Nigeria Fuel Subsidy End Raises Protest Fears

The Nigerian authorities have announced the start of a controversial plan to scrap fuel subsidies – which is expected to push up petrol prices.

The government has spent more than $8bn (£5.2bn) on the subsidies in the past year and says it will use some of the money to improve infrastructure.

Labour unions have called for “mass protests”.

Ghana’s Poor Reap None of The New Riches:

By Ben Ofosu-Appiah. , Tokyo, Japan.

From Poverty to Middle Income Status A Boulevard of Broken Promises

Africa’s long suffering people are all too frequently caught in the crossfire of rampaging wars, millions afflicted with diseases, preyed upon by greedy despots and prevented by corrupt leaders and bureaucracies in a kleptocracy from obtaining basic schooling, medical attention, and any semblance of economic opportunities.

A look at the socio-political and economic environment in Ghana today reveals a horrifying picture. There is massive corruption, staggering poverty, unemployment, poor education, deteriorating infrastructure, and general degree of hopelessness among the youth who feel very disappointed and let down by their political leaders. According to the 2007 World Bank Human Development Index, almost half of the national population live below the poverty line surviving on less than a dollar per day. And as many as over 75% live on less than $2.oo a day. The economic conditions felt by the ordinary Ghanaian are poorer than ever.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s Recovery Maintains Momentum

Source: World Bank Report

In its World Economic Outlook Update, the IMF said most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have recovered quickly from the global financial crisis, with the region projected to grow 5½ percent in 2011.

Low income countries, which escaped the worst impacts of the global crisis, are expected to match pre-crisis growth rates of about 6½ percent in 2011. But the recovery in South Africa has been more subdued, restricting projected growth to about 3½ percent in 2011.

UN Official Says Resources, Policies And Leadership Key To Achieving Anti-Poverty Goals

From www.undp.org

Countries can make headway on slashing hunger, poverty and a host of other socio-economic ills over the next five years, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said today, stressing three essential elements for progress.

“With sufficient and predictable resources for development, the appropriate policies, and strong leadership and capacity, we do believe that the MDGs and other internationally agreed development goals can be met,” Helen Clark stated, referring to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which world leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015.

A Snap shot of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings: How to achieve a world without poverty!

By Franklin Cudjoe, Washington, D.C., www.imani.org

The World Bank and the IMF have not had many friends in the developing world since post-Structural Adjustments days, when their advice and interventions, largely backed by aid yielded slow and negative growth.  It is the case though, that dealing with the two Bretton Woods institutions is like loaded dice. In one breadth they provide you with advice, and then in another, they continue to support countries that fail, even when their failure did not originate from bad advice, but essentially rooted in disrespect for the most basic institutions needed to effect real change.

Take Ghana, for instance.  Not all the IMF and World Bank’s involvement in our mostly self-inflicted tottering economy in the 1980s come to doom and gloom? There were significant gains, which could have been used to diversify our agrarian based economy- yet we watched politicians splurge most of the gains on the 1992, 1996 and 2000 general elections. And just when our strangling debts were paid off, with a promise to ‘taking off’ into the middle income bracket, we watered down the gains again in 2008, with a world record deficit of almost 20% to GDP- mostly incurred as a result of light-speed spending, mainly outside of the budget and ostensibly to chase political votes.

The Jubilee House For A Museum; What Are We Smoking?

By Kwaku Adu-Gyamfi (Voice Of Reason)

Are we serious?

I’m not happy. And you shouldn’t be either.

What has me incensed is the fact that two former ministers are talking about wrong issues.

Oh lordy, our vision- impaired and ideas- deficit   politicians never cease to surprise me with their diatribes and time- consuming insinuations.

It’s beyond astonishing to me  that two former ministers  devoted their time  to stir-up  a debate –which doesn’t give the country any dividend—instead of  tackling some of our  everyday  issues .  They’re  yakking while the   plastic bags have  choked up our sewage system, schools are  mis-educating  our  children and  unemployment is stealing  our  youth’s  desires and  aspirations.

SMEs Appeal For Removal of Hurdles to Access Bank Loans

By Carly Ahiable, Business in Ghana

Owners of small businesses in Accra have appealed to commercial banks to ease their rigid conditionality for loans to make it possible for more small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to access funds to develop their business.

The made the appeal during questions and answers time at the second day of a two-day business focused seminar dubbed “Nkontabuo Krakye” seminar developed to get SMEs operators to master and manage their businesses to improve profitability.

The “Nkontabuo Krakye” is carved out of a weekly business programme on an Accra radio station, the Asempa FM that educates SME practitioners on proper business management and record keeping.

Combating Poverty: New Battle Gear for an Ancient War

By Lansana Gberie, Sierra Leone

(A review of Combating Poverty: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics: A Report by United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, UNRISD, August 2010)

Since antiquity the problem of poverty has engaged the consciences of statesmen and thinkers, but few have dared to draw the obvious context – and fuel – for it: inequality. In the happier days of the Roman Empire almost 2000 years ago the estimable Trajan, one of the great Caesars, introduced the Alimenta, which was an ambitious welfare program to help the poor, especially orphans and destitute children, throughout the Italian part of the Empire. Food and education were subsidized. This was the earliest record of a welfare program on such a scale, and it won wide plaudits for Trajan. The great English historian of Rome, Edward Gibbon, surveying this era and particularly admiring of Trajan, wrote that if someone were to “fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation” name the 80 years of the Roman era which included, and was rather dominated, by Trajan’s rule. This was the period of the great Roman peace.

The Scramble For Ghana’s Oil Begins

By Carly Ahiable, Business in Ghana

Some people call it Dino Juice, Texas Tea, Black Gold while other call it the fluid with rising cost but here in Ghana, where the continental shelf is impregnated with oil, crude may be assuming a new name, HOPE (Help Our People to Enjoy). Who want to be hungry and suffer in abundance of oil wealth? Every Ghanaian hopes to enjoy peace and prosperity but how trustworthy are the international agencies and multinational companies in their resolve to develop the oil reserves of Ghana, and keep the nation united and peaceful as they find it?

BURN, BABY BURN – NIGER DELTA GHOST!

By Kwaku Adu-Gyamfi, THE VOICE OF  REASON

ONCE UPON A TIME, the Niger Delta was calm until the oil find

Making the politicians’ bank accounts feel like fluid

Swimming in money like Tsunami flood

Eating, drinking and partying like no tomorrow

While the citizens go to bed with empty tummies

You wonder   why Delta is burning