wings of freedom

WTO Talks killing Ghanaian Rice???

2005-12-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

In an article titled “WTO talks killing Ghanaian rice- No markets for farmers means no money for Ghana” which appeared in the December 14, edition of the Ghanaian Chronicle,(http://www.ghanaian-chronicle.com/thestory.asp?ID=8635) Ghana’s only farmer representative at the WTO talks in Hong Kong Nashiru Mohammed, who is also President of the Peasant Farmer's Association is asking Ghana to impose stiff tariffs on imported goods such as cotton, poultry and rice because they are competing on an uneven keel with local production.

It was refreshing however, to hear read from the Government representative at the WTO dismiss the assertion that tariffs are the problem. But he was unfortunately evasive on the real reasons why farmers can't add value to increase their market share.

The real determinants here are high import taxes on agricultural machinery. I have always argued that import taxes are indeterminate until the day you get your imported goods into your home. A best estimate on imported used saloon car is almost 100%. Port authorities demand 50% of the original value of the car,
12.5% VAT, Regional levy of 0.5%, 1% CIF value, haulage tax which varies, and bribes to facilitate speedy paper work. Imagine how much will be slammed on heavy agricultural equipment when we know in Ghana that we do not have enough rice mills, even the technologically archaic!

In a related article, http://www.panos.org.uk/global/tradingplaces_feature1.asp a farmer said, “All we want is for the [Ghanaian] government to assist us to acquire simple processing machines, so that on a small scale we can start to process our produce, which will help us to cut back on losses during the periods of glut".

The second reason obviously is very access to credit. It is very difficult to access loans when you are a subsistence farmer in Ghana because your collateral isn't big enough. And even when the collateral exists for large scale farmers, the cost of borrowing is steep high- almost 28% across board. The high cost of production translates into higher prices for ordinary Ghanaians.

Indeed, some savvy Ghanaian businessmen have helped both local farmers and consumers, for instance by providing locally produced rice in packages. But that ensures the rice isn't stale when it reaches the consumer. Similarly, other Ghanaian entrepreneurs now collaborate with their Italian counterparts to produce tomato paste brands with Akan names, Ghana's widely spoken language.

Yes, attitudes are part of the problem. - I agree that locally produced rice is more nutritious but that is not an excuse to ban or increase tariffs against imported rice.
If we did ban rice and tomato imports, just how would we feed ourselves? Ghanaians depend on rice as a major staple in our diets, yet local production caters for only 30pc of the rice we consume. Where is the remaining 70pc supposed to come from?

The poor get ditched again- but salvation is in their own hands.

2005-12-15T03:12:00.000-08:00

It was heart-rending to hear Pascal Lamy recommend putting the poor on an aid dosage of two billion Euros a year for the next ten years with some minimal attempt at lowering barriers for the Poor’s agricultural produce. This in effect was the EU “development package.”

But this lame development package, termed ”Aid for Trade,” means in plain terms replacing trade with more aid cash--thus defeating the fundamental purpose of the WTO’s belief that trade enhances development.

We know that 50 years of aid has impoverished Africans while propping up African leaders and making them unaccountable to their citizens.

African Members of Parliament here at the talks are suspicious of “Aid for Trade” both because they fear it might mean them accepting less protectionism and because they know that past aid promises were not fulfilled. This money, on previous form, could just be a re-statement of figures from the G8 deal reached in June 2005.

They are also suspicious some of their members will betray their cause- which is a halt on services liberalisation and enhancing non-agricultural market access. In a Press statement released on 14th December, the Members of Parliament said they were aware some of their members were being co-opted into what they call ‘Green Rooms’ in order to divide the African group.

To the African Members of Parliament, instead of reducing its levels of agricultural subsidies the EU is conditioning their ‘offer’ on Africa “agreeing to extreme liberalisation commitments in services and NAMA”.

So African leaders are considering more protectionism through reciprocal tariffs. But World Bank figures show that African nations already slam tariffs as high as 33.6% on agricultural commodities from their neighbours.

Another World Bank study says removing all agricultural trade barriers would bring US$140 billion a year in benefits to developing countries. Doing away with only the barriers in rich countries, the Bank estimates would generate only US$30 billion of this figure. The rest would come from the removal of barriers in and between poor countries.

The United States Agency for International Development also calculates that 70 per cent of all tariffs in the world are erected by developing countries against other developing countries. The World Bank estimates that 92 per cent of the benefit to developing countries from liberalising agricultural trade would come not from reduced EU and US subsidies but from cutting their own tariffs.

So, although the leaders of poor countries will say that they were once again ditched by the wealthy, they would do well to look in their own backyards first.

Today, trade among African countries accounts for only about 10% of their total exports and imports.

One explanation for this is that most of all Africa’s economies are agrarian. Yes, but they do not stand much chance of diversifying or adding value unless they reduce taxes on imported technological equipment. Currently these are outrageously high.

A simple illustration with the importation of a used car in Ghana will help. Port authorities ask you to pay 50% of the original price of the car, VAT of 12.5%, and other indeterminate taxes that come up to almost 100% taxes on the used car--so imagine importing heavy agricultural machinery.

Much as we want to see this improved, another ill that plagues Africa is corruption. According to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, corruption alone robs the continent of US$ 149 billion annually--US$9 billion more than the total benefits if all global trade protectionism were scrapped. This figure seems unbelievably high but in August 2004 an African Union report gave a similar figure, representing 25 per cent of the continent’s gross domestic product.

So what we really need is transparent, accountable and decentralized governance in order to pursue a coherent regional trade policy. This would translate into reducing economic intervention, freeing financial markets, removing obstacles to starting businesses, establishing property rights and bringing all Africans under the rule of law. That’s the kind of trade we need and the kind of justice we need.

Tanzanian President Vrs Franklin Cudjoe on Globalisation

2005-12-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

Following my op-ed which was carried by the Independent Institute on November 7, 2005 below, Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, President of the Republic of Tanzania wrote a rejoinder that is yet to be published. Our friends at the Independendt Institute conducted a due diligence to verify the authenticity of the rejoinder from the Tanzania Embassy in Washington.

However, I take the liberty to republish his rejoiner and a subsequent rebuttal from me which I sent to him and his Ambassador to the United States of America. Stay tuned if he replies again but I must say I'm very honoured to have an African President respond directly to stories about him. Hopefully other African leaders will follow his example. Thats when they ever read at all.

1. Op-ed

Globalization Rocks, but African Leaders Fail to Understand It
November 7, 2005
Franklin Cudjoe
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1613

"Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa will step down this week, complying with his constitutional term limits. He will be the third African leader in recent times to honorably leave office following the departure of Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Jerry Rawlings of my country, Ghana.

At the same time that Mkapa hands over power as required by the law, he is urging his colleagues to discard the political system and warning other African leaders to be wary of the present competitive global political and economic order because globalization threatens to “exploit, denigrate, and humiliate Africa.” But one might ask whether Africa’s problems are really caused by globalization."

2. President Mkapa's rejoinder

GLOBALISATION ROCKS, BUT AFRICAN LEADERS FAIL TO UNDERSTAND IT (NOVEMBER 7, 2005, BY FRANKLIN CUDJOE):
A REJOINDER

Political pundits and commentators come in different shades, sizes and professional integrity. With more than 30 years as a journalist before becoming a public servant, I know this for a fact! An ingenious style of commentary is where the writer selects a number of words from an array of unrelated oratories, string these together into a single sentence and attributes such a creation, out of context, to their targeted subject. This is how I view Mr. Franklin Cudjoe’s commentary dated 7th November 2005 on “Globalization Rocks, but African Leaders Fail to Understand It”.

Referring to what he calls my “honourably” leaving office at the end of my second term as President of Tanzania (as required by our Constitution), he claims it is my view and I advise fellow African leaders that globalization threatens to “exploit, denigrate and humiliate Africa”.

As an African leader committed to the fate of my fellow citizens, I have for many years (and more recently as Co-chair of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation and as a member of the Commission for Africa), spoken on various aspects on globalization. The record is there in my various speeches over the years for all interested to view in detail and judge, [http://www.tanzania.go.tz/presidentialibraryf.html]. I will undeservedly, however, honour Mr. Cudjoe by assuming that he extracted the words “exploit, denigrate and humiliate” from the speech I made on 31st August 2005 to the African Union Commission, African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Let me quote some relevant paragraphs from that speech in which those words are included and present the full case and context in which they were applied. This is important because I believe passionately in the ideas presented and pray that these would become topics of urgent and serious debate among us as Africans, the honourable ones at least.

I said, in Addis Ababa, that:

…As I prepare to leave office I should like to urge all my fellow Africans, and especially those entrusted with the leadership of our continent, to look back into our history, to evaluate the disadvantaged position we hold in today’s globalising world, and to be sufficiently agitated to design and work for a better future for our continent and its future generations.

The September 2005 issue of National Geographic does not have a glossy photograph on its cover as always. It has, instead, on a white background, the words “Africa: Whatever you thought, think again.” This exhortation to think again is directed at non-Africans. But I believe that if we want a better future for our continent, we Africans also need to think again. And we should be informed by a Chinese proverb that says, “A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood.” Let us open our minds; and let us be sufficiently agitated to change Africa.

The first major exploitation, denigration and humiliation of Africa was the slave trade. This lasted almost 500 years. The second major exploitation, denigration and humiliation of Africa was colonialism which goes way back before the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. And colonialism prepared Africa for the third major phase of exploitation, denigration and humiliation that globalisation now threatens to be.

I argued further that:

In today’s world of globalisation, the economic ideas and foundation underpinning the then colonial policy still determine the extent and nature of Africa’s integration into the global economy—basically as a supplier of raw materials and extractive industry commodities, mostly unprocessed. If we want a better future for our continent and its future generations, we must be sufficiently agitated to robustly fight the manifestly unjust economic relations in a globalising world.

In today’s world of globalisation, the colonial era so-called far-reaching ideas of civilisation translate into what we now call “the cultural dimension of globalisation,” where, among other things, Western (mostly American) cultural values and ways of life predominate. They are fanned by global interconnectedness through migration and the Information and Communication Technology revolution that beams these ways of life to our living rooms and our computer screens, firing the imagination.

Secondly, we must strive to change the direction of our trade. We are too dependent on Europe and America as destinations of our exports. The European Union alone accounts for 52 per cent of Africa’s exports. The good political relations we have with Asia and Latin America are yet to translate into larger investment and trading opportunities. It is true Africa’s exports to Asia grew significantly in the 1990s. But between 1999 and 2001, only 16 per cent of Africa’s export revenues came from Asia.

I believe we need to think afresh into this strategy to ensure that we trade more with Asia and Latin America as a deliberate continental strategy to diversify our export markets and sources of investment. It is important to bear in mind that Asian markets have more complementarity with the existing supply base of traditional primary commodities that characterise our exports. The scope of value-added processing in Africa is still limited but by taking advantage of linkages with Asia, African producers and exporters could significantly benefit from expansion of traditional primary commodities…

My conclusions were:

…Firstly, I urge African leaders to think afresh about the place of our continent in a rapidly globalising world. We suffered during the slave trade, and we suffered through the colonial period, which ushered us into a global trading regime, not as equal players but as appendages of metropolitan powers. Now in the world of globalisation we find ourselves unprepared and incapacitated to play the role we envisage for ourselves as equal partners and players, and as beneficiaries. To change this unfavourable configuration, we must be prepared to strategize on how to break out of this institutional bondage that makes us almost irrelevant. In all the years I have been Foreign Minister and then President of my country, I have not seen us seriously and sufficiently strategizing on this matter. Very little time in our agenda is devoted to such matters, which ultimately will determine Africa’s place in the sun of globalisation.

Secondly, we have to restructure the content and direction of our trade and investment, finding new innovative ways to enhance South-South cooperation, as a means to develop the capacity to relate as equal partners with countries of the North.

And, thirdly, we must not be laid back, waiting for civil society in rich countries to do all the agitation and campaigning for more aid, fair trade, and debt cancellation for us. Right now they lead and we follow. We must resolve to lead, and let them follow so that they are not accused of waging a struggle with no roots and no ownership in Africa….whipping the appetites of our youth for what they believe is modernity and civilisation, which it not always is, and which for most of them is unachievable.

And in today’s world of globalisation, the colonisers’ ideas of a political and patriotic sort appear now as defence of national interests at all costs even if such interests unleash untold suffering on other people. That is why it is said, with wry humour, that it is better to live as a cow in Europe getting at least USD 2 a day, than to subsist on less than USD 1 in sub-Saharan Africa as a human being. If we want a better future for our continent and its future generations we must be sufficiently agitated to lead unrelenting initiatives to redress such an unfair global trade and economic regime…

With respect to trade which Mr. Cudjoe correctly said is important for Africa, this is what I said:

…We have to fight our insignificance in world trade, for trade, in goods and services, is the currency of globalisation. There was once even a suggestion from some quarters that most African countries should be satisfied with aid, and in return agree not to participate in WTO trade talks. The argument was that we were too insignificant as players in the global market, and a distraction when the big players talk!

The first problem with regard to trade is about size. Africa’s share of global trade is hardly 2 per cent. But it is not only about size, it is also about content. Africa’s exports are largely primary, unprocessed, commodities which account for at least 66 per cent of total exports from our continent. Africa, therefore, bears the brunt of the fickleness of commodity market prices, and frequently deteriorating terms of trade and erratic weather conditions. We also suffer from the excessive appetite of the value-adding and trading multinational corporations…

I went on to discuss the challenges African producers (NOT governments) face with regard to unstable international prices of raw agricultural produce, and the adverse consequences of the dumping of subsidised agricultural products from the developed world. I emphasised that for Africa to move forward in this respect:

...Two things are transparently necessary. First, Africa must strive harder to industrialise and venture into the service industry. Without value addition we are doomed. But, presently, I do not see us, as a continental organisation, going beyond words to strategy and action on this imperative. We speak about these injustices in meetings and conferences, but we do not aggressively develop and implement the necessary strategies to deal with them as continent.

To all my fellow Africans, including Mr. Cudjoe, the ideas above are indeed part of my hope for Africa’s future economic prosperity. We in Tanzania have (since the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1992) placed our development emphasis on implementing wide ranging economic reforms, with special focus on social and economic infrastructure, peaceful coexistence with our neighbours and peace seeking elsewhere on the continent. Our record in all of these areas is there for others to judge.

Personally, I do not have any Swiss or foreign bank accounts. Those who care to visit or seriously educate themselves on Tanzania will quickly find out that, among others, we are promoting girl-child education; we have put in place investor friendly economic policies; we are encouraging local entrepreneurship and we are investing in infrastructure.

We are busy sowing for the future and not, as Mr. Cudjoe claims, “harvesting where we have not sown”. I am proud as I leave office that Tanzania and Tanzanians no longer feel prisoners to any kind of rigid political philosophies.

From his commentary, I am not sure I can say the same about Mr. Cudjoe. There is rule of law and protection of private property in Tanzania and our parliamentarians pay for their mode of transport and accommodation as these are deducted at source from their income. Libertarians we may not be, and we make no apologies! We feel too free not to believe there is an economic system based exclusively on “Free markets” – albeit even those who invented the concept are still in search of it! Mr. Cudjoe’s misrepresentations and sweeping statements hardly move us forward on what are serious and urgent matters regarding Africa’s future. And I believe The Independent Institute, as well as Mr Cudjoe’s audience and readers deserve better!

Benjamin William Mkapa
President of the United Republic of Tanzania
07 December 2005

3. Franklin's rebuttal also sent to the Tanzanian Ambassador and the President

Many thanks for passing on this. Yes, in deed that is the President of
Tanzania. I have attached my response below as well. I think it is fair his reaction is published. It shows that some African leaders are indeed passionate about what is said of them.

However, I still will want to take issue with the quotations he rightly
said were attributed to him, which obviously does not warrant his introductory venom.
Besides, he had sort to extract himself from the many ills his counterparts have and continue to visit on their own people. Uganda, Nigeria and Kenyan Presidents are contemplating giving monstrous powers to themselves in order to prolong their stay in office. President Mkapa's
decision to leave office is in deed honorable.

I admire the President's eloquence in defending him stance but no where
in his rejoinder does he object to his own quotation “And colonialism
prepared Africa for the third major phase of exploitation, denigration
and humiliation that globalisation now threatens to be". That is my beef
with him.

He indeed, agreed with me that South-South co-operation was one of the
ways to go in order to build Africa's capacity to add value to its
primary commodities, even though he sort an escapist route to argue that
homogeneity of Africa's products, mainly raw materials is reason why we
earn peanuts from fickled world market prices.
I'm amazed when he says that I made sweeping statements when I believe
he knows that local inhibitions by way of taxes alone can dissuade
investment in manufacturing industries that will use. Ghanaian farmers for
instance have been crying for tax exemptions on agricultural machinery so they
can expand output and process some produce so they attract higher values.
I'm not privy to the taxation levels in Tanzania but could he convince
me that they are agro-industry friendly?

I agree that Western agricultural subsidies are a draw back, but does
that warrant Africans to clamour for more of it at home?
But did he address trade barriers within the continent at all? I
thought I mentioned that as well? Why can't Tanzanians buy Ghanaian chocolates
for instance? Why did Nigeria ban 96 products from Ghana when Ghana could
go into Nigeria 7 times, population wise? How open is COMESA and ECOWAS,
two trading blocs for East and Southern Africa and the West African sub
region?

Zambia's president was recently in Ghana lamenting that the annual turn
over of trade between the two countries was only $50,000. How much does
it cost to fly between both countries?

What were many African countries doing after Independence that they had
to allow a hang over from Colonialism to prepare them "for the third major
phase of exploitation, denigration and humiliation that globalisation
now threatens to be"? Could it be President Mkapa’s predecessor, Julius
Nyerere's love with Ujamaa (Tanzanian socialism) or Ghana's Nkrumah's
one-party state in the early 1960s? Did we not have to bear the brunt
of State farms and statist plans to create local champions who became
inefficient after millions, if not billions were poured into them?

Or is trade within Africa a new phenomenon that the President
intelligently dodged?

Well let's forefront our memories here. The United States Agency for
International Development estimates that 70 percent of all tariffs in
the world are erected by developing countries against other developing
countries.

The World Bank estimates that 92 per cent of the benefit to developing
countries from liberalising agricultural trade comes not from reducing
subsidies but from cutting their own tariffs.

At the height of their glory, most pre-colonial African states and empires found trade to be a more useful way to attain
prosperity than through conquests. Of course, tributes and taxes paid by vassal states
encouraged empire expansion until such time that one empire gave way to another
through conquest. But prosperity has never been a spoil of war.
Western Sudanese empires for instance exhibited the greatest form of
mercantilism.

Gold was shipped from Wangara in the Upper Niger, close to Mali, across
the Sahara desert to Taghaza, in Western Sahara, in exchange for salt
and to Egypt for ceramics, silks and other Asian and European goods; The
old Ghana empire controlled much of the trans-Sahara trade in copper and
ivory; at Great Zimbabwe gold was traded for Chinese pottery and glass;
in Nigeria, leather and iron goods were traded throughout West Africa.

Colonialism, which replaced tribal fiefdoms with protectorates and
territories, was basically resource exploitative with little or no
intention to develop the markets that had hitherto been spontaneously
created. Power and territory was the domain of Colonisers for their
resource-dependent industries that had characterized what was termed
the Industrial Revolution. As a result, infrastructural development,
primarily roads and railways, were constructed to link sources of mineral and
timber wealth with ports.

However, long after colonialism ended, Africa’s elite -- who had
promised limitless freedom for the newly independent Africa -- soon recoiled
into the statist shoes of the colonisers. They were responsible for creating
the most disparaging forms of command and control over African
societies and economies, to an extent never even imagined by the Colonial rulers.

The leaders used this system to satisfy their greed, for personal
aggrandizement. This effectively alienated a majority of individuals in
society, because they were not able to benefit from the proceeds of
their own economic activity.

I admire President Mkapa's defense of encouraging local
entrepreneurship, investing in infrastructure, the rule of law and protection of private
property in his country- the underpinnings of a free and prosperous
society Libertarians aspire to. May I add transparency too?

But juxtapose this with the World Bank's 2005 report on doing business
in Tanzania and let the readers judge for themselves. Please click on this link to see proper
arrangement of facts and figures which have been copied below
http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/Default.aspx?economyid=185

Starting a Business (2005)
1. Entrepreneurs can expect to go through 13 steps to launch a business
over 35 days on average, at a cost equal to 161.3% of gross national
income (GNI) per capita. They must deposit at least 6.0% of GNI per
capita in a bank to obtain a business registration number.

2. Dealing with Licenses (2005)
The steps, time, and costs of complying with licensing and permit
requirements for ongoing operations in Tanzania are shown below. It
takes 26 steps and 313 days to complete the process, and costs 4,110.2% of
income per capita.

3. Registering Property (2005)

The ease with which businesses can secure rights to property is
measured below. In Tanzania, it takes 12 steps and 61 days to register property.
The cost to register property there is 12.2% of overall property value

4. Getting Credit (2005)
Measures on credit information sharing and the legal rights of
borrowers and lenders in Tanzania are shown below. The Legal Rights Index ranges
from 0-10, with higher scores indicating that those laws are better
designed to expand access to credit. The Credit Information Index
measures the scope, access and quality of credit information available through
public registries or private bureaus. It ranges from 0-6, with higher
values indicating that more credit information is available from a
public registry or private bureau. (More about this topic)

Indicator Tanzania Region OECD
Legal Rights Index 5 4.4 6.3
Credit Information Index 0 1.5 5.0
Public registry coverage (% adults) 0 0.8 7.5
Private bureau coverage (% adults) 0 3.5 59.0

5. Protecting Investors (2005)
The indicators below describe three dimensions of investor protection:
transparency of transactions (Extent of Disclosure Index), liability
for self-dealing (Extent of Director Liability Index), shareholders’
ability to sue officers and directors for misconduct (Ease of Shareholder Suits
Index) and Strength of Investor Protection Index. The indexes vary
between and 10, with higher values indicating greater disclosure, greater
liability of directors, greater powers of shareholders to challenge the
transaction, and better investor protection. (More about this topic)
I

ndicator Tanzania Region OECD
Disclosure Index 3 5.4 6.1
Director Liability Index 3 4.7 5.1
Shareholder Suits Index 0 5.0 6.6
Investor Protection Index 2.0 5.0 5.9

6. Paying Taxes (2005)
The effective tax that a medium size company in Tanzania must pay or
withhold within a year is shown below. Entrepreneurs there must make 48
payments, spend 248 hours, and pay 51.3% of gross profit in taxes.
(More
about this topic)
Indicator Tanzania Region OECD
Payments (number) 48 41.4 16.9
Time (hours) 248 394.0 197.2
Total tax payable (% gross profit) 51.3 58.1 45.4
7. Trading Across Borders (2005)
The costs and procedures involved in importing and exporting a
standardized shipment of goods in Tanzania are detailed under this
topic.

Every official procedure involved is recorded - starting from the final
contractual agreement between the two parties, and ending with the
delivery of the goods. (More about this topic)
Indicator Tanzania Region OECD
Documents for export (number) 7 8.5 5.3
Signatures for export (number) 10 18.9 3.2
Time for export (days) 30 48.6 12.6
Documents for import (number) 13 13.0 6.9
Signatures for import (number) 16 29.9 3.3
Time for import (days) 51 60.5 14.0

8. Enforcing Contracts (2005)
The ease or difficulty of enforcing commercial contracts in Tanzania is
measured below. It takes 21 steps and 242 days to enforce contracts
there.
The cost of enforcing contracts is 35.3% of debt. (More about this
topic)

Indicator Tanzania Region OECD
Procedures (number) 21 35.9 19.5
Time (days) 242 434.1 225.7
Cost (% of debt) 35.3 41.6 10.6

Or the president would want to dispute the above figures as well as my
President in Ghana and his Cabinet was recently divided over Ghana's
per capita income even when the World Bank appeared to be more accurate?

Stay tuned.......

Outrageous outbursts from anti-globalists- "Exempt Developing Countries From Economic Liberalisation"

2005-12-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

Exempt Developing Countries From Economic Liberalisation

(12/8/2005)

Actionaid International has suggested that developing countries should beexempted from further economic liberalisation unless they themselveschoose to do so.

“In the General Agreement on Trade in Services talks, developing countriesare under pressure to open their service sectors such as education, healthand water to international competition” it said.

A release issued by ActionAid International said developing countrieswould be trapped in poverty, if they were denied the right to protecttheir economies against international competition."

Story source
http://www.graphicghana.info/article.asp?artid=9454

-------------------------------------------

My comments

So any postive expectations from the summit?

Not much as governments such as Britain seems to be backinganti-globalisation NGOs such as Actionaid and Oxfam to reject what theyterm ‘forcing developing countries to liberalise their economies', when in actual fact, more openness in the services industry will in the endenhance development which the Doha Round is expected to achieve.

The EU and the US should be cajoled until they withdraw agriculturalsubsidies especially.
There seems to be much progress already on this withthe EU, ala 7 December 2005, Financial Times COMMENT & ANALYSIS by LEONBRITTAN snd titled "My advice to Mandelson is hold tight".

Brittan said “Europe is now undertaking to cut its highest agriculturaltariffs by 60 per cent.Its average tariff will fall by half to 12 per cent. The offer alsopromises cuts across the board in all levels of tariffs, which is morethan happened in theUruguay round.

Pascal Lamy, the director-general of the World Trade Organisation, saidrecently that in agriculture there is already more than twice as much onthe table as there was in the Uruguay round.”

But what about Africa's own intra regional trade barriers? Only ten per cent of Africa’s total trade occurs within Africa not tomention that the United States Agency for International Developmentestimates that 70 percent of all tariffs in the world are erected bydeveloping countries against other developing countries.

The World Bank estimates that 92 per cent of the benefit to developingcountries from liberalising agricultural trade comes not from reducingsubsidies but from cutting their own tariffs. Sounds like we need more trade liberalisation on all fronts. Trade is not aone-way traffic!

Debate on Internet Governance

2005-12-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

Whose Internet is It Anyway?

Who should have control of the internet, or is control even desirable or possible? Is it to be viewed as a human construct, owned by its many creators, or is it more like a global public utility, or a natural resource? Here to debate the question of whether or not the internet should or can be controlled, and if so, who should do the controlling, are Michael Barone of US News & World Report, Perry De Havilland of Samzdata, Franklin Cudjoe of Imani Ghana and Peng Hwa Ang of the UN’s Working Group on Internet Governance.

See trancript on debate here
http://blogjam.pajamasmedia.com/archives/2005/12/whose_internet_is_it_anyway.php#bottom

17,000 die a year from Malaria in Ghana

2005-11-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

17,000 die a year from Malaria
Posted: Nov 03 2005
Two thousand pregnant women and 15,000 children below the age of five died of malaria last year, confirming the disease as the number one killer in the country.

The fatalities resulted from three million reported cases in the year, excluding many other unreported cases. Confirming the figures in Accra on Tuesday, Health Minister Major Courage Quashigah (retd) attributed a quarter of all the cases of child mortality in Ghana to malaria, which he said, was also responsible for 36 per cent of all admissions in the country’s hospitals over the past ten years.

The minister announced this at the launch of the national campaign against malaria in Accra.At the same ceremony artesunate-amodiaquine was declared as the preferred drug for the treatment of malaria because chloroquine had proved ineffective. He said as a result of the staggering statistics on malaria the National Malaria Control Programme supported by the global fund had helped to make strides in the country’s anti- malaria drug policy.

He said in the area of drug policy the country had adopted the use of artesunate amodiaquine combination to treat malaria. Major Quashigah said the combination of atesunate amodiaquine had been highly recommended because it was able to treat nearly 100 per cent of all malaria cases, while choloquine could only treat less than 50 per cent of patients.

Source: Daily Graphic

New malaria drug has 100 % efficacy - So what happened to DDT?

2005-10-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

New malaria drug has 100 % efficacy
Posted: Oct 19 2005

Three experts who took part in developing the new national policy for the treatment of malaria have insisted that artesunate and Amodiaquine prescription for the treatment of malaria is the best among a number of options considered.

An Accra weekly last Saturday quoted Dr Albert Akpalu a Neurologist at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and Komfo Anokye hospitals as well as polyclinics throughout the country were recoding cases of “ worrying side effects” of the new treatment.

Dr Akpalu was reported to have said that every week about five to six cases related to these side effects were reported at Korle Bu.

Some of the side effects he mentioned were weakness and writhing movements of the face, hands and eyelids and involuntary protrusion and spasms of the tongue as well as inability to talk.

The three experts Dr Constance Bart Plange of the National Malaria Control Programme, Dr Irene Agyapong, Greater Regional Director of Ghana Health Service and Peter Segbor, Executive Director of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana affirmed that the new drug “ has a hundred per cent efficacy of treatment.”

They said this after the opening of a four-week course in strengthening Social Science Inputs into Malaria Control Programme Development and Implementation in sub Saharan Africa.

They said the side effects were due to misapplication of the drug.

Dr Bart Plange said “ patients go to the pharmacies without knowing their weight whilst others take the drugs on empty stomachs”.

Following the fast developing resistance to Chloroquine by malaria parasite, a new policy was adopted last year based on recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The artesunate and Amodiaquine combination therefore emerged as the standard prescription for malaria treatment.

Dr Bart Plange explained that the team that finally arrived at the decision was highly participatory, involving universities, the Korle Bu Teaching hospital, manufacturers, importers of drugs and pharmaceutical society of Ghana and other experts in the health delivery sector.

She said the Amodiaquine and artesunate that were currently being sold in the open pharmacies were produced by local manufacturers who took part in the deliberations leading to the adoption of the new policy.

Dr Bart Plange said the National Control Malaria Programme is embarking on a rigorous sensitatisation programme to educate dispensers and consumers before it releases the drug to the regional health centres.

Source: Ghanaian Times.

http://www.myjoyonline.com/ghananews.asp?p=3&a=18413&ofact=4&ofmsgid=0&ofdisp=&ofpage=&ofrand=1478685#openforum

An Important Message from Paul Jacob-Help the Fight Against Malaria in Africa

2005-10-18T00:14:00.000-07:00

An Important Message from Paul Jacob-Help the Fight Against Malaria in Africa

October 17, 2005

Dying to be politically correct

By Paul Jacob
Senior Fellow, Americans for Limited Government

Each year, malaria ravages the lives of 500 million people worldwide,causing more than a million deaths, most of them children, mostly inAfrica. But not in the United States. We suffer only a handful ofmalaria deaths each year. That wasn't always the case, though.

In the early years of the last century, there were counties in the U.S.with higher rates of malaria mortality than Freetown, Sierra Leone inAfrica. Then, in the late 1940s, a chemical agent calleddichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane - or DDT for short - was used insidemillions of American homes to eradicate malarial mosquitoes, the no-goodcritters that carry the disease. Malaria is no longer a significantproblem in our country.

Now, each year, the U.S. government spends $200 million to help preventmalaria in the rest of the world, primarily in Africa and Asia. That'smighty nice of us. But none of the money goes for the inside residentialspraying of DDT that allowed Americans to get a handle on the spread ofthe disease.

This summer President Bush announced a new five-year $1.2 billion effortto prevent malaria abroad. But, again, no money for DDT.
DDT was banned in the United States by the Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) back in 1972. Rachel Carson's 1962 book, Silent Spring,argued that agricultural use of DDT was harming birds and otherwildlife. The book touched off the environmental movement and served asthe key catalyst in banning DDT, giving junk science one of its firstbig victories. (By the way, you can get a copy of Carson's book with aspiffy introduction from former Vice-President Al Gore.)

The problem is that Carson's scary conclusions are not backed upscientifically.

The scare-mongering on DDT led to extensive hearings on the chemicalagent in 1971 and 1972. After the hearings, EPA Administrative Law JudgeEdmund Sweeney concluded, "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man . . .DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man. . . . The use ofDDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effecton freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife."

But Judge Sweeney was summarily overruled by Nixon EPA AdministratorWilliam Ruckelshaus, who, after not attending a single hour of thehearing and reportedly not reading the transcript either, nonethelessdecided to ban DDT. Perhaps the Nixon Administration thought the banwould get the environmentalists off their backs. Instead, junk sciencewas emboldened and millions would be put on their backs by diseases -malaria top among them - that are best controlled through DDT.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. ban led to a de facto worldwide ban, withUSAID and the World Health Organization moving away from DDT to moreexpensive insecticides and drugs to treat malaria. These other methodsdo not work as well and their expense is a not unimportant factor forimpoverished countries in Africa.

Now, European countries are even threatening to embargo agriculturalproducts from countries that use DDT to control malaria. This hasUgandans debating whether to risk losing much of their internationalmarket for agricultural products in order to use DDT, or whether to letmore people die of malaria in order to keep that market open.

"Even if we do not use DDT," said Agriculture Minister Janat Mukwaya,"Uganda might lose the international market to China as our peoplecontinue to die from malaria."
Dead men don't raise crops.

DDT use in South Africa and other African countries has beencontroversial, but the results have not - reductions of 75 and 80percent in the number of malaria cases and deaths. Author and physicianMichael Critchton told San Francisco's Commonwealth Club in 2003 thatthe de facto ban on DDT use in malaria control "has killed more peoplethan Hitler."

Yes, DDT can save lives. But it isn't politic. So while the U.S. andEurope have escaped the ravages of malaria through the internalresidential spraying of DDT, some continue to promote policies that denyDDT use to Africans and Asians. In effect, it is a death sentence formillions, made for political reasons, without any basis in science.

If U.S. taxpayers are to fund programs ostensibly designed to savelives, those programs ought to use methods that actually work. That'sjust common sense.

Your Senator has the power to mandate that our aid include the use ofindoor residential spraying of DDT, which would save millions of lives. But time is limited: the congressional decisions on the allocation offunds for malaria control must be made in the coming weeks. Furthermore,the treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants signed by the BushAdministration in 2001 has not yet been ratified by the U.S. Senate.
That ratification should not come without explicit legislation tying ouraid monies to the use of DDT to kill and repel malarial mosquitoes.

Please take just a moment right now to contact your Senators (and thePresident) if you agree that this money should go to saving lives - andnot be squandered on the altar of junk science or the cowardly politicsof 30 years ago.

MPs welcome "free land for farming"

2005-09-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

Fallacy # 1.

The Member of Parliament for Asokwa, Maxwell Kofi Jumah says perception that the package is meant for only ministers; deputy ministers and members of Parliament must be discarded because the package is aimed at enticing Ghanaians to venture into agriculture.

He said the concept is not new in Africa because it has been used in Cote D’Ivoire and proven successful and beneficial to the people.

My comment-
ITS A BIG LIE- Ivory Coast's first president, Houphet Boigny ddid not limit his socialist state farms concept to members of his government. He declared the country free for all immigrants to farm any where they settled. It worked at first but that what got them into trouble as settlers were now naturalised Ivorians and the skewed minded current Ivorian President declared them per so non grata with his xenophobic ideas of "the Ivorian"
--Franklin

Fallacy # 2.

Another Member of Parliament for Asawase, Mohammed Mubarak lauded the initiative and said it will go a long way to supplement the income of MPs on retirement.

He however disagreed to suggestions that the facility be directed to traditional farmers, explaining that it will be difficult to recover loans from farmers.

“ Its very difficult dealing with the farmers because anytime they such access money, they this its some kind of Father Christmas and paying it back, they will tend to have one reason or another,” he said.

My comments-

Whats about the MPs who took a $20,000 car loan five years ago, though they were paid $300 a month, and NEVER paid back. They have been rewarded after heavily defaulting on the first loan witha $25,000 car loan again!! These MPs should rather help reduce the rsing cost of doing business by voting to lower taxes for the ordinary farmers. They also need to axe the central bank's directive to keep almost 30 per cent of commercial banks cash as rserves in order to free up resources and reuce interest rates on loans for farmers.

-Franklin Cudjoe

The Wisest counsel from another MP, although it pains me to admit that he is right-

The NDC’s national organizer and former MP for Fanteakwa, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo said----
“ My only problem is that MPs, ministers and deputy minister are very buy now and for that matter they will end up being absentee farmers so if we not careful and this large sums of monies and quantum of resources are channeled into it and the returns are not favourable, it will create problems,” he said.

Mr Ofosu Ampofo suggested that former MPs and minister who are not doing anything now and are interested be encouraged since they have more time on their hands.

“Every year we get 138 district best farmers, 10 regional best farmers, 3 national best farmers and 2 runner ups. We can go back to trace these winners to see how they are faring.

We can use them to set up nuclear farms and engage several people in their areas. I believe that because they are experienced, if we support them it will boost agriculture rather than turn the wheel to have somebody who is not interest in farming,” he said.

Free Farming Land For Ministers and MPs- Government's 'wisdom' in boosting agriculture.

2005-09-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

General News of Wednesday, 21 September 2005

Free Farming Land For Ministers & MPs ... Each allocated up to 100 acres of land The government has decided to allocate part of its land banks meant for oil palm and cassava plantations to Members of Parliament, ministers and deputy ministers to go into large-scale farming.
It said each interested person would be allocated up to 100 acres of land and also provided with further support in the form of seedlings, clearing of the land, planting and maintenance of the farms over the next four years.
The Minister of Private Sector Development and President’s Special Initiatives (PSI), Mr Kwamena Bartels, who announced this when his ministry took its turn at the weekly "Meet-the-Press" series in Accra yesterday, said “the idea is to give respectability to farming, to send a clear message to our people that we need to take farming very seriously and to show that farming is a profitable venture”.
He said beneficiaries of the initiative were expected to start paying back government’s investment in the project in the fifth year.
"We are also looking at the possibility of extending this initiative to the PSI on salt, garment and textiles,”Mr Bartels said.
He said a consortium of three companies were to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to set up three cassava starch processing companies at Atebubu,Amantin and Ejura.
These companies,he said,would process 20,000 metric tonnes of cassava a year,adding that they also hoped to establish 20 such plants all of 20,000 metric tonnes capacities to process cassava into food-grade starch and into ethanol for the petroleum industry.
On the garments and textiles sector,Mr Bartels said under the PSI, $4 million worth of garments had been manufactured while a centre had also been set up in Accra to train 300 machine operators each month.
He asked those in the textile industry to complement the government’ s efforts at making the sector more vibrant by improving on their managerial skills,as well as replacing old machinery.
Mr Bartels said the more such companies used obsolete equipment,the more their cost of production went up, adding that that was bound to affect their operational cost and make their products uncompetitive.
He said the managers and board of the Venture Capital Fund,a fund meant to support small-scale enterprises, would be put in place by the end of the month.
Mr Bartels said the fund had yielded up to ¢200 billion and gave the assurance that with the managers and board in place,the money would be disbursed to the beneficiaries.
Source: Graphic

All Rights Reserved, 1994-2005, © Copyright GhanaHomePage

Do you realise the MPs will be the first to qualify for the Venture Fund established from poor subsistence farmers yearning for support and ordinary people's taxes??

Green Earth calls for ban on imported fridges- Regulating some mythical ozone depletion substances to keep the poor poorer.

2005-09-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Kumasi, Sept 19, GNA -

The Ashanti Regional branch of the Green Earth Organisation has called on the Government to ban importation of second hand fridges into the country to help reduce the release of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere.

In a statement issued in Kumasi and signed by Nana Tom Osei Owusu, Ashanti Regional Coordinator of the Organisation to mark World Ozone Day, it expressed concern about the booming business of importing second fridges by some few rich people to the detriment of the masses in the society.

The statement said the obvious danger from the reduction in the amount of ozone in the atmosphere was the increase in the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface of the earth. This had resulted in the sudden upsurge of skin cancer and other danger to the local biological life.

It attributed the massive reduction in the thickness of the ozone over the years to the use of CFC materials and urged the government to respect the Montreal Protocol of which the nation is a signatory and enforce the laws banning the use of CFCs in the country.

Misdiagosing road accidents- High costs of spare parts(due to excessive taxes) and high police bribery by traffic offenders are the REAL culprits.

2005-09-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Road Traffic law comes into effect

The Road Traffic Act 2004, Act 683 comes into force on Monday September 19, 2005.

From Monday any drivers plying on the road cannot use a mobile phone, they cannot put a child on their lap whilst driving nor can a child below the age of fifteen sit on a passenger seat beside the driver.

The act will enforce the rule that all passengers should have their seat belts on.

In addition drivers would be required to carry on their vehicles all necessary accessories like fire extinguishers and genuine driving license.

Again no driver would be allowed to drive when he or she is improperly dressed.

Commanding officer of the Motor Traffic and Transport Union- MTTU, Chief Superintendent Victor Tandoh announced these at an education programme for drivers in Accra at the weekend.

The act deals with restrictions on road use in the interest of Road safety, registration and licensing of motor vehicles and trailers, licensing of drivers of motor vehicles, test of vehicles and issuance of road use certificates and licensing of drivers of commercial vehicles.

A stern looking and tough talking Superintendent Tandoh told the drivers bluntly,” there is no option for a fine when the new Road Traffic Regulation 2004, Act 683, comes into force but a three or more years imprisonment”.

Source: Public Agenda

Govt won't impose ban on poultry importation

2005-09-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

Govt won't impose ban on poultry importation - Bartels
Posted: Sep 14 2005

The government would not subsidise or institute any form of protection for the domestic poultry industry so long as it cannot produce at a comparative cheaper cost than the imported ones.

Minister of Private Sector Development and President Special Initiatives, Kwamena Bartels, said on Tuesday said, "Even if the local industries are subsidized they can't produce chicken at lower prices compared to the imported product.

"Our Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) situation would not allow us to do that besides, because of the dilemma of not being able to compete with the heavily subsidized products from the developed nations," he said.

The Minister was responding to questions regarding Nigeria's ban on the importation of some items including poultry products when he launched the 2005 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Report in Accra.

The report was launched was under the theme "Rethinking the Role of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs)" under the auspicious of the Third World Network-Africa, an international network of groups and individuals that seek greater articulation of the needs and rights of people of the Third world.

Mr Bartels said Ghana would not follow Nigeria's example since it had advantage over Ghana in terms of market size.

"If we decided to ban the importation of poultry products, will the ordinary Ghanaian be able to buy chicken.

"Our poultry farmers have not been able to develop the industry to the state where they can produce chicken to the ordinary person so why talk of banning," he asked.

Source: GNA

On Global Strategic Competition- A Ghanaian diasporean reacts

2005-08-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Franklin,

Thanks for writing. I interrupted my 24 hours Email boycott only to openand read yours first. I had even lost your email address due to lack oftime to get my laptop fixed.

I am not ready for long debates but I got to give you this one. Again I have read your views expressed and hope you have gotten over the false image somebody was trying to give you that others who criticize you could be doing it as a sign of jealousy. Nothing can be further form the truth.

I still consider you a youngbrother for what you stand for; else I would not invite you to my home. Remember I am a Kwahu man (smile), and nobody stands for entrepreneurship than I do. I have had my own business even in America for 15 of the last 17 years. I set up my own finance business out of myown meager funds and have survived since then. Manufacturing of hightechnology as an industry I was part of was cut back and moved overseasto South East Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia).

In 1980 I wasalready an Engineering Manager in high tech. I can assure you that afteryou try to find capital to set up your own entrepreneurial activity thatwill possible be in competition with anything being done in the West,you will learn the true lessons of global strategic competition. Perhapsyou will come to realize the reasons why Kwame Nkrumah took the path hetook and wrote as he did.

I saw one Cameroonian Engineer lose his housefor the 2 years he was trying to seek venture capital right here. My brother, the world is not equal, and all hands are not equal. Thereare companies I know whose gross profit for one single quarter is largerthan the whole economy of Ghana, and yet want to expand into your marketbecause that is the nature of America business, to expand every year!They don't care if every one of you Ghanaians dies due to lack of jobs.Some will use the weaknesses of the third world nations and the greed ofour leaders to penetrate the market and allow rice farms that are meantto help rural farmers become obsolete and wasted! As you know, we nowimport every single item in Ghana. Why does American government assisttheir farmers?Why did American government help Chrysler?Why? Because they considered the business of Chrysler and farming vitalto national interest.

Please take this as an advice from a man whose mind is at your level ofactivity and search for solutions, but who has 30 years experience morethan you have. You do not understand the nature of global competition. If you did, you would realize the reasons why places like Niger sit atnumber 122 in the world with a score at 2.2 in the TransparencyInternational's CPI (Corruption Perception Index), and yet it takes anOxfam European young woman to be teaching the local people how to digand set up water wells.

Perhaps you might be asking why the West doesnot help those poor people by helping them to survive on their own, butrather go in and dig Uranium, a mineral whose use is in making Nuclearweapons! Why feed those people today and dig their minerals and leave,whiles their livelihoods and survival can be changed with perhaps only$200,000 for wells and irrigation systems? Do you think $200,000 meansmuch to MNCs show can make that much profit per day?Why isn't much being done? Or do you subscribe to the pull-up-your-own-bootstrap theories that wereused to justify leaving freed slaves in the America South in povertytill today in America?

Please think about it!!

Yes, you and I and GLU will fight to stop the corruption of our leaderstogether.Yes, you and I and GLU may even work together to push our leaders toperform and do their duties.

One day it is hoped you will understand fully.

Cheers,Kwaku A. Danso, President,

Ghana Leadership Union, Inc (NGO) www.GhanaLeadership.comGHANA Office: Accra: Tel. 0244-057566 0244-330486 Pres/CEO, Amtek ERF -Engineering, Realty & Finance,Inc.www.AmtekRealtyandFinance.comUSA: Fremont, CA.94539 Tel.510-494-8300 Cel.579-0066 GHANA: 233-21-057206 0244-330486

What do you expect when taxes strangle ordinary people

2005-08-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

Tax Evasion Deal Exposed

Ghana's Daily Graphic
(8/2/2005)

The Customs,Excise and Preventive Service(CEPS) has exposed the tricks adopted by some importers to dodge the payment of taxes and duties to the state.In one of the scams, two containers in which imitated Malboro cigarette brands were concealed as rubber shoes would have caused revenue loss to the state to the tune of ¢7.995 billion if the importers had succeeded in their deal.

Two other containers believed to contain used clothing were cleared from the port without the payment of taxes and duties,while in the case of the containers containing the Malboro cigarettes,customs officials detected that their owners wanted to clear the items from China disguised as rubber shoes.

The Assistant Commissioner of CEPS in charge of Tema, Mr Africanus Owusu-Ansah, who disclosed the modus operandi of the syndicate to the Graphic,said three other importers who also attempted to illegally clear two vehicles loaded with used clothing had been arrested.Such unscrupulous characters have,over the past two months caused revenue loss to the state running into billions of cedis by disguising some of the imported items as a way of outwitting customs officials at the Tema Port.

Mr Owusu-Ansah explained that,some time in June this year, CEPS had a hint that a vessel leaving Yantian in China for Accra was believed to contain some contraband goods and CEPS officials were,subsequently,alerted to be on the look out for the vessel,Sally Maersk.He said on June 22,2005, Santa Shipping Agencies made an attempt to clear the two containers which were allegedly meant for trans-shipment to France from the Tema Port.

But when the contents were examined, they were found to be "imitated Malboro brand of cigarettes."He indicated that the declaration on the bill of laden that accompanied the cargo showed that the items on board were polyvinyl chloride (PVC)shoes (rubber shoes) and consigned to Balance Imports and Exports of Post Office Box 307 in Suhum in the Estern Region, but when it was thoroughly checked, "only 67 out of the 1991 packets in the two containers were the rubber shoes, while the rest turned out to be imitated Malboro brand of cigarettes."Mr Owusu-Ansah said he, therefore, instructed that the containers be impounded, while investigations were to be carried out.

He said the importers used the rubber shoes to conceal the identity of the cigarettes "because it had the same scent as nicotine, although nicotine had a more pungent smell."The Assistant Commissioner of CEPS, who showed the Graphic some of the fake Malboro cigarettes, indicated that CEPS could not guarantee the quality status of the cigarettes.He said when information reached him on July 28,2005 that some containers had also been cleared from the port without paying duties and taxes,he immediately wrote to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority(GPHA)to help track down the containers.

Mr Owusu-Ansah said on July 22,2005,Eric Adiama of Santa Shipping Agencies was alleged to have entered a declaration for the two containers which he claimed contained used clothing.He indicated that since the contents of the two containers were not checked by customs officers,they could not authenticate whether the contents were used clothing,arms and amunition or other contraband goods."The security of the state is of major concern to all of us and what we are not even sure of is whether there are arms, amunition or other types of contraband goods which pose a threat to the state," he said.

Mr Owusu-Ansah said in the third operation,two vehicles were intercepted by CEPS and when the drivers were quizzed, they claimed that the contents,were used clothing.He,however,said when the vehicles were thoroughly searched,they found that fake wax prints were concealed in the bails.Three persons,Kwesi Bediako,Albert Anum and Foster Anim were consequently arrested to help in investigations in connection with the imported imitated wax prints.When asked whether the security at the Tema Port was not sloppy and whether the scanning machines there were not ineffecient,Mr Owusu-Ansah indicated that CEPS officials were constrained in terms of numbers at the port and that some containers that came through shipping agencies such as Atlas,Maersk and TCT Agencies were not scanned."We have only 398 officers and men stationed at the Tema Harbour and this number includes drivers,messengers and other supporting staff.

So we are seriously contrained in terms of numbers," he said.He,however,added that what CEPS was now trying to do, despite the limited number,was to make sure that every container that came through the port was manually numbered in order to reduce fraud.Mr Owusu-Ansah made it clear that CEPS was a human institution and that there were bound to be miscreants who could be helping the syndicates to carry out their nefarious activities against the state and added that"they would,however,be weeded out any time we get them.

"Story: Maximus Attah, Tema

Franklin’s talk at Brian's Last Fridays in London on July 29

2005-08-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

Franklin sounded a lot like Hayek – which is no coincidence, because he talked about how much Hayek had influenced his early thinking – in his insistence upon the intellectual struggle as the first step in trying to achieve anything more concrete. You get nowhere by nagging politicians direct. You have to change the assumptions within which they work. That takes time but it can be done, and by the sound of it he is doing his best.--Brian Micklethwait

For more see http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/007861.html

Finding a better way for Africa

2005-07-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

Finding a better way for Africa, The South African Star

http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=225&fArticleId=2638362

July 25, 2005

By Franklin Cudjoe

World leaders gathered in Gleneagles, Scotland, to discuss the great issues of the day and had their deliberations cruelly interrupted. However, Make Poverty History (MPH) campaigners had already cashed in on their much-publicised emotional tirade against what they believe perpetuates poverty in Africa: debts, free trade and insufficient aid.

The US government had already announced that it would scrap cotton subsidies it has long given to the US farmers after the WTO ruled these were illegal. This undoubtedly will boost the economies of sub-Saharan cotton producers but paradoxically, MHP campaigners urge poor nations to erect high tariffs against Western imports.Millions more dollars will be committed to fighting diseases on the continent.

But what matters more is what poor countries can do for themselves. In that regard we can learn much from the mistakes of others.In the 1950s and 1960s, governments of many countries in Africa and Latin America erected trade barriers. The plan was to enable the industries of their countries to grow, "protected" from outside competition. What actually happened was the opposite.Although the industries in these "protected" countries grew for a short period, the lack of competition meant that their industries became inefficient and fell behind the rest of the world.

Also, because imports were very expensive or even unavailable, their costs of production rose as they were stuck using old technologies.Soon these "protected" industries were producing goods that few people wanted, exports fell and, in many cases, the industries - usually run by friends of the president - had to be subsidised by the state in order to keep them afloat.

Governments paid for these subsidies by taxing farmers (either directly or by forcing farmers to sell to marketing boards) and by borrowing - one of the reasons why so many African and Latin American countries have such large debts.Some governments, such as Brazil's, printed money to pay off the debt and this led to hyperinflation, reduced confidence in the economy and caused massive disinvestment.

The lesson we should learn from this is that governments should not try to create national champions by "protecting" them from competition or by subsidising them.This can be applied to wealthy countries, that currently "protect" farmers with tariffs and subsidies, and lower-income countries as well, that are egged on by various Western NGOs to protect infant-industries.Brazil is an interesting case. It had one of the most extreme "import substitution" programmes in the 1950s and 1960s, which lead to a ballooning debt during the 1970s followed by hyperinflation and, finally, massive debt rescheduling.After a bout of good economic governance in the 1990s, it has been growing steadily as a result.But there are some signs of a return to the old days. Brazil's government recently announced that it plans to break patents on Aids drugs. It claims that it wants to reduce the cost of providing drugs to 180 000 people with HIV.But if it wanted to do that, would it not be better to negotiate a price differentiation scheme with the manufacturers, rather than forcing the production of drugs locally? This smacks of a return to the bad old protectionist policies of yesteryear.But there is another, more disturbing aspect to the decision to break patents.
top.DisplayAds('Pos7',2,225);

Brazil currently benefits from the billions of dollars pumped into the development of Aids medicines by the research-based pharmaceutical industry.As the incidence of HIV/Aids in wealthy countries gradually declines, so demand for new drugs in those countries will wane. Yet Aids remains a very serious problem in many poorer countries, including Brazil.

What would happen if all poorer countries chose to break the patents on Aids medicines? I'll tell you: there would be few if any new Aids medicines. Research-based drug firms seem to be taking notice of unfavourable market conditions for Aids medicines created by the governments of Brazil and some other countries.

Fewer and fewer drug companies are engaged in Aids research as they have been characterised as killers of babies in Africa and find little attraction in continuing research.Over the past six years the number of HIV/Aids medicines and vaccines in the pipeline has decreased by over 30%. In 1999 there were 125 drugs and vaccines in the R&D pipeline; today there are fewer than 85.This is worrying because resistance to existing Aids medicines is continuously rising and better new medicines will be needed to keep people alive in the future.Instead of pursuing dubious industrial policies by breaking patents, the governments of middle-income countries should be paying a fair price for the medicines they buy - otherwise there will be no more medicines with which to treat Aids patients in the future.

This is of particular concern to the people of Africa, because more than half of the global number of persons infected with HIV/Aids reside on this continent - and most of them do not have access to drugs. In a discussion with Richard Tren of Africa Fighting Malaria, he revealed that the South African government (and people in the Nepad secretariat) are very keen to increase the amount of generic drugs. Yet simply producing something locally does not mean that it will be cheaper or more accessible than importing it. Supporting more white elephants is not what Africans need, especially when the likelihood is that access to medicines will not improve.

Given the removal of several Indian-produced generic Aids medicines from the WHO pre-qualification list, governments should also be extra vigilant about the quality of the generic drugs; setting up lots of local production units may not guarantee good quality or good prices.In the short term, the unfortunate reality is that the situation in Africa will not change much. Distributing drugs to all of those who would benefit from them is likely to be too costly and difficult. A major problem is that in most African countries, the health infrastructure is simply too poorly developed to be able reliably to deliver Aids medications to great numbers of people.For us in Africa, the real nuts to crack are excessive government regulations, poor education, punitive local taxes on drugs and poor health infrastructure both in terms of personnel and resources.It is significant to note also that most HIV/Aids victims in Africa especially cannot afford decent meals, or clean water to help gulp down antiretrovirals.

Franklin Cudjoe is the Director of Imani: the Centre for Humane Education in Ghana. For more information, visit their website, www.imanighana.org

Wedding dresses and fishing nets arethe best use for mosquito bed nets!

2005-07-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Hi Franklin,

Thank you for your news of your BBC debates. I strongly agree with you that DDT is much better than mosquito nets, of course it gives tremendous results. Wedding dresses and fishing nets are the best use for nets!

I wouldn't like to be trapped inside a net in bed with a hungry female mosquito, equipped with infra-red sensory detection. She will always get her fill of blood in the end and wait patiently until her target is asleep. What man can escape a predatory female?

As an historian I did lots of work from primary sources on the history ofmalaria eradication in Southern Italy: 1943-1955 were the key years. It was all completely eradicated with DDT (before the ban, of course) after thousands of years when millions had suffered and whole cities been abandoned in ancient and medieval centuries, time and time again.

Lots of other Mediterranean countries used DDT to eradicate it too, aroundthe same time and the US too. Do you know Gordon Harrison's book Mosquitoes,Malaria and Man, a History of Hostilities since 1880? I myself had a lot of small mosquitoes in my bedrooms in Italy for 17 years because my wife wouldn't let me use insecticides - not even the benign ones still authorised for sale after the ban. We got stung and stung and couldn't sleep at nights.
When she left, I sprayed and in 20 minutes all the mosquitoes disappeared for ever.

Another factor was the flat roof they bred in rain puddles and these needed to be dispersed. I wonder, could they be breeding in the waterin the troughs of corrugated iron African roofs or is that water too shallow?

DDT was banned because it slightly thins the eggs of birds of prey. But the ban probably caused up to 400 million unnecessary prematuredeaths since the 1950s, in the Third World! That's more deaths than Hitler, Stalin, MaoTse Tung, Idi Amin and all the tyrants and wars of the whole 20th century,all put together. So hypocritical too ? the West only banned it after they'd already cleaned up their malaria! India never accepted the ban.

Oh, and another thing Italian public health authorities did in their 1950sand 1960s economic miracle was they de-wormed all their children. Cheap and effective eradication of intestinal parasites and head lice too. I think HIV immune deficiency in Africa is due in large part to multiple parasite infections (malaria and worms in particular). De-worming would be a much cheaper and more effective means of boosting Africans? immune systems thanall the expensive Aids drugs and campaigns that are so fashionable. Also,it gives people more energy when they are free of parasites, so productivityrises and it is a good economic investment in the labour force. Cheaper and more cost-effective than over-educating all the masses.

Regards

Andrew

Should we ban chemotherapy too?

2005-07-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

USAID’s anti-pesticide policies must change, or millions will continue to die

Paul Driessen

Would you take medications that could cause anemia, nausea, diarrhea, hair loss – even increased risk of infection and fetal defects?

Most people with terminal cancer would jump at the chance to take such risks. And if an activist “stakeholder” tried to prevent them from undergoing chemotherapy – because of “ethical” concerns about its “dangers” or a preference for “more appropriate” alternatives like surgery, broccoli or hospice care – their response would be fast and furious.

Africa faces a similar situation. Only instead of cancer, the killer is malaria. Instead of chemotherapy drugs, the interventions are insecticides. And in addition to activists, patients must contend with healthcare agencies that often oppose insecticides and promote largely ineffective alternatives.

Malaria infects up to 500,000,000 people a year – more men, women and children than live in the United States, Canada and Mexico combined! It kills 2,000,000 every year – the population of Houston, Texas.

The vast majority live in sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly 90% are children and pregnant women. In 2002, malaria killed 150,000 Ethiopians, 100,000 Ugandans and 34,000 Kenyan children. Victims become so weak they cannot work for weeks on end. Many are left with permanent brain damage – and immune systems so enfeebled that they die of AIDS, typhus, dysentery or tuberculosis.

Malaria costs impoverished Africa $12 billion in lost productivity every year.However, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, U.S. Agency for International Development, wealthy foundations and environmental activists still insist that African nations rely on inadequate bed net, drug and “integrated vector management” programs – and avoid pesticides, especially DDT. If the United States had rates akin to Africa’s, 100,000,000 Americans would get malaria every year and 250,000 children would die. Its hospitals would be overwhelmed, its economy devastated, and citizens would demand immediate action – using every pesticide and other weapon in existence. But the United States and Europe (over)used DDT to eradicate malaria. They then banned the pesticide and now generally oppose its use. Nevertheless, a few African nations still spray DDT in tiny amounts on the walls and eaves of cinderblock or mud-and-thatch houses. For six months, it repels mosquitoes, kills any that land on walls and irritates the rest, so they don’t bite.

No other pesticide, at any price, is this effective, and even mosquitoes resistant to DDT’s killer talents succumb to its repellent properties. Used this way, virtually no DDT gets into the environment. Most important, it’s safe for humans. Hundreds of millions of people – American GIs, Holocaust survivors, and parents and children all over the USA, Europe and Asia – were sprayed with DDT, with no significant ill effects.

Indeed, the worst thing Greenpeace and other activists can say is that “measurable quantities” of DDT and its DDE metabolite are “present” in human fatty tissue, blood and mother’s breast milk. Some researchers, they claim, “think” DDE “could” be inhibiting lactation and “may” therefore be “contributing” to “lactation failure” around the world. In fact, lactation failure results mostly from malnutrition and disease. The problem is minor compared to the effects of chemotherapy – and irrelevant compared to the risk of losing more children to malaria. “African mothers would be overjoyed if DDT in our bodies was their biggest worry,” says Ugandan farmer and businesswoman Fiona Kobusingye. They’d be thrilled if Greenpeace and others would show greater concern for the lives of African mothers and children, by supporting insecticide use.

South Africa’s DDT household spraying program cut malaria rates by 80% in 18 months. The country was then able to treat a much smaller number of seriously ill patients with new artemisinin-based drugs, and slash malaria rates by over 90% in just three years! Mozambique trains a few people in each community, and sends them out to spray every house twice a year, in a successful and inexpensive program. Zambia has a similar program. However, when Uganda announced earlier this year that it was going to use DDT to control malaria, the EU warned that it might ban all agricultural exports from the country, if even a trace of DDT was found on them!

Last year, USAID spent $80 million “on malaria.” But 85 percent of this went to consultants, and 5 percent to promoting the use of insecticide-treated nets. It spent nothing on actually buying nets, drugs or pesticides. Too often, USAID, WHO and UNICEF emphasize ultra precaution about alleged risks from pesticides – at the expense of millions of deaths from diseases that pesticides could prevent. They proclaim insecticide-treated bed nets a success for reducing malaria rates by 20% – but say DDT was a failure because it did not completely eradicate the disease. Worst, until just a year ago, they were providing Africans with anti-malarial drugs that they had known for years fail 50 to 80% of the time.

No wonder malaria rates have risen 10% in the seven years since their Roll Back Malaria campaign promised to cut rates in half by 2010. DDT will never control malaria by itself. However, it is a vital weapon against a disease carried by different parasites and many species of mosquitoes, some of which can breed in hoof prints during the rainy season.

Decisions about which weapons to use, where and when, should be made by health ministers in countries with malaria problems – not by anti-pesticide activists and bureaucrats in air-conditioned, malaria-free offices in Washington, Geneva or Brussels. These health ministers need a precautionary principle that safeguards families from real, immediate, life-threatening risks – instead of condemning them to poverty, disease and premature death, to prevent minor, conjectural risks from pesticides.

Most important, African and other malaria-endemic countries need progress NOW – not 20 or 50 years from now, when (hopefully) a vaccine has finally been developed, sufficient artemisinin drugs are available for every victim, mosquito breeding areas are controlled, and communities have modern homes and hospitals (with electricity, window screens and running water). Access to life-saving pesticides is a basic human right.

We wouldn’t ban chemotherapy because those potent drugs present risks, or prohibit Florida and New York from using insecticides to protect people, horses and birds against West Nile virus. We must stop preventing African nations from using DDT and other insecticides to control diseases that kill millions of their citizens annually.

President Bush and many members of Congress support major funding increases to combat malaria and break Africa’s perpetual cycle of disease, famine and poverty. However, this money will do little to reduce disease if it is spent on more consultants, conferences, reports and bed nets – and only insignificant amounts are directed to pesticide and other programs that actually work. The President and Congress need to ensure that health agencies’ financial practices are open to scrutiny, their misguided policies and priorities are corrected, and they are held accountable for the success or failure of their programs. They need to ensure that insecticides and household spraying with DDT are restored to the world’s arsenal for combating malaria. Otherwise millions will continue to die on the altar of politically correct ideologies.
____________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power ∙ Black death (www.Eco-Imperialism.com). © 2005 Paul K. Driessen

Let Africa fight its own devils

2005-07-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

Let Africa fight its own devils

By Franklin Cudjoe

written in response to "Blair in Africa" (The Times, 8 October 2004)

Sir, in recent weeks, my continent has attracted much media attention in the West thanks to the likes of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Bob Geodolf. Their aim is to rally international action for what to them has become “a scar on the conscience” of the world. In that vein, your editorial of October 8, 2004 titled, “Blair in Africa” sought to give support to their cause.

I have some comments regarding your analysis. You state: “The solutions to Africa’s problems have been well rehearsed over the years. Developed nations must grant more aid and write off debt. The US and the EU must cut agricultural subsidies and open their markets. Pharmaceutical companies must make anti-retroviral drugs cheaper and more readily available.”

Your first recommendation, like many in recent times, smacks of a misplaced idea of Western guilt for the poverty of the third world and in particular Africa. Before the Brandt Commission on Africa in the 1970s suggested this lame duck approach, post independent African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, virtually coerced Western leaders into assuming responsibility for all the ills on the continent. Perhaps for ideological reasons Western leaders went for the bait with billions of dollars ‘invested’ and it has since become big business. Alas, it is an unprofitable one with losses in the form of the politicisation of life on the continent and many failed states. Much of Western aid money went on financing the killing machines of African governments while some was stashed away in Swiss banks. The World Bank itself agrees that over US$200 billion poured into the continent in the last three decades has returned negative results.

The Millennium Development Goals set by the UN will not be achieved, not because I’m a cynic, but because history tells me that no amount of foreign aid has ever solved the ‘bedlam’ in Africa. Ethiopia is in the news today because foreign aid robbed that country off its ability to feed itself and perhaps the rest of Africa. People are so emotive about Ethiopia that they tend to forget that over 60 % of that country is fertile yet only 10 per cent has been cultivated. The reason is that when socialism replaced feudalism in 1975, state land redistribution coerced everyone in to subsistence production with marketing boards doing their worst with price controls. Farmers had no incentive to grow food and famine resulted. Tons of food aid never got to the famished people. Mengistu’s thugs sold the food and purchased arms to kill and maim his own people, yet the aid continued. Somalia was the largest recipient of foreign aid in sub-Saharan Africa until it imploded in 1990, yet it was also the food basket of the region. Zimbabwe has, since independence in 1980, received billions of dollars to finance its land redistribution programme but today more that 60 people die there daily due to hunger, yet before it was the food basket of Southern Africa.

There are many examples.Do you forgive debt and increase aid when over 70 percent of it would be used to finance budget deficits perpetuating a vicious circle of unmanageable debt? This approach has left many African countries with debts greater that 100 percent of their incomes. Who bears the burden of repayments? Not the governing elite, but the poor producers of export crops such as cocoa, coffee, peanuts, palm oil, and in some cases local labor employed in oil and other mineral extracting industries.

You have my full marks for your second solution. The EU and the US must not only cut export subsidies, they should remove all agricultural barriers that prevent African agricultural products from entering their markets. While this is a legitimate demand, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are many more trade barriers between African countries than exist with the US or EU. As the World Trade Organisation’s 2001 statistics show, Africa’s share of intra and inter regional trade flows to Western Europe alone was 51.8 %, while it was a paltry 7.8% within Africa.

On pharmaceuticals and anti-retroviral drugs, I think the desire has always been there to reach as many patients as possible. But there is a need to incentivise innovators in the pharmaceutical world so they are able to maximise output and reduce prices in the long run. One effective way is to recognise their intellectual property rights to the drugs.

Unfortunately, many in the NGO world see this as a means to make profit at the expense of the poor with total disregard for where the investment capital is to come from. Finally you say: “But Africa's only truly continental challenge is its Aids pandemic, and yet another layer of foreign governmental oversight is unlikely to speed the delivery of drugs to patients.” Try including the devastating effects of other diseases like Malaria and TB and then ask yourself what the underlying cause really is. I can but attribute all that to poverty even though some leaders on the continent have failed to acknowledge this.

Africa’s real devils are the continent’s own creatures who are busily harvesting the proceeds of the toiling entrepreneurial masses and burdening them with obstacles that defy economic rationality.

Most of these obstacles range from complex, obnoxious and unpredictable laws, the absence of secured property rights, the rule of law and free markets. A functionally corrupt leadership and civil service is enough to entrench bureaucracy and fatten government at the expense of the citizens. In my mind, significant institutional reforms are needed. It is the only way innovation and entrepreneurship can be encouraged since they empower ordinary people economically.

As economies grow and develop, people will be able to afford better technologies, clean water, superior energy sources, better healthcare, and insurance. This is what gives a fair chance to everyone to succeed, not aid.

Franklin Cudjoe,

franklin@imanighana.org

Director

Imani: The Centre for Humane Education, Ghana.

P.O.Box AT 411Achimota-AccraGhana

Rock Stars and perverse causesthat harm Africa

2005-04-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Personal view: Rock-star economics are not helping poor Africans
By Franklin Cudjoe (Filed: 18/04/2005)

Have you purchased your obligatory white band? Did Sir Bob Geldof send you an e-mail recently, reminding you to ogle his celebrity colleagues "clicking" away on television? Did you join the all-night vigil at Westminster Abbey to shiver in the cold and "wake up the government" about the need to "make poverty history"?

This year, the UK's "development" charities have joined hands for a high profile campaign which claims that politicians have an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate poverty in the run-up to the G-8 meeting in July.

Rock stars and charities can be powerful advocates for good causes, and they generally have good intentions - but in many cases their lyrics do not genuinely rhyme with the silent hum of the very poor they seek to protect. Their economics are just plain wrong. They ignore history, peddling the misguided belief that poverty, famine and corruption can be solved with foreign aid, debt relief and other policies that have already failed Africa.

One pillar of their current campaign is to eliminate farm subsidies in western countries, a noble goal which indeed would help to achieve a level playing field for agricultural producers around the world. Yet this view is rife with hypocrisy: the same organisations promote subsidies (what they call "fair trade") for farmers and businesses in poor countries to shield them from the effects of competition.

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has said that Ghana's rice, tomato and poultry farmers need to be protected from cheap imports. Yet the problems of Ghana's farmers lie elsewhere: they and other entrepreneurs are stifled by punitive tax regimes and the high cost of capital, not to mention our disarrayed land tenure systems which lead to low crop production.

Neither Mr Martin nor fellow celebrities have mentioned these problems: they claim that the world's trade regime is "rigged" in the name of "free trade", harming poor countries like Ghana and benefiting interest groups in wealthy countries. The only solution, they say, is to protect local economic interests.

If we did ban rice and tomato imports, just how would we feed ourselves? Ghanaians depend on rice as a major staple in our diets, yet local production caters for only 30pc of the rice we consume.

Subsidies to local producers also mean fewer choices for consumers. The average Ghanaian has suffered because of shoddy goods made locally by protected industries that do not face any competition. Who can blame consumers for buying higher quality and less-expensive foreign goods?

Indeed, some savvy Ghanaian businessmen have helped both local farmers and consumers, for instance by providing locally produced rice in packages that ensure the rice isn't stale when it reaches the consumer. Similarly, other Ghanaian entrepreneurs now collaborate with their Italian counterparts to produce tomato paste brands with Akan names, Ghana's widely spoken language.

Protection for local producers also means that African countries trade very little with each other, as illustrated by the World Trade Organisation's 2001 statistics. Africa's share of intra- and inter-regional trade flows to western Europe alone was 51.8pc, while it was a paltry 7.8pc within Africa.

Development charities loathe international agencies such as the IMF and World Bank - many people would agree though that dealing with these agencies is like playing with loaded dice. They have empowered our politicians to engage in shady liberalisation deals, where international contracts are rigged to favour their cohorts with fat kickbacks.

Such agencies have often advocated ill-conceived policies in the name of market liberalisation - while they simultaneously push foreign aid and flawed development strategies onto us. Even the average Ghanaian knows that these "reform" programmes have achieved nothing other than to enable our bureaucrats to procure gold-plated Mercedes for themselves and their cronies.

But the real problem is not the IMF, World Bank or "rigged" trade rules. The problem lies with us as Africans and especially our leaders, to improve our own wellbeing, and to encourage economic growth through political and institutional reforms.

The solution to all that ails us is not aid, debt relief or "fair trade". It is to adopt institutions to harness the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in every African country, to enable Africans to trade with each other and anyone else in the world.

Establishing property rights would be an important first step; an effective, transparent and accountable legal system is another. Combined with respect for private property and the rule of law, these broad reforms would encourage entrepreneurship, trade, innovation and even environmental protection because they empower people - rather than the politicians.

As our economies grow and develop, people will be able to afford better technologies, clean water, superior energy sources, better healthcare, and insurance. But one is unlikely to hear such ideas from rock stars and development charities.

While these high-profile campaigns continue to blame western countries for our poverty, they simply give our own politicians more excuses to delay badly needed institutional reforms. Poor Africans would be far better off without rock-star economics.

• Franklin Cudjoe is director of Imani. He will speak at the Global Development Summit in London on June 28

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