If I Were President: A Road Map for Those Who Would Be Ghana's Chief Executive

By Emmanuel Puplampu

Years of mismanagement, corruption, and unwarranted military interventions in national affairs have left the country in an abysmal pit; efforts to move forward seem so little compared to the journey ahead. The enormity of the problem leaves many presidents little choice but to tinker around the edges of the national economic, political, and social issues. I believe it is time for bold programs to give the much needed jolt to our economy just as the Akosombo dam and Tema harbour did to our economy in the 1960s. The way to extricate ourselves from this morass is to take bold action. This book proposes a way out of this quagmire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504954136

Emmanuel Puplampu

Born on 31 December 1949 in Ghana to Margaret A. Puplampu and Samuel Dedor (Deceased), the author completed his secondary education at Ghanatta Secondary school at the ordinary level and in Mfantsipim School at the advanced level. He received a L.es.L (bachelor’s degree) from the Universite’ du Benin in 1977 and taught French for a year in Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast, Ghana. He obtained a Master’s degree in Administration with a concentration in Public Administration at Coliumbus State University in 1993. He worked for the US Centers for Disease Control from 1991 until his retirement in December 2012. Since retirement, he has been attracted to agriculture and has made investments into organic farming in Ghana.

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IF I WERE PRESIDENT………..

AN ALTERNATIVE PATH FOR THOSE WHO WOULD BE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF NATION GHANA

Years of mismanagement, corruption and unwarranted military interventions in national affairs have left the country in an abysmal pit; efforts to move forward seem so little compared to the journey ahead. The enormity of the problem leaves many presidents little choice but to tinker around the edges of the national economic, political and social issues. I believe it is time for bold programs to give the much needed jolt to our economy just as the Akosombo dam and Tema harbour did to our economy in the 1960s.The way to extricate ourselves from this morass is to take bold action. This book proposes a way out of this miasma.

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2015 Emmanuel Puplampu. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 2/17/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5412-9 (sc)

       978-1-5049-5413-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916699

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Table of Contents

1.   Acknowledgements

2.   Introduction

3.   Transportation

I   The Social Context

II   The economic Context

III   Financing the System

IV   The Pros and Cons of the System

4.   The Real Local Governance

I   Local Governments and Incorporation

II   Ordinance

III   Zoning

IV   Revenue

V   Business Taxes

VI   Tax Structure in Berkeley County West Virginia

VII   Business Taxes

VIII   Corporation net income tax

IX   Business franchise tax

X   Business and occupation tax

XI   Martinsburg City Tax Structure

XII   Telecommunications tax

XIII   Consumers’ sales and service tax (CSST) and use tax

XIV   Business registration tax

XV   Business Licenses

XVI   Property Tax

XVII   Personal income tax

XVIII   Revenue from Fees and Fines

XIX   The Local Budget

XX   Jobs in the Local Area

XXI   Inter-Governmental Relations

5.   The Police Force

I   The Problem

II   Police Organization

III   Organizational structure

IV   Regional divisions

V   Barriers and Road Blocks

VI   No More Barriers

VII   Decentralize the Police

VIII   The New York Police Department:

IX   Police Organization in the US

X   Police Department Organization

XI   Field Operations

XII   Administrative Services

XIII   Traffic Control

XIV   The CID

XV   A Better Approach

XVI   Crime Prevention and Law Enforcement

XVII   Educational Levels

XVIII   Corruption

XIX   Other Law Enforcement agencies

XX   Immigration and Customs

XXI   Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS)

XXII   Environmental Protection

XXIII   Strategic environmental assessment

XXIV   Business Responsibility

XXV   Individual Responsibility

XXVI   Exhaust fumes

XXVII   Dust

XXVIII   Government Responsibility

XXIX   Tax Credits for Energy Efficient Vehicles

XXX   Energy Usage

XXXI   Leading by Example

XXXII   Health Departments

XXXIII   Maintenance Culture

6.   The Civil Service

I   Administrative Processes:

II   The New Office Structure

III   Airport gridlock

IV   Reorganization

V   Administrative Assistant

VI   Government by Contracting

VII   The Judicial Branch

VIII   Lawyers

7.   Creating Employment for our Youth

I   Agriculture

II   Farmers’ Markets

III   Cooperatives

IV   Finance

V   Irrigation

VI   How-to Brochures

VII   Small Business Management Courses

VIII   Automotive Technology

8.   A Review of Our Political System

I   Separation of Powers

II   Mayors and District Chief Executives

III   The Electoral Process

IV   Traditions

9.   Conclusion

I   Table of Figures

II   List of Tables

10.   Metro Rail Program Management Companies

I   Specialties

II   Appendix 2 Siemens

III   Appendix 3 Larsen & Toubro - Rail Infrastructure Construction

IV   Appendix 4 Metro Tunneling Group (MTG) is a Joint Venture of five companies:

V   Appendix 5. Tax Incentives for businesses moving to or starting in Berkeley County WV. http://www.developmentauthority.com/financing-incentives/state-incentives/index.php

VI   Appendix 6 List of Recyclables (Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority)

VII   Appendix 7. Berkeley County 2015/16 Levy Estimate

VIII   Appendix 8 Business & Occupation (B&0) Tax

IX   Appendix 9 City of Martinsburg Business and Occupation tax schedule.

X   WORKS CITED

Acknowledgements

I share the views expressed in this work with many friends and acquaintances. These views have spanned decades and though the final product is mine, because the original ideas have metamorphosed, the core issues have remained the same and the opinions expressed by those friends and acquaintances have proved invaluable to me. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Eugene L Tettey-fio whose profound understanding of the issues have led to insightful comments and suggestions and have given this work its final character. Over the years, we spent days, weeks, months and even years rehashing issues on Ghana politics and governance and those discussions have given birth to this work. Dr. Tettey-fio worked in the Ministries after secondary school and was very critical of the inefficiencies of the administrative structures and processes in place in the 1970s. Suffice it to say that Dr Tettey-fio’s contribution has been invaluable. I am grateful to Mr. Solomon Puplampu, my cousin, for opinions he expressed on the subject of governance in 2014. Although we did not agree on a lot of things, those areas where we found common accord gave me the encouragement to put my thoughts into writing. Last but not least is the encouragement I received from my long-time friend Kofi Obiri-Yeboah. Mr. Obiri-Yeboah has his head buried deeply in technology, having studied avionics during his military career. Notwithstanding his strong drive for technology, his was pleasantly receptive to my attempt to impact governance in Ghana through my writing and was full of encouragement.

Perhaps the most important inspiration came from my daughter Leonora, whose love for writing rekindled in me, a log lost desire to write. She writes short stories any chance she gets and has shown these to her teacher, who was always full of praises. My wife Patricia read a few pages of the book and was instantly pleased with the content. To her, I owe a lot for her encouragements.

To all who directly and indirectly impacted this production, I am eternally grateful.

Introduction

I undertook to write this book not because of presidential aspirations, but because, being out of the circles of power, my voice would have been like a rifle fire in a theater dominated by heavy artillery and bomb explosions. I could have written an article or articles about the various facets of government that I want to address. But this approach would have led nowhere. Articles, like reports of commissions, would be read by some, criticized by a few, and largely ignored by many, and left to gather dust in somebody’s book shelf or better yet, tossed into the litter basket. As a book, however, one would have to believe there could be a modicum of sensible material somewhere between the pages in order to want to buy and read it.

This book is prescriptive in essence, in that, it looks at the current functioning of certain arms of the government and proposes what I perceive as a better way of running that particular agency or lower level government. This probably will be the most controversial aspect of this book, since many, even those who do not have an inkling about the functions and responsibilities of governments, might find the proposals objectionable, if not outright nonsensical. Some will find it offensive because they believe they have a better idea about how government should run. Others will find my proposals to be injurious to their selfish designs and consequently declare every approach untenable. The poisoned atmosphere of political discourse in Ghana is such that there is a tremendous degree of animus, characterized by name calling, insults and vitriol and it would not surprise me a bit if anyone should dismiss the contents of this book as nothing more than garbage. But at least, this garbage would have the merit of being articulated in a coherent manner, and would give reasons why the options favoured in this book offer a better chance for our national development.

Many of the issues I tackle in this book, I have had the occasion to discuss with friends and acquaintances both at home and abroad, and many have tacitly expressed satisfaction with the positions taken in the book. It seems to me therefore that I am on safe grounds when I make suggestions about the future direction of governance in our dear country.

One big advantage of this book is that its contents are offered in an apolitical framework and thus, is less likely to draw the ire of pundits from either side of the political spectrum. Be that as it may, I am pragmatic enough to expect the worst.

I have chosen to address the issues in the order of their importance to me, and not particularly in the format that a text book on political science would have employed. I have no pretensions of writing a treatise on political science. I just wanted to address issues in our system of governance that also happen to be topics in political science. Therefore, tackling the transportation issue first is indicative of the level of priority I accord this issue. Solving the transportation issue has ramifications for our economy in many ways, for the environment, and even in the long run, for food security, national health not to mention national security. It would help in revenue generation and job creation in more ways than one.

Local Governance comes next because most of the prescriptions have a direct impact on local government. In fact, the prescriptions would have local government as the generators of most of our national agenda. As the political adage goes in America, all politics is local. We need to make the local government the real battle field for most of our social and political decisions, so that the experiments, their successes and failures in local areas would inform decisions elsewhere in the country. Healthy competition at the local government level is what will fuel development as it should be, and it is what brings about a better understanding of the nature of political decisions at the national level. It is sad that many of our fellow citizens think government should offer everything free of charge to them, including issues of personal responsibility such as garbage disposal, water consumption and free almost anything, while at the same time, refusing to pay taxes. Local governments being closer to the people are more likely to better explain the whys and the wherefores of government decisions and probably instill lessons of civics in the minds of the local populace.

A vibrant local government will create opportunity in the local areas and therefore minimize the huge attraction for the major urban centers. The local governments will be more likely to offer far better planning and zoning laws than we have seen at the national level. A town will have well defined boundaries and those boundaries will not be elastic as it has been for Accra and other urban centers. Besides, with a thriving local government, the spill-over effect on private business could be monumental.

Much of the discussion on local government is based on research from text books, periodicals and from the internet not to mention my own education in the area of Public Administration. However, in order to get a real life perspective, I also held personal discussions with the County Administrator for Berkeley County and with the Mayor of the city of Martinsburg. In this setting, it is easy to discern the frustration or the enthusiasm of officials depending on the topic of discussion.

The combination of issues discussed in this book, when taken together, will have such a dynamic effect on productivity and wealth creation, that the government will