ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
How is it then possible that the Minerals Commission seems powerless to stop the activities the people are seeing and suffering?
Why are those empowered to protect the people looking on, or away, whilst these heinous activities destroying the very basis of life in our communities are going on?
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to share a story with you.
In 1982, my brother who is the Paramount Chief of the clean and serene Owirenkyiman traditional area on the banks of the river Pra decided to invest in boreholes to provide potable water for the people.
When the drilling company got there to start work, a delegation of chiefs came to see him.
They said they had heard that some people had come to dig boreholes at great cost to provide water for them and their kinsmen.
Their mission was to persuade my brother Ehunabobrim Nana Prah Agyensaim against spending money on the boreholes.
Making their case, they said, "Nana as for water we have plenty flowing clean and pure.
River Pra gives us the best water in the whole world.
We also get our fish and livelihood from it.
Nana, please don't waste the money; we suggest you use the money for something else".
Ladies and gentlemen, can they say that now?
Contrast the quality of water in the river Pra from that time when the chiefs believed they had the best source of water in the world with what we have now - yellowish-brownish water, sullied with poisonous chemicals, and now devoid of aquatic life.
Kushea is just one of hundreds of villages along water bodies.
The beauty and purity of the flowing water have been destroyed.
Rivers Ankobra, Birim, Densu, Offin, Oti and others have all suffered similar fates.
How sad?
It is estimated that about 60% of Ghana's water bodies have been polluted by the activities of illegal miners.
This begs the question, if they are illegal, why do perpetrators get away with it?
Unlike you and I, most of these hard-labouring people and their dependants who make a living on farms to feed the nation cannot afford purified bottled water.
They are forced to use the same brownish, chemical-laden liquid that flows where the refreshing rivers used to run for drinking and cooking.
What about the flora and fauna that also rely on these water bodies for survival?
How are the perpetrators of these heinous acts and their enablers able to sleep at night?
Ladies and gentlemen, as health professionals, I believe you should be concerned about the devastating consequences of illegal mining on the health of the people.
Allow me to illustrate with a personal story.
As you all know I was brought up in Obuasi, which has been associated with mining since 1895.
For a very long time, safety and environmental concerns in mining were never considered.
If you died in a mining activity you were just a statistic.
It did not attract any attention; no newspapers covered it.
Those of us who worked underground did not have earmuffs to protect our ears from the deafening sound, nor did we have nose masks to protect our lungs from the encircling dust.
On the surface the technology was so primitive for processing gold that they were cutting timber and wood from virgin forests, which they had leased to, and using them to burn the sulphide, so they were spewing cyanide, sodium oxide, mercury etc into the atmosphere and when it rained, it was acid rain.
In addition, all the hills around Obuasi were called "bald" hills, because they were all bare, with no vegetation whatsoever.
As kids, we played soccer in a park which we erroneously called "Sennet" park.
It was much later that we found out that it was actually "cyanide park".
This piece of land was made entirely of effluent from the mine that was dumped there and had dried up over the years.
Nothing could grow on it.
The consequence of all this was that respiratory diseases became rampant in Obuasi.
I, myself became a victim.
In fact, I did not know until I went for my first routine medicals in South Africa on my relocation due to work there.
The doctors identified heavy metals in my blood for which I had to undergo treatment for many months.
There was also evidence of lung fibrosis caused by the inhalation of dust containing silica from work in the mines back home.
Thank God it is all clear.
I am just one person but there are many people I grew up with in Obuasi who may be dead due to this or walking around with these diseases without ever knowing.
I am stating this to tell you how passionate I am about the environment.
Ladies and gentlemen, when I had the opportunity, what did I do?
The moment I became Chief Executive, I decided the welfare of our workforce must be paramount.
Any hazards that are within our means to eliminate must stop.
We invested in proper technology and got rid of all the environmentally destructive practices such as cutting timber and burning to spew waste into the atmosphere.
We built a state-of-the-art laboratory dedicated to monitoring in real time how mining operations were affecting the environment.
This was the first of its kind in any mine in the world.
Because we stopped the spewing into the atmosphere, all the hills began to see life, and vegetation could grow.
It warms my heart to note that today they are all forested and there is no effluent being thrown into the rivers.
The scale and manner of destruction caused by illegal mining is, to me, the worst abuse of the human rights of residents in the affected areas.
Once again, this is an issue which is heavily reported by the media and has attracted the attention of traditional authorities.
The responsibility rests will every citizen, and I am happy that the traditional leaders who are the rightful custodians of our lands are speaking up and acting to safeguard the heritage won for us through the blood and toil of our forebears.
Some have been consistent in their condemnation of this canker.
Only a few weeks ago, we all heard that the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu the 2nd destooled a number of chiefs found to be associated with the worst forms of these egregious acts.
In a keynote address to the Ghana Medical Association in 2015, the Okyehene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin made the following observation, "Toxic chemicals such as mercury that have negative health implications on communities for generations are released into water bodies.
The use of these heavy metals has severe health implications that would not manifest immediately but in the near future".
Many years later, "the near future" is here and we are facing severe health defects.
Owirenkyimanhene Nana Prah Agyensaim banned illegal mining activities in his traditional area.
"Whilst the gold may enrich a few today, the illegal mining will cause great harm to people, the habitat and livelihoods of future generations" he stated.
Like Nana Prah, Dormaahene Oseadeeyo Agyeman Badu II banned illegal mining activities in his traditional area.
His ban has helped improve the colouration and quality of the Oti River in his traditional area.
We all can speak up or do nothing but silence is not a choice.
A moment of silence please as we observe what is happening to babies in affected areas… We are learning today of children being born with two heads, broken spines and other birth defects due to the presence of chemicals in the population's food and water intake.
Obviously, the infection has been left untreated and the condition has deteriorated.
This is a present and mortal danger to Ghanaians as a people, and I expect the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana to be seized with this matter.
Unfortunately, not much has been heard from you or other professional bodies, not only on this issue but generally on a wide range of other public concerns.
A healthy nation is a wealthy nation, and if this phenomenon is affecting the health of the people to this extent, then we are headed for a moral and mortal crisis.
It is not too much for well-meaning citizens to expect the Pharmaceutical Society and other professional and public interest bodies to raise their voices.
Where is your outrage?
Why the deafening silence from the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, The Ghana Medical Association, The Ghana Bar Association, The Ghana Journalists Association, and all the respected Associations and professional bodies of Ghana.
There are international attempts to treat environmental damage and harm as crimes against humanity under the term "ecocide".
In 2021, independent lawyers came together to frame a definition of ecocide as "unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is substantial likelihood or severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts".
If the attempts by the lawyers are successful and the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) is accordingly amended, all persons, whose actions and inactions directly and/or indirectly resulted in ecological damage - such as what illegal mining is causing to our environment - will be held accountable by the International Criminal Court.
If we do not sit up as a country to halt this looming disaster of environmental degradation, Ghana and her elected, appointed and environment-poisoning actors may, one day (if Ecocide is finally adopted as a crime against humanity), be an embarrassing spectacle before the ICC.
To safeguard the safety and dignity of our nation, silence is not a choice.
CALL TO ACTION FOR YOU & EVERY ASSOCIATION Ladies and gentlemen, the most important contribution you can make to national development is to recognise your public duty as a professional body.
The history of this country is replete with associations and professional bodies like yourselves playing critical roles in reshaping governance and leadership where things were not going well.
If the ex-servicemen had not taken up the issue to demand their unpaid pensions, the events of 1948 that catapulted our independence from British rule may not have happened.
In 1977, without professional bodies and student groups, UNIGOV would not have been defeated.
When the renowned civil rights champion and preacher, Martin Luther King Jr.
took the pulpit on April 9, 1967, the title of his sermon was the "three dimensions of a complete life".
In that sermon, reverend Luther King Jr.
shared with the congregation that for life to be complete, it ought to be three-dimensional, the length of life - the concern for one's self-interest and development, the breadth of life - the concern for the welfare of others, and - the height of life - the upward stretch unto God.
It was in this sermon that he made the profound statement and I quote, "A man has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity".
I am making a passionate appeal for every Ghanaian to be guided by the tenets expressed in this sermon.
Choosing today's theme tells me that the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana is determined to move beyond the individual concerns of its members to the general well-being of the country.
As pharmacists, you have the responsibility to care about the welfare of the people whose lives your profession exists to protect.
Will you allow the interest of the few to override the future of a whole generation, and generations yet unborn?
Would you rather watch with a side eye or like disinterested spectators while a few take away the lives and livelihoods of millions of people just to make money from illegalities?
In every large group, there are those who magnify rules and regulations to silence and handcuff themselves into inaction.
I hope and pray that the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana will not be counted among them.
Let me end my speech with the wise words of the Native American, "Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish has been caught and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money".
I am truly honoured and privileged for the invitation to speak at this year’s New Year School and Conference.
It is my hope and prayer that at the end of the session we would have added to the reputation of the school as a forum for tackling urgent issues of national development.
This year’s theme -“Job Creation for Accelerated National Development: the role of the private sector”, touches the core of the most critical challenge for our national development – the fierce urgency of creating jobs, particularly for the youth and the role of the private sector in this effort.
I have been asked to speak specifically on creating an enabling investment environment to attract the private sector.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Various commentators including our esteemed Vice President, who is here with us today have reflected extensively on some of the challenges our economy currently faces.
These include but not limited to; high levels of public debt, seemingly unsustainable budget deficit, and weaknesses in our financial services sectors, price instability and low tax mobilization These challenges led us to the IMF a few years back resulting in the imposition of conditionalities the meeting of some of which may limit our options on the management of the economy.
Nevertheless, I note with satisfaction the governments declared an intention to face up squarely to the task at hand, even as they pursue other strategies such as reduction in aid dependency, social intervention programs such as free SHS, one district one factory, one district one dam, to name a few.
I must make the observation that, as laudable as these initiatives are, if they are not prudently and realistically managed, more pressure will be put on the economy.
Ladies and Gentlemen, About a fortnight ago, an incident at the El Wak stadium caught the attention of all of us; we saw on social media an endless queue of the youth waiting anxiously and desperately to interview for a few vacant job positions in the Immigration service of Ghana.
That incident loudly and eloquently captured the crisis of joblessness in our country.
It was a sad spectacle.
This crisis calls for bold and urgent action.
Indeed the urgency of job creation becomes more obvious when we consider Ghana’s demographics.
As we all may know, 60% of our population is under 35 years old.
In this regard, I am sure you would agree with me that unemployment in general and youth unemployment, in particular, has become a critical national security issue.
Our history tells us that, past governments and in particular the Nkrumah government played a very active role in job creation.
We now live in a different era.
In today’s world, it is simply unrealistic to expect that governments by themselves can create jobs on a sustainable basis.
It is now generally accepted that this is the role of the private sector, and if I may say so it would be unproductive for us to engage in idle debate over ideology.
In the words of the late President of the Republic of China -Deng Xiaoping- “It does not matter whether the cat is black or white for as long as it can catch mice”.
For the peace and stability of our dear country, jobs have to be created.
And to do so requires capital.
Capital is flighty, it is nomadic and it is predatory.
Its acquisition is highly competitive.
Capital will go, stay or leave based on which environment promises the best return.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Attracting capital is like a beauty contest and the rules are simply based on current competitiveness.
Are you as attractive as other competitor destinations and will you remain as such?
When I was the CEO of Ashanti Goldfields, we invested in about 17 African countries and since my retirement, I have been advising a number of African Presidents on investment promotion.
I have also been an investor in my own right in a number of African countries.
In my various roles, I have come to appreciate some of the factors which inform investment decision making and I would like to share them with you.
These factors are by no means exhaustive nor stand alone in their impact.
In fact, in some instances, they may be minimum requirements.
Let me say from the very onset that, I do not pretend to speak on behalf of every business person but what I say will hopefully largely reflect the concerns and desires of a large body of the investor community.
Ladies and gentlemen the question is, what do I look for in deciding the choice of investment destination for my capital?
The first point is that I look for a safe, friendly and politically stable environment.
Empirical data confirms that our investment promotion efforts were less successful in attracting private investment during the period of political instability.
As a matter of fact, Gross domestic investment in Ghana fell from 25% of GDP in 1960 to as low as 9% in 1983.
No investment destination, however, is an island.
Your relative attractiveness is affected by what is termed the “neighbourhood effect”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, With all the negative stereotypes against Africa, I’m afraid there is a severe headwind in our efforts to attract investment capital to the continent.
In 1994, I was in New York to address fund managers who had expressed interest in investing in Ashanti Goldfields.
As I was about to leave for the meeting I noticed CNN was reporting with graphic footage the Rwandan genocide.
I knew it will be a herculean task to get the audience to focus on the subject at hand - the Ashanti Goldfields story.
Trust me, the entire meeting was about the genocide.
No effort to educate the audience that Ghana was nowhere near Rwanda was successful.
Africa was and still is one country in the minds of many investors.
Not too long ago the Economist Magazine on its cover page described Africa as a “hopeless continent”.
Also, over the last few days, a prominent world leader has been even more colourful and vulgar in describing our continent.
Africa, as seen through the lenses of the international media, isn’t pretty and sadly that makes investment promotion even more challenging.
The next factor I consider is good governance.
How do public institutions conduct public affairs and manage government resources?
During President Obama’s visit to Accra, he made an observation, that what Africa needed was strong institutions and not strong men.
Do our public officials exhibit the right attitude and discipline?
Are our institutions independent, accountable and fair?
Are they transparent enough and do they engender trust?
Ladies and Gentlemen, Nothing undermines investment promotion than corruption.
Corruption is corrosive and adds to the cost of the business.
To discourage investors from corrupt practices, the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have placed serious and onerous responsibility on investors.
Evidence of corruption by investors or their agents attracts unlimited fines and imprisonment.
Clearly, in this day and age, no credible investor will willingly choose to invest in a country of widespread corruption.
Let me also emphasize that this issue is beyond the presence of anti-corruption laws and institutions.
As one observer noted with respect to Africa, “the issue of corruption is not the absence of laws but the certainty of punishment!”
In 2017 Ghana dropped one place on the Mo Ibrahim Index of African governance to place 8 th out of 54 countries.
Although that position is not comparatively bad, the judgement call that “the country showed signs of deteriorating governance over the past 5 years must be a cause for concern”.
Indeed, investors make reference to publications such as the Corruption Perception Index for guidance when making decisions.
The 2016 index ranks Ghana 70 th out of 176 countries, dropping 4 points from 47 to 43, our lowest since 2012.
In this regard, recent allegations of corruption in the legislature and judiciary were most unhelpful.
The presence of a fair, efficient, reliable and independent judicial system is absolutely critical.
Every investor wants the assurance that in the event of disputes over contracts, they would have a fair hearing, and justice expeditiously administered.
Our justice system is fraught with unending litigation, legal gymnastics, avoidable cost, red tape, etc.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Land plays a crucial role in all investments.
Our land administration system has been in a state of confusion for years.
It is one of the agencies that still defies the digital age.
I’m told that at least three World Bank-funded efforts to modernize and digitize land records and administration have made little impact to date.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Macroeconomic stability is a most desirable factor for investment decision making.
Investors need to be able to model the present and future values of their investment with some degree of confidence and predictability.
A prudent management of key macroeconomic parameters particularly prices (interest rates, inflation, exchange rates, etc.)
is vital.
Currently, in the advanced and emerging knowledge-based economies, jobs are being created in the tech, R&D, artificial intelligence, engineering and agricultural science sectors.
In this regard, we must ask whether there is a match between industry demands and output of our educational system here in Ghana?
Are we producing knowledge workers or is the system producing chronically unemployable graduates?
Has our curricula been adjusted to current needs?
Is there an obsession for the acquisition of degrees and credentials at the expense of relevant technical skills?
Is there a danger of the system producing too many “Know hows” and not enough “Do hows”?
Over the last three years, enrolment at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology makes interesting reading (note the name of the University) … Enrolment into social science courses is higher than the combined enrolment of engineering and science students.
Our polytechnics, for reasons I cannot understand, have been turned into universities and they are now offering social science courses.
The German economy withstood all the challenges of the global downturn precisely because of the reliance on their polytechnics to produce highly skilled artisans and other technical professionals.
The Germans have been so successful that the current US administration has asked for German assistance in training five million artisans.
We need to emphasize science and technology in our educational system.
In a 2015 global report titled “creating the future”, it was reported that 80% of children in India expressed an interest in pursuing careers in engineering.
To enhance our competitiveness, we must produce more knowledge workers for agricultural sciences, engineering, manufacturing, IT, creative arts etc.
Still, on education, I believe we should ask ourselves as a nation whether the cancellation of the GCE O and A levels and introduction of the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate of Examination (WASSCE) has brought a positive change.
From where I sit, I do not think so.
Isn’t it a shame that parents who attended our public secondary schools are not eager to send their wards to those same schools.
Many, who can afford, prefer sending their children to private schools just to be able to take GCE O and A-levels as well as the international baccalaureate (IB) and some similar international programs.
No wonder there’s been an explosion of private schools.
This development cannot be good for social cohesion.
What happened to the saying, “if it ain't broke don’t fix it”?
In the past, products of our public schools could gain admission to top universities worldwide.
Regrettably, today, Oxford University and other top UK universities have boldly spelt out on their websites that, the WASSCE does not entitle our students to make competent applications to study there.
These points are critical given the fact that the theme for this year’s school is on job creation, especially for the youth.
Specific to the Ghana context, the sector which has the highest potential for job creation in the short to medium terms is agriculture.
We have already mentioned the need for a restructuring of the land administration system.
Our agricultural system is largely peasant.
It isn’t out of choice, it is precisely because of the lack of access to capital and technology.
Capital is required to acquire land, plant and machinery, agrochemicals and other essential inputs.