Equatorial Guinea:Taint of Corruption Is No Barrier to U.S. Visa

Pictometry International

The $35 million estate belonging to Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the agriculture minister of Equatorial Guinea and the son of its ruler, in Malibu, Calif., in the lower center of the frame.

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By IAN URBINA

Published: November 16, 2009

Several times a year, Teodoro Nguema Obiang arrives at the doorstep of the United States from his home in Equatorial Guinea, on his way to his $35 million estate in Malibu, Calif., his fleet of luxury cars, his speedboats and private jet. And he is always let into the country.

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Investigating Teodoro Nguema Obiang

The nation’s doors are open to Mr. Obiang, the forest and agriculture minister of Equatorial Guinea and the son of its president, even though federal law enforcement officials believe that “most if not all” of his wealth comes from corruption related to the extensive oil and gas reserves discovered more than a decade and a half ago off the coast of his tiny West African country, according to internal Justice Department andImmigration and Customs Enforcement documents.

And they are open despite a federal law and a presidential proclamation that prohibit corrupt foreign officials and their families from receiving American visas. The measures require only credible evidence of corruption, not a conviction of it.

Susan Pittman, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement in the State Department, said she was prohibited from discussing specific visa decisions. But other former and current State Department officials said Equatorial Guinea’s close ties to the American oil industry were the reason for the lax enforcement of the law. Production of the country’s nearly 400,000 barrels of oil a day is dominated by American companies like ExxonMobil, Hess and Marathon.

“Of course it’s because of oil,” said John Bennett, the United States ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from 1991 to 1994, adding that Washington has turned a blind eye to the Obiangs’ corruption and repression because of its dependence on the country for natural resources. He noted that officials of Zimbabwe are barred from the United States.

“Both countries are severely repressive,” said Mr. Bennett, who is now a senior foreign affairs officer for the State Department in Baghdad. “But if Zimbabwe had Equatorial Guinea’s oil, Zimbabwean officials wouldn’t still be blocked from the U.S.”

Shown the Justice Department documents that detail the accusations of corruption against Mr. Obiang, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who wrote the law restricting visas, expressed frustration and anger with the State Department, which is responsible for issuing visas.

“The fact that someone like Mr. Obiang continues to travel freely here suggests strongly that the State Department is not yet applying the law as vigorously as Congress intended,” Mr. Leahy said. The law was partly inspired by the accusations of corruption surrounding Mr. Obiang’s family and the Equatorial Guinean government, Mr. Leahy’s staff said.

“There are many instances of corrupt foreign officials plundering the natural resources of their countries for their own use while their people starve,” Mr. Leahy said. “The law states clearly that if you do that, you are no longer welcome in the United States.”

Daniel Whitman, who retired in September as the deputy director of the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the Bureau of African Affairs at the State Department, agreed that the law should be used more forcefully. “We just seem to lack the backbone to use this prohibition,” Mr. Whitman said. “In the rare cases it is used, no one at State was willing to talk about it.”

When asked how many times the laws have been used to bar corrupt foreign officials from entering the country, State Department officials declined to answer, citing privacy reasons, though Ms. Pittman said thousands of visas had been denied to corrupt officials using other legal means. A 2007 State Department report said the presidential proclamation, signed by President George W. Bush in 2004, had been used “dozens” of times.

A State Department official who handles corruption investigations said that while the measures were important tools, the department as a matter of policy did not want to reveal the number of times they had been used because it would show that the number was actually quite small. The official asked not to be identified because of departmental rules barring public comment.

The Justice Department memorandum, dated Sept. 4, 2007, and obtained by The New York Times, said the government believed Mr. Obiang’s assets were derived “from extortion, theft of public funds or other corrupt conduct.” From April 2005 to April 2006, the memorandum said, Mr. Obiang funneled at least $73 million into the United States, using shell corporations and offshore bank accounts to launder the money and ultimately buy his Malibu estate and a luxury jet.

The document identified several wire transfers by Mr. Obiang from 2005 and 2006, beginning with a bank in Equatorial Guinea, then going to the central Banque de France and landing in American accounts at Wachovia, Bank of America and UBS. In one six-week period in 2006, Mr. Obiang transferred $33,799,799.99 to the United States, it said, which was used to buy a Gulfstream V jet.

Part of his wealth, the document said, comes from a “revolutionary tax” that Mr. Obiang placed on timber. Instead of sending the payments to the treasury of Equatorial Guinea, Mr. Obiang, who is considered likely to be a successor to his father, has “insisted that the payments be made directly to him,” it said.

In addition, the memorandum said, the Justice Department believes that Mr. Obiang “may be receiving bribes or extortion payments” from the oil companies as a percentage of their contracts.

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Investigating Teodoro Nguema Obiang

Spokesmen for ExxonMobil and Marathon said the companies followed all relevant laws. A request for comment from Hess was not answered. The Justice Department declined to comment on the memo.

Another document, prepared by theImmigration and Customs Enforcement division of theHomeland Security Department, said Mr. Obiang “routinely travels to the United States with over $1 million in cash” that he fails to declare, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Mr. Obiang regularly visits the country using a diplomatic passport, though he rarely does diplomatic business here, said the I.C.E. document. The document said the immigration agency’s goal was to deny a safe haven to Mr. Obiang and to “identify, trace, freeze and recover assets within the United States illicitly acquired through kleptocracy by Teodoro Obiang and his associates.”

The documents were originally obtained by Global Witness, a British human rights group that monitors corruption in natural resources industries, after they were released in response to a legal complaint filed in France against several African dictators, including Mr. Obiang’s father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. The Justice Department and I.C.E. would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the documents.

Through a spokesman at Qorvis Communications, a public relations firm working for the Equatorial Guinean Embassy in Washington, Teodoro Nguema Obiang declined to be interviewed. But his brother denied the charges of corruption.

“This is the problem when a country becomes very successful,” said Gabriel Mbega Obiang Lima, the vice minister of mines, energy and industry and another of the president’s sons. “Everyone assumes us guilty until proven innocent.”

The vice minister said his government had made great strides in dealing with corruption. He cited as an example his country’s participation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an international coalition of governments, civil society groups and companies that sets global standards for transparency in oil, gas and mining.

But a 2009 internal document from the initiative says the organization is “particularly concerned about the pace of progress” in Equatorial Guinea. The country has failed to produce a required report regarding its revenue, even though it joined the organization more than three years ago, the report says.

In 2004, President Bush signed a proclamation barring entry to the United States for any foreign officials and their family members “whose misappropriation of public funds” has had serious adverse effects on American businesses or national security interests. Congress followed up in 2007 with a law containing even stronger language, barring entry to anyone “involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries.”

Otto Reich, who served until 2004 as the United States’ special envoy to the Western Hemisphere, said there was resistance to applying these sorts of prohibitions even before the presidential proclamation was drafted.

“Senior State Department people especially from Africa kept saying that if something like this is used they wouldn’t have anyone to talk to in their home countries,” Mr. Reich said. “It’s politically simply something they do not want to take on.”

The Obiang family and Equatorial Guinea have been the focus of corruption accusations for years. In 2004, a Senate panel accused Riggs Bank in Washington of having “turned a blind eye to evidence suggesting the bank was handling the proceeds of foreign corruption” in accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in deposits from Equatorial Guinea.

Committee investigators found dozens of irregular payments, multiple individual signatories to accounts and even deposits of millions of dollars in shrink-wrapped currency. Riggs Bank was fined more than $25 million for its handling of the Equatorial Guinean and other accounts, and several of the bank’s directors were criminally prosecuted.

But in more recent years millions of dollars of the country’s money has found its way to other American banks, including the ones named in the Justice Department memo. Wachovia and Bank of America, according to the memo, filed suspicious activity reports to the authorities, and ultimately closed all accounts associated with Mr. Obiang and his associates, but not before tens of millions of dollars had already entered the United States.

“These banks appear to have facilitated a grand corruption, and it may even have been done legally,” said Gavin Hayman, director of campaigns for Global Witness. “Those that filed suspicious activity reports may have been complying with their regulatory obligations under the law, but at the same time they went ahead and forwarded transfers of tens of millions of dollars about which they already had suspicions. Effectively, the regulations are allowing banks to earn money from corruption.”

All three banks declined to answer questions about the transactions. Although Wachovia said Mr. Obiang was not a client, the Justice Department documents described how he used third parties to open accounts at some banks.

Since oil was discovered there in 1996, Equatorial Guinea has become the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, after Nigeria and Angola, with estimated revenues of $4.8 billion in 2007. But although petroleum has made the ruling Obiang family and its associates vastly rich, the oil and gas wealth has not been spread beyond ruling elites.

In 2006, more than three-quarters of the population was living below the poverty line, according to a 2009 International Monetary Fund report.

By some measures, conditions in the country are getting worse. Though the nation’s gross domestic product grew more than tenfold from 1990 to 2007, infant mortality rose to 12 percent from 10 percent, according to a 2009 Unicef report.

Source:New York Times

In Kenya, When You are Poor - You Die Alone

By F. Itam

Today I found out JG, someone I knew died. Personable and intellectual in his way, JG always struck me as someone that was curious about the world. JG had an opinion on everything, be it politics, the economy or even the winner of the 2010 World Cup, sadly which he will not see.

Though the father of three sons (whom he was immensely proud of) had his personal demons - JG was always there to lend a hand. With the practical knowledge he had acquired in his 36 years of life, JG always had a solution. And there was nothing that was impossible to him  - until he tried it.

JG went missing on Monday evening. On Tuesday his family and colleagues assumed he would show up. It was not the first time JG who enjoyed his tipple had gone missing in "action". But he always showed up - cowed by the anger and worry he had brought on. However, within a few days, JG would be back to his form - giving advice on the life situations we found ourselves in.

But this Tuesday and today - JG did not show. After visiting hospitals and police stations, JG was found at the mortuary. It turns out that he died on Monday night under circumstances we shall never truly know. But like the others who die in poverty, it took searching  throughout Nairobi for him to sadly surmise what befell him. You see in a country with high mobile phone usage rates, unfortunately even the police are unable to inform the next of kin when they come upon a body.

I once asked JG how come he knew so much and he told me that during the Kenyatta and Moi regime's his father had been a senior civil servant. This meant that he had the opportunity to attend a good school in Nairobi. Unfortunately, JG's father was part of Daniel Moi's purge on all that was above mediocre and his father was detained for years. Such punishment was not only meted out on JG's father but ultimately his younger dependent children of which JG was one. Thus JG was pulled out of the Nairobi school and wound up in a rural one. The frustration of his unquenched curiousity for knowledge not being met and adaptation to rural life meant that JG's education henceforth was erratic. Later on he had to make do with the university of life, taking on any job there was.

It is ironic that the ICC have today granted the Louis Moreno Ocampo’s request to launch an investigation on crimes against humanity in Kenya covering the period between 1st June 2005 and 26th November 2009. This is because people like JG are not alone in having had to suffer the death of their aspirations long before the expiration of their mortal bodies. However, the people that were behind the regime that ensured that JG would never go far in life remain un-prosecuted.

JG R.I.P

Editorial:WHO WILL DELIVER GHANA FROM NDC AND NPP?

There is too much poverty in the country: in the cities and in the countryside, two-thirds of Ghanaians live on two dollars a day. That is very bad indeed for a country that has exported gold, diamond, timber and cocoa for decades.

There is too much corruption in the country: in both major political parties NDC and NPP; and in the police and immigration service; at Tema and Takoradi harbours and Kotoka Airport, and at CEPS; importers,exporters and travellers are suffering. In the universities, polytechnics, nursing and teachers’ training colleges sex is traded for grades and money is exchanged for admission. Many female students are victims.

The illiteracy level in the country is very high: Close to 30% of the adult population cannot read and write. Unemployment is very high too. Unofficially it hovers between 25 and 50%. Many of the youth have no jobs and have resorted to activities such as armed robbery, prostitution, hawking and other social vices. Graduates from our universities are without jobs either and many are doing their best to live in poverty.

In many homes basic facilities such as water and toilet are absent. Many people in our cities and towns are without quality and quantity of water. In some communities, residents have to live without water supply for weeks if not months.

In most of our rural areas people live in mud houses, roofed with raffia leaves. They are without electricity, water and social security. In the cities people have no mortgage; they face high renting and utility bills with poor services. Power cuts is everywhere in the country, yet every month the minister of energy receives millions of cedis for not providing the people with the energy thy need.

Farmers have no access to tractors and fertilisers and have to plant using cutlasses and hoes during the planting and harvesting seasons. Even when tractors are imported for them to use the corrupt politicians always hijack them. The farmers have no access to irrigation facilities and if nature fails to provide them with water then they are doomed.

Poverty is driving more and more children into the streets of Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Ho, Tema and many others. Children serving as head potters are visible everywhere in the country. They are selling ice water, coconut, plantain chips and other hawking activities. They are sacrificing their education to find food for themselves. Majority of these kids have no place to call home. They sleep in the street and wherever they can. Some of them were born in the street, have been raised by the street, taught by the street, protected by the street but many of them have been subjected to abuse by the very society that has the responsibility to protect them. The MPs, the president, the vice president and their ministers drive by: some of them even stop to buy the stuff these children are selling without asking question why these children who are supposed to be in school and be trained as future leaders are on the street selling.

There is entropy of infrastructure decay in the country: break down of the rail sector, energy shortages, poor roads, poor and inadequate housing, inadequate water and sanitation delivery systems. There are no proper waste management systems. The traffic jams and pollution in Accra, Kumasi and elsewhere are unbearable.

There is food shortage everywhere and prices are beyond the reach of ordinary Ghanaians as a result malnutrition is increasingly affecting most of the children especially in the rural areas.

Most hospitals are without essential medicines and medical staff is in short supply in most health institutions. Patients sleeping on the floor of hospitals due to inadequate beds are a common feature in our hospitals. The minister of health says there is no money for medicines but every month taxes are paid to his government and we cannot tell where the money goes.

We have been told that Tema Harbour is being raped by men working with the president. Those at the helm of affairs are doing their best to loot as much as they can for themselves leaving Ghanaians to suffer. A case in point is the corruption allegations levelled at members of both the NDC and NPP.

Ghana has not modernized at all. 53 years after independence we still carry things on our head; wash our clothes with our hands and our women still carry babies on their back. They are all signs of where we are as a nation. Quality of life is very low. Life expectancy is just 57. Young men and women are dying from diseases that ought not to kill them. Poverty and the heat from the sun have turned beautiful young ladies into old one. There is walling and gnashing of teeth in every home. Out of sight out of mind a woman has to poison herself and her five children a sign of poverty, desperation, frustration that the NDC and NPP have helped institutionalised in the country. “It has now emerged that Georgina Pipson, the 31-year-old mother suspected of killing her five children at Gomoa Nyanyano near Kasoa in the Central Region, poisoned them with parazone, a powerful, corrosive detergent.
The Children are Kwaku Osae Asante 11, Nana Yaw Asante 9, Angel Akua Asante 6, Kofi Asante 4 and Esi Asante 1.” Source: myjoyonline.com, Tuesday, 05 Jan 2010.

Nothing is manufactured in the country not even bicycles let alone tractors, cars, computers, mobile phones, dish washers and heavy equipments that help nations to develop. We are a nation that depends on what others in Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, and Chinahave used and thrown away. Our economy is littered with used computers, used pants, and used cars things that most Ghanaians cannot do without because of poverty. In all this we have had presidents and their ministers who were paid huge salaries and bonuses to help develop the nation but only ended up impoverishing the people.

NDC and NPP have been promising to build castles in Ghana, yet people are living in mud houses. We cannot even device plans to help our farmers to increase food production. We have not recognised that the cutlasses and hoes they have been using since the time of slavery and colonialism cannot help us to move forward as a nation.

Water pollution and poor sanitation is everywhere in our cities. The people of Teshie and Nungua are using the sea and the coast as places of convenience because they have no access to toilets. In Accra the Korle Lagoon and the Odaw River have been polluted so much so that there are no living organisms in them. The stench in our cities is awful. Illegal dumping of waste is everywhere. Apart from being eyesores these dumps have also become breeding grounds for flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats and mice; and cause odour problems, water pollution from runoff, and air pollution from burning.

In many of the country, for example; Sewerage is almost non-existent, with only a portion of Accra, Tema, Kumasi and few regional capitals enjoying piped sewerage services. There is no centralized wastewater treatment system in most of the cities and households and commercial premises generally have no onsite flush latrines. Within Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tema and most of the cities and towns the absence of waste infrastructures has led to a situation where solid waste sometimes remain uncollected for weeks, and is unhygienically burnt and disposed; indiscriminate dumping of waste is creating health problems.

There are few cities and towns with reliable piped water supply. Many residence of Accra do not have access to frequent supply of good drinking water and many households have to resort to extreme measures to be able to cope. In short, the infrastructures to deliver water to the people are either not existing or their capacities are too small to support the growing demand. The water situation in the rural areas is even worse. In the three northern regions people have to walk several miles in order to get water. As a result, people are not able to live healthy lives due to poor water quality and dwindling accessibility.

Rawlings and his P(NDC) spent 19 years joking with Ghanaians and the problems facing them. For better part of his 19 year reign Rawlings busied himself with celebration of June 4^th and 31^st December anniversaries than the welfare of Ghanaians. There is nothing remarkable in the country that can be associated with his 19 year reign. The SSS now (SHS) that he brought to Ghana has been a failure. Students still do not have access to textbooks close to two decades after it was introduced. Kuffour and his NPP also spent 8 years talking more and doing little.

The NDC and the NPP are toying with Ghana's secondary school system: 3 years for NDC, 4 years for NPP meanwhile they are busy sending their children to be educated abroad leaving Ghanaians to suffer from their selfish and ill thought-out policies. Nkrumah built universities and the current NDC and NPP leadership enjoyed it for free. During their time it was one student to a room, free breakfast, lunch and supper. But go to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana and Cape Coast University and see the condition of our students. Four students are packed in a room meant for a student and that is when a student is even lucky to have his/her name short listed by the authorities. Students in these institutions are studying without electricity and other academic facilities that produce high quality of graduates. As for the University of Development Studies the little I say about it the better. The neglect ofGhana’s tertiary institutions is illustrated in a news report by Ghanaian Times headlined: “Water Shortage: Experts Coming from S. Africa" which reported that:

"Experts from Ballest-Nedam, the Dutch company that installed the control panel at the intake pump station of the Weija Headworks are expected in Ghana on Thursday morning from South Africa to help repair the machine. This follows the inability of local experts to get the damaged electronic equipment fixed for the pump to function again”, Source: Ghanaian Times, 09-Feb-2010.

Another news item reads: "Straight-talking Charles Kofi Wayo has poured scorn on engineers working at the gutted Tema Oil Refinery, asking if they qualify to even be called engineers when they cannot manufacture common bolts and have to wait for three months for foreign expertise to fix the minutest of problems. "If you have engineers there why is it that one small bolt you have to wait for a white man two, three months. You can’t even make your own bolts…You can’t even tool anything down there, even gasket - common gasket when it blows, you shut down the RFCC and stuff like that so where are the engineers? Where are the engineers? Source: www.myjoyonline.com, Thursday, 21 January 2010.

The simple truth is that our students are not able to invent neither do our experts able to repair even broken machines. We cannot blame our universities for failing to produce high quality graduates and experts because they have mounting resource problems. The Universities lack well trained lecturers. They lack modern facilities such as state of the art libraries, laboratory simulation facilities, studios, computers, projectors, internet facilities, constant energy supply and books. They lack them because the NPP and NDC governments have failed to invest and build the infrastructures needed to deliver 21^st century education. As a result we have to import the equipments and books from countries that have done their home work well and have invested heavily in education notably in science and technology.

Ghana has been a leading gold exporter for decades and we have been selling gold at the international gold market for decades yet ordinary Ghanaians do not know where the proceeds go. Ghanaians cannot even buy products made from gold. No one in Ghana except the corrupt NDC and their equally corrupt NPP rivals who know where the proceeds go. Now they are happy that we have discovered oil and are seriously strategising to steal so Ghanaians will continue to live in poverty again. Ghana is a leading cocoa exporter but where does the money go? Rawlings couldn't give a straight answer when he was asked. Kuffour couldn’t give a straight answer either. Are we able to even buy chocolate for our children in a country which is the world’s biggest exporter of cocoa? We continue to receive grants from rich countries in the global north but the politicians and their business friends are not allowing it to have impact in the country.

Hundreds of loan agreements have been signed and billions of dollars have been received by our governments (Rawlings and Kuffour and now Mills) and we are paying heavy interest fees for it yet Ghanaians cannot trace where the money has gone, how it was spent or the projects it has been used to complete. We only hear of the loan agreements and the interests we are paying but not the money.

For the past 28 years Ghana has been governed by two main parties: the ruling National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party but it is no point arguing that both parties have been the cause of Ghana’s economic demise. For decades they have toyed with Ghana’s economy, its infrastructure needs: energy, roads, rail lines, education, telecommunication and health.

Frustration, hopelessness and desperation can be found in the face of many Ghanaians. Since Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 Ghanaians have been without a true leader. A leader who will provide jobs for the youth; a leader who will provide infrastructure for the economic take off, a leader who will transform Ghana's railway sector into viable transportation industry; a leader who is a problem solver and not just arm-chair president.

Come 2012 NDC and NPP politicians aided by some corrupt media practitioners will come with the same pack of lies, deceits, pledges and promises and with smooth words: vote for us and we will do this and that but once they get to parliament they cannot even put a bill together to solve some of the problems. Once they become ministers they cannot even formulate policies let alone implement one. Ghanais poor today because of NPP and NDC who have no idea how to turn the huge natural resources into goods that will benefit Ghanaians. For 28 years both parties have mismanaged Ghana.

Ghanaians are suffering not because we are poor in terms of natural resources. We are poor because those entrusted with the management of the nation have sought create wealth to benefit themselves at the expense of the poor majority who live in 18^th century conditions. We are poor because we have of bad political leaders who are interested in getting power without using the power to help develop the nation for all to benefit. Those entrusted with the management of the nation are simply visionless. They love to drive in convoy at the expense of the nation yet have no idea how to help Ghana become a food sufficient nation. 53 years after independence we still import rice from China and India and there is no sign that the importation will stop soon.

It is so sad that the leaders who came after Nkrumah have done very little to add to the foundation he laid. I don't know what would have happened to Ghana had Nkrumah not built Akosombo dam. I don't what would have happened to Ghana had Nkrumah not built Tema city and the harbour with all the infrastructures and industries such as VALCO. Nkrumah spent 9 years from 1957 to 1966 doing all these landmark projects, Rawlings and his PNDC spent 19 years selling what Nkrumah built and where did the money go? The Asia Tigers (Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore) took the same 20 years wasted by Rawlings to turn their countries around. Ghanaians would have been better off than they are now if the PNDC/NDC leadership had used the 19 years judiciously.

Rawlings and his P(NDC) couldn't even maintain the things Nkrumah developed let alone adding some to it. Rawlings and his bootlickers had to allow them to decay because they did not have any idea how important those things were to the economy of our country. Kuffour spent 8 years selling Ghana Telecom and he cannot tell us what he used the money for. He thought Mo Ibrahim would give him 5 million dollar reward for managing Ghana to benefit himself and his circle of friends but Mo Ibrahim was smart.

If Nkrumah had been alive he would have turned the oil find into jobs for Ghanaians to enjoy; he would have used it to build houses for the poor in the country; he would have constructed another Akosombo dam to solve the energy crisis facing the nation; he would have developed and modernise the railway sector to ease the congestion facing our cities.

Can Mills save Ghana? Well his style of governance shows that unemployment and many of the woes he came to meet will worsen. He has not shown any clear policy direction as what he wants to do or achieve for Ghana. He would be best remembered for his penchant for silence and dithering when major issues need to be addressed. Can President Mills emulate the extraordinary leadership of Nkrumah and save Ghana from its current economic quandary? I doubt it. President Mills has been in power for over a now year and has not found his feet yet, though his ministers are enjoying tax payers' money, driving Land Cruisers while fishermen have no premix fuel. His government is so pathetic that it has become a laughing stock in the country and even within the NDC. Has Mills been able to practice what he preached during the elections?

Will NPP's Alan Kyeremanteng and Akuffo Addo save Ghana? I don't think so because they are part of the same wagon that has not delivered to Ghanaians. No wonder both of them think the only way they can serve Ghana is to be president and have been quarrelling since the NPP primaries.

NPP and NDC share one common characteristic: both parties rely on lies, deceits, bribery, and corruption to win votes while doing nothing to improve the social and economic situation in the country. That is why for the 28 years that both parties have governed Ghana standard of living continue to fall and every statistics either official or non-official is in the negative. Both parties like to share the nation’s resources among themselves and their peers forgetting the ordinary Ghanaian who stood in the sun to elect them. Rawlings and Kuffour and their NDC and NPP could not use proceeds from gold, timber, bauxite, diamond and cocoa to develop the nation and there is no doubt that both parties have contributed immensely to impoverishing the people with their short sighted, ill conceived and vote buying economic policies. If Ghana is going to be a nation for all her people then there is the need for a leadership that will aggressively implement policies and programmes that will transform the nation from its current economic predicament; a leadership that will mobilize all the resources in the country to develop Ghana for all its citizens to benefit.

Such leadership cannot be found in the NDC and NPP and that is why it is important for Ghanaians to consider voting for independent candidates or parties that have the track record of laying the foundation for Ghana. Ghanaians must sit up and must be cautious of the people they vote for in 2012 otherwise they risk living in poverty for another four years.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

(politicalthinker1@yahoo.com)

Transcript of President Obama’s Video Message to the AGOA Forum in Nairobi

Hello everyone. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you in person. But please know that for me and for my family, the memories from our recent trip to Ghana are still fresh — we will always remember the warmth of the Ghanaian people and the promise of Africa’s potential.

I hope you’re enjoying Kenya — and the hospitality of the Kenyan people — as much as I always have. When I first came in 1987, it was to discover the story of my father, who had grown up herding goats in the tiny village of Alego. When I visited as a Senator, I promised to work for a U.S. foreign policy that gives hope and opportunity to the people of this great continent.

Today, it is my privilege to address you as President. And I want to repeat what I said three weeks ago in Accra. I do not see the countries and the peoples of Africa as a world apart. I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world. In our global economy, our economic fortunes are shared. And history shows that economic growth is among the greatest forces for progress in lifting people out of poverty.

That’s why the African Growth and Opportunity Act is so important. That’s why the AGOA Forum is so critical. By breaking down old barriers and opening new markets, we not only increase trade between our countries. We create powerful incentives for African entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, to create jobs and build a brighter tomorrow for their children. That is what AGOA is all about.

So I thank President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga for hosting this Forum. And I pledge to you the full support and partnership of the United States. That is why my Administration is represented there today by outstanding members of my Cabinet.

Over the last decade, AGOA has transformed the U.S.-African trade relationship. Opening America’s doors to your exports has been good for Africa — creating African jobs, bringing millions of dollars of investment to sub-Saharan Africa and sparking new trade across the continent. And it’s been good for America — with African exporters seeking U.S. expertise, investments and joint-ventures. And today, we’re your single largest trade partner.

At the same time, it’s clear that U.S.-African trade has yet to realize its full potential. And if the current recession teaches us anything, it’s that in a global economy not only the opportunities are shared. So are the risks. So there’s so much more we can do together to plant the seeds of our economic recovery, and to achieve lasting prosperity.

Only Africans can unlock Africa’s potential. It will take your entrepreneurship. Your innovation. And only Africans can ensure the good governance and strong institutions upon which development depends. Open markets alone are not enough. Development requires the rule of law, transparency, accountability, and an atmosphere that welcomes investment. And I encourage every country to set concrete goals for overcoming the obstacles to economic growth.

And to all Africans who are pursuing a future of hope and opportunity, know this: you have a partner and a friend in the United States. That’s why we’ll work with you to develop strong institutions, clear legal frameworks and the regulations and infrastructure that help bring new products to market. That’s why we’ll work together to harness Africa’s vast natural resources to generate clean, renewable energy for export. That’s why I’ve pledged substantial increases in our foreign assistance — not simply to help people scrape by, but to unleash transformational change. And that’s why we’ve joined with our international partners to promote food security by investing $20 billion in agricultural development — not simply to hand out American food, but to promote African self-sufficiency.

These are the things we can do together to unleash the skills and talents of our people. And to ensure our common prosperity in the 21st century. And if we do, I’m confident that Africans can live their dreams from Nairobi to Accra, from Lagos to Kigali, from Kinshasa to Cape Town.

Thank you for your work at this important Forum. Enjoy Nairobi.

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Ghana's Oil, Will the People Benefit?

Much has been said about Ghana's oil and the revenue that is supposed to flow into her coffers by 2010. The politicians and their associates are excited that Ghana will soon be swimming in oil money. But the people are not enthused as they know the history of oil rich countries in Africa. They are also not excited because years of gold, diamond, cocoa, timber and other mineral exports has not brought any benefit to them rather they are still wallowing in chronic poverty with no access to water, healthcare, education, electricity with transport and other infrastructures crumbling. The question is will the people benefit from the oil if they could not benefit from gold and other minerals? Is there any guarantee that the people will benefit from the oil proceeds when it begins to flow in 2010?

For decades several billions dollars has been realised from the sale of gold, diamond, cocoa, timber, bauxite and many more but Ghanaians still wallow in deep poverty without electricity, water, proper housing infrastructure, sanitation. The only people who seem to have benefited from the revenue from these valuable assets are the corrupt politicians, their associates and the multinational corporations and they are the very people who are likely to benefit from the oil. The only 'benefit' the people will have as is the case of gold and diamond, will be paying for the cost of environmental degradation, pollution of soil, rivers, wells, creeks that will render many farmers and fishermen jobless.

Already effort by the government to get Ghanaians to participate in forums to discuss how the proceeds from oil should be used to help the poor has been hijacked by the politicians and the so called elite with the people reduced to mere spectators.

What makes the situation troubling is the fact that Ghana is not the first country in Africa to produce oil or gas. Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Algeria have been oil producing and exporting nations for decades. The reality is that none of these countries has been able to use the huge oil revenue to better the lives of their peoples with poverty and corruption sitting deep in those countries.

How will Ghana be different from her neighbours is still unclear but her own history of corruption in the mineral, timber, cocoa sectors and the history of her neighbours give an idea as to where she might go.

In Nigeria for example 80 million people or even more still live on less than a dollar a day despite nation receiving over $400 billion from the sale of oil. All that Nigerian leaders can show for the billions they have received are the deep poverty, violence crimes, kidnappings, instability in oil producing areas, massive official corruption seen at all levels of government both federal and state as well as environmental degradation and pollution of rivers, wells, creeks and the soil which has rendered millions of farmers and fishermen jobless. The events in Nigeria in the last 40 years since oil was discovered leave much to be desired. There have been more military rulers in that country than civilians with only one transfer of power from civilian to civilian in her 49 years of independence. The stories of Sani Abacha and that of the evil genius Babangida and how they amassed wealth at the expense of the country still resonate around the globe anytime corruption is mentioned.

The oil producing and exporting countries of Angola, Gabon, Algeria, Libya and Equatorial Guinea are not any better. Millions of people in those countries live in abject poverty and in squalor conditions while the leaders live in opulence with luxury villas and numerous fat bank accounts in France, Switzerland, United States, Britain and their colonies of save haven centres in Caymans Islands, Jersey and the rest.

The opulence among the leadership and the unparallel levels of poverty among the population in those countries, prompted a French judge to investigate how these leaders came to acquire the properties that they and families enjoy. The investigation follows lawsuits by the French branch of anti-corruption group Transparency International and rights lobby Sherpa Association. The presidents’ families and their associates have been accused of using government funds to buy luxury homes in Paris and luxury car models such as Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari and Maserati.

They also hold fat bank accounts in France suspected to be theft proceeds, mainly from oil resources. Mr Bongo of Gabon who died yesterday, “the king of bling”, and Mr Obiang of Equatorial Guinea are believed to have used their countries’ huge oil resources to enrich themselves, their families and friends. Sherpa claims the three leaders are using relatives as nominees to hide valuable real estate and cars in France as well as offshore bank accounts with huge volumes of loot.

President Bongo is suspected to be hiding 59 apartments, 70 bank accounts and nine luxury cars while Mr Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo is believed to be concealing 18 apartments and holding 112 bank accounts and several luxury vehicles all bought from money stolen from the oil revenues. Police investigations in 2007 revealed that Mr Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea has an apartment and eight luxury cars in France. Only God knows how much money sits in those accounts. A US Senate investigation in 1997 found the spending habit of these corrupt leaders to be very astonishing. The report established that Mr Bongo and his family spend £55million a year, mainly from oil proceeds.

The Independent Newspaper writes of Angola: “As the threat of starvation sweeps across war-ravaged Angola, its secretive government is coming under pressure to explain how billions of pounds in oil revenues have gone missing. A fresh humanitarian crisis has hit Angola since fighting with UNITA rebels ended. Three million people are on the edge of famine. Angola's President, Eduardo dos Santos, has appealed for international help, pleading that his government is broke. But a swelling chorus of diplomats, campaigners and angry Angolans is asking why he is unable to pay his way out of trouble when his government earns billions of pounds from a burgeoning oil exploration business that will soon rival that of Nigeria as Africa's largest. And while only a tiny amount is spent on helping suffering Angolans, every year a large chunk of the profits – between 20 and 35 per cent – mysteriously disappears. Last year, for example, the International Monetary Fund estimated the oil revenues at £2bn, of which £750m simply vanished. Campaigners such as the UK advocacy group Global Witness call it wholesale state robbery. They say that Angola's vast oil profits are disappearing into the pockets of the Futungo – a secret, powerful élite linked to President Dos Santos – on a scale similar to the excesses of the notorious kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.” Source: the independent.co.uk

According to the Sunday Times, quoting a police probe report, the Bongos bought a mansion worth 18.8 million euros in Paris in 2007. The 21,528-square-foot home is in Rue de la Baume, near the Elysée Palace, the home of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. A Luxembourg-based company that bought the home is owned by two of Bongo’s children, Omar, 13, and Yacine, 16, and his late wife Edith.

So far there is nothing to show that the 1.4 million Gabonese have benefited from the oil. In fact they have become worse off as the following 2008 Human Rights Report by US State Department shows: “The country's human rights record remained poor. The following human rights problems were reported: limited ability of citizens to change their government; use of excessive force, including torture toward prisoners and detainees; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; an inefficient judiciary susceptible to government influence; restrictions on the right to privacy; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, association, and movement; harassment of refugees; widespread government corruption; violence and societal discrimination against women, persons with HIV/AIDS, and noncitizen Africans; trafficking in persons, particularly children; and forced labour and child labour.”

The same poor human rights were recorded in the report for Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria with citizens subjected to torture, killings and inhumane treatment by the leaders. The fear is that like her neighbours in the region there is a high probability that the flow of oil money into Ghana may encourage unscrupulous army officers and unelected Ghanaian leaders to take over the administration of the nation by force and suppress all dissents as happened during gold and diamond discoveries where army officers seized power overnight, stole as much as they could and mismanaged what remained of their loot with Ghanaians and the economy ultimately paying for their reckless corrupt actions. This is what has sadly happened in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Angola, Libya and Congo which are all been ruled by corrupt dictators with over 150 years of reign between the five of them.

Apart from corruption, there is the added danger that the flow of oil revenue will lead to the collapse of other vital sectors of the economy such as agriculture and tourism due to over dependence on oil revenue. Nigeria for example used to be major cocoa and other cash crop producing hub but the discovery of oil has led to the collapse of that vital industry. Such a dependence as in Gabon has had very devastating consequences in terms of food prices, jobs and revenue losses. What is more, these countries remain crude oil producers with little diversification, a practice that makes them more vulnerable to the shocks that are associated with the oil market and explains why they continue to remain poor despite years of oil export.

Worst of it all, it is the role of multinational corporations who exploit the oil in these poor countries that leave much to be desired. These corporations acting in their own selfish interest have a history of paying bribes to corrupt leaders to secure concessions. They also have a history of helping the corrupt leaders to steal and hide their loot in foreign banks. In 2003 Elf executives admitted paying Omar Bongo $50 million a year through Swiss banks in order to win concessions. The Elf executives, who were themselves tried for corruption, also admitted paying huge bribes to Cameroon’s Paul Biya and his counterparts in Congo, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. In 2004 Royal Dutch Shell of Netherlands admitted fuelling corruption, poverty and violence in Nigeria and toady June 9, 2009 has agreed to pay $15.5 million to the family of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni eight for her complicity in their execution by the corrupt Abacha regime. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa. Their secretive and non-transparent dealings with corrupt governments are no secrete. In Angola, Western oil companies such as BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron stand accused of refusing to reveal their annual payments to the Angolan government a charge similar to those in Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Algeria and E. Guinea.

What is worrying is that these are the very companies that are lining up to exploit Ghana’s oil and nothing shows that they will operate differently in the country.

Also the lasting environmental damage the corporations will cause Ghana and the ultimate price Ghanaians will pay for the destruction of the ecosystem and the pollution of their soils, wells, lakes, lagoons, rivers as well as the destruction of fish stock that have made environmentalists to worry and as a result gearing up for a long battle. Already the global environmental destruction caused by these corporations is estimated at $1.8 trillion with oil and mining countries in Africa sharing about a third of that. In Nigeria as is in many other places Shell has refused to clean up oil spills that have polluted rivers, lakes, lagoons and soil with the people enduring the health hazards posed by it. Anyone who visits the Niger Delta Region will find it hard to come to terms with the poverty, deprivation, collapsed infrastructures, environmental destruction and the billions of dollars Shell and her counterparts make in that country annually. The only thing that has kept millions of poverty stricken people surviving is a belief in God and a hope of a better life after death.

This has been the history of oil rich countries in Africa and guided by its own history of corruption in the mineral, cocoa and timber sectors there is no doubt that without a strong monitoring and strong accountability system backed by fiscal prudence, Ghana will join her neighbours in the chorus of poverty, violence, pollution and corruption. Already the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has been embroiled in corruption and mismanagement allegations with its former head Tsatsu Tsikata who was sent to jail on the grounds of corruption and mismanagement.

However, Ghana can avoid the calamities of her neighbours by learning from the Gulf States notably Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia where revenue from oil has changed the once barren and poverty stricken nations into prosperous ones. Even though there is a huge gap between the rulers and the people and corruption, nepotism and tyrants exist, during the last three decades these countries have been able to use revenue from oil to build their infrastructures, develop their industries and diversify their economies by focussing on technology, agriculture, tourism and financial products that is banking with success. More can also be learnt from Norway where sound fiscal management coupled with sound environmental practices has made her an icon in the world of oil production.

Instead of embezzling it or using it for white elephant projects, government of Ghana should use the proceeds to build durable roads, schools, hospitals, irrigation, sanitation, high speed train network linking all parts of the country, provide housing for low income groups and invest heavily in technology and agriculture so as to avoid being over dependence on oil revenue.

Ghana should put in place proper laws that will make the exploitation of the oil sustainable, environmentally and eco-friendly. Therefore environmental impact assessment should be conducted for every project linked to the oil operation.

The laws must also seek to ensure that oil money will not line up the pockets of the elite to the detriment of the people and the economy. Therefore, the utilisation of the proceeds must be transparent and democratic. The best way to do this is to actively involve all stakeholders including the people, the government, opposition parties, NGOs, CBOs, Church and all interest groups. Record must be kept by every institution that receives oil money and the release of those records to anyone with a genuine interest must be made mandatory.

All oil companies directly or indirectly involved in the drilling, marketing, distribution or export of oil must be made by law to publish what they pay. They must also indicate whether they have paid bribe to officials within or outside the country. Every ministry or department which receives oil money for project must publish in detail how it utilised it. The law must propose for stiffer penalties for officials and companies who will misconduct themselves.

Therefore, the law must take care of how the oil should be managed; how contracts should be awarded, how the proceeds should be utilised and how the environment should be protected. A fund could be created where all proceeds from the oil could go into with parliament given the sole power to determine and certify how money could be drawn from the fund. Therefore the proceeds should be removed at all cost from the control of the executive branch of government.

A financial court should be created to investigate and prosecute entities who may try to enrich themselves overnight. Government must hire experienced tax experts and fraud detectives to scrutinise activities of multinational corporations who may want to import their shady deals of theft, tax evasion, bribery and false accounting into the country. Government must do this as a necessity even if that means hiring foreign experts.

The media should play its role as the fourth organ of government any law that will hinder their operation should be repealed. More investigative journalists should be employed by the media houses and their capacities build up to reflect the challenges of the upcoming battle. The position of independent democratic and anti-corruption watchdogs such as Serious Fraud Office, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice should be strengthened and provided with all the resources they need to function effectively.

With this Ghana could be praised again for leading the continent in the right direction as her democratic credential shows.

By Lord Aikins Adusei

*The Author is a political activist, anti-corruption campaigner and a columnist for American Chronicle. He blogs at www.ghanapundit.blogspot.com