OccupyGhana End Of Year 2014

This year, in response to the rapidly deteriorating economic situation, rampant corruption and mismanagement, the inability to create jobs and unreliable electricity supply, hitherto silent concerned Ghanaians rose up and demanded action from our leadership.

We submitted a petition to the President on July 1, 2014 signed by a number of concerned citizens, in which we outlined a number of issues and demanded that the Presidency responds within 100 days.

The Chief of Staff replied to acknowledge receipt of the Petition and promised that it was going to receive attention.

We hoped to see some results, engagement and/or a roadmap of actions to address the concerns of Ghanaians as
outlined in the petition.

Counting down to the hundredth day, we organized two public forums to sensitize Ghanaians on the critical need for reform in the electoral process and reforms necessary to salvage the rapidly deteriorating education system.

On 29th August, 2014, OccupyGhana marked the first anniversary of the verdict in the highly contentious 2012 election petition with a public forum and presentation on proposed electoral reforms. As you may recall the Electoral Commission was invited to this forum, as Ghanaians wanted to hear about progress made or a roadmap for implementation of electoral reforms proposed by the Supreme Court Justices in that all important election petition verdict.

The Electoral Commission initially turned down the invitation with the excuse they were too busy, and a representative who showed up during the presentation was unable to satisfactorily demonstrate a commitment on the part of the Commission to carry out any reforms.

OccupyGhana issued a communiqué outlining proposed reforms with the expectation that the Electoral Commission in consultation with key stakeholders would commence a transparent process of implementation.

To the best of our knowledge this has not happened.

We will therefore take up the issue again in 2015 and bring the necessary pressure to bear on the Commission to take up its responsibilities to ensure that the necessary electoral reforms will be carried out in good time before the 2016 election cycle begins in earnest.At the forum on education held on 2nd October 2014, speaker after speaker lamented the apparent lack of progress in our education sector despite the huge sums of money spent. The Director General of the Ghana

Education Service was on the panel and spoke well to explain Ghana Education Services' efforts in improving the educational sector. Nonetheless, the general view from panelists and participants who spoke during the interactive session was unanimous that the managers of our education system were not performing to expectation.

Hence, the panelists and participants agreed that this had a wide reaching negative impact on all aspects of national life. Special mention was made by panelists and participants (including a foreigner) of our lack of focus on vocational and technical education, which has cost and still continues to cost the nation in many ways.

In the search for solutions, speaker after speaker urged the government to be sensitive to the needs of the nation and ensure by whatever means that managers of education deliver results to fit national needs instead of trumpeting excuses.

The general sentiment backed by evidence, was that majority of workers within the education sector; teachers, administrators, headmasters, GES officials, and those at the Ministry of Education were not performing, despite
the enormous investment.

In a communiqué after the forum, OccupyGhana, committed itself to pursue this dialogue and work with other stakeholders to determine a clear way forward and to keep the pressure on government to put its shoulder to the wheel to improve education in Ghana.

Though there have been some minor positives over the period, unfortunately the Presidency did not respond to
the demands in the petition within the 100 days.

We therefore organized a press conference at which we declared our dissatisfaction with the lack of response from the Presidency and announced several steps that OccupyGhana would take to address some key issues that affect the nation.

At that conference, OccupyGhana committed to scrutinize public expenditure to ensure accountability and reduce waste in public expenditure. We subsequently held two public forums on corruption, which brought the issues centre stage.

We announced in detail the actions we would take against the office of the Auditor General, who is constitutionally empowered to deal directly with financial malfeasance and charged with the responsibility of preventing corrupt practices related to the use of public funds, with powers including disallowance and surcharge of certain expenditure on erring officials.

In pursuance of this commitment, we wrote to the Auditor General, the Attorney General and the Office of the President and demanded concrete actions to retrieve misappropriated and stolen public funds within 30 days.

OCCUPYING HEARTS AND MINDS FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

We declared our intention to go to court if the Auditor General did not take the specified actions within the 30-day
period. The period from 12th November to 11th December 2014 marked 30 days. The following correspondence took place during the 30 day-period, which we would like to report to Ghanaians:

i. The Auditor General responded in a first letter dated 13th November 2014 asserting that under the Constitution, he is not answerable to anyone, and rather offered to educate OccupyGhana.

ii. OccupyGhana responded firmly on 25th November 2014 to state that the Auditor General was not unanswerable and to insist on receiving the answers we had requested for.

iii. The Auditor General subsequently responded with a more engaging letter dated 28th November 2014 agreeing to respond by the stated deadline.

iv. The Auditor General on the 9th December 2014 before the 30th day deadline responded in a 29-page “confidential” letter detailing his answers to our request.

On the basis of stamping his letter as "CONFIDENTIAL" we have been unable to disclose its contents to the general public. Further, that letter means that our intended court action has had to wait for our lawyers to study the

Auditor General's reply and advise us on the next course of action.

Let it be clear, we will continue to press for greater probity and accountability to ensure that Ghana our beloved
country is free from corruption and mismanagement. It is gratifying to note that since our action, both the President, in two speeches, and the Finance Minister in the 2015 budget, have made statements regarding the Auditor General fully exercising his powers of disallowance and surcharge, and urging officials to implement his recommendations.

We wish to place on record our satisfaction that key members of the Executive, namely the President and Finance
Minister, have joined our call for the full application of all the powers of the Auditor General and for the full implementation of ALL his recommendations.

We must however state that we believe in deeds, and not just words. We will only rest when all surcharges that should have been issued from 1992 to date have been duly issued, and processes duly commenced to recover all of
the nation's monies that have been misapplied or simply stolen.

We believe that the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and the Ministry of Finance are short-changing Ghanaians on petroleum prices. We are a nation of laws and on utility pricing we are guided by the automatic adjustment formula. It is worrying just as it may be fraudulent not to pass on the effect of a drastic reduction in prices to Ghanaians.

The excuse by the NPA that the 1.5bn cedis owed the BDCs should be mainly solved by staying prices is wrong. It is even egregious for the Finance Ministry to suggest the Forex and subsidy arrears be solved through taxation. Why should the already overburdened Ghanaian citizenry be paying for the gross inefficiency of the Government?

OCCUPYING HEARTS AND MINDS FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

OccupyGhana is very concerned about the issue. We support TUC and other calls for an immediate reduction in the
price. We note with concern profit gouging by BDCs and OMCs. We are also concerned by the manner in which the
taxes have been imposed and the burden passed down to consumers.

We expect the Government and the NPA to reduce the price of petroleum products in line with the effective world
market pricing within the next 5 working days, failure to do so OccupyGhana will look at the implications for our
governance and the right of the Ghanaian and we will issue a full statement of our intentions.

Going forward, we have listed a number of actions which we will take in the same vein to compel public officers to
act according to law and run this nation right. In the coming year, we shall continue to tackle the unfinished business
with the Auditor General, Electoral Reforms and Education Reforms. In addition to these, we shall be demanding
accountability with respect to the following national issues:

a. THE GETFUND

b. THE GHANA ROAD FUND

c. GOVERNMENT PAYROLL WITH GHOST NAMES

d. RECOVERIES RELATED TO GYEEDA.

e. RETRIEVAL OF JUDGMENT DEBTS SUCH AS THAT PAID TO ALFRED WOYOME

f. A MOVE TO OCCUPY PARLIAMENT AND DEMAND GREATER SCRUTINY OF LOANS AND BILLS

PASSED AND FOR PARLIAMENT TO BE A MORE EFFECTIVE CHECK ON THE EXECUTIVE.

At this juncture we want to pause to emphasize a point.

That, we the people of Ghana are the source of all power in this Republic. It is on our behalf that all persons elected or appointed into public office exercise their power and it is imperative therefore that all these persons are made accountable to Ghanaians. Nobody can ever purport to be above ordinary Ghanaian citizens, and no one can place him (her) self above the laws of this land and our courts.

Ours is a country of laws and we shall continuously strive to uphold and defend the rule of law as enjoined by the
Constitution. It must be further emphasized that citizens have a right to call public officials, and even the President
to account, and to question them on their stewardship; indeed that is what democracy is for.

This is healthy, and must be encouraged. It is not in the power of public officials to refuse to respond when citizens
ask them legitimate questions about their stewardship, and if they refuse to, we will be forceful in our demand. We
wish to assure Ghanaians that this fight is not over and will not stop until we set Ghana in the right direction.
We ask for the support of all Ghanaians. OccupyGhana is here to stay. We are a group with a firm intent to affect
the leadership and politics of this nation for good. OccupyGhana is open to all persons who have Ghana at heart.

Our cause is right and we will persist till Ghana rises again. We entreat all to consider OccupyGhana as a watchdog
for the people by the good people of this dear nation. We thank all Ghanaians and friends of Ghana for joining and
supporting OccupyGhana in this fight. We also wish to take this opportunity to wish all Ghanaians a very merry

Christmas and prosperous corruption free New Year.God bless us all.

Yours in the service of God and Country.

George Andah

For OccupyGhana

ABOUT OCCUPYGHANA®

OccupyGhana® is a socio-political non-partisan pressure group with the vision of engaging Ghanaians in the development process and ensuring good and responsible governance. We are firmly committed to ensuring that
Ghana develops to its full economic potential and remains a strong democracy.