ghana grew from 10.6 million in 2013 with six service providers to about 20 million in January 2017 with 9 service providers.

“Notwithstanding, consumer price for data is still not affordable for all income groups…” a recent report by policy think tank IMANI Ghana stated adding that “a lot more work needs to be done by the government if Ghana is to achieve the United Nations’ sustainable development Goal 9 of universal, affordable Internet access by 2020.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”VO77MJ4CuWxmI2etnP7y7HGBUg378aX4″]The Alliance for Affordable Internet, defines affordable Internet as 1GB for less than 2% of average monthly income.

This target takes into account poverty and income inequality in most countries.

In its 2017, the alliance in its Internet Affordability report, stated that Ghanaians spend an average of 3.89% of income on 1GB of data per month.

According to IMANI Ghana, “This clearly shows internet is still not affordable to all income groups.”

The report titled:  “Why you are paying so much for broadband Internet and what should be done about it” while explaining why internet data is comparatively high in Ghana also made recommendations on how government could reduce data tariffs yet making enough revenue.

“First, the Government should take the unpopular option to reduce the price of 800MHz spectrum to reflect the true market value. The market value of 4G spectrum can be estimated by modelling the business case of potential bidders and setting well defined auction rules for price discovery.
This path will efficiently allocate spectrum to other Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to provide 4G services to their customers and still raise sufficient revenue for the government directly…”

“Secondly, the NCA needs to review its licensing regime (migrate to unified license which is technology neutral) and develop a clear policy guideline that would encourage spectrum sharing among telecommunication operators just like the case of infrastructure sharing to deliver quality and affordable services to customers. It should be feasible for MNOs to partner Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) license holders to roll out 4G Internet across the country faster,” the report among other things added.

Click below for the full report:

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According to him, the software component of the process should have just been $1 million while $4 million could have been used to tackle the hardware aspect.

[contextly_sidebar id=”eYoy8Ekqg9MjXq9oqYNzSXnbQP8r640b”]SSNIT is currently being investigated by the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) for blowing $72 million on procuring and installing a software and hardware systems known as Operational Business Suite (OBS) in a bidto digitize the Trust.

The cost which originally was $34 million later ballooned to $66 million and later $72 million due to maintenance and additional infrastructure.

The Board Chairman of SSNIT, Kwame Addo Kufuor in an interview with Citi News said about 15 people had already appeared before EOCO as witnesses in the matter.

Meanwhile, speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, the Big Issue on Saturday, Franklin Cudjoe insisted that wasting such amount on OBS system was actually a “stupid” decision.

“To think that SSNIT spent 72 million dollars on a software and a digitization project which all put together shouldn’t have cost 5 million dollars,” he added.

He further argued that even the Ghanaian company, Perfect Business Systems, that partnered the Malaysian Company, Silverlake consortium to undertake the project had no experience in that field.

“…To add salt to the injury, the companies that were shortlisted, the Ghanaian partner was said to have zero experience from what they were supposed to do. When we started looking at this matter three years ago, we had no information as has been leaked right now but we knew that Perfect Business Systems had actually zero experience and that is what we put out at the time. So we were not surprised that things turn out the way it is now that the whole thing they bought was meant for something completely different. It tells you that basic information system within SSNIT itself is caput,” Mr. Cudjoe added.

Using Nigeria as a study case, Franklin Cudjoe said the country has totally revamped its pension sector in a way that Ghana could learn from that company instead of wasting the public purse on unnecessary projects sanctioned by politicians.

“Nigeria, our next door neighbor has actually revamped, if not changed completely, the way SSNIT pension management work differently in that country to the extent that private sector has been empowered more in order to hold in trust people’s pensions. I would have wished that when the new pension reforms kicked in, we should have seen a drastic reduction of the amounts that go to SSNIT. Because SSNIT has become a cash cow used by politicians to do all kinds of stupid things,” he added.

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