Oh, why?

By William A. Asiedu

During an ill-fated simulation exercise by the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) last Thursday at the Cedi House in Accra, Deputy Group Officer (DGO) Hannah Yawson fell from the fifth floor of the tower and died the following day at the Intensive Care Unit of the 37 Military Hospital, where she was rushed to, after the fall. 

The exercise involved the application of the Knot Chair technique, whereby an unconscious person trapped in a fire situation in such a facility is put in a chair to which a rope is tied and then lowered through a window to safety. 

So the question is; Why did the bosses at the Ghana National Fire Service decide to undertake a simulation exercise with equipment that were dangerously obsolete, including a rope that was as weak as tissue paper?

The Deputy Head of Public Relations at the Ghana National Fire Service, (GNFS) Mr Prince Billy Anaglate was reported to have explained that the rope might have snapped due to weakness from its long use.

The GNFS was supposed to undertake an exercise that would prepare them to save lives in  case of a fire outbreak, but ironically, even in the case where there was no fire they could not save the life of Hannah Yawson. It clearly shows that if indeed, fire had gutted the Cedi House, some more lives might have been lost.

If all the leaders responsible for the GNFS who part of the leadership of the nation could not provide a simple rope for a safe simulation exercise, what else can the leadership of the country do for the teeming youth who wake up in the morning and do not know where their first meal will come from?

It is true that Ghana is poor but, are we so poor that we cannot buy equipment for the GNFS to save our own lives. The leaders of this country must wake up and do things that will give the people some hope because stories such as that of Hannah Yawson do not make the people optimistic about the future at all.

The irony of the poor leadership problem is that those who find themselves in the top seats hardly resign in the face of obvious failure on their part, unlike in the developed world where leaders bow out to make way for others to offer alternative solutions.

We were in this country when media reports indicated that a minister of health, who had been delegated to represent the country at an HIV/AIDS conference had ended up having unprotected sex with a woman around the same period that he was expected to be picking lessons on safe sex as well as ways to prevent the deadly disease.

The troubles that came with that incident wasted the entire country’s time as precious air-time and newspaper space was expended on the rather partisan political colour that discussions on the matter assumed. The minister at the time refused to resign, so what can our leaders tell the youth who engage in casual sex and thus spread HIV/AIDS.

As usual a COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY has been set up to investigate the circumstances that led to death of Hannah Yawson, but many are those who believe that NOTHING will come out of such probes. 

It is amazing the way SOME leaders look on for things to get out of hand before they pretend to be fixing the problems. There are too many examples of that attitude among our leaders in this country. 

Sometimes, I am tempted to believe my friend, who always tells me, “Charlie, in this country nothing is going right”. Well, as you read this, if you know any area of our lives as a nation that is going well, please let us know! 

Politics – too partisan; judiciary – suffering serious reputation problems; parliament – sharply divided along party lines, and the executive is also full of greedy people, who profess to be servants of the people but live like kings and queens! God save us!

Rest in Peace, Hannah Yawson, gallant fire officer!

They say men are not supposed to cry however I cannot help but shed tears for Hannah Yawson, the beautiful, hard-working fire officer, who died at a time when her life was set to blossom as a 40-year-old. After all life they say, begins at 40.

Her death must not be in vain. The government must begin to resource the GNFS to enable it to  offer its best and also protect the officers against preventable deaths. I know that the Chief Fire Officer, the Minister of The Interior and the Chairman of the Fire Service Board will not resign, so I will not even make that suggestion, but if the Committee of Enquiry set up by the government finds anybody liable for the death of the officer, sanctions must flow fast, hard and hot!

What is good for the deer is also good for the antelope

Prison officers in Kumasi and Sekondi on Tuesday demonstrated against what they described as “inadequate upward adjustment in their salaries,” as a result of the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

Well, if such a ‘heavy’ issue as salaries for workers in the public sector has ‘only one single spine’, what should one expect? Definitely, the structure will experience serious back-aches. There is however, hope that all shall be well in the long term but in the meantime, all aggrieved groups should be permitted to express their frustrations. Discipline is good but the Kumasi and Sekondi prison officers will tell you that ‘ino be discipline we go chop’....Or...?

Web: Wasiedu.blogspot.com

Email: Wasiedu@yahoo.com

No partisan politics at funerals, festivals!

By William A. Asiedu 

Political parties have attracted a lot of attention over the centuries, some of it positive and others negative. Political parties are essential, as they provide a way to organise the system of identifying and nominating candidates for political office.
They also help large numbers of people control the direction of government. Parties also provide a forum for their leaders to set policy and design programmes to achieve party goals.
Since the inception of the Fourth Republic, two political parties have been at the fore-front of government business in Ghana – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The fact that there is no third or fourth force besides these two dominant political groups, for me, is not really an issue because I believe that two major political parties, as in the United States, set up a system of competition for elected office, which simplifies the choices for the masses, making it easier to choose candidates and policies.
My worry, however, stems from the obvious inability of the political parties to constantly organise events/programmes that will serve as platforms to engage the masses in critical discourses that will provide ways to move this country forward.
This inability has resulted in a situation where our politicians see all social gatherings as opportunities to make political statements or merely make themselves seen by the people for the sake of publicity. They literally run to every funeral, outdooring, party, traditional festival etc, and turn such events into partisan political platforms.
Even if a mosquito dies and you invite the Ghanaian politician, he will come with a huge entourage and do all he/she can to make their presence felt at the ceremony. For the politician, the best places for such political show-offs are festivals and funerals.
On many occasions, political ‘big men’ have clashed at funerals and festivals, where politicians whose party is in power do all they can to push opposition party officers under the basket to keep them away from the television cameras.
The ‘political taekwando’ that takes place at festivals, in particular, is an affront to the spirit of such ceremonies, which aim mainly at promoting unity and development.
When was the last time you heard or saw a political party, in or out of power, organising any programme for its members to generate ideas that will help to develop the country?
As I write this piece, authorities in neighbouring Burkina Faso have opened the Bagre Dam in that country to save it from damage. The water level in the dam had risen above its limit and its water had flowed into Ghana, killing people and destroying property.
What stops a political party from organising an engineers’ forum to see how the water flowing from the dam can be handled in a profitable way. The fact is that the Burkinabes open the dam every time that the water in it overflows its limit, and it comes down to cause havoc to the people in the northern part of the country.
 While the poor were dying and losing their property to the floods, our politicians were busy ‘fighting’ over who should be recognised at a festival and who should not. What is the political leadership of this country telling us?
Indeed, our political parties need to offer the people more than just candidates to occupy political offices. They should begin to take the development of this country seriously by providing concrete solutions to the country’s numerous headaches, and stop the fights at funerals and other social functions. If they wish to do politics, they should create their own political platforms for that purpose and stop embarrassing everybody.

Nana Addo out of coverage area?
 
Drama reportedly unfolded at this year’s Oguaa Fetu Afahye when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) big-shots who attended the festival last Saturday were prevented from greeting the chiefs on the dais. None of them, including the NPP flag bearer for the 2012 Presidential elections, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was formally introduced to the people.
And the Omanhen and President of the Oguaa traditional Council, Osabarima Kwesi Atta II was alleged to have said that the Oguaa Chiefs did not see the NPP delegation at the Fetu Afahye durbar grounds.
‘Ag-g-g-y-e-iiiiiiiiii!’ ‘Aaaba!’ We all know that Nana Addo may be vertically challenged, a point he has personally acknowledged, but is he so short that even the MC for the occasion could not spot him and thereby announce his presence? Seriously, people should stop attempting to score cheap political points at events such as festivals because if anything goes wrong, the gods will not forgive them.

GJA AWARDS TODAY, POOR PAY FOR JOURNALISTS EVERYDAY

By William Antwi Asiedu
As the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) hosts the 15th GJA Awards tonight to honour hardworking journalists, it is my wish that at least one of the guest speakers at the programme will touch on the issue of poor pay for practitioners.
This matter is so crucial that if we, as media owners, practitioners and government, do not do anything about it, the current pitiable remuneration of journalists will not only undermine the journalism profession but will also threaten our toddling democracy.
First of all, journalism practice is very risky. Practitioners are verbally and physically assaulted, killed, maimed or imprisoned for attempting to write or speak about injustice and other ills of society that tend to benefit a few but hurt the masses; so why would anybody offer low wages for such a dangerous job?
Recently, a photographer of a newspaper, who did not own a vehicle and also did not have access to an official one, closed from a late night assignment and while on his way home, he came face-to-face with two cutlass-wielding robbers on a motor bike.
The robbers violently assaulted him as they forced him to surrender his camera and money. Luckily some persons appeared on the scene and the robbers fled, leaving him with some deep cuts on his legs; by God’s Grace, his life was spared!
Ask Kwaku Baako, Kwesi Pratt, Kabral Blay-Amihere and others about life in prison and they will write books about jail life for you because they were locked up during the erstwhile Provincial National Defence Council (PNDC) regime for months and years for writing or saying things that were not melodious to the ears of the powers that were.
Three media umbrella bodies, the National Media Commission (NMC), GJA and the Private Newspapers-and Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), have on countless occasions expressed concern about the low remuneration for journalists.
It appears that poor pay for journalists is not only a Ghanaian ‘thing.’ An AllAfrica.Com report indicated that in May 2008, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) made a loud call for better remuneration for journalists to eliminate mediocrity in the profession.
The NGE was reported to have said that while media ownership was a business, the practice of the profession should "be left only to professionals who must be adequately remunerated to eliminate mediocrity." Here in Ghana the issue of mediocrity in the media is getting embarrassing but a discussion on that will be for another day.
Recently a Nigerian Minister of State, Professor Dora Akunyili, also described the poor remuneration for journalists as dangerous and frightening, saying that such a challenge encourages journalists to resort to blackmail and unbalanced reportage.
Speaking as the Special Guest of Honour at the opening of Punch Place, the headquarters complex of Punch Nigeria Limited, publishers of The Punch newspapers, Akunyili reportedly said that the problem of poor remuneration for journalists is a big challenge to the industry and therefore called on stakeholders to think twice about this very critical issue so that the profession of journalism will not be used for destruction but rather to build.
Aside the poor pay that practitioners receive, journalists do not have the requisite tools to do their work–no vehicles, no computers, no recorders, no easy access to the Internet etc. However, some journalists have managed to acquire these tools on their own and are using them to offer public relations services to individuals, groups and companies in order to get  ‘something small’ to subsist on. And that may explain why there are so many unbalanced reportage and promotional stories in the media in Ghana.  How many journalists are doing critical analyses of issues? Very few!
There is also the point that some media owners are exploiting journalists. Many of them have therefore become ‘chasers’ of money at assignments, instead of chasing beats that can lead to solid stories that can help in the country’s development process.
As far back as December 2002, the  then President of the GJA Mrs Gifty Affenyi-Dadzie, pointed out that one of the main challenges facing the development of the media was poor remuneration for journalists. She said the Association had received several complaints from journalists accusing media owners of exploitation.
"Although low remuneration can be described as a general problem, that for journalists in some establishments is pathetic," Mrs Affenyi-Dadzie said at a two-day workshop at Agona Swedru in the Central Region on the state of the media in Ghana organised by the GJA, according to a GNA report.
She said the time had come for the GJA to work towards the well-being of its members and that the GJA was going to initiate dialogue with the Association of Private Broadcasting Companies, the PRINPAG and other media owners on how best to improve the service conditions of members.
I perfectly agreed with Mrs Afenyi-Dadzie when she quoted Mahatma Gandhi of India, saying: "There can be no press freedom if journalists exist in conditions of corruption, poverty and fear."
The poverty among journalists notwithstanding, I wish to remind fellow practitioners on the occasion of the 15th GJA Awards that if you have all the qualities that make a good journalist, don't think of the money because as you have hopefully realised by now, the sky is the only limit for the right person in this field.
Being a journalist also means that you have become a responsible person capable of shaping the nation’s future. Like everything in life, journalism is also a blend of positives and negatives and it is only after one weighs the pros and cons that one should take a step towards this beautiful profession.


When it’s a media report, it causes fear, alarm and panic; when a politician speaks, there is no cause for alarm?
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken a swipe at the country’s judiciary and called on the Chief Justice to take immediate steps to purge the bench of what it termed ‘corrupt and politically biased members.
The NDC Chairman, Dr Kwabena Adjei, was reported to have said that “we will clean it if they don’t take steps to clean. We will clean it and let everybody everywhere blame us for interfering in the judiciary and we will take them on...there are many ways to kill a cat.”
Ei! ei! ei! Dr Adjei, in how many ways can you kill a cat? Please tell us. And when you kill it, what sauce would you use it to prepare... okro soup/stew , groundnut soup, or palm nut soup (‘abe nkwan’). Why do you cause fear and panic among cats in the country? Sir, Ghana does not need any cat and mouse game between the people and the judiciary so please when you want to criticise the judiciary do it with some circumspection. Some people in Ghana will not forgive you if you decide to kill all the cats in the system...ei, like they will report you to the gods... straight!
Superintendent Kwesi Ofori of the Police Public Relations Unit should also pay attention to those who are suggesting the Dr Adjei has caused fear, fright, dizziness, hallucination, panic and alarm.


Graphic, 'Mo Ye' Champions, 'Paaaaaaaa!'
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has announced winners of its 2009 annual awards with the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) dominating the list.
The Graphic picked five out of the 33 prestigious awards meant to honour the country’s outstanding journalists.
The Daily Graphic’s Doreen Allotey, Lucy Adoma-Yeboah, Vicky Wereko Andoh, a Columnist Graphic Sports’ Maurice Quansah and Gabriel Ahiabor photo journalist will pick individual awards while the Graphic Communications Group Limited GCGL picks an institutional award.
As for Graphic reporters and photographers, master stop; they are champions 'papa'. The GJA should institute a hall of fame and induct the GCGL as the first entrant because the journalists there are too wild! Congrats! Graphic.

I will tell the President

By William Antwi Asiedu

THE President, Professor John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills, has arrived from his vacation in the United States of America and I am sure his aides and advisors have given him a briefing on all that happened in his absence.

I am not too sure how much of the briefing was based on partisan political issues and how much was on development matters. I have taken it upon myself to tell the President about what I believe his ‘people’ have not told him yet.

Yes Sir, Mr President, please while you were away, I noticed that there were still no street  lights on the ceremonial road that stretches from the Osu cemetery, past the fronts of the Parliament House and the International Conference Centre, to the  Liberation Circle.  After 6.00p.m., the place is as dark as the Dodowa forest. 

Sir, please don’t ask me why I did not tell the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the Minister of Energy or the Accra Mayor because I am convinced that these men know that the street lighting situation in the city is generally very poor but have not done enough to solve the problem since you gave them the opportunity to serve the people. You are slow but sure, that I know; but I also believe that you care for us so you will tell your officers to do something about the poor lighting on the city’s streets. Thank you, Sir!

Your Excellency, fire has gutted the Ghana National Drug Programme offices in Accra and destroyed 13 years of pharmaceutical policy development and technical work. Materials destroyed included master plans for the GNDP policy document, master copy of the new Standard Treatment Guidelines, programme files, furniture, computers, printers and CD back-ups of several other documents.

Sir, I have visited the place personally and spoken to an officer who told me that lack of maintenance could have contributed to the fire outbreak. My source told me that the building that is currently housing the GNDP used to serve as a prison facility during the colonial era and it appeared some of the ancient wires were still in use.

Ghana has lost too many national assets to fire. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the residence of your friend and former President, J J Rawlings, and many others have been razed down. Sir, as for this fire issue you cannot be slow but sure about it, please! Equip the Ghana National Fire Service to educate the people on fire prevention and also give them the necessary tools to fight fires.

 Ei, Mr President; I nearly forgot! The Chairman of your party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Kwabena Adjei, threatened to cleanse the judiciary if the Chief Justice, Her Ladyship Georgina Wood, failed to purge it of the bad lots. Sir, your Chairman said many things but the one that caused a lot of fear, panic and alarm was his suggestion that there were many ways of killing a cat! Since then many ‘cats’ have been running helter-skelter looking for cover. Please advise the learned doctor to be slow to anger because cat killing could be against the laws of the land. And, Sir, your Attorney-General too appears to be speaking a lot of fine English these days but has very little to show for it. Sir, will you fire her or not….?

Finally, Mr President, all is not well with the Education system. The Minister of Education has threatened to keep students in tents if by the time school re-opens, the new structures being constructed by the government in the various senior high schools are not completed.

Again, the Minister ordered that O’Reilly Senior High School in Accra should be closed down and the students ‘shared’ like toffees among the other schools in the city. This was because the alleged owners of the property housing the school had decided to take over the buildings. Well, I hear the problem has been resolved but Sir, please look again at the education system because obviously all is not well.

And Sir, have you heard that the Captain of the Senior National Team, the Black Stars, Stephen Tornado Appiah had voluntarily retired from the team? Well, people were saying he was very old and that he was playing with ‘football age’ and that club assignments plus national duty was too tough for his naturally ‘matured bones’. Please wish him well for us! And Michael Essien too says he is on leave from the national team but as for him I don’t understand his reasons so please ask him again.

Sir, as you begin to work after your vacation in ‘Obamaland,’ please don’t mind anybody, especially those who say you are slow. Ok…you are slow and so what? After all, the tortoise can also get to the point to which the horse has run…Or…? 

The Proprietor of the Great Lamptey Mills Institute, Mr Enoch Nii Lamptey-Mills, is arguably the ‘sexiest’ school proprietor in Ghana but his thing is always landing him in trouble. For the past one year, the once popular award-winning school owner’s name has been thrown in the mud and dragged into what seems to be a bottomless legal pit.

In September last year he was arrested for impregnating and forcibly marrying a former student of his school; he performed the marriage rites making the victim his wife. 

In October of the same year he was discharged by an Accra circuit court after he had been charged with compulsory marriage. But the Attorney General last week ordered his arrest saying that the consent that the then 16-year-old Priscilla Agyei gave for her marriage was given under duress.

The Attorney is now saying that the matter will be pursued but due to some latest developments, which needed to be re-evaluated and investigated before going to court, it was thought unnecessary to continue keeping Lamptey-Mills in custody.

Agh! Since Mr Lamptey-Mills chewed that s-m-m-a-a-l-l meat , he has not known peace, ei! Indeed, this is an advice to all men; you can look as closely as you wish but be careful the meat you touch. These days, the small girls look very chewable but if you try; you will smell pepper! Mr Lamptey-Mills, it appears you are too sexy for your school; don’t you think so? Over to you!

CEPS officers face probe

Nineteen officials of CEPS are being investigated for alleged extortion, fraud, smuggling and abuse of office. The alleged cases of fraud and corruption at the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service are so pervasive that I don’t even want to talk about them. Because of the alleged fraudulent activities of SOME CEPS officials, some Ghanaians abroad do not want to send anything home. Me, I won’t say anything….or…do you have something to say? Tell the CEPS boss! Call him on 233-(0)302668319 and tell him everything.

My 'conversion' story

By William Antwi Asiedu

The Daily Graphic on Saturday, June 26, 2010, reported that the Accra Fast Track High Court had restrained the authorities of the University of Ghana, (UG) from converting the all-male Commonwealth Hall into a mixed gender hall of residence.

According to the court, as stated by the paper,“the students would suffer irreparable loss if the hall was converted into a mixed gender hall because the UG was yet to prove whether or not students from the hall were among any unruly mob of students, who gathered in front of the Central Cafeteria on March 13, 2010 and blocked the official procession of the University Council and Senior Members, which was yet to begin, and physically prevented it from moving towards the ceremony ground”.

As a bona fide member of the Commonwealth Hall family, and for that matter, a true Vandal (V-mate), I must say that I received the court’s decision with great joy. I was jubilant not because the University of Ghana (authorities) had lost the case – no! I was elated because the judge, Mr Justice K. A. Ofori-Atta had noted that the conversion of the Commonwealth Hall into a mixed-gender hall of residence would make the students suffer irreparable loss. 

As for the legality of the conversion, or otherwise, of the hall into a mixed-gender one, I cannot and will not make any comments. But I am one of the V-mates, who would have suffered irreparable loss if the judgement had gone against the students of Commonwealth. For me, the loss would have been a serious emotional hammering due to a string of interesting ‘conversion events’ in my life, which I wish to share with you.

Air Force Primary School, Burma Camp, Accra

 Many years after I had completed basic school at the Air Force Primary at Burma Camp, I decided to take my fiancée to my former primary school to show her where I had cut my teeth as a literate. We went to the Air Force Base in Accra on a week day when school was supposed to be in session; saw the blocks that had housed the Air Force Primary School, but there were no pupils or teachers in or around the buildings. 

The structure had been converted into a residential facility for soldiers. So hweeeemmm, the primary school that I had always known, was no more! Later, I learnt that a new structure had been built to house the school at another part of the Air Force barracks. I went there, saw the school, but the feeling was not the same.

Achimota School (Motown) Accra.

Again, long after I had left Achimota School (Motown), I returned one day to the Grey City of the Outlaws’ Hill to pay an emotional visit to Stopford House, where I had lived for seven years, beginning as a tiny Form One boy and ending my secondary education with the enviable title of President of the Students Representative Council (SRC). 

 While on the visit to Motwon, my emotions were thrashed when I was harshly accosted by some beautiful female students who screamed and stopped me from entering my ‘own’ Stopford House because it had been converted into a girls’ house and men were not allowed to enter. “Since when...?” I queried! “Two years ago. It is now known as OAA House” a sweet looking student said to me with a funny grin on her fresh face. With that, I knew I had lost my greatest attraction to Motown. I hope that my favourite Aggrey Chapel in Achimota School will not one day be converted into a dining hall.

Ghana Institute of Journalism, Accra

From Achimota School, I enrolled at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) and guess what; recently very reliable sources have hinted that ‘my’ GIJ will soon be moved from the current campus near the British High Commission to another place; and that means my emotional connection to the great institute may also be bruised before long.

Graphic Communications Group Limited, Accra

My interesting story continued at the Graphic Communications Group Limited, where I was employed as a reporter and attached to The Mirror. A few years after my employment, the management announced that the company’s building was to be refurbished, and again, ‘my conversion thing’ happened, this time with a funny twist! The refurbishment plan indicated that the room that served as The Mirror office was to be converted into a washroom; and today as I write, I can say that ‘I do it’ every day in my former office.

The Clinic, Laterbiokorshie, Accra

Ha! Now I’m married and God has blessed my wife and I with a sweet daughter, who was born in a clinic that shared a common wall with my wife’s former primary school. So we were very excited that my wife had her basic education and first child literally on the same soil. Just recently, we drove past the clinic and noticed that it had been moved from Laterbiokorshie to Teshie and the building had been converted into a residential facility. Aaaba! 

Commonwealth Hall, University of Ghana, Legon.

For now, the only thing that readily helps me to reminisce over my past is the great Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana, where I met solid minds such as O. T., Uprising, as well as Shakur, the man who lived in Commonwealth all his university life, though on paper, he was a ‘Gentleman’ from Legon Hall. 

So, you see some of us stand to lose big time if the courts had ruled that the honourable university authorities could go ahead and convert Commonwealth Hall into ‘whatever’. For me, I have had enough conversions already.

No Preschool, Accra!

I did not attend any nursery school or kindergarten. I went to Class One straight from home. Please do not ask why because I have no answers, but the fact is that I cannot point to any structure as my former preschool, period!

No mercy for the “cripple”

By William Antwi Asiedu


THE huge social safety net inherent in the extended family system which, in the past, saved a lot of poor Ghanaians from the streets, is in shreds; and we do not need a first class professor in social science to tell us that. 

The pressures of modernity seem to have pushed many Ghanaians to spend more money on what I call ‘machines of comfort,’ such as washing machines and luxury cars, rather than helping to cater for poor extended family members.

This and many other factors have left us with a large army of street kids whose future careers could be armed robbery, prostitution, drug addiction and vandalism (apologies to my fellow V-mates of the Great Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana, Legon, popularly and affectionately called VANDALS).

So it came to pass that on the night of Tuesday, September 1, my fellow V-mate and celebrated investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, broadcast a sad story of the children of the Osu Children’s Home in Accra, after seven months of undercover investigations at Ghana’s leading facility for disadvantaged children.

Lack of space will not permit me to present all the details of Anas’ story but it is important to recap the aspect of it that exposed cases of alleged physical abuse, squalid living conditions, stealing and caregiver negligence that have resulted in the deaths of many children within the home.

The investigation also uncovered some disturbing aspects of life at the Osu Remand Home and the Osu Home School and found out that the two institutions, together with the main Home, subjected children under their care to  daily doses of whipping and other physical punishments that adversely affected the victims’ physical, emotional and academic development.

After seeing the story on television and reading it on the Internet, one thing that I had always feared was confirmed – Ghana’s social welfare system is DEAD!

If you do not believe me, wait till you find yourself on the wrong side of the law and be thrown into jail. 

Again when you are admitted to a public health facility you will also feel the death of Ghana’s welfare system. I also know that the disadvantaged children in many of the country’s Homes know that the welfare system died long before they were born; and for the street kids the demise of the system stares them in face day by day, night by night! 

The picture may be blurred but this is not the time to play the blame game or pretend that there are no social challenges in Ghana. I believe that some politicians will jump to their feet and catalogue a number of things that their parties have done in the past or are doing now to improve the welfare of the Ghanaian poor but the fact remains that, ‘Notin dey happen’ as my Nigerian friend Oluwale will say.

What pushed the so-called industrialised nations to develop was that they faced realities and created the environment for their people to live comfortably, no matter the situation. Why do you think they are always inventing things for us to buy. 

Now the reality is that the social welfare enjoyed under the extended family system is long gone and the earlier we, as a country, began to embrace the services of professional social workers the better.

A social worker is an individual whose aim is to help those people within society who have – for whatever reasons – an inability or a difficulty in dealing with issues or crises that see them excluded from society. Social workers can carry out their duties in a variety of different locations and settings ranging from a client’s home, their school, hospital or other public sector organisations. 

The ‘modern’ Ghanaian does not seem to want to do anything with young offenders, individuals with learning difficulties, young people with behavioural difficulties, drug and alcohol addicts, pupils with high levels of truancy, elderly individuals, individuals with mental health issues, orphans and abandoned children etc.

And this is where the professional social worker comes in to offer practical and emotional support to anyone in any of the aforementioned categories and to do so objectively and without prejudice. This is very important as many look to social workers as a means of alleviating their concerns without burdening loved ones or family members and also without feeling embarrassed or concerned about the information they impart. 

The country’s universities are training social workers but the sad thing is that many of them travel abroad to work in society’s that appreciate their services. This means that were are spending our meagre resources to train professionals for rich countries such as the UK and US.

University study is required in order to qualify as a social worker. This can either be in the form of a degree course in social work or as a post-graduate course once an initial degree has been obtained.

It is not enough to have caregivers looking after young people at places such as the Osu Children’s Home. These ‘carers’ are people who provide lowly paid care by looking after ill, frail or disabled people." The caregivers require constant supervision from professional social workers and it was obvious from the Anas story that there were not enough at the Osu Children’s Home.

Wicked ‘mothers’ at Osu Children’s Home

Posing as a visiting Pastor under the name Reverend Abednego Akpabli alias ‘Onyameneba’, from the [non-existent] Christ of Jah Church, the award-winning reporter, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, obtained secret video footage on what he described as the daily ills and injustices suffered by children within the Osu Children’s Home. 

The reporter also posed as a rich female philanthropist from Mali, under the name Hajia Balkisu, to unravel the mystery behind a series of deaths that had hit the home in recent times. “She” even bought a coffin for the burial of one of the dead kids who was about to receive a pauper’s burial from the home. 

Ei Anas, ‘Charlie’ you are a champion. With your hard body and harder buttocks you managed to outwit the officials at the Osu Home and easily passed as a woman! Well done my brother. Hmmm, I say in this country we are not serious about social welfare koraaaaa. The Social Welfare Minister, Mr E. T Mensah, should cut his aged ‘punk’ hairstyle and rolled up his sleeves because there is a lot of work to do. 

Oil money for NHIS premium

You see what these politicians do? The oil money has not come and yet they have started sharing it – some for NHIS, some for this, some for that! Why don’t we wait for the oil money to start flowing in waa waa waa before making promises. We promise too much and raise people’s hopes too high and later turn them into foot soldiers, who terrorise everybody because the politicians’ promises are not fulfilled or its implementation is delayed.

Well, I hear the government is considering the option of using part of the country’s expected oil revenue for the intended one-time premium payment of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Who said that? Agh! They said it was the Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, who announced it.

For this announcement, I declare the Vice Pee, Ghana’s MOST PROMISING VICE PRESIDENT ever.

Respect the President

By William Antwi Asiedu

When Mr John Agyekum Kufuor became President of Ghana in the year 2000 many were those who said his character was too cool for a Head of State. Before him was Flt. Lt. Jeremiah John Rawlings, who was described as too hot for the Presidency. Now, we have President John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills, who people say is too slow for a country whose development is already too ‘snaily’.

It is obvious that the governed are not just interested in what a leader can offer them but are also very much interested in the personality and leadership style of the ‘governor’. It is also quite clear that leadership and leadership styles are not easy to define. Indeed, according to management theorist, Crainer, there are over 400 definitions of leadership and “it is a veritable minefield of misunderstanding and difference through which theorists and practitioners must tread warily”.

According to Laurie J. Mullins, a former principal lecturer at the Business School, University of Portsmouth, there were many ways of looking at leadership and the many interpretations of its meaning. Leadership might be interpreted in simple terms such as ‘getting others to follow,’ ‘getting people to do things willingly’ or interpreted more specifically, for example as ‘the use of authority in decision making’. It may also be exercised as an attribute of position, or because of personal knowledge or wisdom.

It might also be based on a function of personality, or it can be seen as a behavioural category. It may also be viewed in terms of the role of the leaders and their ability to achieve effective performance from others. 

Please forgive me if I’m getting a bit too academic, but this intellectual exercise had become necessary as I tried to find out why Presidents Rawlings, Kufuor and Mills continually receive public bashing for their individual leadership styles. I have now come to the conclusion that even if Ghanaians, one day, elect the much revered diplomat, His ‘Excellent’ Excellency, Kofi Annan as President, some people will say he is too diplomatic to be President. 

So, the question is; what kind of leader at all do Ghanaians want? Some say Flt. Lt. Rawlings is too authoritarian and that he loves power too much so he always wants the focus of power to be on him and that all interactions within his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) must move towards him. In spite of the harsh criticisms, Ghanaians voted twice for him to rule this country.

For President Kufuor, some said his style was too laissez-faire and that he gave too much room for members of his government to work on their own, allowing them freedom of action. That, it was alleged, led to a situation where some people in his New Patriotic Party (NPP) government ‘chopped’ money waa waa waa.

And now, people are saying that Professor Mills, being a lawyer, is looking into issues so critically that he cannot take decisions on time and everything is at a stand-still...slow but sure! But the point is, as a leader, whether you are dictatorial, bureaucratic, benevolent, and charismatic or ‘slow but sure’ people will criticise your leadership style.

The most important thing is that one must note that there is not one best form of leadership. The human relations, people-oriented style and the ‘hard’ no-holds-barred Rawlings type of leadership can all be effective in a democratic setting if the focus is always on development, so we should spend less time and energy criticising the styles our leaders adopt. If their actions are democratic and constitutional, hey, let them be! After all that is why every President has a fixed term of four years renewable only once, making it a maximum of eight years.

However, whatever it is that we want to say about our leaders, we must show them a lot of respect in order not to undermine their authority, for if they fail we all fail; if they succeed, we all succeed!

Sekou jabs Mills. Prof, Return to classroom!

Dr Sekou Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President’s third son and a member of the NDC has given a damning verdict on the leadership of President John Evans Atta Mills. He said President Mills lacks the charisma, dynamism and strong will to lead Ghana. He was reported to have said that it was almost impossible for the NDC to succeed in its ‘Better Ghana’ agenda because the President was too weak a leader to take bold decisions.

Aaaaahhhhhh, Sekou too why did you describe Prof Mills as a weak leader? Don’t you know that now inflation is falling like a parachute? It is now a single digit, i.e. 9.52 per cent (but is 9.52 a single digit, please the lotto forecasters should tell us. They deal a lot in single numbers).

There is also hope that Prof Mills will soon convince the PURC to reduce utility tariffs DRASTICALLY? I am very, very hopeful that the price of konkonte too will soon come down DRASTICALLY; pure water – DRASTICALLY; trotro fares – DRASTICALLY; pestodent – DRASTICALLY; krupot – DRASTICALLY; ajos pipe at Abossey Okai – DRASTICALLY. 

Just forget about Prof Mills’ slow-but-sure leadership style and concentrate on the DRASTIC fall of inflation and the INCREASE in the volumes of oil that Ghana is continually discovering. Me, I have hope in Ghana papapapapapa! After four or eight years, Prof Mills will slowly but surely leave power and Ghana will still exist, so I am praying that prices of goods and services as well as INFLATION keep falling DRASTICALLY before he leaves office so that Ghana will be a better place to live long after he has left office and returned to the classroom as Sekou suggested. But Prof; please is it true that you have FIRED Sekou for criticising you DRASTICALLY?

Mandela Steals show

While we were here bashing our leaders, and some of the leaders fighting among themselves, another leader, former South African President, Madiba Nelson Mandela was bringing joy to his once ‘troubled’ country as he made an emotional appearance at the closing ceremony of the just-ended FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

South African President Jacob Zuma, FIFA President Sepp Blatter and CAF President, Issa Hayatou and other dignitaries honoured Mr Mandela by escorting him off the field in an emotional farewell by one of the world’s most loved and revered leaders.

I wonder if all Ghanaians can at any one time collectively receive President Mills, or former President Kufuor or ex-President Rawlings with warm and emotion like the way the South Africans treat Mr Mandela. The partisanship in Ghana is killing us. Kufuor nie, NPP nie, Jerry nie, NDC nie, Mills nie, NDC nie. So where is Ghana?