Give Us Jobs Not Beatings

An anonymous woman selling water. A salt of the earth

   Friends, I am a member of the Internet-based pressure group, United for Justice Ghana (UFJ-GH). Blazing the maiden title, PETITION: Send AMINA to Hospital & Bring Culprits to JUSTICE,https://www.facebook.com/groups/140716815999231?ap=1 UFJ-GH was set up to petition the president of Ghana and all interested democrats to support a young woman, Amina Haruna, who was sexually assaulted by some University of Ghana students.

    Today I respond to a post by one, Bren Tsum, who wrote about the harsh treatment of another young woman, Georgina Owusu, by Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) officials https://www.facebook.com/groups/140716815999231?ap=1

    The original news item in the Chronicle newspaper http://allafrica.com/stories/201107190102.html, reported that Georgina and other illegal hawkers were raided, arrested and imprisoned by the AMA officials in the course of their duty. 
    This news item would probably have been lost on Chronicle's readership, but for an interesting politicised twist to it when Georgina apparently made a valid political comment against the hash manner of the AMA raid:   

The way they were chasing these poor boys around with some of the vendors losing their items in the process, was a bit worrying.” Georgina narrated her own story at the offices of The Chronicle. “I was appalled by what was happening. I murmured something to myself. I said the NDC government has not given us jobs to do, and yet they are denying us our little means of livelihood". https://www.facebook.com/groups/140716815999231?ap=1

      UFJ-GH is a new group that is open to all democrats of mixed political persuasions. Perhaps still held together by the novelty of the notion of 'democracy', or even the inchoate resolution of the Amina case - the original reason it was formed in the first place - opinions are still moderate and sufficiently concensorial. The trajectory of opinion from the group is that, like Amina above, Georgina is another abused victim; that the group must provide advocacy to her.

     The subtle assumption, however, is that Georgina, unlike Amina who was sexually abused, is abused nonetheless because she curried her criticism by pinning a party political ID card on the AMA brutalities she had observed guaranteeing her arrest. 

    So amid the usual proto-liberal, democratic, platitudes of: 'appalling'; "This is very pathetic!", one detects a little temperature change in the, till now, nice way the UFJ-GH will do business. This point is broached by member, Sedzro Leonard: "That comment immediately moves the debate from Human Rights to Politics and when we proceed on the political tangent, we shall never make progress". 

    As for me I look at the matter pragmatically. First, I do not think politics is necessarily detachable from Human Rights (HR). On the contrary the processes of HR are fraught with political hurdles. The point of an on-line HR group is to evolve an agree-to-disagree culture, sophisticated enough to sustain the fundamental Mission Statement of the group. This was my brief response to my fellow UFJ-GH members in full understanding that I will stay up late to blog a more detailed response: 

Easy guys, we must not go gaga over our collective preoccupation with this super liberal notion of 'freedom of speech...democracy'. The AMA is right to enforce its bylaws. Transforming our cities into congested Lagoses - with every tax-evading unemployed hawking goods nilly-wily in all nooks and crannies of our cities - is lawless, anti-democratic and contrary to economic, social, cultural and even ethical development. It is smarter to do three things: 1) educate the hawking public to respect the bylaws; 2) educate AMA to be reasonable and compassionate while enforcing the law; 3) I am ready to make a personal donation of GC600 to the victim, if Bren Tsum and Kwame Bidi will coordinate the payment. Kofi of Africa: Give Us Jobs Not Beatings (ps: contact me on Facebook). 

     I skim the profile of some members of UFJ-GH and see an impressive array of well educated men and women, who appear to be genuinely dedicated to upholding democracy and all its attendant freedoms dispassionately. This posting by, Kwame E. Bidi, a founding member, illuminate my point,

Attacked by AMA Rapid Response Unit

AMA as an institution is a body whose directives and modus operandi come not from the party directly. Besides, selling ice water on the road side in defiance of AMA bye laws amounts to breaking laws of the state irrespective of her justifications. However, in a civilized country, law enforcement agencies don't enforce laws outside of due process. https://www.facebook.com/groups/140716815999231?ap=1

     I thoroughly agree with Bidi. I will like to expatiate on my first point, "Educate the hawking public to respect the bylaws". By this I mean education is a two-way process. The state legal apparatuses, laws and bylaws must be a two-way covenant. The state must have a covenant with the people: to protect them from harm, undemocratic abuses, provided their basic needs and defend their freedoms. The people's covenant includes: obeying laws of state, paying their taxes and engaging in nation-building with every sinew of their abilities. In these, they need not be encouraged by civil liberty groups - through platitudes for example - to break the law. 

     Like all, Georgina must respect the the AMA bylaws and all laws of Ghana. But beyond that, treacherously long and winding ethical and legal niceties will not alleviate her immediate needs. It is crucial that she rebuild her trading stock and relocate elsewhere to trade. Like a member of  my own extended family, the GC600 I am prepared to offer her, is a token of my respect for her courage and political stance - even though she might have inherited the UP tradition and be my political protagonist (my joke). 

    All said, Georgina is the salt of the earth. Thus she is in a good position to echo the feelings of ordinary unemployed or unemployable Ghanaians, who could never depend on successive post-Nkrumah governments to address their plights. What they need are jobs. But our governments have been patently hamstrung by lack of export earnings. Our domestic economy is defined by the importation of cheap, shoddy consumables from newly emergent Asian economies like China, India, Korea and Malaysia. The service sector is weak. The manufacturing sector is uncompetitive.

Can Pres. Atta Mills stare down the West?

   So how can our governments create jobs? (I pluralise 'government' because I am prepared to support any government that will nationalise Ghana's export sector and key industries). I have persistently and consistently argued the need for our governments to urgently consider nationalising the commanding heights of Ghana's economy. 

    The NPP could never do it for ideological reasons. The NPP has emerged from the right-wing, UP-Busia tradition and could never stare the West down to do the right economic thing for Ghana. The CPP - the only party that dared do so when in power till the CIA-plotted coup that toppled the Nkrumah regime in 1966 - has continued to be undermined both externally and internally by the self-same insurgent forces. Because the West is afraid the CPP will maintain its steely nationalist posture and deny the West easy pickings by controlling the ownership of Ghana's resources.

    The reasons I advocate nationalisation are several. At the onset I must state that nationalisation will guarantee Ghana's export earnings. It will increase the present pathetic levels of about US$10b (I am being extremely generous here) beyond the easily conceivable figure of US$45b. Simple mathematics will show that with the massive increase in earnings our government can address unemployment, among the many needs of the twenty five million or so Ghanaian people, far better than the US$10b pittance that our finance minister boasts about. 

Can Samia Nkrumah re-energise the CPP? 

    Ghana has enjoy the above economic precedence. Under the Nkrumah regime, Ghana's economy was the leading economy in Africa. We had full employment. The Workers Brigade soaked up and energised the unemployed and unemployable. GIHOC provided an industrial, albeit import-substitute basis, that afforded us our own canneries, textiles, auto assembly plants. We had the State Farms that, among many things, supplied our sugar, cooking oils, corn and rice. Ghana Airways and Black Star Line Shipping Line competently transported our goods and selves. They were totally staffed by Ghanaians.  

    So what is the way forward? How could we ensure that the nationalised public enterprises are run efficiently? Our government must immediately head-hunt competent managers. They must invest massively in training excellent industrial/public sector managers and technocrats at the best business schools in the world. These managers must have proven competence in the best practices available in the world. 
 
      Our government or successive governments must draft sensible policies to address all national issues of development. Their maxim, “Where There is a Will, There is Always a Way”. If a government cannot define and enforce policy for the nationalisation of its export sector and the competent management of its domestic industrial sector, it ought not to be in government in the first place! After all is it not more difficult to manage a country than state enterprises?