EAGLE EYE GHANAIANS?

We must as a nation congratulate ourselves for creating a perception among at least some politicians that we will not tolerate sleaze among those who keep our purse. According to the former Chief of Staff and the Head of the Planning Committee of the defunct Ghana@50 he advised the former Chief Executive of the same org to be cautious with some aspects of the work because Ghanaians will be suspicious of any unusual actions of people in Power. Mr. Mpaini was giving evidence on the mismanagement of funds allocated to the celebration of the Ghana @50.According to Mr. Mpaini he warned Dr. Wereko Brobby to be very careful when the latter decided to loan the Ghana@50 Commission with 200,000 Ghana Cedis towards the celebration when the funds were not forthcoming from Government If this is the case and they do fear such finger pointing then that should mean more Government officials should be scrupulous in their dealings.And if most Ghanaians demand accountability from their officials then this should lead to more accountability. Mr. Mpainin in a negative tone berated Ghanaians for being too suspicious of Public officers and "have a pull-him-down attitude". If this was the case and yet they still managed to steel the staggering amount of money we occasionally hear about. MORE POWER TO GHANAIANS IF THAT IS WHAT THEY WILL DO TO SAFEGUARD OUR SMALL KITTY.

DISSAPOINTMENT THUS FAR !!

Most of us are disillusioned about direction of the the new government anyway but it looks like we have to brace ourselves for yet more heartbreak.This is especially difficult for those of us wish they do well for Ghanaians to be rewarded for giving them a chance to show that that governance can be conducted in a way that does not ignore the needs of ordinary people. as was seen in the Kuffour days. In the beginning of the NDCs rule the some of our pleaded for some of the impatience to be toned down and the new administration to be given some time to settle. lack of strong leadership and the lack of bold thinking in those early days was tolerated by some of us only because we thought it was only a matter of time that the Good professor came into his own. Instead of the Government getting to grips with the country's situation, it looks like Mill himself is baffled and confounded and lacks the sharpness of reaction to deal most issues especially when it comes to communicating actions and plans. I do not for one moment doubt the competence and the capabilities of Mills and majority of his team in dealing with some of the issues we have on our burning hands in the country today. But there is some amount of inertia and where there is some movement there is a fair amount of hesitation. There no point in touting the capabilities wend potential of anyone or any institution if those attributes are not translated into tangible deliverable. It is distressing to see the government falters in simple areas wand make the erstwhile mediocre administration seem like a group of hardworking rocket scientists.

GOT SERVED!

The rains we prayed for came and it washed us away from our flimsy structures and caused us so much pain and anguish. A lot of times we humans wish for thins we really cannot handle when we gt our wishes. Ghanaian also are noted, far more than any other group of people, for causing self inflicting pain and what happened on Friday and Saturday was a classic case of illustration. firs we are at fault for praying for rain when we were in the least prepared for it no matter how absurd that may sound. we simply should have left god alone to his own devices but no, not Ghanaian we fasted , "allnighted" and "compelled" the Almighty to open the heavens-open he did on Friday evening( and what a time too for God to choose ;ruining the perennial weekend revelers). The majority of people who pray happens to live in Accra which incidentally is the most ill-prepared and least in need of rain

IF HE IS NOT AWERE LET HIM KNOW

WE WILL NOT FORGIVE MILLS IF HE FAILS Many of us really wish the president well and hope he succeeds not least because of his humility and measured approach.he is totally different in approach from the Kuffour team that inflicted humiliation on us and expected us to thank them for it. However after six months of mills it is very difficult to say we are on the right track however magnanimous i try to be. There is lack of strong personality and direction at the center and i struggle to see any boldness in action or thought from the president and his team. Also it seems the president especially is overwhelmed by the problems of this country ad is struggling to decide where to begin. We all know the NPP left this country on a broken limb but we Ghanaians are not prepared to wait .We want solutions now. The president is too touchy feely and does not want to step on toes but that is what governance is about.

LETS CELEBRATE AU

Its is not Perfect but it is a great and wonderful dream Sure i would never hold a Federal United States of Africa passport in my lifetime and i may not be able to travel effortlessly between African countries as of it was one nation, but the dream of African unity is un-undying passion that makes my heart glows every time i think about it.This wonderful yet almost illusive dream fashioned by our illustrious fore bearers is both uplifting and disappointing depending on which side you happen to be standing at what time . It is one of the few things that all Africans aspire to but deep inside we hope it is not only a vision. every year on the 25 of may people across the content are reminded of this dream of our fore fathers to make the African continent one nation. The celebration that goes wit this day always so much emotions and debates as to whether the project of Africa Unity is even a desirable vision not to mention whether it will ever be attained. Then there is the perennial cynical view that since the early 50s African leaders only shuttle between capitals for unproductive talk shops that does not yield any benefits for the ordinary African or fails to move the continent any closer to unity. some say the reborn AU is no different from the erstwhile OAU which many have consigned into the dustbin of history as one of the failed multinational organizations with lofty intentions but lacking pragmatic actions. we live on a continent where we have been programmed by both internal and external factors to always see the negative and ignore the successes and the positive. the bad news has drowned out the good news so much so that good news and successes are rare. This condition has been applied in assessing performance of the OAU What many fail to recognize is that that the AU has been through an evolution and a deep analysis will show that it really did more than average in fulfilling its missions and goals. One of the prime goals of the OAU in its formative years was to liberate the continent from colonial domination.This goal was achieved in record time which brought some of the very best in Africans and showed that together we can collectively achieve.Within less than a decade this was actualized leading to the liberation of over a dozen colonies.By the 25th year of the existence of the OAU only a handful of African colonies were under colonial control and in those places strong efforts were underway to liberate to areas.

BRETTON WOODS IS BACK TO GET US!

ARE OUR LEADERS READY TO SAVE US FROM THEM? Last week we all listened in horror as the IMF staff mission leader Peter Allum delivered his report to his bosses in Washington. his report was as usual laden with bitter pills for us to swallow. One of the main concerns of the IMF was the government's partial subsidization of energy and utility tariffs to low consumers. According to Mr. Allum this is one major concern of the Fund and they see it as one of the main problem areas of our economy. So predictably the IMF is urging the Government to cut this all important lifeline to the poor (one of the few things citizens get to enjoy from the government). After the G-20 in April summit the G-7 countries realizing that they have lost some clout economically , south to entrench their domination by giving the IMF more powers and resources. The newly re-launched IMF is determined to continued from where they lefty off prior to the Global Financial Crisis. Forcing small developing counties to go through painful reforms that do not yield any benefit but causes a lot of misery to the poorest in the society. The change in government from fairly right-wing NPP to the 'social democratic' NDC is expected to lead to a resistance of the cutthroat policies from Washington. we are keenly watching , especially at a time of great economic upheaval whether the good prof. and his NDC will be worthy of our confidence and trust in the management of our economy away from all the dependency traits that has contributed in holding us back.This is time for assertive leadership that can intelligently jungle asking for money from the fund (because we desperately need it)while at the same safeguarding some our very sensitive sections of the population from cutthroat and painful reforms that hurts. The Bretton woods system is clearly set up against our interest so if our leaders will disregard good and sensible counsel and go ahead to do the biding of the fund , then we are truly doomed.Forced reforms always end in disaster and countries that have benefited from good reforms always do so on their own accord and not under duress. We all saw how powerless the Breton woods were when some of thier acclaimed "star pupils" in eastern and northern Europe who have followed liberalization policies to the letter came close to economic implosion. The IMF had no answers to the collapse of the Global financial system which they had shaped and influenced over the last two decades. Our leaders must be wise and not let us down. the fact that full cost recovery is working in other countries does not make it the optimal policy choice for us too.

A LITTLE MORE OF THE SAME

.... Real change is elusive in terms of posture and orientation Those of us who rooted for Atta mills to ascend to the presidency because we thought he was going to be our answer to the real change that was needed are left scratching our heads and left wondering if he can provide at least some hope to the change agenda Only a week ago the media space was completely dominated by abject discussions and debates about the true number of people and functionaries included in the presidents entourage and the true cost of the trip to the UK. The president's media czar defended the number and the expenses on a host of media outlets , claiming that Ghanaian must rather consider what came out of the trip rather than the cost. for a moment , i thought it was Kwabena Adjepong or Andrew Awuni or or better still defending Kuffour over his numerous travels. Mahama ayariga ,when quizzed , insisted that the travel to the UK was to secure funds to balance our budget and to fund some critical projects.and that millions of pounds have been pledged by the UK government towards such.In a way that argument answers the critics (especially those from the opposition NPP) who have been mocking the president for being locked up in the castle and unable to travel outside the country to look for funds to run the country. That is the aspect that saddens me the most ;that our measure of the success of leadership is the leader's ability to beg for more funds from western nations This is the level we have reduced ourselves to. and sadly our president has bought into it. This mediocre leadership style that is low on cerebral work but heavy on little things that appears grand but hollow inside is what we rooted for the Prof to change but it looks like so early in the day our hopes will be dashed. What is even more annoying is that our new president is also trapped in the neo-colonial mind that dictates that we must maintain a "special" relationship with our colonial oppressors. even the act of the president first visiting the UK in his first official trip outside of Africa at the expense of missing the swearing -in of the new president of South Africa! In the new geopolitical reality we find ourselves in our leaders must be nimble footed and forward thinking. The world is totally different in geopolitical terms and diplomatically from the one they knew when growing up. If they are impervious to the reality , they better have a second look at the events at the G-20 convened in London on the 1st of April to discuss ways out of the global Economic crisis.Only a few years back that summit would have been dominated by only a few western countries while big powers like China , India, Russia,Brazil and South Africa wouldn't even get a look-in. the worlds power centers have not only shifted by it is spreading , creating many centers of powers. The world is becoming 'Flat' and the traditional political ,economic and diplomatic superpowers are having to cede some of their powers to other countries because they have no other choice. The newly emerging powers are propping up the western economies through all forms of investments and trade. Our leaders must recognize the new reality and take actions that will enhance our development. The unreasonable attachment to our colonial ties must be shed away and embrace the new era that has dawned on us. The president must know that the change agenda also includes foreign policy; we must revolutionize our foreign policy outlook to benefit from the new age and form powerful partnership with the emerging powers who will pull us towards the expanding center. Also the "beg mentality"of our leadership must be shed away and a more cerebral , creative and and dignifying attitude to adopted. If the job of the presidency is simply going around western countries begging for money , then most of us "simpletons can be better president than those we have had.

NOW WE CAN STOP COMPLAINING

....MILLS THROW THE GAUNTLET TO THE YOUTH I have enormous respect for the president and this has been strengthened by the decision of the professor to appoint many young people into ministerial and governance positions across the board.And when i speak of young people , i dont mean fourty- somethings who have been around forever, but relatively inexperienced and fresh people. This is something most of us have been agitating for....give us a chance to prove ourselves.It seems it was something the president has given a lot of thought and deliberately gave these young men and women a chance to show what they can do.Never in the history of our country has so many young people have been given a chance to prove themselves in positions of authority.The likes of Okudzeto Ablaquah, and James Agyenim Boaten would not have stood any chance of getting an appointment getting such high profile appointment in anyone's government except for that of prof Mills. Even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of hard core party members mills has bravely given the chance to some very young people. The other day i watch a group of angry NDC members berating the president for appointing a 26 year old man as a DCE.i thought that was brilliant decision b the president. Now these young must become ambassadors or the youth of Ghana and dispel the wrong notions crafted about young people. Their elevation to these positions is an opportunity in three generations and their performance will determine whether the youth get another chance to prove the young people are indeed better at some things that we are given credit for. Not only young people have benefited from the Mills revolution but women have also been given the opportunity to influence decision making at the highest level.

100 OF TENTATIVE CRAWLING

Most people really wish president Mills very well in his bid to prosecute his change agenda. Mills is a likable character and has the outlook of an underdog... a humble underdog at that. Most people are inclined to have a soft spot for underdogs and mills has an excellent underdog profile in the Ghanaian context. but inexplicably Mills did not get the honeymoon and goodwill that new governments get in the beginning of their reign. perhaps a reflection of the impatience of LONG SUFFERING citizens who are simply tired of the ebb and flow of hope and frustration with each change in government . After 100 days, the jury is still out on the real achievement of the mills govrnement but whta most of us keen observers hav sen is that this goernemnt will adopt a delibrately brooding style of dong things. Mills seems not to be in any hurry to take any decisions or actions . This irks both critics and supporters alike. The supporters are angered especially by the unwillingness of the president to wrestle control of the state and its machinery from the operatives of the previous government. Another worrisome feature of the mills government is his choice to remain silent and lock himself up in the castle . Over the last 3 months Mills has been president his profile goes up and he appears to be control and command confidence whenever he speaks to the media, but this rarely happens. The president is extremely media shy and makes me remember one of his statement during the 2008 electioneering campaign , when he declared in an angry tone that "we talk too much". But seriously that is the first and foremost function of a government-to communicate its actions and intention to the populace. However it is clear that Prof. Mills is a honest and thoughtful person and with the right personnel and council he can achieve one thing that has eluded this nation in a long time ,that an honest and clean leadership. for now most can forgive the president , but that will certainly not be the case in a years time.A little bit of tentativeness could be tolerated for now but our legendary collective patience is not infinite.

RESPECT!

Many people around the world have enormous expectations on president Obama , they expect him to create a new global order dominated by fairness, equity, sincerity and above all respect for other countries especially those who are not considered as traditional close friends of the US.This expectation is against the background of 8 years of confrontational, threatening and disrespectful attitude of the Bush administration towards countries he and his Neo-con advisers considered as adversaries on the international arena. On Thursday 19 march , President Obama addressed the Iranian leadership and its peoples on the eve of their new year. The tone and content of the address was very different from what we are traditionally used to when it comes to dealing with Iran. the president gave strong indications that he will be willing to negotiate with the Iranian leadership in a fair way while respecting its rights to its sovereignty and independence.the speech was devoid of any threats of use of force which is significant in that it calms the environment and prepares the ground for more meaningful engagement.The Obama administration has clearly signaled it is in a mood to engage diplomatically. Another significant aspect of the speech was that it addressed both the people of Iran and their leaders in the same breath: a significant departure from the divide-and-rule tactics employed by previous US administrations that tries to depict the leadership as a monstrous machine that does not have the welfare of its people at haert

LORDS, MASTERS AND MISTRESSES

>>>>>THE CALLOUS RULING ELITE

LORDS, MASTERS AND MISTRESSES

>>>>>THE CALLOUS RULING ELITE

Talking-shop-on-Thames

BIG ECONOMIC POWERS DECIDE THE FATE OF POOR “LIKE King Charles II, the Economic Conference is taking an unconscionable time to die,” lamented The Economist in 1933, halfway through an epic—and ultimately fruitless—gathering of world powers in London to prevent the spread of protectionism in the depths of the Depression. That conference lasted more than a month, with the dollar sinking and tempers rising the longer it dragged on. At least there is no danger of interminable drift when leaders of the Group of 20 gather in London next month to address the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. They have set themselves just one day, April 2nd, to do what their predecessors failed to accomplish in weeks: tackle the crisis and consider ways to remake the rules of finance. This weekend G20 finance ministers and central bank governors attending a preparatory meeting in London may well attempt to limit expectations. More pressingly, they will have to heal an awkward sense of transatlantic disunity that has emerged in the run-up to the meeting. The tensions were exposed at an assembly of European finance ministers on March 9th and 10th. The ministers responded sharply to a call by Lawrence Summers, the White House economic adviser, for everyone in the G20 to focus on boosting global demand. Such calls were “not to our liking,” sniped Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister and the chairman of the meeting. The cause of harmony may not have been helped when Britain’s most senior civil servant was quoted as saying the shortage of staff in Barack Obama’s two-month-old Treasury was making preparations for the summit “unbelievably difficult”. (Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, disputes that.) In reality, the tensions appeared more symptomatic of the opening of bargaining than of a disastrous rift. The G20’s agenda focuses on three broad areas: sorting out the crisis through fiscal and monetary means and by encouraging banks to lend; medium-term regulatory reforms; and strengthening multilateral bodies such as the IMF so that they can give more help to crisis-hit developing countries. Everyone has different priorities. America feels its counterparts are not doing enough to boost demand. It would like them to pledge a fiscal stimulus equal to 2% of global GDP this year and next, and for the IMF to monitor compliance. Some countries would also like the European Central Bank to make better use of its monetary arsenal, as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have. America has indeed done a lot to stimulate growth (see table). The IMF, however, notes that taking into account automatic stabilisers, such as welfare payments to the unemployed, Germany’s fiscal response is not as far behind America’s as it appears. Not only does Germany feel its spending package is big enough, it is pressing for a quick return to balanced budgets when the crisis is over. Although transatlantic differences have emerged over fiscal policy, they are narrowing over regulation. Germany and France have long battled to persuade America and Britain to regulate hedge funds, which are clustered in the financial centres of New York and London. America is now prepared to countenance regulation of systemically important ones. Since the G20 leaders first met in November, their deputies have laboured on reforms to the stricken global financial system, in particular through the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), a Basel-based group that met in London this week. These include reforms that would affect bank regulators, supervisors and accounting standard-setters, and cover bankers’ pay, derivatives trading and rating agencies. America, chastened by its own regulatory failures, is now more supportive of tougher, co-ordinated global regulatory standards but only to a degree: it is unenthusiastic about uniform standards for executive pay pushed by Britain. In addition, the FSF is expected to propose to the G20 ways to make bank regulation less pro-cyclical, by making forward-looking provisions against bad loans rather than the “incurred-loss” method now in use—though not so that banks can use the provisions to massage earnings (see article). It will suggest incorporating a leverage ratio into bank-capital requirements, to supplement the existing risk-weighting of assets. It is also helping set up cross-border supervisory colleges to share information about 30 global banks. Illustration by S. Kambayashi There is general support for doubling the IMF’s resources to $500 billion, but America would like it to have even more. It is not clear how the increase would be funded. Reserve-rich countries like China could contribute more, as Japan did with a $100 billion pledge in February. But some fear that strings might be attached to such money, such as less criticism of China’s exchange-rate policy. Mr Geithner has proposed the IMF’s credit line with 26 rich member countries be dramatically raised to $500 billion from $50 billion. Some of the trade-offs will be driven by political considerations. French and German voters, for example, lay part of the blame for the crisis on hedge funds and tax havens, even though both played minor roles compared with the highly regulated banking system. Likewise, Mr Geithner is pressing for higher global capital standards for non-bank financial firms (such as American International Group, a big insurer), in part to reassure taxpayers that this sort of crisis and the accompanying bail-outs will not be repeated. Given the importance of the summit to the reputations of Gordon Brown, its British host, and Mr Obama, on his first overseas trip since taking office, every effort will be made to trumpet such progress. Few expect a 1933-style fiasco, though participants believe that given the tensions exhibited this week, a narrowing of differences is more likely than any “grand bargain” to put the world to rights. The best that might emerge from the summit is proof that leaders of the world’s biggest economies continue to talk to each other. Given the urgency of the situation, and the immense capital that Mr Obama still holds abroad, the world might have hoped for more. Talk, like so much else in this financial crisis, is cheap.

Talking-shop-on-Thames

BIG ECONOMIC POWERS DECIDE THE FATE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY “LIKE King Charles II, the Economic Conference is taking an unconscionable time to die,” lamented The Economist in 1933, halfway through an epic—and ultimately fruitless—gathering of world powers in London to prevent the spread of protectionism in the depths of the Depression. That conference lasted more than a month, with the dollar sinking and tempers rising the longer it dragged on. At least there is no danger of interminable drift when leaders of the Group of 20 gather in London next month to address the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. They have set themselves just one day, April 2nd, to do what their predecessors failed to accomplish in weeks: tackle the crisis and consider ways to remake the rules of finance. This weekend G20 finance ministers and central bank governors attending a preparatory meeting in London may well attempt to limit expectations. More pressingly, they will have to heal an awkward sense of transatlantic disunity that has emerged in the run-up to the meeting. The tensions were exposed at an assembly of European finance ministers on March 9th and 10th. The ministers responded sharply to a call by Lawrence Summers, the White House economic adviser, for everyone in the G20 to focus on boosting global demand. Such calls were “not to our liking,” sniped Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister and the chairman of the meeting. The cause of harmony may not have been helped when Britain’s most senior civil servant was quoted as saying the shortage of staff in Barack Obama’s two-month-old Treasury was making preparations for the summit “unbelievably difficult”. (Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, disputes that.) In reality, the tensions appeared more symptomatic of the opening of bargaining than of a disastrous rift. The G20’s agenda focuses on three broad areas: sorting out the crisis through fiscal and monetary means and by encouraging banks to lend; medium-term regulatory reforms; and strengthening multilateral bodies such as the IMF so that they can give more help to crisis-hit developing countries. Everyone has different priorities. America feels its counterparts are not doing enough to boost demand. It would like them to pledge a fiscal stimulus equal to 2% of global GDP this year and next, and for the IMF to monitor compliance. Some countries would also like the European Central Bank to make better use of its monetary arsenal, as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have. America has indeed done a lot to stimulate growth (see table). The IMF, however, notes that taking into account automatic stabilisers, such as welfare payments to the unemployed, Germany’s fiscal response is not as far behind America’s as it appears. Not only does Germany feel its spending package is big enough, it is pressing for a quick return to balanced budgets when the crisis is over. Although transatlantic differences have emerged over fiscal policy, they are narrowing over regulation. Germany and France have long battled to persuade America and Britain to regulate hedge funds, which are clustered in the financial centres of New York and London. America is now prepared to countenance regulation of systemically important ones. Since the G20 leaders first met in November, their deputies have laboured on reforms to the stricken global financial system, in particular through the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), a Basel-based group that met in London this week. These include reforms that would affect bank regulators, supervisors and accounting standard-setters, and cover bankers’ pay, derivatives trading and rating agencies. America, chastened by its own regulatory failures, is now more supportive of tougher, co-ordinated global regulatory standards but only to a degree: it is unenthusiastic about uniform standards for executive pay pushed by Britain. In addition, the FSF is expected to propose to the G20 ways to make bank regulation less pro-cyclical, by making forward-looking provisions against bad loans rather than the “incurred-loss” method now in use—though not so that banks can use the provisions to massage earnings (see article). It will suggest incorporating a leverage ratio into bank-capital requirements, to supplement the existing risk-weighting of assets. It is also helping set up cross-border supervisory colleges to share information about 30 global banks. Illustration by S. Kambayashi There is general support for doubling the IMF’s resources to $500 billion, but America would like it to have even more. It is not clear how the increase would be funded. Reserve-rich countries like China could contribute more, as Japan did with a $100 billion pledge in February. But some fear that strings might be attached to such money, such as less criticism of China’s exchange-rate policy. Mr Geithner has proposed the IMF’s credit line with 26 rich member countries be dramatically raised to $500 billion from $50 billion. Some of the trade-offs will be driven by political considerations. French and German voters, for example, lay part of the blame for the crisis on hedge funds and tax havens, even though both played minor roles compared with the highly regulated banking system. Likewise, Mr Geithner is pressing for higher global capital standards for non-bank financial firms (such as American International Group, a big insurer), in part to reassure taxpayers that this sort of crisis and the accompanying bail-outs will not be repeated. Given the importance of the summit to the reputations of Gordon Brown, its British host, and Mr Obama, on his first overseas trip since taking office, every effort will be made to trumpet such progress. Few expect a 1933-style fiasco, though participants believe that given the tensions exhibited this week, a narrowing of differences is more likely than any “grand bargain” to put the world to rights. The best that might emerge from the summit is proof that leaders of the world’s biggest economies continue to talk to each other. Given the urgency of the situation, and the immense capital that Mr Obama still holds abroad, the world might have hoped for more. Talk, like so much else in this financial crisis, is cheap.

OUT OF TOUCH ZEALOTS AND POWER SEEKING RELIGIONISTSEEKING CONTROL OVER POPULATION

>>>>>>OVER POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH POLICIES There are aver 100m Catholics in Africa , most of whom live in different cultural and economic conditions though most of them have one thing in common: a deep respect for for the Pope, the head of the catholic church(who considers himself as God's representative of earth ). his views are sacrosanct to majority of Catholics and most of them hung to it like dear life. This makes the pontiff's crusade against contraception very dangerous in one of the most affected regions of the world in terms of HIV/AID and populations planning. the dogma of the catholic church over the use of condoms as a preventative tool against HIV is without basis and his adamant posture defies any reasonable logic. the Pope insist that condom use was not the answer to fighting AIDS on the continent "On the contrary, it increases the problem," the Pope told reporters a day earlier aboard his plane on his way to Africa. There are over 40million sufferers of HIV/AIDS on the African continent some of whom are devout Catholics and may have been saved from the disease in the first place if they had had the benefit of sexual and contraceptive information. Over the years the catholic church even under the leadership of the moderate john Paul took a strong stance against the use of contraception and any other form of family planning. even back then a certain bishop Ratzenger was one of the driving forces behind this uncompromising stance. now this bishop Ratzenger happens to be Pope Benedict who has hardened his stance and made so many attacks against almost all the features of our modern society. he has hardened his stance against gay rights,stem cell research, abortion , the ordination of females, celibacy in addition to his pet opposition. He was the key inspiration behind the roll back of some of the positive scientific and family planning policies in the US during the evangelical right-wing inspired presidency of Bush. During Bush's years all US funding for any health facility that provided family planning and abortion services.this resulted in fatal consequences in many countries including Ghana where maternal mortality increased twofold with two thirds of all fatalities happening as a result of unsafe abortions. There are horrific tales of young women inserting dangerous objects and chemicals such as broken bottles and detergents into their wombs to abort unwanted pregnancies because it was illegal to perform abortion or because there was no availability of education/information and facilities where they could go. This man (the pope) is either completely out of touch with the world or deliberately following dogma informed by primitive ignorance that is costing a lot of lives.he is a leader of a billion strong followers and has enormous powers , even though he is not accountable to anyone of his followers. he gos around the world wielding a lot of influence on world leaders .asking them to implement policies to the detriment of majority of the population As far as HIV infections occur, the reality is, yes, there is a failure rate associated with condom use. However, the failure rate of any abstinence policy is considerably higher. figures from Uganda where money for condomisation was cut and used for an extensive abstinence campaign returned a negative result ,culminating in an increase in the infections and prevalence rate in a country that had succeeded to a certain extent in controlling the AIDS scourge The pope would willfully destroy the world in order to satisfy ancient ritualistic dogma.

MORE LIKE IT MR.PRESIDENT

Many people have been jolted my the effusive and unannounced outburst of the President. speaking to a group of journalist who called on him at his Castle office, the president in an animated tone give a clear warning that he will not tolerate any unjustified harassment from anyone ,especially the opposition NPP whose posture since losing power has been very questionable. among his audience were a good number of media personnel who have made it their lives mission to destroy the ruling party and their associates including the president.They have attacked, mocked and humiliated the president right from his days in opposition till now.The president has suffered a lot at the hands of this section of the media and he feels he is really really fed up with them. Since the president was sworn in the NPP has been taunting the president and the ruling party and have refused to co-operate with the transition team. And whenever the new government takes any action to demand accountability the out gone government uses the media to accuse them of harassment. The NPP as was shown last Sunday have failed to realize that they are out of power and strut around behaving as if they have a divine right to rule this country. "I respect civility and politeness and I believe that people have taken my respect for peaceful co-existence as weakness, timidity and inability to act "

A BETTER GHANA BUDGET

It probably is the most unanticipated budget in almost a decade and sure it was an unheralded affair. Right after the hurried transition there was a huge issue about the true state of the economy . whilst the out going NPP insisted they left a far better economic legacy than they met , the incoming government and the world Bank were shouting from the the rooftops about the worsening economic conditions. The ensuing debate led us to one conclusion : the economy was in dire straits and Ghanaian must brace themselves for the coming storm that was going to be very rough. Many Ghanaians get the message, the economy is in a mess and that they should expect very little from the government. The overarching theme of the budget was Fiscal discipline and austerity at all levels of governance with the most coming from the executive.There are so many initiatives and ,measures geared towards cutting out waste and monitoring how monies are spent in all the MDAs. It is dense of good governance initiative and waste -cutting. If all these initiatives will be implemented then it will mark the beginning of a new era of accountability and openness in governance. What the budget is short on is bold visions and initiatives that will give a clear direction to the nation.

Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents current data on unions' effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections. Some of the conclusions are: • Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%. • Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree. • Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries. • The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages. • The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans. • Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer. • Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions. • Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays). Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to legislated benefits and protections. The union wage premium It should come as no surprise that unions raise wages, since this has always been one of the main goals of unions and a major reason that workers seek collective bargaining. How much unions raise wages, for whom, and the consequences of unionization for workers, firms, and the economy have been studied by economists and other researchers for over a century (for example, the work of Alfred Marshall). This section presents evidence from the 1990s that unions raise the wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise total compensation by about 28%. The research literature generally finds that unionized workers' earnings exceed those of comparable nonunion workers by about 15%, a phenomenon known as the "union wage premium." H. Gregg Lewis found the union wage premium to be 10% to 20% in his two well-known assessments, the first in the early 1960s (Lewis 1963) and the second more than 20 years later (Lewis 1986). Freeman and Medoff (1984) in their classic analysis, What Do Unions Do?, arrived at a similar conclusion. Historically, unions have raised the wages to a greater degree for "low-skilled" than for "high-skilled" workers. Consequently, unions lessen wage inequality. Hirsch and Schumacher (1998) consider the conclusion that unions boost wages more for low- and middle-wage workers, a "universal finding" of the extensive literature on unions, wages, and worker skills. As they state: The standard explanation for this result is that unions standardize wages by decreasing differentials across and within job positions (Freeman 1980) so that low-skilled workers receive a larger premium relative to their alternative nonunion wage. The larger union wage premium for those with low wages, in lower-paid occupations and with less education is shown in Table 2. For instance, the union wage premium for blue-collar workers in 1997, 23.3%, was far larger than the 2.2% union wage premium for white-collar workers. Likewise, the 1997 union wage premium for high school graduates, 20.8%, was much higher than the 5.1% premium for college graduates. Gundersen (2003) estimated the union wage premium for those with a high school degree or less at 35.5%, significantly greater than the 24.5% premium for all workers. Unemployment insurance Unemployment insurance (UI) is a joint federal and state program that was created in the Social Security Act of 1935 to provide some income replacement to workers who lose their job through no fault of their own. Budd and McCall (1997) offer a cost-benefit decision-making analysis to explain the costs facing the unemployed worker in filing a UI claim. In a system with complex eligibility rules and benefit calculations and a lack of uniformity among states regarding these rules, the difficulty, or "cost," of obtaining information is formidable. In fact, the main reason that many unemployed workers never file a claim is because they thought they were not eligible (Wandner and Stettner 2000). The threat of an employer retaliating by not rehiring a laid-off worker might be another cost weighing on the decision to file a claim. Unions can help offset the costs of workers who are laid off. Primarily, unions provide information to workers about benefit expectations, rules, and procedures, and dispel stigmas that might be attached to receiving a social benefit. Unions also can negotiate in their contracts layoff recall procedures based on seniority and protection against firing for other than a just cause, as well as help workers build files in the case of a disputed claim (Budd and McHall 1997). Additionally, the union-wage differential reduces the likelihood that unemployed workers will be ineligible for benefits because their pay is too low (Wenger 1999). Budd and McHall (1997) have estimated that union representation increases the likelihood of an unemployed worker in a blue-collar occupation receiving UI benefits by approximately 23%. At the peak of UI coverage in 1975, one in every two unemployed workers received UI benefits. By the mid-1980s, the ratio of claims to unemployed workers (the recipiency rate) had fallen to almost 30%. Blank and Card (1991) found that the decline in unionization explained one-third of the decline in UI recipiency over this period. These findings underscore the difference unions make in ensuring that the unemployment insurance system works. Considering that UI acts as a stabilizer for the economy during times of recession, the role of unions in this program is pivotal (Wandner and Stettner 2000). Worker's compensation Laws governing workers' compensation are primarily made at the state level (with the exception of federal longshoremen), but they generally form an insurance system in cases where a worker is injured or becomes ill at the workplace. The employer is liable in the system, regardless of fault, and in return they are protected from lawsuits and further liability. Once again, lack of information about eligibility and the necessary procedures for filing a claim forms the greatest obstacle to receipt of benefits. Fear of employer-imposed penalties and employer disinformation are important other factors weighed by workers deciding whether to act. As with unemployment insurance, unions provide information to workers through their representatives, and they often negotiate procedures to handle indemnity claims. Through grievance procedures and negotiated contracts, unions protect workers from employer retaliation and, furthermore, act to dispel the notion among workers that employer retaliation is commonplace (Hirsch et al. 1997). Hirsch et al. (1997) found that, after controlling for a number of demographic and occupational factors, union members are 60% more likely to file an indemnity claim than nonunion workers. Employers and the private insurance companies that sell worker's compensation insurance policies have mutual interests in denying claims to limit costs (Biddle 2001). According to Biddle, higher denial rates lead to lower claim rates. The robust finding of Hirsch et al. demonstrates that unions provide a needed counterbalance to this interest. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) The Occupation Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) provided the foundation for the Occupation Safety and Health Administration, which enforces safety and health standards at places of work. The administration's purpose is to limit work-related injury, illness, and death due to known unsafe working conditions. They currently have only 2,100 inspectors to monitor over seven million establishments. Enforcement of OSHA regulations presents an obvious challenge; OSHA implementation requires worker action to initiate complaints. In two studies of OSHA and unions in the manufacturing and construction industries (1991a and 1991b), Weil found unions greatly improve OSHA enforcement. In the manufacturing industry, for example, the probability that OSHA inspections would be initiated by worker complaints was as much as 45% higher in unionized workplaces than in nonunion ones. Unionized establishments were also as much as 15% more likely to be the focus of programmed or targeted inspections in the manufacturing industry. In addition, Weil found that in unionized settings workers were much more likely to exercise their "walkaround" rights (accompanying an OSHA inspector to point out potential violations), inspections lasted longer, and penalties for noncompliance were greater. In the construction industry, Weil estimated that unions raise the probability of OSHA inspections by 10%. In addition to the findings above, Weil notes that the union differential could be even larger if OSHA's resources were not so limited. He claims, "Implementation of OSHA seems highly dependent upon the presence of a union at the workplace" (Weil 1991a). Following the trend of declining unionization, OSHA claims have dropped from their peak in 1985 of over 71,500 and are currently at close to 37,500 (Siskind 2002; OSHA 2003). Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Passed in 1993, the FMLA grants workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period to care for newborn or newly adopted children, or in case of a personal or family member's health condition. The leave taker is guaranteed the same or equivalent position upon return. One of the most striking characteristics of the act is that less than an estimated 60% of employees covered by the FMLA are not even aware that it exists. There is also widespread misunderstanding on the part of the employer about whom the act covers and when it applies. There is evidence that this leads employers to reject legally entitled leaves (Budd and Brey 2000). According to Budd and Brey (2000), union members were about 10% more likely to have heard of the FMLA and understand whether or not they were eligible. Union members were found to have significantly less anxiety about losing their job or suffering other employer-imposed penalties for taking leave. And although the authors did not find union membership significantly increases the likelihood that a worker would take leave, they did find that union members were far more likely to receive full pay for leave taken. The biggest obstacle to workers exercising their rights under the FMLA—besides the fact that the leave is unpaid rather than paid—is information, since only a very slim majority has even heard of the act. With the exception of a $100 fine for failing to post a notice, employers have little incentive to inform employees of their rights. Unions are one of the few institutions to create awareness about FMLA's existence and regulations. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) This act, passed in 1938, had two main features: first, it established a federal minimum wage. Second, it established the 40-hour work week for hourly wage earners, with an overtime provision of time and a half the hourly wage for work done beyond 40 hours. Trejo (1991) examined the union effect on compliance of the latter part of the FLSA, finding that employer compliance with the overtime pay regulation rose sharply with the presence of a union. He hypothesizes that this result reflects the policing function of unions because unions often report violations to enforcement agencies. Summary: union impact on workplace protections The research evidence clearly shows that the labor protections enjoyed by the entire U.S. workforce can be attributed in large part to unions. The workplace laws and regulations, which unions helped to pass, constitute the majority of the labor and industrial relations policies of the United States. However, these laws in and of themselves are insufficient to change employer behavior and/or to regulate labor practices and policies. Research has shown convincingly that unions have played a significant role in enforcing these laws and ensuring that workers are protected and have access to benefits to which they are legally entitled. Unions make a substantial and measurable difference in the implementation of labor laws. Legislated labor protections are sometimes considered alternatives to collective bargaining in the workplace, but the fact of the matter is that a top-down strategy of legislating protections may not be influential unless there is also an effective voice and intermediary for workers at the workplace—unions. In all of the research surveyed, no institutional factor appears as capable as unions of acting in workers' interests (Weil 2003). Labor legislation and unionization are best thought of as complements, not substitutes. Conclusion This paper has presented evidence on some of the advantages that unionized workers enjoy as the result of union organization and collective bargaining: higher wages; more and better benefits; more effective utilization of social insurance programs; and more effective enforcement of legislated labor protections such as safety, health, and overtime regulations. Unions also set pay standards and practices that raise the wages of nonunionized workers in occupations and industries where there is a strong union presence. Collective bargaining fuels innovations in wages, benefits, and work practices that affect both unionized and nonunionized workers. However, this review does not paint a full picture of the role of unions in workers lives, as unions enable due process in the workplace and facilitate a strong worker voice in the broader community and in politics. Many observers have stated, correctly, that a strong labor movement is essential to a thriving democracy. Nor does this review address how unionism and collective bargaining affect individual firms and the economy more generally. Analyses of the union effect on firms and the economy have generally found unions to be a positive force, improving the performance of firms and contributing to economic growth (Freeman and Medoff 1984; Mishel and Voos 1992; Belman 1992; Belman and Block 2002; Stiglitz 2000; Freeman and Kleiner 1999; Hristus and Laroche 2003; with a dissenting view in Hirsch 1997). There is nothing in the extensive economic analysis of unions to suggest that there are economic costs that offset the positive union impact on the wages, benefits, and labor protections of unionized and nonunionized workers. Unions not only improve workers' benefits, they also contribute to due process and provide a democratic voice for workers at the workplace and in the larger society.

CLASS WARS, SICK SOCIETIES

SOUTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION If the nature of a revolution can be established by the manner of its dress, then the one led by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela must rate as one of history’s more ambiguous upheavals. Chávez has had three standard outfits during his five-year presidency – baseball kit, military fatigues, Italian suit and silk tie – and he has generated an ideological froth to match. On returning from the Middle East, he proclaimed that his country should turn to Islam; when back from Cuba, his preferences turned to the rigours of communism. Like a compass surrounded by attractions, his heroes and sacred texts pull the president in as many different directions as there are forms of punishing the rich. “Where is this revolution going?” Chávez asked himself in an interview with Le Monde Diplomatique at the end of 2001, on the eve of the year that would see him ousted, reinstated, and confronted by a two-month general strike. “Well, like every revolution it’s going towards the transformation of political, social, economic and also moral structures.” For those wanting more specifics, he highlighted a recent protest by employers: “that was the first lockout [of employers] in Venezuelan history. Now, that shows we’re going in the right direction.” The travails of heroism Amid the global roster of bland, business-courting political leaders, such flagrantly provocative statements are the sort to have won Chávez a following on the international left. Selective glimpses at the recent history of his country would also suggest that the former paratrooper is rightfully seeking justice in a land of outrageous inequality. Consider, for example, the cabal which toppled him for two days in April 2002. One meeting just hours before the coup was held in the offices of the Venevisión television station, and featured Latin American media tycoon Gustavo Cisneros, employers’ federation chief Pedro Carmona, and hereditary oil magnates. Carmona then journeyed to the army headquarters, seized power, annulled the constitution, and suspended all elected officials – all to a sigh of approval from the White House. The romantic vision of Chávez would then no doubt proceed to tell of the tens of thousands of incensed shanty-town dwellers who descended on the capital, at great risk to themselves. “The top dogs are coming back, the old bunch of thieves,” they shouted; and Chávez, aided by a bout of infighting in the military, reassumed a mandate to last until 2006. Any reasonable judgment, based on the rhetoric and the personalities, would indeed opt for the corner of the people’s hero. But Venezuela is ample proof that the course of revolutionary government does not always follow its precepts, and can well betray them. Does it really serve the interests of the poor to enrage the middle and upper classes with forty-nine laws in the space of a year (2001), including ones designed to hand out land, stiffen “Bolivarian” school education and “democratise capital” in the banking sector, while also offending the mighty in Washington by likening the attack on Afghanistan to terrorism? On paper it may, but in the context of Venezuela, these were essential precursors to a year of civil breakdown, economic collapse and huge capital flight. The bombast of Hugo Chávez in the face of what he termed a “rancid oligarchy” did not so much empower the underprivileged as bring to the surface Venezuela’s latent class war. The current cost is a decline of 29% in GDP in the first three months of 2003, the bankruptcy of 15% of businesses, interest rates in the region of 50%, and unprecedented levels of civil paranoia and crime. Chavez may try as hard as he can to shift all the blame for these figures onto the shoulders of the “squalid” overlords, who in his eyes spent the 1970s sampling French cheese and Scotch whisky, but he is also responsible for committing the cardinal Latin America error of ignoring the economic balance of power. The same occurred to Alan García’s Aprista government in Peru during the second half of the 1980s. This pledged to pay in debt servicing no more than 10% of the value of its exports, only to find hyperinflation and the flowering of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla insurgency hastening its downfall. Fidel Castro’s Cuba, of course, is the epitome of beneficial action for the poor gone wrong. At present, some 700,000 Cubans out of a population of 11 million have been to university, only to graduate before a vista of minimal employment and enrichment. Venezuela, in Chavez’s Bolivarian imprint of revolutionary associations, a schooling boom and an intense dislike for business, is heading in precisely the same direction, with one principle consolation: while Cuba exports tobacco and sugar, Venezuela deals in oil. Venezuela: class war, sick society Yet seen through the prism of Venezuelan society, the reading of Hugo Chávez as self-destructive philanthropist is far too contrived. Such is the polarisation of opinion around Venezuela that blame for the country’s economic and civil implosion is attributed wholly either to Chávez or to the oligarchy (which, as if to emphasise the country’s singularity, includes the trade union movement). This marks a social divide that is astonishing in its production of blinkered hatred. The seam that has always run through Venezuela – separating anyone with formal employment from the 60-70% of the population clinging to semi-urban hillsides and scraping by – has now become an abyss, across which empathy and understanding rarely travel. Plead for neutrality, and you are sure to be hounded: a television reporter for one of the five private television stations, all of which openly despise Chávez, revealed that her efforts to give objective coverage of a street fight received short shrift from the producer. “Go on, say it was the chavistas who attacked with stones. Say it, or you’re fired.” The prospect of a referendum on the president’s rule, which is constitutionally permitted from 19 August onwards, is now the principal hope for the opposition, and will doubtless renew the bitter political contest. Thus, as much as the chavistas may fume and lambast their enemies, the alternative they represent is no more enlightened or accommodating. “I had a gold mine with 250 employees and we managed to extract 1,300 kilograms of gold,” recalls Héctor Mezones, who recently fled to Madrid to set up an exclusive restaurant. “But Chávez ordered a revision of the concessions, and that halted all activity. I wasn’t going to stay around to see how we were going to be ruined in a society where the proletariat is happy with having bread to eat, but doesn’t realise it has lived through a forty-year educational and cultural regression.” In these circumstances, which resemble the racially-tinged class cleavages of Allende’s Chile or Central America in the 1980s, Chávez’s haranguing and occasional persecution of the television bosses, the oil executives and his political opponents is understandable, if not laudable or wise. Should anyone question his mission, the president can easily point to his election in 1998 with 56% of the vote, and his success in no less than four referenda that followed to ratify a new constitution. These events together signalled fundamental landslide reactions to an unsustainable system of government and distribution of the social spoils. The medicine for such a sickened society was always going to be painful. Forty years for the locust From the Punto Fijo pact of 1958 which opened the way to a new constitution, to Hugo Chávez’s victory forty years later, Venezuela appeared to the outsider to be a relatively rich, stable two-party democracy. This appearance, however, shrouded a Hispanic hacienda tradition which treated the state as private property, accentuated by an oil boom fuelling over half the government’s revenues without any contribution from the public. Vast quantities of money were wasted, crony-run monopolies multiplied (in beer and canned food, for example), and the poor who flocked to the city fringes received just enough through the circuits of patronage to sustain them, without ever having a larger claim over the dollars that magically filled state coffers. This was a society shorn of democratic entitlement and responsibility, hinging on elections yet without a shared public life. Inevitably, it collapsed. In February 1989, following a steep decline in the world price of oil, President Carlos Andrés Pérez (prompted by the IMF) announced a 30% increase in bus prices: the poor were to pay for the absence of oil riches. Over the days of rioting, looting and police repression that followed, some 400 people were killed, constituting the bloodiest uprising in recent South American history. In February 1992, Hugo Chávez, a paratrooper and thereby a member of the sole institution that was open to all sectors of Venezuelan society, mounted his one and only coup. It failed; he nevertheless became a national hero. For those seeking vindication of Chávez’s regime, there is no better reference: while the so-called “Caracazo” riots illustrated the absolute exclusion of the marginalised poor from Venezuelan political life (their only options were violent), Chávez seemingly represents an effort to bind these people to the system, to channel their legitimate grievances. There is certainly evidence to support the claim. His Bolivarian circles and creation of local councils, as Dan Storey discusses in openDemocracy, appear to have inserted political practice into the heart of previously anarchic and combustible communities. He is, evidently, the president of the poor. Populism or patience? Yet placed against Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva in Brazil, or even Néstor Kirchner in Argentina, the demagogic populism, the buffoonery and love of outrage take much of the shine off Chávez. He is, in truth, a traditional Latin American populist, a man who has violent fringes, as shown by bombs in embassies, television stations and even the Organisation of American States (OAS) offices; peculiar allies, including China, Qatar and Saddam Hussein; and an interminable Sunday evening television show, Aló Presidente, a That’s Life spin-off where people’s problems are solved and the president vents his spleen. All government flows through him, a fact he excuses by arguing that his will and the real interests of the Venezuelan nation are one and the same passion, born from his 1992 coup: “the people even invented a prayer: ‘Our Chávez who art in prison, hallowed be thy name.’ How do you fight that? It’s messianic, yes. But not because I pushed for it.” Not unlike those shantytown rebels in 1989 who stole the best whisky and champagne from the boutiques of Caracas, Chávez seems to have partaken too much of the political culture that preceded him. While the international banks speak of “second-generation” institutional reforms in the continent, Chávez is the relic who goes to a EU conference in Spain and berates the massacres of the conquistadors. Lula, by contrast, comes from a background even more deprived than that of Chavez, yet assiduously courts foreign capital and manages the world stage with ease. He is just as determined to bring the poor into the social mainstream, but wishes it to happen through the rule of law, business creation, and some variant of European consumer capitalism. The terrific austerity now being imposed in Brazil is the exertion to be made before the “orchestra” is tuned up, and in his words, “the symphony can begin.” The comparison between Lula and Chávez does not flatter the Venezuelan leader – though the latter would certainly protest, with some justice, that civil society is much more mature in Brazil, and its elites far more perceptive. Indeed, Lula himself has been inclined to indulge Chavez rather than rebuke him, and (as well as welcoming the Cuban leader to Brazil) has turned an approving eye to the intensifying mutual aid between Fidel Castro and Venezuela – the sugar factories, health services and university places are contributed by Cuba, the oil by Venezuela. Both within Brazil and in forays to the richer nations, Lula has never failed to listen to the bankers and portray his policies in terms of the future profitability of business. In a Latin American perspective, however, the arrival in power of the Workers’ Party leader is also part of a continental shift in which a certain space for repositioning is perceptible. Washington’s hawkish US assistant secretary of state Otto Reich, who played some part in the April 2002 coup against Chávez, is no more. Chile and Mexico successfully resisted US pressure for a second Iraq resolution in the UN Security Council. And the renegade revolutionaries from Cuba and Venezuela, their economies in tatters, are once again on the guest list for major functions across the continent, which the two men enjoy enormously. One simple reason to explain Chavez’s embrace of the revolutionary left is that semi-tropical export economies tend to present a highly-circumscribed choice of leader: as one impoverished Venezuelan put it to a visiting reporter, “he’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot.” Another, more significant consideration is that both Chávez and Castro lie within the political spectrum of the fight for equity in hostile surroundings. They stand at the destructive extreme of levelling politics, yet Lula must be aware that the pole they represent is a useful and persuasive menace in his own coming battles with business, land and financial elites. Many of the goals espoused by the three leaders are after all similar. Where they differ is over the extent to which historical conditions and ideological dogma have driven each to see different group interests as essentially incompatible – and society as a zero-sum contest between rich and poor. The hold of an inclusive vision, which argues for mutual benefits between classes and ethnicities, has always been tenuous on the continent: the more defective the underlying political and social settlement, the more likely that economic orthodoxy and the democratic rule-book will be flouted.

GENEROUS SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH

While the Poor are told to play the Free Market Game Those of us further to the left always had some difficulties with the notion, but George W. Bush's administration (and perhaps some of his acolytes nearer home) appear to have found a new approach: socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. In building a left polity without a basis in common ownership, a generation of Fabians and social democratic thinkers constructed a polity where the less well-off in society would be provided with a safety net - and indeed equality would be promoted, particularly through comprehensive education - while the richest could enjoy relatively laissez-faire pro-capitalist politics, their only cost being progressive taxation to fund the 'socialism' of the poor. Compared with much of the philosophy of the New Labour era, it was quite progressive, and it certainly isn't the purpose of the current article to criticise it. I was always sceptical that a single polity - the sum of the policies for rich, middling and poor - could really serve the interests of all three. At best it could serve the interests of two out of the three, and two contiguous groups. As such, I've always seen it as my business to try and design policies that serve the interests of those on moderate and low incomes, even if those policies run contrary to the interests (the immediate, material interests, at any rate) of the rich. But of course, all manner of states have intervened in all manner of economies, and just because we are used to the notion of state intervention as being part of the politics of the left, we must not ignore the potential of the state to intervene in the interests of the wealthy, even where the intervention may run contrary to the interests of those on moderate and low incomes. Of course, it may be the case that - in the interests of people of all manner of incomes, and across the world not just in the US - $700 billion (or more) will have to go to bail-out the gambling debts of the super-wealthy. It may be that that's what we have to do, because actually capitalism - even if you try and just reserve it for the rich - is inherently flawed, and is all-consuming. Our interests have - like it or not - become bound up with those of Wall Street and the City of London; and because governments in many countries have allowed the gamblers to have their fun (never bailing out those who truly lost when the losses consisted of the savings or pensions of people on moderate or low incomes) we have arrived at moment of emergency intervention. But this is also the moment of the test. Do we throw billions of dollars and pounds and euros at this tainted industry just to allow it to start again? For pinstriped gamblers to pocket billions in future boom years, and the rest of us to bail them out again when the next bust comes along? Can we afford that little bit of 'socialism' to keep the rich in business; the super-wealthy winning in boom and bust, while those on moderate and low incomes take the hit in both conditions too? After all, $700 billion dollars is an extraordinary amount of money; earlier debates about money in Congress this year have been about just how big the cuts in Medicare provision should be. John McCain - proud to have played his part in securing $700 billion dollars for bankers - has a set of policies that involve cutting Medicare further, getting rid of tax incentives for employer-paid health insurance... After all - ordinary people should be subject to the whims of the market. In the UK, we have closed down Remploy factories, while reducing the number of people eligible to claim a decent Disability Living Allowance amongst other 'welfare reforms' where we look after the pennies, while the pounds pour into the wealthiest people's back pockets and keep funding city bonuses. If it wasn't for the human cost of the nascent crisis, one could almost laugh that George W. Bush - that great ideologue of capitalism - should be presiding over such a great crisis of capital that he has had to occasionally take up the old cry of 'nationalise the banks!' But the important thing for us is to ensure - in the UK at least, where we have potential power over such decisions - that the interests of those on moderate and low incomes are kept at the forefront of all our decision-making, regulation and intervention. Underwriting the poison with tax money and public debt, while selling off the gold to another set of gamblers does not come under that heading. We also need to ensure that we rethink the stuctures of high finance - fundamentally and entirely - in the interests of those same members of society - even if that should run counter to the interests of the wealthiest. That is the lesson of the crisis, and it's a lesson we need to learn quickly and well.

MAKING OF THE NEW LATIN LEFT

Latin American authoritarianism: the 19th century's post-independence strongmen (including capricious butchers such as Paraguay's Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia); the mid-20th century's military rulers, inspired by national-security doctrines and the demonisation of the left after the Cuban revolution; and - today - the "third wave" represented by Morales and Chávez. The former shunned democracy entirely, while the latter shelved altogether the need for popular consultation ("the ballots boxes are in safe keeping" proclaimed the Argentine junta of 1976); what marks the current generation (so the argument goes) is that it rules through the "tyranny of the majority", exploiting long pent-up grievances to overrun all state institutions and taint opposition with the stigma of being oligarchs, imperial lapdogs, and enemies of the poor. This story, wholeheartedly propounded by the US military's southern command (whose chief, General Bantz J Craddock, predicts a "backwater of violent, inward-looking states") is not without its truths. At the level of rhetoric, both Morales and Chávez do specialise in bombast and confrontation. The actions of their states tend to be sudden, top-down, and geared to mass approval: take the 1 May nationalisation of Bolivia's hydrocarbons, or Chávez's blizzard of forty-nine decrees in 2001 and his incessant military build-up. Inside the states, and despite differences of circumstance and history, new prerogatives of presidential power emerge. Some $15 billion, taken from "surplus" oil revenues and central bank reserves, are now under the control of Venezuela's development fund, Fonden - an organisation run by a president-appointed board, with decisions rubber-stamped by a parliament where all 167 seats are occupied by chavistas. "Others used them (presidential decrees) to put their hands in people's pockets," Kirchner recently explained of his own ruling habits in Argentina. "I use them to fill pensioners' pockets and protect people." As the various legs and arms of public power become occupied - first the executive and parliament, then the courts, the civil service, the armed and security forces, state-run companies, and finally the press and provinces (which not even Chávez has yet achieved) - the mística of power intensifies. The Venezuelan leader, according to his brilliant ex-guerrilla opponent Teodoro Petkoff, exerts a "magical-religious" thrall; López Obrador, though he will have to wait, is denounced for "messianic" tendencies; Morales received his ceremonial vestments of the Great Condor at Tiwanaku a day before his presidential sash. "There is a classic and well-known fear of freedom, an insidious and pernicious feeling," writes Chilean author Jorge Edwards, with urbane disillusion, of the continent's penchant for "Napoleon's imitators." A question of land The criticisms are valid, but in themselves they hardly amount to the dawn of leftwing tyranny. In all cases, barring Cuba, the opposition is alive and vociferous, the ballot secret, the press free, and the courts still function; there is definitely no sign that prison cells are receiving political inmates. Yet the sense of imminent institutional shutdown is undeniably strong. Middle and upper classes in Bolivia and Venezuela look to Havana with grave foreboding, uncertain what the much-vaunted Chávez-Morales-Castro "axis of good" might entail. They find swaggering populism tolerable, even normal: it is and always has been the default mode of the right across the region. But a state that extends its purported revolutionary mission into a country's most ingrained institution - private property - is quite another thing. The extent to which the fears of Latin America's wealthier social strata, the denunciations of encroaching dictatorship, and the attempts to reorder a nation's ownership structure are strapped together should never be underestimated. Time and again, the region's societies have tolerated far-reaching reform, only to snap into warring factions when the issue of land deeds is broached. The seed of Chile's coup in September 1973 can largely be found in fears of a property revolution that had in fact been initiated in the 1960s, under a reforming Christian Democratic government. And as a recent, unofficial biography of Chávez makes clear, the item in the waterfall of Bolivarian legislation in 2001 "that provoked the greatest agitation" concerned legal controls over land and agrarian development; Chávez termed it "hot stuff"' and said "I worked on it myself." The raw neurosis that the lexicon of land reform produces - the word "expropriation" has similar connotations to violent mugging in Latin America - stems from firm historical roots. Shaped by an invasive, colonial rule, the region's economies generated centuries of fine living for some, married to low-paid extraction and harvest for the rest. Ownership, in other words, bequeathed wealth and status; it defined social identity in a profoundly conservative fashion, sapping the continent of the less fecund north's capacity for market innovation, mobility, and industrial investment. When attempts are made to rewrite the underlying property structure, the margin for democratic compromise appears minimal: those who gain do so at the expense of someone else's loss. This is, more than anything, a zero-sum game. Bolivia is now living the early stages of this conflict. Some thirty-five million acres, say government officials, are to be distributed to 2.5 million people, or 28% of the population, by 2011; this in a country where, according to the Catholic church, 50,000 families own 90% of the land. "The historical enemies of the poor must accept this land revolution," declared Morales in June. According to his vice-president and strategic mastermind, Álvaro García Linera, the eventual goal is a three-tiered "Andean capitalism": modern industry (initially gas production), urban trade, and traditional farming. Already the countryside has witnessed shootouts and deaths. The strident opposition in the eastern Santa Cruz lowlands has spawned a protest network (Nación Camba). It boasts vigilante, racist tendencies and an agenda of halting land reform, as well as a civic leader, Germán Antelo, who excoriates the government for "authoritarian fascism", and for its "manuals of subversion written in foreign lands." It is no coincidence that the lion's share of the land destined for redistribution - on the basis of laws passed in 1953 and 1996, albeit to little effect - should lie in the fertile east. It may be predictable, but there is still something unsettling in the way Bolivia's great popular awakening, that of Morales's landslide election in December 2005, should have so soon produced a stand-off threatening the very foundations of democracy. "In this tug of war, democracy keeps going only as a precarious balance between demands for social change and the interests that resist it," explains Ana María Romero de Campero, who heads the Unir-Bolivia foundation, devoted to the unenviable task of pacifying the country. The conflicts, she says, are still building up, "exacerbated by one side, then another." Other countries in the left-leaning quadrant, where urban population densities are much higher, have not suffered the same extreme polarisation through agrarian reform. But the propertied still shiver with anxiety at the morning news: a tremendous row is brewing within chavista ranks - oxymoronic as that may seem to some - over decrees to expropriate ninety-five supposedly underused properties in Caracas, two of them golf courses. Luis D'Elía, former piquetero (picketer) leader in Argentina and now a government housing official, has likewise lobbied for a more radical treatment of land, particularly the tracts in hands of foreigners - starting with 300,000 hectares belonging to United States businessman Douglas Tompkins. In these countries, however, a rather different form of redistribution provides a greater cause for alarm. Violent crime is not government policy, but the terror it generates, and its sharp recent rise - Latin American accounted for 75% of all the world's kidnappings in 2003 - would seem to express in a diffuse way the abandonment felt by the wealthy, and the vengeance that society is preparing for them. Where governments should exert firm control, there now appear territories run by sub-states forged in prisons (as in Brazil's Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Capital Command / PCC), or armed gang networks camped out in the hearts of cities. It is not difficult to imagine the panic felt by the Portuguese business community in Venezuela when, for several weeks in 2006, a list of their names and addresses were sold first at street-stalls, before then being posted on the internet. All power to the informal A populist leftwing drift is neither novel nor particularly threatening: Brazil under Getulio Vargas, Argentina under Perón, Bolivia from 1952, Peru from 1968 - all provided less democratic and constitutional varieties of the very same phenomenon. But this new political climate is marked by Cuban guidance, institutional fragility, and a bellicose rhetoric of them-and-us; for many, it seems in word and deed to be heading to a democratic dead-end and an overarching state. Were Hugo Chávez to lose in December, would he really give up power? Radical intellectuals respond with a familiar, yet powerful argument. Drawing on the great theorists of Latin American revolution, the Cuban José Martí and the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui, they stress the primacy of social rights, derived from the moral urgency of combating extreme poverty. Fidel Castro still draws on huge sympathy across the continent for this very reason; his government counterpoises its extraordinary aid of 2,600 medics to Pakistan after the earthquake in October 2005, its eye-surgery for 6 million poor people across the continent, with the export of war by Washington in the name of freedom. "Democracy is under threat in Latin America, but not in Bolivia and Venezuela," argues Atilio Borón, a prominent Argentine sociologist. "The great problems are to be found in countries where governments are failing to rule in line with the expectations of the electorate, causing a very serious corrosion of legitimacy." Were social welfare and the full quota of civic and political rights incompatible, then it might be right to choose the former. But from the developed west, this trade-off sounds suspect: surely a formula in which the two feature, as they did in post-1975 Spain, would be preferable. Surely political movements and parties can reach an accommodating pact to serve the common good while also blocking authoritarian takeovers. The blueprint for best-practice democracy, however, must at some stage face up to the domestic particularities of Latin America. Spain's parties of right and left struck a constitutional deal that has brought thirty years of growth and alternation in power. Colombia in 1957 and Venezuela in 1958 witnessed very similar left-right pacts, whose signatories pledged growth, civil rights and social justice - only for Colombia to be consumed by over four decades of fratricidal conflict, and Venezuela to seize up in 1998, victim of rampant corruption and a hobbling, hapless state. "We do not know what sort of country we want to be, nor how we want to be it, nor how we can be it," reads the confession of Ramón Escovar Salom, an interior minister in the last pre-Chávez government. Those political parties which might steer a moderate course towards reform, meanwhile, have vanished from sight in the countries that would most appear to need them. The new movements - the Bolivarian cause in Venezuela, Bolivia's MAS - rose in the twilight of party systems, staking out constituencies at extreme speed through a febrile grassroots and a national media presence. And in no way do they resemble the parties they superseded: locating stable membership, manifestos and conventions is a fruitless quest. MAS is a focal-point of dozens of different social sectors and radical causes, which it does not altogether control. Chávez, meanwhile, is at the pinnacle of a bewildering array of groups and neighbourhood committees, first engendered by his propaganda trips across Venezuela in a Toyota Samurai after his release from jail in 1994. If there is any glue in these huge and powerful movements, it is a certain defining social experience. These are the quintessential products of 1990s Latin America, where the state pulled back, poverty rose, mass media spread, and formal contractual employment withered. Indeed it is the people subsisting in black market employment, accounting for 47% of all the region's urban jobs in 2003 - rising to 66.7% in Bolivia, the highest rate on the continent - who are the bedrock of this political transformation. Apart from limited labour laws, their lives are virtually without a safety net - and 75% of Latin Americans are afraid they will lose their job. The state has done nothing for them. Their homes are built, not bought: a United Nations study in 2000 found that 50% of homes in Caracas were constructed unofficially. Their hopes of social advancement are virtually nil. Argentine author Tomás Eloy Martínez memorably reported the case of one man from Berazategui in Greater Buenos Aires, who encapsulates just such a struggle with shift work, penury and constraint: a factory hand who on losing his watch, and unable to pay for a new one, regularly gets up to walk to the bus station during the night so he can ask for the time, and thus not be late to start his job at 6am. It is no surprise that voters such as these demand sweeping change. Nor is it remarkable that coarse nationalism and primetime TV proclamations are the political response. Their plea - echoed in multiple Latinobarómetro surveys from across the continent - is for effective, accessible government. Their leaders' venom against the oligarchy or petrolatifundismo (oil and estate ownership) or the empire strikes a popular chord, and soothes high expectations. But this impatience and battle-readiness is leavened with far more pragmatic demands, complicating the prognosis for imminent authoritarianism. Ideology is fuzzy and volatile: having spent five years in jail for training a revolutionary militia in the 1990s, García Linera now appears to be Bolivia's chief pacifier of the opposition and foreign investors. There is certainly no systematic revolutionary plan, nor state structure able to pull one off, nor a cold-war power willing to sponsor such a transformation. Just as significantly, the popular social demands are material - for food, health and education. Any threat to the future provision of these goods would quickly sap the leaders of authority. Chávez, for instance, may have built up a massive war chest of discretionary funds, but focus-group work by the Hinterlaces agency in Caracas in 2004 noted just how willing his supporters in that year's referendum would be to change sides should he not deliver on his promises. Inside the regimes, crude and boisterous democracy is in fact the normal working practice. Frequent governmental chaos in Bolivia, particularly involving the nationalisation of gas fields, is a faithful reflection of the clamour of so many powerful social groups, with their front line in the shanty towns of El Alto. Even if this would seem to entail a tyranny by the poor majority and the construction of huge constituencies fed by political patronage, there are sounds reasons to expect that issues such as crime, economic stability and growth - on which a future opposition might thrive - will gain greater popular leverage. For just as free trade's creative destruction promises in the long-run to make rich workers out of the world's labouring poor, so these governments are hoping to turn the marginalised into an aspiring bourgeoisie, a boli-burguesía. Horizontal movements, driven by vocal material demands, are not harbingers of dictatorship. Extreme polarisation, however, has fostered a climate in which violent action, curbs on independent institutions, electoral boycotts and vigilante groups may flourish. It is easy to lament or condemn the clumsy aggression of a populist regime; but much harder to accept that it emerges from a process of political and governmental decomposition that has left millions to survive without support, and to give their votes to the promise of instant remedies. Wise diplomacy and the counsel of neighbouring moderate governments, especially once the Brazilian election campaign is over, should serve to allay many of these tensions. Yet all concerned, inside and outside, should remember that these new leaders are not dangerous and disposable puppets, but the products of history, pouring from groundswells in their societies. Cuba's Josè Martí said it well: Injértense en nuestras repúblicas el mundo; pero el tronco ha de ser de nuestras repúblicas ("Let the world form part of our republics; but the foundation has to be of our republics").

THE FIRST MANY MOVEMENTS GET OFF THE GROUND RUNNING

As The Expected Prosecutions of NPP Functionaries Begin A new movement that purports to be fighting for the freedom of "politically persecuted" individuals has been formed. It is FREE GYIMA MOVEMENT. It main aim is to fight for the acquittal and freedom Mr.Charles Gyima the former Boss of the National Investment Bank who is currently in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation BNI for causing Financial loss to the state. Even before this chap is hauled before a court and determined to be either guilty or innocent this group led by Egbert Fabille ,the Editor/Publisher are shaping up to dominate the media space to primarily accuse the NDC government of witch hunting. Based on the sleaze,greed,and corruption that has gone on over the last 8 years,it will not be surprising to see t his movenement as one of many yet to come. We may soon have the likes of FREE OSAFO MARFO MOVEMENT,FREE KOJO MPIANI MOVEMENT,FREE ANANE MOVEMENT,FREE OBETSEBI MOVEMENT or even FREE Kuffour MOVEMENT. Surely the wrongs the NPP did will not be quietly swept under the rug.

GHANA'S POLICY SPACE

TRADE POLICY PRACTICE IN GHANA Economic partnership agreements’ or free trade areas are currently being nego-tiated between the European Union and the different sub-regions of the ACP group, including ECOWAS. EPA/FTAs will have considerable consequences for domestic economies in the sub-region and therefore will be a critical element in defining the direction of the region's economic development in the next decade or two. While the ECOWAS governments and the European Commission are still agreeing the road map for the negotiations, EPAs have not been discussed fully with local stakeholders. This first workshop, organised by TWN-Africa and GAWU was a first test to measure the concerns and reactions of stakeholders – particularly producers - to this latest addition to an ‘alphabet soup’ of initiatives ostensibly aimed at reversing Africa’s economic decline. The EPA negotiations are taking place while the Government of Ghana is formulating a national trade policy. Through a series of contributions and debates, local actors from agriculture, industry, services and financial sectors presented a list of concerns and issues that should inform both government’s position in EPA negotiations as well as the content of the national trade policy. Beyond getting the right set of policies, changes in many practices on the part of the authorities are required as well. Who calls the shots? An overriding concern of national stakeholders is the excessive influence that external partners have over national policy making. While it is true that the government depends extensively on international do-nors for public financing, it was observed that development partners are pro-tecting their national interests primarily, and therefore their policy prescriptions are biased towards providing opportunities for their own multinationals and promoting their economies. Consequently, the policies that they advocate have not tended to be primarily in the interests of the local economy and its producers. It is only national actors that can identify what the national interests are. It is understood that government is constantly under pressure to liberalise and open the economy to foreign goods, services and investors. But the focus on the external had become excessive – to the detriment of local actors. While lib-eralisation may ensure cheaper imports for consumers (eg. rice, poultry), the benefits are limited to just that – lower prices. Encouraging local production, whether for export or for domestic consumption has multiplier effects that cre-ate jobs, support the growth of new sectors, contribute to social welfare as well as public finances. Conversely, when an economic sector collapses, the consequences are widespread and go well beyond the sector which is directly affected. Left by the wayside … is agriculture passé? Agriculture is the largest eco-nomic sector, but the government has not drafted an agricultural policy which would work in concert with the trade policy. It has however adopted a posture – which is that of opening up the sector to imports. The problem for the Ghanaian agricultural sector is that the playing field is not level, particularly because so many agricultural imports entering the market enjoy subsidies. Obviously our hopes of influencing change in global trade rules to tip the scales in favour of Ghana’s producers is slim, but we can find ways to work around the rules through well thought domestic policies so that the agriculture sector can thrive. A balance needs to be struck between the export driven model and the import substitution model. In the rice sector for example, there has been a loss in the domestic market of about 150 million, but at the same time, export earnings are stagnant at some 30 million. We have to question the rationale of giving up this sector if we are not able to see the quid pro quo. The poultry issue clearly begs the question to what extent is government in control of policy making and how committed is it to the local farming sector? – Adhering to WTO, World Bank and IMF policies is a questionable path if the end result is the death of the agricultural sector as a result of free-for-all imports. The emphasis on exports may make sense on paper, but it may be much more beneficial for us to focus on domestic and regional markets, rather than international markets only. Connecting the dots in export promotion policies: In countries such as South East Asia which have experienced an economic boom, companies had built their export success on the back of successes on their domestic markets. The companies that were most likely to succeed in exports were those that per-formed well in their domestic markets. National policies that are geared at strengthening the domestic producers in domestic markets will be the launch pad for growth in the export sector. Import substitution policies – as a path to industrialisation - has been aban-doned in favour of the search for foreign direct investment. Such investment has not been forthcoming. Relatively speaking FDI inflows have been inade-quate and concentrated mainly in the extractive sector. Therefore the policy of deregulating and liberalising had resulted in more consequences than benefits. The bias towards attracting FDI as one of the planks for economic growth has left local economic operators marginalized and overlooked in public policy. The support required from the state – which companies in other countries have been able to rely on – has not been forthcoming. Many of the areas that need to be addressed to make local companies competitive in a have been neglected. In fact, it is time that some survey on the impact of the policies of the last two decades on the local business sector was conducted. Local stakeholders also stated repeatedly that the issue of competitiveness vis-à-vis foreign imports had been grossly misrepresented. When it comes to com-petitiveness both in terms of price and in terms of quality, it is not clear cut that local products are automatically inferior, as tends to be the stereotype. Similarly the price differences were frequently the result of export and other subsidies that industrialised countries are able to provide their producers. Industrialised countries are able to subsidize agriculture as a result of the growth of other sectors, particularly manufacturing. Therefore the lack of active policies to support the manufacturing sector has an impact on the extent to which government is able to support agricultural producers. In parallel, the lack of support for the agricultural sector is resulting in increased poverty since this is the sector where the majority of the population gain their livelihoods. Manufacturing – how serious are we? Prices of raw materials world-wide are falling, which provides an opportunities for boosting manufacturing. How-ever much the word is disliked by donors, protecting infant industries is a ‘pas-sage obligatoire’ – an unavoidable step – in building manufacturing capacity. Rather than enjoy ‘domestic preference’ local suppliers face reverse discrimina-tion. A local manufacturer bidding for a government contract still has to pay duty on raw material inputs. Foreign suppliers are able to gain duty free access to markets, particularly where the contracts are part of foreign aid projects, which is the case in a large number of public contracts. Public procurement is one of the largest markets, but with the new government procurement bill, the state no longer has the option to support local manufacturers through public contracts. The problem with removing ‘domestic preference’ provisions in the procurement bill is that in manufacturing as in other sectors, competitiveness can only be built through practice – through learning by doing. Many industries start by producing low quality products but are able to transform their industries into manufacturers of high quality goods. For example, Ghana’s export drive in the region has been based on the plastics industry built over the years. ‘Passive protectionism’ should be distinguished from ‘active protectionism.’ In the for-mer, governments simply protected and ‘sat back’, expecting that the rest would follow. In the latter, protectionism is part of a strategy to help strengthen local manufacturing in the knowledge that trade barriers will come down and they will have to compete. Such a long term strategy seems to be lacking. Low quality imports disadvantage local producers that have a competitive ad-vantage in quality. Worse still, they affect consumer health and safety. Liberal-ising markets, without equipping regulatory institutions, such as the Ghana Standards Board is disadvantaging the country in both ways. The private sector would be prepared to support the effort to strengthen these institutions as a way of ensuring that low quality imports are not put on the Ghanaian market. Tapping potential to meet local investment requirements locally: On the subject of investment – which is needed to finance production - the poten-tial on the local market has also been overlooked in favour of attracting foreign investment which is declining. Over the past 7 years $507 million had entered the country as FDI and the figure is declining. Just 5 million Ghanaians saving 1 million cedis a year could surpass that amount. The problem was not the lack of money locally to finance investment, but a lack of creativity in finding different ways to mobilise local resources, create more savings and utilise this for in-vestment. The challenges for local resource mobilisation are a problem of policy, orienta-tion as well as institutional readiness to be more innovative. Where attempts had been made, the financial services sector had proved that it could be done. It was up to government to ensure a regulatory environment that builds the confidence of citizens to invest their savings in local production. Mainstream banking has tended to be far too conservative and unable to adopt strategies to mobilise resources that take account of the reality of the Ghanaian economy. Eyeing the services sector – the need for caution: Services are the fastest growing economic sector world wide. Services liberalisation – including of public utilities is now a heavy focus of attention in WTO negotiations. Within the WTO, countries have to indicate their intention to liberalise services sectors and may also make requests of other countries to liberalise sectors which are of interest to them. Ghana had made a number of commitments to liberalise services, and has to consider a number of requests. The Ghanaian government has also liberalised some services sectors through domestic legislation. In the EPA negotiations, the EU is demanding that services liberalisation be part of the trade agreement with ECOWAS. Decisions to liberalise sectors or otherwise had significant implications for local service providers. There is a need to review the experience of services liberali-sation to date, as in some cases the results have been fairly chaotic, particularly given the inability to monitor and regulate the activities of services operators. The results of reform of different sectors had to be assessed before commit-ments could be made at the multilateral level (WTO, EPAs etc). In particular it was stressed that decisions on liberalisation should be based on a pragmatic vision for the sector in the context of overall social and development policies, and after an objective assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the local sectors to supply such sectors. In some services areas such as cargo handling, Ghanaian companies have de-veloped expertise and are well established. Cargo handling is a valuable earner of foreign currency for the country and so considerations to open up to external operators has to be viewed in that light. Different sectors have to make their views known to clarify the direction in which services can be liberalised or oth-erwise. Meeting the challenges of the expanding fisheries industry: Though it seems obvious that policies should be chosen in the light of the national social and development policies, the full development potential of the country is lost due to the lack of comprehensive and mutually reinforcing set of policies focus-sed primarily on building local production capacity. The fisheries sector, is one of the most important non-traditional exports. However, the challenges for de-veloping a sustainable fisheries industry are many. The problem of depletion of fish resources and degradation of the coastline, combine with a list of other is-sues that require attention from policy makers. Commercial fishing relies heavily on expatriate fishing crews and not enough has been done to upgrade Ghana-ians to do these jobs. Where pricing is concerned, there is a problem of a mo-nopoly, so that it is more profitable to sell fish in neighbouring countries, in-stead of to the quasi-sole buyer in the country. Inland and artisanal fisheries sectors should also be supported and developed. The rise in illegal fishing is another matter for concern. There is an institutional vacuum because the Fish-eries Commission has not been set up. Perhaps because of the lack of a statu-tory body to oversee the industry, these problems persist in spite of numerous representations made to government to address problems. However, over and above the national constraints the fisheries sector is in diffi-culty because it has benefited from special preferences to EU markets. Now that the EU has been providing similar trade preferences to other developing regions, the position of the sector in leading the drive in non-traditional exports was being compromised, particularly when measures are taken without warning. This means that in the EPA negotiations, the Ghanaian government should try to secure a predictable margin of trade preferences over a predictable timeframe before they are phased out. Outreach efforts needed for micro operators: It is critical that policy dis-cussions are accompanied by an outreach programme that enables all economic actors to make their inputs. There are many that operate on the micro-level who never get a chance to contribute to policy. Traders are an essential part of the economy, and yet they had very little opportunity to shape policy making. Equally, not enough trouble is taken to inform them of new policies. In conse-quence, traders are left to survive by their wits, and in turn feel little obligation to respect new policies. Often traders and producers are pitted against each other, and yet this conflict of interest could be resolved by designing a policy framework that ensures that they are complementary rather than oppositional. Commerce has in fact been relegated to the informal sector – as the place for people who could not find jobs and yet the market queens are a central part of our trade policy. In the public sector, traders are immediately perceived as criminals so that they are blocked rather than facilitated by the authorities. It would be desirable for traders to be able to graduate into production – but it is impossible for them to generate the necessary capital because of requirements from banks to produce collateral. All in all, the preliminary documents presented by the Ministry of Trade as the basis for formulating the national trade policy were welcomed as useful, par-ticularly as they provided relevant data and information to enable stakeholders to assess options. The fear was that recommendations from local stakeholders that did not get the nod from donors would not be accepted. Secondly, there were many problems of administrative inefficiency and corruption that needed to addressed. Finally it was stressed that without looking at some fundamental problems – such as electricity supply – there was never any hope for the coun-try to become competitive. Electricity privatisation had been undertaken and yet problems still persisted. Economic Partnership Agreements – where do we go from here? As a result of all these difficulties and challenges, local operators were fairly sceptical about the ability of Economic Partnership Agreements to bring benefits to the country. Firstly the agenda is that of the EU: no-one in the country had asked for EPAs. However the initiative is on the table, and the success of EPAs de-pends largely on the kind of agreement that the governments are able to nego-tiate. The outlook for concluding a successful agreement is grim. To start with, the EU’s negotiating directives demonstrates that it is more clear about its de-mands of ACP countries, and much less committal when it comes to its own ob-ligations. Such nebulous language is not acceptable. While there are losses and gains in any liberalisation exercise, the country has to be assured of net gains. Furthermore, tariff reduction needed to be accom-panied by measures to cushion the costs – particularly training people to work in other sectors. Just the literacy rate now estimated now at less than 50% in-dicates the level of the challenge to deal with the human resource challenges. The data needed to undertake an adequate cost-benefit analysis of EPAs was not sufficient to negotiate competently. It was pointed out that impact assess-ments that had been conducted had not been satisfactory, and in fact there had not been any training of local capacity in impact assessments which was an ex-tremely difficult discipline. Some institutions such as UNCTAD had developed tools to assist countries to conduct such assessments, but the training in these tools still needed to be undertaken. There is heavy reliance on external consult-ants to do such work. The quality of their work is not guaranteed. Furthermore, since they are commissioned by donors most frequently, their terms of refer-ence do not prioritise the needs of the country. Building local capacity in the public sector to service these needs is further hampered by the caps on public spending and hiring that donors insist on. These practical questions make it dif-ficult to negotiate successfully in the timelines that are given. Already the negotiations have hit a stumbling block in ECOWAS because the road map does not clearly spell out that the EU is prepared to pledge additional financing to help bear the costs of EPA-FTA liberalisation. The European trade commission has stated that it only has a mandate to negotiate trade issues not financial packages. ECOWAS on the other hand is insistent that additional fi-nancing is the only way to make EPAs meaningful to support programmes to enhance the competitiveness, compensate for tax revenues, and deal with ‘ad-justment costs’ of economic sectors that will be negatively affected by liberali-sation. Therefore with so many challenges and questionable benefits, how should Ghana deal with the EPA negotiations? Should we negotiate EPAs or not? For all intents and purposes, the governments have already committed to negotiations and therefore it was not possible to backtrack. Some organisations are clearly against an arrangement of reciprocal trade with the EU particularly given that the coverage area will be between 75% and 90% of all trade between the two. Others feel that there is no point in avoiding negotiations; it is better to deal with the difficulties and ensure that the set up negotiated maximises potential advantages and minimises the costs. However a consensus emerged that the timelines are too short for the country to undertake meaningful negotiations, and there is a need to slow the process down, particularly to make informed decisions about the positions that the country should take. The debate on EPAs needs to be a public debate involving all stakeholders. It was important to prevent a situation where government is under pressure to sign an agreement that will be to the detriment to the national economy. For this to happen, different sectors have to come together and engage with the government so that it is moving forward with a mandate that reflects the con-sensus of the various national stakeholders, small and big.