HONOURABLE MINISTER AND MAYORS.....WHY COLOMBIA?

I am writing this rejoinder with regards to the recent visit of Honourable Joe Gidisu, and the Mayors’ to Colombia to understudy a modern public transport system known as ‘BRT’. This is not wholly in direct response to the original intent of the Colombian trip, but more to some rather amateurish utterances from the honourable minister of Roads and Highways, with regard to shoddy construction work done by contractors in the Highway sector of our country.

To paraphrase the honourable minister; “Bad roads constructed previously which needs to be maintained or repaired have not only affected our road construction plan for the year but has also affected our expenditure”.-Joe Gidisu. I am not sure of the Honourable minister’s professional background, but I can confidently say that he hasn’t a clue about contemporary engineering and the Laws of public works contracts, else he would not travel over 15,000 miles to make such an unprofessional statement. Pardon me, if I am wrong, but if the Honourable minister understands how the procedures of road constructions ought to be, then he is deliberately throwing dust into the public’s eye by such a statement otherwise, he simply doesn’t get it!.

I would not waste much time with equivocation, but let us all get this once and for all, ‘’A CONTRACTOR CANNOT DO A SHODDY JOB ON A GOVERNMENT PROJECT UNLESS PERMITTED-PERIOD”. I understand this statement has suddenly raised eyebrows among a lot of readers, but that is a fundamental fact of engineering and its laws of public contracts that many Ghanaian professionals especially inexperienced ministers have left in the books after taking their degrees away. I sometimes wonder if black men, especially Ghanaians just love to pile up accolades for themselves and simply turn around and approach their professions with trial and error.

I do say a CONTRACTOR CANNOT DO A SHODDY JOB, and I mean it. For the sake of readers of varying professional background, I will break this all down for our appreciation. A fundamental, but extremely important part of any public contract award is the contractor’s professional indemnity cover. This is a certificate that any contractor bidding for a government project MUST obtain from their chosen insurers. It could be Vanguard assurance, GLICO or wherever. This document should state clearly that the project is covered for the entire design life of the Road or building contract including compensations to be paid for disruption of traffic during road repairs to the state etc. I say design life, because as my colleagues in the Highway sector will agree with me, every road has its design life, beyond which all indemnity cover can seize and maintenance work has to be done before indemnity cover is renewed.

Now that this is clear with all construction and non-construction professionals, kindly go back and re assess the statement made by the whole honourable minister with respect to the state of road construction and other public works in our country. I bet the representatives from Colombia will just bow their heads and giggle, and in their own closets, they will just laugh out loud till their lungs sore.”Which serious government pays for shoddy work by contractors, and puts future construction on hold because of it?” This is extremely laughable. Honourable Joe Gidisu did not have to travel all the way to disclose this to expose the non-functionality of our book long engineers and project managers and worse of all, his own ignorance.

I would like us all to keep this for the records, and for our future, that serious governments do not, and are not supposed to repair roads that are constructed by private contractors. Rather, Joe Gidisu and his men should revisit all road contracts, and inspect the contracts to see who is responsible for indemnifying all those contracts, which by default is the contractor and get them back to repair them. In inspecting those contracts, if he comes across something like NO indemnity certificate was provided, yet the contracts were awarded to the contractors; then we need to invite some people from the previous administration to answer serious questions. If Joe Gidisu has already revisited all contracts, kindly let Ghanaians know that all the contractors were working with no professional indemnity cover, and hence government will have to absorb all costs resulting from poor work; but all future construction will not face similar problems. That is how pro-active, forward thinking men approach leadership. They uproot problems, once and for all.

This knowledge of contractual agreements is so rudimentary; I wonder who can get it wrong and for an unlikely scenario that Ghana’s government awards contracts to private contractors without insurance cover, then why am I even wasting my time writing this. Our leaders, both past and present are simply useless in that sense (I don’t want to believe that). No one does that, anywhere on this globe (except them and the likes of them). This is applicable to public school buildings, public housing etc. whose roofs get ripped off, and communities quickly turn to government to quickly come to re-roof. Put all the indemnity task on contractors like how all serious governments do, and see if they will continue to connive with engineers to do shoddy work.

I would like to sign off with a word of advice, for Hon. Joe Gidisu and Hon. Alfred Vanderpuije, whom I seem to be trailing each day. “I do not do this because for the fun of it, but things must be done right, for the benefit of future generations; and the earlier we put things in their right order, the better. We cannot simply prune existing problems, and mask it with numerous trips to look like we are solving them. Problems MUST be solved” The trip to Colombia was completely and utterly useless, apart from obviously the juicy per-diem that came with it. You can just not implement a government controlled “BRT” in a country like Ghana. We have a different culture; we know how our people treat everything that is Government controlled. Let us not even start thinking of it, because it will definitely fail, in Ghana. It will be infiltrated with politics, so much so that party functionaries will be slashing throats to get a seat on the board of directors, when they have no plan or any knowledge for its success. Just don’t waste your time even doing it. It will hardly make one pesewa profit.

What will be successful will be for you to incorporate bus-routes in the existing road infrastructure invite and assist private Ghanaians to run an organised transport system to a government specified standard, in terms of quality of service, reliability etc. Make it explicit in all terms that orperators who fall short of the quality standards will have their license withdrawn. There are Ghanaians, who run businesses successfully, the industrious Ghanaians. Just give them the springboard, set your standards right and stay back and watch them; you will just be amazed with the results. Only a private “BRT” can stand the test of time, and you all know this so why?

IS GHANA CURSED WITH BAD LEADERSHIP?

Today like all days, discerning Ghanaians have woken to tussle with the bane of poor leadership and bad judgement which has gradually found its place in our Government institutions. We are once again having to answer tougher questions than, “Why do we give politicians 4x4s to feel comfortable on our degrading and unmotorable road surfaces instead of fixing them for all Ghanaians to use comfortably?” “Why do we announce the need to salvage our failing textile industries, and on the next day, announce awarding a national contract to a Chinese firm to supply textile materials?

I believe sincerely that, the real question to be asked now is, “Why do we bother wasting money on elections when we are almost always electing the same people, with the same mindset and the same approach to governance.”

I hate to be the one to point this out, but Politics in Ghana now has become a fantasy for wide-eyed individuals, who without a political tag on them, cannot command an iota of respect even from a passing fly; talk less of succeeding in this globally competitive world. I will say it, with no equivocation that indeed, from all experiences of ex-honourables not finding jobs or being able to succeed after the voting out of their party, politics in Ghana attracts mostly no other people than inferior people, struggling to meet their daily wants, scared of facing life boldly and wanting a shortcut to riches. So where lies the surprise, when such people assume office, and make decisions that even a toddler would think twice about? I say all these making an exception for some current and ex-politicians like Dr.Kwesi Botchway, Dr. Mahammoud Bawumiah, Dr. Paa Kwesi Ndoum, Mr.Yaw Osafo Marfo, Dr. Kwabena Darko and some others who undoubtedly succeed with or without the political tag in this globally competitive environment.

I have not out of the blues decided to vent my spleen on Ghanaian Politicians for nothing. This morning’s news about our awarding school uniform contracts to a Chinese firm has woefully tickled my veins., I have no choice now than to spew some ether on whoever is behind these skirmishes. While I tried to make point clearer earlier, a few wide-eyed, ill informed mates tried to justify it with the fact that Ex-President Kufour’s team bypassed Ghanaian jewellers to award the contracts of the Kufour controversial awards to overseas jewellers; Kufour’s team bypassed Ghanaian textile manufacturers to award Ghana at 50 cloths contract to a Chinese firm. Since when did bad judgement become a comparison between NPP and NDC? Since when did party politics replace common sense? And if there’s anything worth considering, isn’t such ill judgement by the ex-NPP administration, among a lot more other reasons why Ghanaians rejected them in 2008?

Let’s now put party politics aside, (temporarily) and resort to the use of a rather unusual asset-Common sense.

Could there be one more important reason why Government would consider supply free-school uniforms to rural children other than to salvage our ailing local textile industries, create employment and boost revenues for tailors and dressmakers? I was thinking of boosting school enrolment, but let’s face it; Kofi Kyintoh will not abandon a day of his crab hunting to attend school because school uniforms are free. Neither will the lack of a uniform deter Akora Badu from taking his daughter to school, because he wants to see her become a teacher. Koo Amaning, the drunkard now sees no reason why he should chase his kids to go to school; after all, he is not even paying for the school uniform. I do not know what survey was conducted to conclude that low enrolment in basic schools was due to the lack of school uniforms. I would not even believe it is. But considering an ideal scenario, let us just say that is the reason why rural kids are not in school. Why not legislation passed, that insists they go to school irrespective of whatever clothes they have on, even if they are bare chest? Or make the choice of school clothes a bit liberal? What about focusing on creating rural jobs so that parents can afford their school uniforms for their wards without waiting in queues for their supplies?

NPP were kind enough to put us uphill on the slope down to communism, by introducing school feeding programme, and aluta continua, NDC have come in to make the slope steeper and more slippery. This unleashes the true intention of politicians: Yet as they exist, they will never make you self-sufficient, so that you can also have mouth to speak, or a brain to discern or a thumb to vote on policies. They love having to be the source of your daily bread, your kid’s school uniforms, their lunch and very soon we will all witness the launching of the home dinner programme, where every household will pick their dinner from the government menu and Assemblymen will be given the title of ladle holders. They will never make incentives available to local farmers so they can compete, not for entrepreneurs so they can compete with foreign businesses. The truth of the matter is that Governance in Ghana is hoax, all open your eyes up. You are on your own! Do not bother to even vote, because even if you are given a public sector appointment after your party assumes power, it is your initiation into a clique to destroy the country further with laziness, apathy and greed. You don’t love Ghana by making noise for politicians all day unending! You don’t love yourself either, because sooner or later, without politics, you will be like a zero before a whole number! You can never compete in the real world, and you will be amazed the number of issues that have overtaken you in the real world.

Governance, especially of a place like Ghana demands and deserves the honour of a decent level of social responsibility towards rural and poorer Ghanaians. Oh yes. But that is far from buying their children uniforms or dishing out their lunches. Most are rural dwellers; they need to be put on the right level so they can afford to take care of themselves and their families. They need good roads to transport their farm produce to bigger towns to sell not 4x4 for their MPs to get to them. They need vocational assistance, so they can acquire 21^st century skills. Their families in Juapong, Akosombo etc. need government spending on their textile industries so their remittances to them can be upped.

In august conclusion, if supply of school uniforms contracts is not to be awarded Ghanaian textile companies, then there’s absolutely no reason to do it at all. It is reminiscent of bad judgement, poor leadership, insensitivity, inferiority, pseudo-communism and as always the diabolic act of piling up unwarranted debts for the same children who appear to have been done a favour. It will make our economy worse off, and it will not make Ghanaians any better. Whoever even considers doing that is wicked, if not demon-possessed. If Ghanaian companies are quoting higher prices, the contract can wait until a better deal is struck between government and the industries period. Stand up and reject this. If it is not for Ghanaians, it is not worth it.

I LOVE NPP BUT AFAG IS A JOKE

Tuesday 4^th August, 2009 marked the laying of another milestone towards our quest for a more perfect democracy. It marked the day when Ghanaians, especially the youth, undertook a previously improbable journey towards ensuring that their destinies are written by them, not for them. Men and women, not necessarily of all tribes and political backgrounds gathered together, and with one voice, they expressed how the worsening economic situation in Ghana is taking it toll on their individual lives.

Do I commend an effort to express disgust through civil protests? YES I do. Do I also accept the need for a government of the day to be kept on its toes by a strong opposition? Certainly. Do I agree that any reputable organisation in our dear country has a solemn obligation to stand up for what is right, especially when it affects the masses?. Why not?

Yet in all these, I reject with vehemence the demonstration by AFAG on two levels. One being the lack of credible alternatives on offer to the Government, with regards to all the concerns they raised: And two, is the shadows of doubt that linger around the true intentions of AFAG. Is it for the goodwill of Ghanaians, or is it for expediency sake?

We have seen before in Ghana, when a group of young Ghanaians stood up, masquerading in the name of CJA only for Ghanaians to wake up to find out one day that they were just on their own quests to seek their parochial interests by demonising their opponents. CJA never really had the plight of poor Ghanaians at heart, but were just a hastily formed click of self-seekers who had no alternatives to Government policies, but were bent on pursuing expediency. Not surprising, most of the leading members, were quickly absorbed into the NDC government and on that day, all they campaigned for was zipped away. I would have loved to see Okudzeto Ablakwa, Omane Boamah, Fiifi Kwetey etc. being firsthand advocates of publishing monthly expenditure or outgoings of their respective ministries at least online, standing up against Mahama Ayariga and Alban Bagbin purchasing state property, just as they stood in the way of ex Hon. Jake Obetsebi Lamptey. Rather, all these former accountability advocates have shrunk into their rabbit holes and for most of them, we will hear from them again in 2012, when the start crawling out (that is if they are not too fat then, to come out through their exits).

It is really sad for people like me, who would have loved join a legitimate group to fight for justice, accountability and human rights, but unfortunately, still with my love for liberal democracy, rule of law and all the core ideals of the New Patriotic Party, AFAG is not really a thing for me. It would have been more interesting if it did not have any political undertones. It would have been more attractive to some of us it never had Pro NPP young men as leaders, but rather, invited all young people across party boundaries. A lot could have been achieved for our dear country in that case. Unfortunately, AFAG has already lost its credibility to the treacherous lies and masquerading of CJA, and it will be extremely difficult to gain it back.

AFAG has not been very different from CJA, in the sense that they are only complaining without offering alternatives. The Government claims to have raised the price of fuel in order to service debts already owed, on our journey towards reducing our budget deficit and obviously, having more to spend in the future on job creation. Excellent thought to reduce budget deficit, by working hard to pay off as much debts as possible through cutting government expenditure, full cost recovery at tertiary education level, removal of petrol subsidies etc. but are these the only ways to do that? I don’t know! But that was what I was expecting AFAG to spend time finding answers to.

Young people in Ghana, if we continue to play politics with everything, for the sake of propelling our images politically, we will not do mother Ghana any good. We will only end up selling ourselves lies, just like the leading members of CJA who campaigned vigorously for accountability, yet spent $1000s of our tax money weeks after assuming power on air fare, only to once again come back to Ghanaians to feed us with lies. We will be like them, that say it is wrong for a government official to buy a state bungalow even after following due process, yet it right to buy 5 state tractors if you follow due process.

This is time for young people to get a bit more serious and channel their energies into much more productive ventures. As I write now, 100s of 1000s of hectares of Ghanaian farmlands are being sold to young Europeans and South Americans for the cultivation of Sugarcane for producing industrial chemicals and biofuels. This should mean more to young Ghanaians than merely jumping off on to the streets, clad in red and making noise on radio stations without any alternative plans for our dear country being self sufficient. Our debts have to be paid, yes. NDC is right in saying that. We will have to endure pain and sacrifice during the time while our budget deficit is being reduced. No doubt.

Even if IMF asked government to freeze public sector jobs, did we need IMF to tell us that? Why can we not just be truthful to our conscience for one second? We all know the apathy, inefficiency and laziness in the public sector of Ghana. The only way to do solve a problem is to arrest the situation, subject it to proper scrutiny and put reforms in place, and in this case, the freeze is 100% necessary. But a freeze in the public sector does not imply a freeze on the intellect of young graduates! It does not in any way dampen business acumen; it rather calls for young people to start thinking of; instead of wearing out their shoe soles, dropping CVs; start calling for CVs.

No one should get me wrong, but for any pressure group to gain credibility after the monkey antics of the CJA last year, it would have to cut across party lines. This is why I advise the youth in NPP(Young Elephants) to arrange talks with the Youth wing of NDC(YAN) and discuss issues that affect Ghanaians of all creed, the ways to ensure accountability on a sustainable basis like monthly publishing of ministries expenditure; job creation, like incentives for young entrepreneurs and youth who have interest in agriculture like myself: and together with one voice, that coalition can take to the street in their numbers and present their case to government.

Wake up, young Ghanaians. Fight for what is right, not only when your party is in opposition, but when it is in Government as well. Join the campaign to empower young people with job creation abilities; stand up against selling our country to enterprising non-government dependent foreigners and let us make us non-government dependent as well. That is true patriotism that is true wisdom.

ACCRA WILL FLOOD AGAIN NEXT YEAR!

Growing up in Ghana, perennial floods have become a thing we simply have to marry up with for convenience; though in recent times, its intensity has reduced in the capital, smaller communities outside Accra have joined the trend of facing up to this non-forgiving plague.

As a country, we are gradually beginning to accept flooding as only solvable by a huge government budget, that will either compromise some other developmental project, or leave a hefty mortgage debt for our children to grow up to pay or as the tradition goes, for our children to beef it up more for their children to pay.

Sometimes I wonder why Dr.Nkrumah spent money building KNUST, when as a country we cannot utilise fundamental engineering principles to solve the problem of flooding without thinking of huge budgets. Every year when the whistle is blown for the contention with floods to commence, it quickly registers as an opportune moment to start awarding contracts. In fact, natural disasters have become the spring board for wide-mouthed contractors to attaining their lifetime ambition of robbing the country of its tax cedis. Does now surprise anyone that Hon. Joe Gidisu had already awarded contracts to contractors immediately after floods?

Does it surprise anyone that Dr.Hannah Bisiw (Deputy Works and Housing Minister) announced that government had allocated $25million to combat flooding in some parts of Accra. Yes, $25 million. For people who do not appreciate this budget, it is equivalent to a 6-classroom unit in all 230 constituencies of Ghana or 1 New Regional Hospital in all 10 regions. But these funds are just on top of what Hon. Joe Gidisu is demanding as payment to contractors for their interim solutions or remediation work that was done.

As I have always tried to do, for government officials who do not necessarily appreciate the use of simple but holistic solutions for complex challenges, I will try here now, to tell all of Hon. Joe Gidisu, Hon. Albert Abongo and Dr. Hannah Bissiw how to put a permanent end to flooding anywhere in Ghana, without as always, looking around for Government money to spend. I do this in owing to my belief that this country belongs to all of us, and with our little contributions here and there, we can all help lift the image of our country up.

This proposal will cost Ghanaian Taxpayers $0.000 for the 2009-2010 financial year, in fact it will surprisingly even put money in the pockets of some Ghanaian artisans, while solving two pertinent problems; flooding and water shortage. ‘’For the sake of readers, construction of new culverts will help mitigate the problem, but it will NOT ensure efficient aqua management to address water shortages, it will cost our country too much and is never EVER enough if there are no efficient means to direct stormwater flow into them’’

Before I even outline this, Joe Gidisu, Albert Abongo and Hannah Bissiw; by the end of this week, send a bill to parliament to BAN all future construction of open concrete drainage channels...like NOW! I just could not bring myself to terms with the fact that this drainage option costs way more than laying buried PVC drain pipes yet that is most often our choice for drainage. It was recently that I came to understand why we do not employ the use of buried PVCs and readers; you will be surprised at the reason.

When one employs the use of buried PVC pipes, there is the need for a civil engineer to design and supervise how to grade the slopes of the area so that run-off is all directed into it. It does not behave the least like our conventional ‘gutters’ which would more or less ‘prostitutes’ all flowing liquid within its vicinity. For crying out loud, KNUST passes out an average of 150 new civil engineers each year ; this design is so fundamental, a 2^ND year civil engineering can do. I am not here to give an engineering lecture, so I will go straight to the point. Open concrete ‘gutters’ have an extraordinarily high tendency to trap rubbish when uncontrolled, and choke up as compared to properly designed buried PVCs interspersed with catchpit manholes. They breed mosquitoes, cause malaria; they are an eyesore and are the least efficient but most expensive surface drainage option. Their only advantage is they are good for lazy minds that do not want to spend time assessing a drainage data, and just want to put something in for the sake of it! Ban open drainage channels (‘gutters’) NOW!

While that ban is on, let us make it obligatory for each building to have a rainwater downpipe linked to a proper roof gutter system.(This should be compulsory on ALL buildings) This does not cost much, but surprisingly, it will save us more than 50% of whatever we propose to spend on controlling flooding in the future. For the sake of non-technical readers; when it rains, let us consider 40% as dropping on our roofs and 60% as dropping directly on hard ground. When one has a rainwater downpipe linked to a roof gutter the chaos of the 40% running off the roof to join the 60% which already puts open drains and culverts at its mercy is arrested.

Once this arrest of 40% of all rain water falling in Accra is made, homeowners have two choices, if you have an underground tank or a well in your house, you can direct the rainwater downpipe into it but if you are as wasteful as most of us are, that water can be channelled into the nearest storm water sewer or ‘gutter’; the most important thing is that that 40% of water falling on roofs is kept under control. We just should not allow it to run off on to the supposed ‘waterways’; which is another lazy engineering option for curbing water flow.

We do not need technical minds to assess what the implications are ,if as a country, we are all able to keep 40% of rainwater under control. This is a 1^st step, once again without considering using $3.5million or $25million but rather adopting simple engineering and management practises. This is not just hypothetical, it is what every country which is serious about curbing the flood menace while at the same time ensuring safer aqua management practises does. There are a lot more that go with these steps, but these are very fundamental, they have to be right before we start talking about spending huge monies on construction; either for the goodwill of Ghanaians or for greasing the palms of wide-mouthed contractors.

Once these are right, the Honourables can contact me for phase two of this comprehensive scheme, which deals with paving and is free of charge to mother Ghana or as usual, they can dismiss everything I have proposed!

"The best way to eat the elephant standing in your path is to cut it up into little pieces."
-- African Proverb