• Corruption Getting Worse Under NDC
• The Woyomes’ PANDORA BOX
• Israel’s Former President, Mosha Katsav, Jailed
• Former Governor Rod Blagojevich Jailed

We have been told again and again that political corruption is the bane of Africa’s development. While the assertion is accurate, it is also recognized that the type of corruption in which African countries are implicated, just like anywhere else in the world, involves intractable networks with multiple players at various societal levels – there are principal culprits, abettors, underlings, international collaborators, and whole institutions, among others.

From the international financial havens (call them destinations for loot, if you want) in Switzerland to allegations of corruption in the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive in many African countries including Ghana, it has become obvious that the notion that a change of government could bring about accountability is fast becoming a mirage. It is easier to campaign on the back of corruption to win votes, simply because the poor whose taxes are being exploited by the rich and the powerful in society abhor it, but the political will wanes for obvious reasons after winning power. When this happens, corruption only festers and become endemic making it embedded in every aspect of a country’s life, and concomitantly undermines the progress of the people. This section examines the canker from the international levels before drawing down to the local situations.

International Kleptocracy
What beats reason is that instead of the much needed capital flowing to the African continent to spur its development, it is rather leaving the continent for Europe and more developed countries. Africa is the most capital-scarce continent, but this becomes dramatically more pronounced when capital is separated into its private and public components. In a successful region such as East Asia there is more than twice as much private capital as public capital; for Africa, the reverse is true. While private businesses find both scrupulous and unscrupulous means to repatriate profits back home, monies from aid, taxes, and kickbacks, using public office as conduits, find their way to the world’s financial centers. So while a meager capital flows into the continent, much of her capital is outward bound, most of it being hidden owing to its illegality. It is called capital flight. By 1990, 38 % of Africa’s wealth was held abroad, higher than any other region in the world.
Interestingly, a people comparison between those who make the list of the biggest customers of some of the secret financial havens of the world depicts a very ironic picture. The names of Bill Gate, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump, foremost American entrepreneurs, not Bill Gate, George Bush, and Barack Obama, would make sense here. The latter group, being politicians, are nowhere near the mammoth wealth of the former, being entrepreneurs of their generation. But the obverse is true in most African countries. The leaders of many of these poor countries are themselves among the world’s superrich and some of the biggest customers of the so-called financial havens.
In some cases, leaders from some of these poor countries are richer than the countries they lead. One cannot gloss over the name of the late leader of the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko in a discussion of this nature. His country was his cash cow. He milked it without nourishing it; so when the cow became emaciated and turns its anger on the herder, it did not only dispose the herder but plunged the whole ranch into a bedlam. Even when these monies are discovered and efforts made by “requesting” countries to “holders” to return them, these pleas fall on death ears or are stonewalled by the “holder” countries. After the death of Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the former Zaire, billions of dollars looted from Zaire by the late President were tracked to Swiss secret accounts. A whooping US$5 to 6 billion was estimated to have been stashed away by the flamboyant kleptocrat. Interestingly, only 300 miles of road were tarred in that country by the time of his death. Similarly, Abacha’s stolen wealth was also traced to accounts in the same country. But due to the secrecy codes of Swiss banks, it has been very difficult for requesting African countries to retrieve their stolen wealth from the keepers of the loot.
In the United States it came to light in 2004 that Riggs Bank, in Washington, D.C. was holding huge deposits from the President of Equatorial Guinea with officials of the bank writing cringingly effusive letters of encouragement to the plunderer [urging him on to save more]. As soon as the matter came to light it was stopped and the bank radically reorganized. Interestingly, these are the very countries that turn around to churn out corruption indexes each year accusing African countries and their leaders of being corrupt when they are themselves abettors of these corrupt acts.
Until recently, if a French company bribed a public official in a developing country, the payment was tax deductible in France. French taxpayers were indirectly subsidizing bribery. But it did not apply in France. If a French company reported that it had bribed a French politician, the consequence would have been a criminal investigation, not a reduced tax bill.
However, recent developments in international circles give some glimpse of hope to countries whose citizens might have stashed their state funds in personal offshore bank accounts. Nonetheless, whether African countries would also have the guts to stand up to the Swiss authorities and other global financial centers outside the continent remain to be seen.

In a recent suit in Florida, the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department in the US were seeking to compel the Swiss bank, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to hand over the names of 52,000 U.S. taxpayers with private-banking accounts in Switzerland. According to an affidavit filed with the court by the Swiss tax authorities, the summons “does not identify any facts that could be construed as constituting tax fraud or the like, but rather makes a broad demand for the identity of all U.S. taxpayers for which certain forms have not been filed.” There is suspicion some Americans have evaded tax and shipped their monies abroad to banks with high levels of secrecy. But in hard economic times, with America seemingly not been able to find answers to its own domestic economic problems, it is keen on tracking some of these financial resources.

As usual, the US-Swiss treaty on sharing tax information, which is said to date back over 30 years, has been advanced by the Swiss side as a bulwark to frustrate any attempts at seeking out individuals who might have infringe on tax edicts of the United States. But this is where it matters most. As the Swiss authorities tried to hide behind the cloak of US-Swiss treaty to seal off their world of secrecy from a prying Big Brother, the US threatened to use the Central Intelligence Authority (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to break Swiss secrecy codes if they continue to frustrate their attempts at accessing vital information on American citizens who have evaded tax and have deposits with the world’s most revered depositories for their secrecy. This effectively cowed the Swiss into submission – the Swiss are said to have released 5000 names to the Obama administration in 2010, presumably to avoid the invasion of their secrecy codes.

If this is the precedent, would the United States, lead the way by being benevolent enough to urge its own banks to return stolen monies deposited in its banks to poor African countries like Equatorial Guinea? If not, do African countries even have the leverage or will to request the Swiss and other depositories around the world to return their stolen wealth?

What is incredible is that in cases where information on these stolen monies become available and leadership of opposition parties or newly installed governments have been urged to expose these crimes and request the return of these monies, they grippingly show disinterest in pursing what have been plundered from their countries. The only conclusion the director of World Bank Communications, Dr. Sina Odugbemi, at a conference in Ohio University in April 2010, could draw from this development is that it is obvious political elites are mindful of the effects of some of these actions, which may predispose them to similar actions when they leave office one day. Therefore, the adage “scratch my back and let me scratch yours” and the “revolving door” politics is fast becoming the norm in many African countries, even those that have changed governments in the last few years.

The conviction once was that if anti-corruption institutions are failing in their duties, a change of government within the democratic dispensation offers a relief. The anti-corruption campaigns, as key political messages by opposition parties in many African countries including Ghana, offered that false expectation that a new administration would unearth some of the corrupt activities of previous regimes and ensure accountability, especially at the political level.

It is noted, however, that “even radical and peaceful change can prove disappointing. In December 2002, Kenya breathed a sigh of relief when the 24 year rule of Daniel Arap Moi ended peacefully. The new president, Mwai Kibaki, a former finance minister and vice president under the old regime, had allegedly changed his stripes.” Unfortunately, a couple of years into his presidency, April 2004, draft revisions to the constitution intended to curb the power of the presidency and the plundering of public assets were blocked by a faction close to the president. In July the same year, the British envoy to Kenya told businessmen that the new government had signed corrupt deals worth almost US$200 million. “Evidently the practitioners now in government have the arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them to eat like gluttons. They may expect we shall not see, or notice, or will forgive them a bit of gluttony because they profess to like Oxfam lunches. But they can hardly expect us not to care when their gluttony causes them to vomit all over our shoes,” he said.

In Ghana, the issue of corruption had been one of the key election issues in the tightly contested election in 2008. The opposition NDC persistently accused the then ruling NPP administration of massive corruption. A plethora of government contracts, payments, and transactions involving both local and foreign companies were believed to have been shortchanged by the then NPP government officials and their underlings with the proceeds ending up in their personal bank accounts or those of their cronies. Watching the public accounts committee hearing in 2007, in Ghana, one got the impression that there was a bottomless abyss under her revenue vat, created by those charged with the responsibility of safeguarding her revenue mobilization, which is channeled into personal accounts and private pockets.

On the heels of that came the disclosures on how the NPP government obtained a loan facility of US$20 million dollars from India for the celebration of Ghana’s 50th independence anniversary celebration. This amount excluded components of local contributions from individuals and corporate organizations. The secretariat had reportedly spent US$60 million and was still in arrears of US$18 million two years after the celebrations. Disgruntled insiders continuously leaked information to the then opposition NDC about how resources made available to the body tasked – Ghana @ 50 – to oversee the yearlong celebration were being diverted into private pockets. By the end of the festivities, the expenditure incurred stood at US$78 million against the US$20 million approved by Ghana’s legislative body. Armed with these pieces of information and other colossal scandals like the carting away of 2 tons of cocaine from police exhibit room at the police headquarters in Accra, the capital, the opposition NDC continued to harmer on corruption as its key campaign message. The message sunk so deep that even the media gatekeepers who had been on the payroll of the NPP government since it took office could not do the damage control. Indeed, if the election had been a media war, the NDC obviously would have lost it even before the contest started. There were systematic attempts at every twist and turn to malign the opposition party and its leadership by some known media outlets. But this goes to underscore the fact that audience come to the media with their own backgrounds and views and the media only helps them to reinforce those views, as the cultural theorist argue. The issue of corruption made the government more and more unpopular among Ghanaians. The message sank so well that the NDC won the election 2008.

Although it is yet unknown whether any of her leaders, past and present, have stashed off public resources away in Swiss banks, there are no doubts about massive looting of the state coffers. The Justice Douse Commission, a commission set up by the NDC government upon assumption of office speaks volumes of that. Two important findings will bring the reader to this understanding. First, the auditor general’s report revealed that “neither staff nor records to assist in the auditing were available, and the Auditor General’s Department had to put receipts and payments together to determine whether there was value for money.” Practically, only one out of 25 public toilets for which an amount of GH 19 million, an equivalent of US$19 million, was allocated had been provided two years after the celebrations.

This was happening in a country where there are large numbers of unemployed individuals with finance and management degrees who could ensure the right things were done. But it goes to the very roots of the problem. When you employ family members and cronies who lack the expertise needed for these jobs, the outcome is gross indiscipline in the management of state resources. Since there were no checks and balances and this pseudo-institution, like many others, was ran like a family business, the outcome was not unexpected.

It is said that the wheels of justice turn so slow. It is unlikely, after a change of government, that Ghanaians were expecting the government to bypass the law courts to dump alleged culprits in jail without due process. But Ghanaians expect due diligence by the government in investigating some of these cases and bringing offenders to book, no matter how long it takes.

At the congress that elected the flag-bearer for the main opposition NPP, Nana Akuffo-Addo, for the 2012 election, the immediate former Ghanaian president, John Agyekum Kufour, accused his successor’s administration of being corrupt. In the ex-president’s words, “Corruption is becoming incarnate. We see corruption everywhere.” To him corruption has resurged under Atta-Mills, as if under his administration corruption was extinct. This comment, however, sparked off a hail of fire from two overzealous government functionaries – a deputy information minister, Samuel Okudzeto and a presidential aide-de-camp, Nii Lamptey Vanderpuye – to the effect that they had discovered a can of worms on assumption of office but had been prevailed upon by the international community, in the supreme interest of peace, as it were, not to open it.

Similar responses were to come from the NDC Kwabena Mensah Woyome, MP for South Tongu, whose brother Alfred Woyome is being accused by the MP for Assin North, Ken Agyepong, of swindling the state to the tune of GHC42 million. The young Woyome talks about a PANDORA BOX that needs opening. May someone tell the MP to carry the PANDORA BOX to the courts? After all, that is what the courts are for. If he needs help with a porter, I am sure there are many in his village who do not even have safe drinking water who can carry the PANDORA BOX to the courts for a pittance.

This is against the backdrop that the NDC campaigned vigorously on the back of fighting corruption and was elected to do a solemn duty to Ghanaians by fighting the menace, it now turned around to point fingers at the international community for prevailing on it to halt a duty its leadership had promised, with an oath, to execute. The term international community has sometimes been used nondescriptly to mean nothing. Who is the international community? Is it supposedly London and Washington, or it does include the comity of nations, headquartered in New York? Are they not the very institutions that accuse African governments day-in day-out of corruption? Why would they now turn around to halt what would make Ghana corruption free? Are they complicit in the so-called can of worm of corruption in Ghana?

If the president’s aide-de-camp is supposedly the former’s confidante, then he must be speaking for the president, and the public must trust what he tells them. One would have expected the president to call his aide-de-camp to order or disassociate himself from the statement, but indeed he must have said exactly what the president was thinking. For the Woyomes and Agyepong, they are now on each other’s, so there is a PANDORA BOX that needs opening.

These episodes only underscore the fact that politicians in young democracies such as Ghana and elsewhere are waking up to the reality that with the democratic trajectory, no government has monopoly over power. There is, therefore, the tendency to believe that the corrupt people you haul before the courts may return to apply same measures to you, especially when corruption starts to raise its head in your own administration.

Beyond the hail of rebuttal, the question needs to be asked whether the former Ghanaian president was telling his countrymen something they needed to find out more about. Did he have any incriminating evidence against functionaries serving in the government of his successor or it is just a political rhetoric as usual? If he did, why did he not submit that to the police service he left behind in less than two years? This question arises especially when he has been telling Ghanaians to go to the police if they had any incriminating evidence against any of his officials, when he was a president.

Print a copy and enter a discussion with your neighbor on this…
The above-title is serialized into 30 articles covering issues of politics, corruption, education, migration, the economy (Ghanaian economy), unemployment, land tenure, dearth of policy innovation, and stories from the frontlines – Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, ECOWAS and the AU. The series are syndicated and media houses/outlets interested in enriching the national debates in Ghana for the 2012 are free to publish all the series.

By: Prosper Yao Tsikata
Email: [email protected]
Blog: http://theafricanmessenger.blogspot.com

As a country that came from colonization many thought that our politics would be civil and responsible than before, as our democracy keeps growing from strength to strength, but that is not the case. Rather, is tempting us to remind ourselves of the dark days in our political history. 

As a former student leader and someone who sit on the fence with basic understanding of conceptual politics I have always held the belief that politics is competition of ideas and not insults. 

The academic discipline that describes how power is exercised, through the administration of public power, to manage citizens affairs may perhaps be termed politics. 

The recent development in our airwaves in relation to the politics of insult is in bad taste and I do not want to belabor it, we need to be shameful of ourselves. I’m very much worried about this phenomenon and I know every well meaning Ghanaian would also be concern about this, particularly when my 12-year-old junior brother came to ask me why there is so much insult on our radio station. I was embarrassed. While in all these, the media has been indispensable. The media should be seen as a powerful tool for education and as such must not be used for malice. 

As a celebrated country and the pride of African democracy, our politics should be issue centered rather than vitriolic attacks on personalities. However, it is very inappropriate to destroy a person’s hard earned reputation for money or parochial ends and we need to be conscious about that. 

In our daily lives we are faced with myriad of challenges – lack of good drinking water in our taps, hawkers on our street, inflation, reduction in the size of kenkey, poor services in our hospitals, lack of quality education in our schools which makes the people functionally illiterate and so on. Yet we digress from all these sensitive issues and we talk about how short or tall a presidential candidate is, how handsome or ugly another is, how sick or mad, “ntafoo koa”, “wonai chi a apai pai”, “kooko-ase kurasene”, “All die be die” among others. In my judgment, I think enough is enough; the sooner we nib it in the bud the better. We must wake up from our slumber and extricate ourselves from this journey of nowhere. 

I hold a firm opinion that, the best way to kill a tree is not to cut it branches but to dig out its roots. To me, the root of this problem has to do with unethical journalism. Discretion is the better part of valor. As the Prophet Mohammed wisely pointed out “Speak good (well) or be Silent”. 
Clearly, this means that if you have nothing meaningful to say, the best you could do is to humbly keep quiet. 

I recommend to the media editors to look for those mature people in our society who are inspirational to the youth, who set an exemplary good life for others to emulate, those who make sense in their discussions rather than noise. 

What can we do about this cancer that is impeding the growth of our democracy? 

THE MEDIA

First, there must be laws and regulations that will empower the media commission so that it can enforce professionalism in their modus operands. Second, the media profession must have ethical values far from political ideologies and organizations. We must end the practice of corrupting the press for partisan purposes. Third, media practitioners should exercise their freedom of expression through a high sense of responsibilities. 

Fourth, media practitioners require a lot of investment both in human resource and in technology to be able to offer an excellent job and reduce temptation from selfish politicians. 

Fifth, the media should censor putting reckless or “loose talks” on air. Again, the practitioners have to pluck up courage and dissuade foul mouth politicians who for some reasons best known to them spew insults on our air waves instead of substantive issues. 

As we are approaching the 2012 elections, I am urging all and sundry to be circumspect and discerning to eschew gullibility and apocalyptic consequences. However, the purpose of an election is to determine the will of the people who are voting. 

Consistent with these provisions, someday we shall move forward without doubt. 


Author: Tijani Kassim Abdallah
Ibn_abass2g7@yahoo. com

Source: S. Kwaku Asare

In this article, I present equal citizenship as a fundamental principle animating the 1992 Constitution. I also argue that the principle is under imminent threat and danger. The purpose of the article is to call for a united and sustained effort to protect the principle and to avoid becoming a society of unequal citizens. I start by defining equal citizenship and describing its constitutional foundations. This is followed by a discussion of areas where equal citizenship is currently under severe attack.

Briefly, the areas are: (1) some citizens are banned from holding certain unelected public offices; (2) some citizens are banned from holding certain elected public offices; (3) some citizens’ votes count more than others; (4) some voting laws are not enforced with the sole purpose of disenfranchising some citizens. I conclude with strategies that the citizens under attack must pursue to win this war on equal citizenship. What is Equal Citizenship? The Constitution addresses citizenship from two perspectives: In chapter 3, it focuses on citizenship as status and delineates who is a Ghanaian citizen. In chapter 7, it focuses on citizenship as a bundle of rights and delineates the rights that accrue to only and all citizens. Thus, citizenship status and citizenship rights are inseparable and represent different sides of the same coin. This is an extremely important concept because it highlights that except as severed by the Constitution itself, any actions to separate status and rights are presumptively unconstitutional. In Chapter 3, the Constitution stipulates the various ways that one can become a Ghanaian. These include grandfathered citizenship (those who were citizens before 1992), blood citizenship (anyone born anywhere to at least one Ghanaian citizen), child citizenship (children who are less than 8 years and found in Ghana or less than 16 years and adopted) and marriage citizenship (anyone married to a Ghanaian can apply to become a citizen). In Chapter 7, the Constitution stipulates that citizens have the unfettered right to vote. This right has several derivative rights, including the right to be registered, the right to participate fully and equally in the political process, the right to cast a ballot, the right for the ballot to be counted, the right for the ballot to be weighed equally, the right to run for elected office, the right to hold unelected public office, and the right to finance a candidate.

In some rare instances, the Constitution itself severs status and rights. For instance, only 18 year olds can vote (but notice here that it is assumed their parent or guardians will participate on their behalf). Only those of sound mind can vote (but notice here it is because it is assumed that they lack the capacity to participate in the political process). Those who commit high crimes or tax crimes or those who are bankrupt (and have not been discharged) cannot hold certain elected and unelected public office. However, 2 notice this is a restriction based on serious criminal actions or those that raise questions about a citizen’s ability to be trusted. Thus, equal citizenship means every citizen, as defined by Chapter 3 of the constitution, is entitled to the same rights, as defined in Chapter 7. By embracing the doctrine of equal citizenship, the Constitution and people of Ghana rejected a Caste system that varies a citizen’s rights based on social, economic, political, religious, ethnic, resident, or other citizenship status. In effect, in Ghana, except where the constitution itself curtails these political rights, the rights cannot be disturbed. Equal citizenship affirms that whatever their inequalities of wealth, status, and power in the everyday activities of civil society; citizenship gives everyone the same status as peers in the political public. It is not hard to understand why equal citizenship was such an important concept to those who framed the 1992 Constitution. The 4 th Republic emerged from a period where “the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) had polarized Ghanaian society into “Citizens” (“the professionals,” the relatively well-off”) and “People” (the working classes, very junior officers, and the unemployed). The “citizens” were presumed to be corrupt, and many were put before the National Investigations Committee and Citizens Vetting Committee to explain how they came by their wealth. Soldiers were positioned behind such persons undergoing interrogation, and administered slaps, beatings and military drills, often under orders from civilian personnel.” Class warfare was something that the new Republic had to avoid. Threats to Equal citizenship The doctrine of equal citizenship is being violated in four areas: (1) some citizens are banned from holding certain unelected public offices; (2) some citizens are banned from holding certain elected public offices; (3) some citizens’ votes count more than others; (4) some voting laws are not enforced with the sole purpose of disenfranchising some citizens.

Some citizens are unlawfully banned from holding certain unelected public offices In 1996, Parliament repealed Article 8(1) of the Constitution, and substituted Article 8(1) Constitution, (Amendment Act), 1996 (Act 527). The substituted Article states, “A citizen of Ghana may hold the citizenship of any other country in addition to his citizenship of Ghana.” The effect of this amendment is that the Republic now extends dual citizenship to a broader class of citizens. This is not a problem. Parliament has the express power under Article 9(1) of the Constitution to make provision for the acquisition of citizenship of Ghana by persons who are not eligible to become citizens of Ghana. Further, Article 8(1) was not an entrenched provision of the 1992 Constitution. Therefore, Parliament had the power to amend it using the ordinary amendment procedure specified in Article 291 of the 1992 Constitution.3 At the same time, Act 527 sought to disqualify dual citizens from holding several specified public offices by inserting Article 8(2) into the Constitution.

Article 8(2) states “[W]ithout prejudice to article 94(2)(a) of the Constitution, no citizen of Ghana shall qualify to be appointed as a holder of any office specified in this clause if he holds the citizenship of any other country in addition to his citizenship of Ghana

• Ambassador or High Commissioner; • Secretary to the Cabinet • Chief of Defense Staff or any Service Chief; • Inspector General of Police; • Commissioner, Customs, Excise and Preventive Service; • Director of Immigration Service; and • Any office specified by an Act of Parliament.”

Subsequently, the Citizenship Act of 2000 expanded the number of public offices and granted the minister of interior the power to exclude more offices. The new list reads as follows:

• Chief Justice and Justices of the Supreme Court; • Ambassador or High Commissioner; • Secretary to the Cabinet; • Chief of Defence Staff or any Service Chief; • Inspector-General of Police; • Commissioner, Custom, Excise and Preventive Service; • Director of Immigration Service; • Commissioner, Value Added Tax Service; • Director-General, Prisons Service; • Chief Fire Officer; • Chief Director of a Ministry; • the rank of a Colonel in the Army or its equivalent in the other security services; and • Any other public office that the Minister may by legislative instrument prescribe

In addition, the Citizenship Regulation 2001 requires dual citizens to carry dual citizenship certificates. Under those regulations, the person must apply for Form 11 (Dual Citizenship certificate) by filling Form 10 at a cost of 200 GHC. She must have a Cover letter; Evidence of Ghanaian citizenship, Evidence of parents’ citizenship, Naturalization Certificate and 4 passport-sized Picture.

A notary public, High/Circuit Judge or Head of Ghana’s Mission Abroad, must seal the Form. If satisfied, the Minister would issue the Dual Citizenship Certificate (Form 11), at a statutory fee, which is now 20 GHC.4 Act 527 is unconstitutional because it creates a class of citizens with fewer rights, in violation of the doctrine of equal citizenship and the Constitution. Specifically, by banning dual citizens from holding the specified offices, Act 527 curtails their right to participate fully and equally in the political life of the country. This recreates the caste system that the 1992 constitution sought to avoid. Further, Act 527 discriminates against dual-citizens and violates their dignity in violation of their fundamental human rights recognized in Chapter 5 of the constitution.

It is easy to see how Act 527 discriminates against dual citizens. But the violation of their dignity requires additional elaboration. Based on case law from South Africa and other jurisdictions, human dignity is said to be violated where groups are marginalized, ignored or devalued; where minorities are excluded from decision-making processes that affect them; or where individuals are treated as objects. Clearly, the exclusions in Act 527 treat dual citizens as objects; devalues and dehumanizes them; and exclude them from decision-making processes that affect them.

A potentially elegant but incurably flawed argument to support the ban is that Act 527 is an amendment of the Constitution; hence it cannot be constitutional. Simply stated, what is in the constitution cannot be unconstitutional!

While it is apt to argue that a provision of the Constitution cannot be said to be unconstitutional, it is also true and even more important to realize that provisions must be put in the Constitution in only the constitutionally permissible ways. The constitution provides 2 different paths to its amendment. Article 290 provides the path for amending entrenched provisions and Article 291 is the path for amending provisions that are not entrenched.

The Article 290 path is noteworthy because it requires that the amendments be submitted to a referendum held throughout Ghana. Further, the amendment can only pass if at least forty percent of the persons entitled to vote, voted at the referendum and at least seventyfive percent of the persons who voted cast their votes in favor of the passing of the bill.

Further, the constitution identifies those provisions that must be amended only via Article 290. The right to vote (Article 42); the right participate in political activity intended to influence the composition and policies of the Government (Article 55(10)). These two are entrenched because they are the pillars of equal citizenship. In addition, the anti -discrimination clause (Article 17) and the dignity clause (Article 15) are both entrenched.

Needless to say, any amendment of the Constitution that disturbs these entrenched provisions are void and of no effect unless the amendments are procured by following the path outlined by Article 290. And therein lies the problem with the argument that Act 527 is constitutional because it is in the Constitution! The argument is both too little and too much. It is too little because it fails to take into account the effect and implications of the purported amendment. It is too 5 much because we have an ordinary amendment of the constitution, that its extraordinary in the way it extinguishes fundamental rights, sweeping in its impact on the body politic, and revolutionary in the way it sets aside the doctrine of equal citizenship in favor of a caste system that many of us spent our lives fighting against during the PNDC days. Undoubtedly, Act 527 is an amendment. The more interesting question is what is the effect of the amendment and was the amendment properly procured? This is an important question because, as discussed, some amendments can only be procured via a referendum.

What then is the effect of an amendment of the constitution that creates a class of citizens who are excluded from holding certain public offices? In my opinion, the exclusions in Act 527 has the effect of amending the sections of the constitution that guarantee that all citizens can fully and equally participate in the political process. I also believe that the exclusions interfere with the right to vote, broadly and properly construed. In effect, the exclusions derail the concept of equal citizenship.

Further, Act 527 has the effect of amending the anti-discrimination and dignity clauses of the constitution. All four clauses being entrenched provisions, the government does not have the power to amend them by using the ordinary amendment procedures in Article 291. It is also important to note that disqualifying dual citizens from holding the specified offices serves no legitimate purpose. In the alternative, the disqualification is disproportional. That is, assuming that the ban serves a legitimate purpose, the government could seek less restrictive ways to achieve this purpose than an outright ban on dual citizens. One such way is to ask the dual citizens to take a special oath! The exclusions in Act 527 are problematic for another important reason. Specifically, the prohibitions are not consistent with our obligations under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (Article 26), the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ rights (Articles 2 and 3), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 7). Finally, the prohibition is counter to the emerging progressive jurisprudence worldwide, including Nigeria where the Courts have held that Nigerians by birth can stand for any office, including the Presidency, even if they are dual citizens.

In my opinion, the requirement to possess additional documentation that sole citizens are not required to possess is unreasonable, unnecessary, discriminatory and not constitutionally warranted and is therefore null, void and of no effect. What purpose is achieved by acquiring this document that is neither a travel document nor an identification card? Dual citizens ingress into Ghana with their Ghanaian passports and ingress into their other countries of citizenship with the passports of those countries. When egressing out of Ghana, a carrier might demand evidence that the dual citizen is admissible into the destination country and the dual citizen can 6 show the non-Ghanaian passport as evidence. The Dual Citizenship certificate is entirely worthless. In sum, the Amended Article 8(2) and the consequential legislation imposing public office-holding exclusions on certain citizens of Ghana is unconstitutional in that, the amendment has the obvious and intended effect (if not the express purpose) of discriminating against a certain class of citizens in violation of the Equality Clause of the constitution; devaluing and dehumanizing them in violation of the Dignity clause of the constitution; curtailing their right to participate equally and fully in the political process in violation of the Participation clause of the constitution; the grounds for the exclusions are not permissible grounds under the Equality, Dignity and Participation clauses of the Constitution; The Equality, Dignity and Participation Clauses of the Constitution being entrenched clauses of the Constitution, any purported amendment to those provision must be in conformance with the provision for the amendment of entrenched clauses spelled out in Article 290 of the Constitution;

The amendment in question, not having been procured in conformance with the provision spelled out in Article 290 for the amendment of an entrenched clause of the Constitution, cannot stand.

The myth of the ban on holding elected public office According to Article 94(2)(a) “A person shall not be qualified to be a Member of Parliament if he owes allegiance to a country other than Ghana.” Remarkably, this provision is being used to prosecute and persecute dual-citizens. For instance, Adamu Sakande, the MP from Bawku, has been on trial since 2008, even though he has renounced his British Citizenship.

Let us be very clear that Article 94(2)(a) does not talk about dual citizenship. The framers of the 1992 constitution, when they wanted to talk about dual citizens did it in very clear and precise language. For instance, the pre-Amended Article 8(1) takes the form of “Subject to this article, a citizen of Ghana Shall cease forthwith to be a citizen of Ghana if, on attaining the age of twenty-one years, he, by a voluntary act, other than marriage, acquired or retains the citizenship of a country other than Ghana.” So Article 94(2)(a), if it were targeted at dual citizens would have read “a citizen of Ghana who acquires or retains the citizenship of a country other than Ghana shall not be qualified to be a Member of Parliament.”

But the framers did not use this language! And for the obvious reason, that the statement was not targeted at dual citizens, who were largely aliens under the pre-amended Article 8(1) regime.7 It is important to distinguish allegiance from citizenship. As a general rule, allegiance is owed to Kings and not to Republics. Allegiance is a relic of the common law, where subjects in England, had to trade their allegiance to the King in exchange for land. If one did a comparative study of the oaths that new citizens take in various countries, one would find significant variance in the content of the oaths. For instance, in USA, a new citizen makes oath that “I will support and defend the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Is this the same thing as owing allegiance to the USA?

Canada does it differently. Here a new citizen makes oath as follows “I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.” Again, here the allegiance is to the Queen, as allegiances, under the common law has always been, in return for land from the monarch.”

The point is that it is not only incorrect to assume that Article 94(2)(a) addresses dual citizens, it is also undeniably wrong to assume that becoming a citizen of every country requires the same oath of allegiance. Thus, whether one owes allegiance to another country becomes a matter of fact, not a matter of assumption, as is being currently done in Ghana, especially by the political parties and in the Adamu case, where a perjury charge is being used to obfuscate the agenda against violating equal citizenship.

Who was Article 94(2)(a) targeted at? While answering this question is not necessary to demonstrate that it was not targeted at dual citizens, I believe it is important for me to provide an answer for those who might ask the question. I believe that Article 94(2)(a) was targeted at those single citizens who conspired with other countries to engage in activities deemed inimical to the interests of the Republic. Official concerns and unofficial rumors about agents of foreign governments are pervasive in our political landscape to have attracted the attention of the constitutional framers. A memorable instance of this problem is the swap between USA and Ghana, in the matter of Soussodis et al.

Some will no doubt disagree with my distinction between allegiance and citizenship. But even those who disagree with the distinction would probably concede that Article 94(2)(a) is hopelessly ambiguous. It is a widely understood and accepted principle of interpretation that ambiguous laws are not to be construed to deny people rights, here a right that is fundamental to citizenship.

No court has interpreted Article 94(2)(a). However, some political parties have opportunistically applied the provision to disqualify dual citizens or to intimidate them into renouncing their citizenship, a practice that subsequently robs the renouncer the ability to travel freely to the other country where she might continue to have interests, including family. In the Adamu Sakande case, the courts have entertained a writ from a civilian that essentially takes for granted that Article 94(2)(a) is directed to dual citizens.

The Republic has built on this private frivolous writ to bring a perjury charge against the Member of Parliament.8 How are other emerging democracies handling the dual citizenship question? The most recent decision on the matter is the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Tanase and Chirtoaca v. Moldova. In that case, the applicants, both Moldovan nationals had challenged a 2008 amendment to the Moldovan Constitution, which barred Moldovans who held dual nationality from contesting for Parliamentary positions. The Grand Chamber of the Court held that the 2008 amendments were unlawful and disproportionate to any concern of loyalty the country may have. The Court held that- ‘…in a democracy, loyalty to a State did not necessarily mean loyalty to the actual government of that State or to a particular political party. There were other methods available to the Moldovan Government to ensure loyalty of MPs to the nation, such as requiring them to take an oath. Such measures had been adopted by other European countries.’ The archaic language of Article 94(2)(a), imported into the Constitution in 1992 when dual citizenship was not even recognized, does not affect dual citizens per se and the persecution of Adamu Sakande must stop. In the same breadth, I urge those dual citizens interested in running for office not to renounce their citizenship but to fight the war against equal citizenship.

Some citizens’ votes count more than others According to Article 47 (1) “The boundaries of each constituency shall be such that the number of inhabitants in the constituency is, as nearly as possible, equal to the population quota.” Here is another command form the Constitution that reinforces the doctrine of equal citizenship. By using the population quota to demarcate constituency boundaries, each person’s vote is weighed equally, consistent with equal citizenship. Yet, since 1992, the Electoral Commissioner has created boundaries that severely violate Article 47(1), justifying the violation by citing the variance provision of Article 47. The variance provision of Article 47, allows the Electoral Commissioner to create constituencies whose numbers “may be greater or less than the population quota in order to take account of means of communication, geographical features, density of population and area and boundaries of the regions and other administrative or traditional areas.” The variance provision is necessary because of various logistical realities and the difficulties of perfect division. However, it does not permit the Electoral Commissioner to create constituencies that are 10 times as smaller (or larger) as others. A close study of the post- 1992 electoral shows a clear tendency for the largest constituencies to be NPP strongholds and the smallest constituencies to be NDC strongholds. It is neither necessary nor useful to speculate on the reasons for this electoral map. What is clear is that it has resulted in gerrymandering, and has assaulted the doctrine of equal citizenship.

The Electoral Commissioner should simply set an interval that all constituencies should fall within. As an example, assuming, the population is 20 million and there are 200 constituencies. That leads to a population quota of 100,000. The formula for creating constituencies can be specified as the population quota ± 5%. This way, constituencies can range from 95,000 to 105,000, depending on the variance factors. I am happy that 9 this matter is now before the Supreme Court in Bortier and Quaye v Electoral Commissioner. It is my fervent hope that the Supreme Court’s decision will affirm the doctrine of equal citizenship.

ALL LAW BE LAW

The Supreme Court is to be commended on its recent decision on prisoners’ right to vote (Ahumah Ocansey et al. v The Electoral Commissioner et al.). The Court is right in upholding the doctrine of equal citizenship. Under Article 42, the right to vote is given in unqualified terms and is not forfeited by committing a crime. What is not so amusing is the rapid move by the Electoral Commissioner and the Mills Government to enforce the ruling compared to the snail pace in enforcing ROPAA. ROPAA must be enforced because ALL LAW BE LAW!

It is utterly inappropriate and incurably lawless for the Electoral Commissioner and the Government to use the lack of funds to selectively enforce voting rights and consciously undermine equal citizenship. Failing to act, citizens abroad must issue a writ of mandamus to compel the Electoral Commissioner to put in place mechanisms to allow them to vote in 2012. The Electoral Commissioner has an absolute duty to enforce ROPAA and has no discretion whatsoever.

Winning the War on Equal Citizenship

How do we win the war on equal citizenship? I see six steps. First, those who believe in the doctrine of equal citizenship must support and fund only candidates who commit to enforce the doctrine. Second, citizens abroad must engage with the Electoral Commissioner to seek ways to implement ROPAA for 2012. If Kenya and Ivory Coast can implement their “ROPAA,” why not Ghana? I think citizens abroad should come out with proposals for ROPAA to become self-financing, perhaps by paying a nominal registration fee of no more than $50 to a ROPAA fund. Third, more workshops are needed on equal citizenship. Fourth, we must establish a civil liberties union to fight in the courts. Finally, those who are affected by the war on equal citizenship must organize.

They are too divided and that makes it easy for laws to be made and applied in ways that are detrimental to their interests.

By Prince Charles Dickson

“How nice you are to a bowl of Tuwo depends on how hungry you are”

One fundamental thing one notices that we lack in governance and government is the word good. Many Nigerians talk about good governance as the only guarantee to peace, progress, stability, free and fair elections, infact it is viewed as the only passport to delivering the dividends of democracy.

For the health, power, the manufacturing sectors, education and largely the nation to work, we need good governance, in order to maximise our potential, improve the general welfare of the Nigerian people and even development in geo-political terms, there must be good governance.

The late Okadigbo puts this perspective, “asked to define ‘good’ most Nigerians will waffle and babble. Most of our leaders that pride themselves as operating under the parameters of good governance cannot explain how”.

What we have in the last twelve years of our democracy achieved is a battery of contradictory description or proposition as to what good governance is. As a matter of fact the term good is difficult to define in the essential context of the Nigerian condition.

In the Nigerian context, our situational ethics sets the tone to the effect that we have a relative dysfunctionality, what is good in one place may be bad in the other, there must be a given situation, time and space.

Under this little intellectual exercise we can say that the talk of good governance in and for Nigeria, past, present and future is idle, not lending itself to any objective and precise analysis and this is why our leaders take us for a ride, they promise bridges where there are no rivers and take bald men to the saloon for a barb.

So until good governance is viewed as the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or in our case not implemented). We are still far off simply because the way and manner public persons tend to public institutions, conduct public affairs, manage public resources, are corrupt, and without due regard for the good of the people.

We lack good governance because years of political activity under the guise of democracy, we are yet to find the balance; we still operate a political economy of state robbery, rather than popular democracy.

Good governance within the confines of a popular democracy should be anchored on two things, one, a constitution suited to the special needs and circumstances of Nigeria as multi-dimensional ethno-religious and political economic structure: and two, a leadership suited not only to the exigent needs of Nigeria, but the exactitudes of the people.

We should stop glossing and know that by and large good governance require no ordinary type of leadership; tolerance; breadth of outlook, intellectual comprehension; hardwork; selfless devotion; statesmanship; a burning sense of mission are some of the virtues that are necessary to make a success of leading this nation.

Unfortunately past administrations have lacked these virtues or at best have possessed one at the expense of the other and as such led them to groping in the dark on how to deliver good governance. The increasing fear is that today, with no tuwo and soup on the table, the current government is guilty of same crime.

We have refused to cultivate leadership that has shown a knack to develop a mental magnitude, as clear as our problems are, there seems a lack of ability in appreciating and grasping the salient details as well as most of the temporal and practical implications, of a given situation or problem.

In my honest thinking the problems of good governance remain because the fundamental objectives and directive principles of our statutes are non-justiciable thereby the issues of good governance remain platitudinous rather than obligatory on our leaders.

There are also the problems of political in-direction and correctness, thus an economic morass in the polity, our lack of anything good is premeditated on our inability to have an ideological notion of destiny. We have no coherent body of thoughts; heroes are on the decline, nobody to look up to, good governance exists only in a vacuum.

Good governance requires full protection of human rights, and particularly those of minorities.

It also means an independent judiciary and an impartial and incorruptible police force. Decisions taken and their enforcement are done in a manner that follows rules and regulations.

Institutions and processes try to serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe. Need of mediation of the different interests in communities to reach a broad consensus in society on what is in the best interest of the whole nation and how this can be achieved.

It also requires a long-term perspective for sustainable human development and how to achieve the goals of such development. Ensuring that all members of the society feel that they have a stake in it, all groups, and especially the most vulnerable must have opportunities to maintain or improve their well being.

Government institutions as well as the private sector and civil society organizations must be accountable to the public and to their institutional stakeholders. The only minus and indeed the major constraint is that all that I have enumerated as a recipe for good governance is what we lack.

The current crop of leadership is yet to show that it is up to the task, the reason why nobody believes its fuel subsidy crooked dance, when it cannot provide security for its citizenry, it spends millions in convincing foreigners of their safety.

When its own people cannot put tuwo and soup on the food table, its leaders are feeding fat on the nation’s collective wealth, dying abroad, being replaced by the children and  we are bothered by Fitch ratings… like the hungry man that ate in his dream at night hoping he would wake up filled. We are not bothered about where our lack of good governance takes us to, as hunger increases we still lay romance with the bowl of tuwo and soup, time will tell.

Trees provide oxygen, clean the air around us, absorbs carbon dioxide and reduces the need for air-conditioning. Cities occupy less than 3% of the global terrestrial surface, but account for 78% of carbon emissions, 60% of residential water use, and 76% of wood used for industrial purposes. By 1900, just 10% of the global population was living in urban areas which now exceeds 50% and is expected to further rise to 67% in the next 50 years (Grimm et al. 2008).

In developing countries, about 44 per cent of the population currently lives in urban areas, but in the next 20 to 30 years, developing countries in Asia and Africa are likely to cross that historic threshold, joining Latin America in having a majority of urban residents (UN-Habitat 2009, Montgomery 2008). Undoubtedly, urbanization will continue to have substantial impact on the ecology, economy and society at local, regional, and global scales. As this review will demonstrate, benefits of urban green spaces are wide-ranging including physical and psychological health, social cohesion, climate change mitigation, pollution abatement, biodiversity conservation and provision of ecosystem goods and service to urban inhabitants. The term “urban trees” includes trees growing both within the built environment as well as road-side avenues and public places in urban areas such as parks.

Currently, developed countries have tended to adopt a general standard of green space of 20 m² park area per capita (Sukopp et al. 1995; Wang 2009). International minimum standard suggested by World Health Organization (WHO) and adopted by the publications of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a minimum availability of 9 m2 green open space per city dweller (Kuchelmeister, 1998).

The information available globally suggests that the cities in developed countries, in general, have more trees compared to cities in developing countries, which often fall below the minimum standard set by WHO of 9 m2 green open space per city dweller. From an ecological perspective, some studies have suggested that a realistic target of 10% of tree cover throughout urban areas is necessary to create an ecologically sustainable city (Hashimoto et al. 2005).

Functions of urban trees
Trees in urban areas provide a variety of ecosystem services including biodiversity conservation, removal of atmospheric pollutants, purification of air, oxygen generation, noise reduction, mitigation of urban heat island effects, microclimate regulation, stabilization of soil, ground water recharge, prevention of soil erosion, increase of property values and carbon sequestration (Bolund and Hunhammar 1999). More simply and easily noticeable, trees provide shade especially in warm cities of the tropics. Urban trees in the USA store 700 million tonnes of carbon ($14,300 million value) with a gross carbon sequestration rate of 22.8 million tC/yr ($460 million/year). Pollution removal (O3, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO) varied among cities with total annual air pollution removal by US urban trees estimated at 711,000 metric tons ($3.8 billion value) (Nowak et al. 2006). Likewise, the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa has 115,200 indigenous street trees planted during the period 2002–2008. It has been estimated that the tree planting will result in 200,492 tonnes CO2 equivalent reduction and that 54,630 tonnes of carbon will be sequestrated.

The state of urban trees in Ghana
Despite all the recorded benefits of trees in urban areas, trees have been less valued in urban areas of most developing countries of which Ghana is no exception. I am unable to provide figures about trees in Ghanaian cities but what is clear is that the existing ones are not properly protected and managed. While street trees in developed countries are jealously protected, the few urban trees in Ghanaian cities are left to their fate with all the pressure that humans and animals put on them. Nails are commonly driven into trees so as to hold various posters of advertisement. These nails are a source of injury to trees and negatively affect the ability of trees to provide all the benefits named above. Both humans and animals do not only rest under trees but also urinate there. What is probably unknown is that urine is acidic in nature and hence affects tree roots. Also, people park cars under shade of trees and this causes compaction of the soil just around the tree trunk. Such compaction means that less air and water is able to penetrate down to tree roots and this tends to shorten lifespan of trees. Similarly, during construction works, no attention is given to tree roots and most trees die in the process. It is good practice to allow some space around a tree trunk during construction of pavements in cities.

How to improve?
First of all, I think more awareness has to be created among people about the importance of trees and urban green spaces. In this regard, the media should at least spend some time on such topics in order to change public perception and knowledge. Secondly, city authorities have to do more towards protection of trees and ensuring that urban trees are healthy. Currently, some urban trees pose a health hazard since they can fall at any time and crush something or someone. Thirdly, specific trees must be planted in cities. Not every kind of tree species is appropriate for cities. The function we would like a tree to provide may dictate its size, shape (form), life span, canopy density, colour, growth rate, fruit characteristics and other attributes. Particular attention therefore has to be put on which type of tree is planted under which condition. My next article will provide the qualities that a tree needs to be successful in an urban setting and provide some examples of tree species that would be better to plant.

In conclusion, a city without trees is like food without salt and we have no choice either than to seriously consider increasing and protecting trees in our cities. If temperate countries where temperatures are generally low still take tree planting in cities seriously, how much more the countries of the tropics which need trees to help regulate the usually high temperatures and especially to provide shade.
Let us all protect our city trees for healthy lives!

Reginald Guuroh ([email protected])
Germany

This article is a reaction to an article which is recently published by the Daily Guide on modernghana.com. The article can be found here: http://www.modernghana.com/news/356819/1/all-die-be-die-movement-launched.html

I am really shocked at the incessant pursuit of the “All die be die” agenda which is swirling in the NPP. Against all arguments this agenda has no etymological morality neither it is even professional let alone reflecting the objectives of the “All die be die Movement” which has currently been launched in the Ashanti Region. Where is Ghana moving towards?

Nana Addo Danquah who first used the phrase in his campaign tours in Koforidua least taught about the influence of words and it’s consequences.

Etymology of All die be die

I recently read an article by K. Awusabo-Asare et al. captioned, “‘All die be die’: obstacles to change in the face of HIV infection in Ghana.” In the article, the authors outlined the origin of the word which in its broader sense saw it as an obstacle to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The philosophical transliteration of the word will mean, “In whichever way you die, death is death.” To the person who live by this statement, death is not a matter of question. The actual sense or etymology of the phrase is not positive to a conscientious person who thinks that life has a fulfillment and therefore must be lived with care and caution.

As part of the aims of the All die be die movement as outlined in the article shall include “… to protect the country’s young democracy and to project the opposition flag-bearer Nana Akufo-Addo who is credited with popularizing the ‘all-die-be-die’ phrase… the movement will play a crucial role in educating many Ghanaians on their civic responsibility.”

In such academia world today, one could see that the target of the movement is not incongruent with the name as supposed. Something that seeks to protect the nation and to promote peace will not bear such a name. It’s unethical to Ghanaian norms and values and further unprofessional in it’s nature.

In the article, it was stated that, “…every Ghanaian has a responsibility to protect himself or herself in the face of intimidation and repression by political opponents, especially when the security forces, whose duty it is to protect lives of all Ghanaians look on helplessly.”

I can say with all confidence that, this movement is an angry mob and seek to take vengeance by themselves “by hook or crook” because all die be die. It is a conspiracy movement. They think the rules have not been fair and those responsible for settling justice have failed so it’s time to promote courage in their own way.

Because of the ongoing opposition between the NPP and NDC, one needs to be very careful with words and whatever one does.

So could we trust NPP at all? Will the nobles and scholars within the NPP sit down for such a deviant movement be going on in the party? If nothing is done about this movement, am afraid to say that, the agenda to protect our young democracy is at risk. I am really disappointed in Nana Addo Danquah and his NPP.

The time has come for Ghana to move forward in the right direction. After 55 years of independence, our minds are not still fashioned professionally and artistically. Where are we going?

I will also even condemn the propaganda office within the NDC. All these things are institutions which are sending the country back to it’s dark ages.

The role of the judiciary

The judiciary of Ghana has actually failed Ghana. These are some of the issues that the law must deal with to prevent future catastrophes. It’s about time the judiciary of Ghana begin to question some matters arising in Ghana especially those that sensitize conflict.

Ghana must live. Yes she must live!

Clifford Owusu-Gyamfi, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

During my days as a student in KNUST, we were discussing deforestation one day and I remember a friend told me that it was impossible for all the trees to disappear and hence he added that there was absolutely no need for me to study Forest management. That is the extent to which we can take the trees and forests around us for granted. Contrary to my friend’s view, there is no doubt whatsoever that all the mature trees can indeed vanish. Current trends of degradation and deforestation suggest that much of our country will end up as desert within the next half century. See tables 1 and 2 below.

According to Mongabay.com, between 1990 and 2000, Ghana lost an average of 135,400 hectares of forest per year. This amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 1.82%. Also, between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 4.2% to 1.89% per annum. In total, between 1990 and 2005, Ghana lost 25.9% of its forest cover, or around 1,931,000 hectares.

Table 1: Ghana’s Forest cover 2010 

Total Land Area (1000 square kilometers) — 22754

Total Forest Area (1000 ha) — 4940

Percent Forest Cover — 22

Primary Forest Cover (1000 ha) — 395

Primary Forest, % total forest — 8

Other wooded land (1000 ha) — 0

Percent other wooded land — 0

Table 2: TOTAL FOREST COVER (1000 ha)

Year ——- Remaining cover

1990 ——- 7448

2000 ——- 6094

2005 ——- 5517

2010 ——- 4940

Source: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Ghana.htm

As seen in table 2 above, the forest cover continues to decrease from 1990 to 2010. This suggests that if pragmatic measures are not taken to halt or reverse the trend, Ghana could be moving towards serious problems.

In this article I intend to assess the tree resource of our nation, highlight their important uses and hence redirect public interest towards tree planting and forest protection in general. First of all it may be prudent to answer the question of what a tree is. One great Forester defined a tree as any plant which is big enough such that you can climb it. For the purposes of this article I think it is sufficient but from a more scientific point of view, a tree is any plant greater than 5min height and with an upright stem.

It is an undeniable fact that trees play a vital role in our very existence as humans. They perform vital ecological, environmental, cultural, economic, and spiritual functions. Trees release oxygen through photosynthesis, enabling animals and humans to live. Many people may be familiar with the expression “when the last tree dies, the last man dies” but the question is, how seriously do we take this saying?

Trees are important for maintaining the energy balance of the earth. They also play a vital role in the water cycle and hence can help regulate rainfall distribution and intensity. Also, trees bind soil particles together thus minimizing the risk of soil erosion and may also serve to maintain and improve soil fertility. Trees are also found to be useful in conserving and prolonging the life span of water bodies as they tend to conserve the moisture levels. Due to the soil-binding properties of the roots, trees can also help prevent siltation of water bodies through erosion. Furthermore, trees have the potential to minimize risk of floods by regulating surface and subsurface water flows, thus enabling gradual recharge of groundwater. Firstly, trees prevent the direct physical impact of heavy rains on the soil. Secondly during rains, water is intercepted by tree leaves, branches, stems and roots and this is released gradually thus preventing what would otherwise have been a direct one-off input of water into the ground. Though not the complete solution to flooding, floods are more likely to occur where there are no trees than where there are trees.

Trees also play a vital role in nutrient cycling by taking up nutrients from the deep parts of the soil (with their deep rooting system) and returning it through litter fall to the top soil where other plant roots (with different rooting strategies) can make use of the nutrients. In this regard, if appropriate species are selected, trees may help to improve fertility and thus improve crop yields and productivity. This is why our farmers must be encouraged to embrace the planting of trees on their farms. Trees also help to reduce wind speeds thus playing a crucial role in reducing damage associated with storms. A house with no trees around it is more likely to have the roof taken off as compared to one with lots of trees. Private households and public buildings must be encouraged to plant lots of tall trees around to minimize the occurrences of wind disasters that happen on a yearly basis in the country.

Planting trees would also help improve our health. The more trees we have around, the more refined the air around. Trees help to absorb carbon dioxide, dust and other gases present in the air and thus may reduce air related diseases.

Last but not least, trees provide shade to allow us to hide from the searing heat of the sun. We all know the relief we feel when we get under a nice shade after a long walk under the sun. Trees are also known to store carbon and thus reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This helps to fight climate change and global warming. It is known that the amount of carbon currently stored in trees is twice as much as the amount in the atmosphere now (IPCC 2007). Imagine what would happen therefore if all of this is released into the atmosphere as a result of deforestation. This means that we would have three times as much carbon dioxide as we have today and several times as much climate related disasters as we have today. Another important issue to mention is that tropical trees store twice as much carbon as trees in the temperate zone (Ravindranath and Madelene, 2008), hence it is even more important to protect our trees and to plant more. Temperate regions are particularly reliant on tropical regions for storing carbon up in trees.

Comparing the deforestation rates with the amount of replanting in Ghana, I feel it would be right to say that trees have been more a rejected resource than protected. I would make the following recommendations as a way of helping improve the tree cover of the nation.

1. Our housing laws must be restructured to ensure that every one who builds a house also incorporates tree planting around the house. This will reduce the amount of destruction caused by wind. Note also that trees planted around houses must be well managed to reduce risk of damage from tree fall.

2. The media should devote some time to raise awareness on tree planting as well as tree protection. What people hear more often tends to influence their perceptions and behaviours hence if more about tree planting is talked about, it will hopefully help. Tree planting should be a daily affair and not a special thing that happens once in a year.

3. Agroforestry practices should be embraced and farmers should be encouraged to incorporate tree planting into their normal agricultural activities.

4. Government and other development partners such as NGOs should introduce schemes that provide farmers with incentives to incorporate tree planting activities as well as reward farmers who do not cut down already existing trees on their farm lands

5. Government and other development partners should provide seedlings for interested farmers at low cost and also encourage community wood land establishment
All said and done, this piece of work will come down to a mere rhetoric if no action is initiated as a result of it. I encourage readers to plant a tree each upon reading this article. Come to think about it, can we not plant a tree each year say on our birthdays? I am pretty sure that this would not be too much to accomplish and we can each find land at home, or at the office to do this. Plant it on your birthday and assess how well you have done by your next birthday and plant another one.

Plant a tree today and save your local environment and the climate and the world

Credit: Guuroh Reginald
Email: [email protected]

[email protected]
[email protected]

References
1. http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Ghana.htm
2. IPCC 2007. Synthesis report
3. Ravindranath N.H and Madelene O., (2008). Carbon Inventory Methods Handbook for Greenhouse Gas Inventory, Carbon Mitigation and Roundwood Production Projects

Deforestation is a global menace which has received much public attention in most countries in recent years. The international community, governments at national level, NGOs, and other such organizations are raising awareness about the dangerous consequences of forest loss to the environment and hence humanity. The FAO 2010 report revealed an alarming rate of deforestation with a global loss of around 13 million hectares of forest each year in the last decade (2000 to 2010). This deforested area is more than half the total area of Ghana. The report indicated that Africa has the second highest rate of deforestation worldwide (with 3.4 million hectares of forest loss annually).The situation is not any different in Ghana where forest has been under pressure from human activities over the last century.

This article seeks to highlight the state of Ghana’s forest resource, considering trends over the past 100 years. The article will also briefly discuss the causes of deforestation and present some suggested solutions.

Definitions 
The terms degradation and deforestation may be familiar to workers and students in forestry, but probably not to all. Deforestation is defined as the conversion of forest to non forest land uses. This means that if a land previously occupied by forest is cleared for agriculture or a building project, then deforestation would have occurred. Degradation however refers to any activity that affects the quality of the forest. For example, bush fires may cause degradation but may not necessarily result in deforestation. By FAO definitions, an area is considered to be forest if it covers an area greater than 0.5 hectares, and has 10% or more tree crown cover. In turn, trees can be defined as having a single stem and the potential to reach a minimum height of 2-5 metres at maturity. An alternative definition is that it is possible to climb a tree at maturity, in comparison to shrubs which cannot be climbed.

Deforestation rates
Total land area of Ghana is about 23.85 million hectares. At the beginning of the last century, about one-third (i.e 8.2 million hectares) of the area was covered by high forest while the remaining two-third (15.7 million hectares) was savanna woodland (Owusu et. al., 1999). The area of high forest (off reserve) has drastically reduced and the only remaining portions today are mainly in protected areas. Records show that at the turn of the last century, Ghana had about 8.8 million ha of primary forest. By 1950, the area had been reduced to 4.2 million ha and further to about 1.5 million ha by 1999 (Owusu et. al., 1999). This implies that from 1900 to 1950, the nation lost 50% of its primary forest cover and also lost 60% of it between 1950 and 1999. On a 100 year scale (1900 to 2000), the nation lost over 80% of the closed forest (a reduction from 8.8 million ha to 1.5 million ha). Farrhead and Leach, (1998) estimated the deforestation rate to be a massive 22,000ha per year around the late 90’s. From some more recent trends, Mongabay.com reported that, between 1990 and 2000, the average annual deforestation rate was 1.82%. Also, between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 4.2% to 1.89% per annum. The recent FAO 2010 report has estimated Ghana’s deforestation at 135 395 ha per year.

Causes of deforestation
The causes of deforestation are numerous, interrelated and complex in nature. Most causes can be linked to livelihood and development. There are both direct and indirect causes. The indirect (underlying) causes are those factors that trigger the actual causes and these include; poverty, ignorance, corrupt practices of governments, security & forestry officials, weak institutions, inappropriate policies, lack of law enforcement, lack of concern by local communities, land tenure issues among others.

According to Nsenkyire (1998), the main causes in Ghana are (i) forest clearance for cocoa and food crop farms and (ii) logging (both legal and illegal). Illegal logging is a major cause of deforestation, depriving the Ghanaian economy of fibre, legal employment and tax revenues. This is done by selfish people who try and keep all the benefits away from the nation. Legal logging could also still be harmful to forest if not done in environmentally friendly ways. Clearance of forest for agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation not only in Ghana but in the whole of Africa (FAO 2003). Because of reducing soil fertility, an ever increasing area has to be planted in order to grow sufficient food. As a result, rural families clear portions of land yearly for crop cultivation. Other causes of deforestation are shifting cultivation, bush fires, harvesting of fuel wood, human settlements and overgrazing. Conversion of forest lands for industrial activities or infrastructural development is another cause of forest loss. Examples include forest clearance for mining, industrial development, building of stadia, schools and other large infrastructure projects.

Suggested Solutions 
One would think that the solution to degradation and deforestation lies with stopping the direct causes of deforestation. I agree with this only to some extent. In my opinion, halting forest loss should rather tackle both the direct causes and indirect causes, i.e. both prevention and cure. For example, one direct cause of deforestation is illegal logging. In trying to fight deforestation, we may not go very far if we are merely trying to stop illegal logging. We might be better off solving the underlying cause of illegal logging which may be weak institutions or corruption or both. Similarly, we can only stop deforestation triggered by poverty when we have been able to tackle and deal with the poverty problems. Poor families who cannot afford alternative energy sources for cooking cannot be stopped from harvesting fuelwood since this will lead to hunger. In developed countries, the majority of people do not directly depend on the forest for energy to cook, hence it is easier to conserve forests.

The Ghana forestry commission is committed to tackling deforestation. Their efforts will not be successful until they are complemented with efforts of forest fringe communities. These groups often know of illegal activities in their local forests but tend to condone these activities. It is common recently to find chain saw operators even in northern Ghana selecting and cutting the few economic trees left in the area. Local people are those who help these illegal people to locate such trees in order to make their own gains at the expense of the whole of the nation. These rural dwellers may not be well informed about the benefits of preserving trees and even if they know, they value the money they get from chain saw operators much more than allowing the tree to stand.

There should be more training given to forestry officers to enable them to deal with the challenges of forest management in current times, in particular their ability to work together with forest fringe communities. With the advent of climate change for example, foresters must be equipped with necessary skills and technologies to be able to adapt to the anticipated changes. They should also be trained to understand and implement forest management approaches such as reduced impact logging, sustainable forest management, multiple use forest management, participatory forest management, and community forest management among others which have been found to be useful in other countries.

In addition, just like many crime related issues, Forestry officials need the support of other state security agencies to deal with these illegal activities. The police, customs, and military all have a role to play in the campaign against deforestation and illegal logging. I observed that most logs illegally cut in Upper West Region of Ghana were being transported across to Burkina Faso, through the borders. Training border officials in the identification of illegal logs is required. Government must step up forest protection by ensuring a multi-sectoral approach. Government should also review existing laws to ensure that punishments for illegal logging activities are severe enough to discourage people.

Increasing forest cover?
The only way to regain lost forest is by reforestation or afforestation. Reforestation is to plant trees on land which carried forest within the previous 50 years or within living memory. Afforestation on the other hand is to plant trees on land devoid of forest or land that was deforested in the distant past. The Ghanaian government has been making great efforts to increase the nation’s forest cover through plantations. Since 2000 the Forestry Commission of Ghana has embarked on a national plantation development programme with a target of 20 000 ha a year (FAO 2010). This is to be applauded but should also be done with more participation from local dwellers. Successful schemes such as joint forest management, participatory forest management and community forest management should be introduced and studied. Tree planting could be made easier by encouraging local people to get involved through provision of incentives. Initiatives such as ‘Tree Aid’ provide an example of how such aspirations can be realised.

Conclusion
The protection of the nation’s forest is a collective responsibility of every Ghanaian. Hence every citizen should be a guardian of the remaining trees and be inspired and encouraged to plant trees. Some people argue that trees take too long to grow but I say that it is better to plant today and have it in 50 years than not to plant today and be forced to plant it in 50 years and end up using it in 100 years or more from now. I would like to end with an old Greek proverb which says, “a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in”.

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Credit: Guuroh Reginald Tang
Email: [email protected]

Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Dr. James Walmsley of the University of Wales, Bangor-UK 

References
1. FAO 2006 and 2010 reports
2. Owusu, J.G.K, Abeney, E.A, Frimpong, E.A (1999). Workshop for media personnel on forestry and wildlife reporting
3. Fairhead J, Leach M (1998) Reframing Deforestation: Global Analysis and Local Realities –
Cases from West Africa. London: Routledge
4. http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Ghana.ht