(This writer is a very funny chap. It is sad how this Ahoofe guy simply cannot think. Having got stuck at a community college where many students are either high-school dropouts or simp ... read full comment
NKRUMAH & THE COCOA MARKETING BOARD
(This writer is a very funny chap. It is sad how this Ahoofe guy simply cannot think. Having got stuck at a community college where many students are either high-school dropouts or simply unprepared or ill-prepared for college or university work, this Ahoofe guy has made no practical effort to submit to serious thinking as an educated individual. Additionally, doing third-rate book reviews for the African-American newspaper New York Amsterdam News, a paper that is not even counted among the best 200 newspapers in America, a paper most educated (college/university students) African Americans hardly read, as opposed to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, etc., makes this shallow writer think he is in heaven, bearing in mind that educated African Americans are more likely to read the Daily News and the New York Post than to the New York Amsterdam News. How sad! This writer thinks he is already in the limelight because he writes for a paper that is not counted among America’s best 200 papers! He sees himself as writing for a tenth tier paper the hallmark of academic accomplishment. This is sad!).
Let me get down to the root of my issue today:
The Cocoa Marketing Board we have today is nothing like the one in which JB Danquah had some involvement in 1947 (See the Cocoa White Papers, 1944/1946, and the Nowell Commission for details on the major players). However, Nkrumah’s restructuring of the Board changed everything. The so-called CMB that exists today is what the Nkrumah administration actually put in place in 1951, otherwise called the “Gold Coast Cocoa Marketing Board (Amendment) Ordinance, 1951.”
This 1951 Amendment radically changed the 1947 Cocoa Marketing Board. In fact, the regulatory structure of this Amendment and its relationship to the re-birth of CMB, what we have today, has little in common with the CMB of 1947. Thus, the credit for today’s CMB goes to Nkrumah and his CPP government. It should be noted that the Cocoa Purchasing Company (CPC) was dissolved in 1957. Nkrumah,s position at this point was merely ceremonial without executive powers. Thus, your criticism should go to the then Head of State, the Queen of England, who decided how Gold Coast was run.
Read on (The Nkrumah Government and the Opposition: On the Nation State: Unity Versus Fragmentation, Kwame Ninsin):
“The debate on the Gold Coast Cocoa Marketing Board (Amendment) Ordinance, 1951, provided the opportunity for the Opposition to advance such a position. On the one hand the government’s conception of a unitary nation state directed by one strong central government affected its attitude toward cocoa revenue. For the CPP government, cocoa revenue was common national property. It therefore ought to be centrally controlled and utilized for common benefit. Accordingly it was important that the cocoa board was reorganized in order to ensure effective government control and direction of its policies through a responsible minister.
To that extent government did not consider the Ordinance an infringement on either individual or communal right to the free enjoyment of property. Mr. Ohene Djan, then ministerial secretary for Finance, summarized the government’s view quite succinctly. According to him, the CPP government regarded the cocoa industry as the hub of the economy’s health and the country’s stability. The industry was for farmers as it was for the whole country. “Can we (therefore) separate the interest of the cocoa farmer from that of the rest of the country?” he asked. Talk about farmers’ interest as if it were exclusive and regional was accordingly parochial and far too fantastic.
But the Opposition disagreed. Danquah, for example, charged during the debate that the bill was in violation of the full enjoyment of private property. Its aim was to transform the Cocoa Marketing Board from a trustee to controller and manager of farmers’ wealth so that government could use it for the development of the whole country. He declared: “The Board is not a Trustee for the Gold Coast people. It is a trustee for the cocoa producers.” To reinforce this argument, he stressed that the funds of the GCCMB were not “profits” accruing to government. They were farmers’ earnings. Government could therefore control them only with the expressed consent of farmers. Mr. Awuma (Rural Member for Akpini Asogli) affirmed this same view when he asserted that, “The Farmers of Togoland have always agitated first of all that their share of the accumulated profits of the fund should be calculated, declared and set aside for them. The second is that cocoa should be sold under a separated account.”
The relationship between cocoa revenue and land is an intimate one. Both contain property rights. Hence Danquah could lament that the Local Government Ordinance violated “that sacred right to enjoy one’s property” in the same way as the Gold Coast Cocoa Marketing Board (Amendment) Ordinance infringed the full enjoyment of private property.
This is the crux of the matter! If cocoa revenue and land could be legitimately considered as private property rights then whenever there was the slightest sign of violation of their private enjoyment the grounds for rebellion became incontrovertible. Then rebellion against constituted civil authority, that is, appealing to a higher justice, became justifies. The agitation for a federal state system and bicameral legislature underscored this philosophical viewpoint. And so did the events which immediately preceded the formation of the National Liberation Movement (NLM), the highest organized expression of that agitation…
The CPP government’s view was the exact opposite. For them land and cocoa wealth are social property and should be utilized for the benefit of the whole. The measures which the government instituted to control land and cocoa revenue were aimed at ensuring the unencumbered realization of this goal. In this connection the massive investments in the development of social services like education, health, communication, and housing, which were made at the time, are lasting monuments to the foresight and courage of that regime and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah...
But the Opposition misinterpreted the Ordinance as fixing for cocoa farmers a maximum price of 72 shillings per 60 lbs of cocoa whereas, in fact, the government had rather assured cocoa farmers a minimum price of 72 shillings.”
JB DANQUAH LOST THE DEBATE AND HE AND THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT (NLM) RESORTED TO TERRORISM, KILLING HUNDREDS OF INNOCENT GHANAIANS, INCLUDING CHILDREN. COSEQUENTLY, THIS WRITER CANNOT SAY TODAY’S COCOA MARKETING BOARD IS JB DANQUAH’S BRAINCHILD.
(Nkrumah and State Enterprises (by KB Asante) :
“A colonial initiative to promote social and economic welfare, which has had far-reaching influence on the policies of successive Ghana governments, including the evolution of state enterprises, was the establishment of the Cocoa Marketing Board in 1947 following the Cocoa White Papers of 1944 and 1946. By the Amending Ordinances of 1951 and 1952 under Nkrumah’s pre-independence administration, the Board came under more effective and direct control to replace the difficult search for a sound financial policy by recourse to the resources of the Board. Bauer as early as 1954 warned about some of the possible adverse effects of the operations of the Board on the industry and on the economy. But we are mainly concerned with the effects of the operations of the Board in drying up sources of savings for industrial and other enterprises. Savings for investment could most readily have come from the operators in the biggest in the country: Cocoa farmers and the Ghanaian middlemen, most of whom performed economically useful functions. But efficient middlemen were replaced by organs of the Board; and the farmers were heavily taxed indirectly by low producer prices and the export tax on cocoa. Cocoa prices, fixed by the board, on the prompting of Government, affected levels of income, the standard of living and the ability to save. Government was therefore constrained to assume the role of the entrepreneur. Rapid industrialization could in the circumstances only be most readily achieved through direct Government action in establishing state enterprises.”
Finally, another writer notes: “President Kwame Nkrumah relied heavily on revenue from the CMB surpluses and the cocoa duties to finance his schemes for national development, culminating in the Seven-Year Plan of 1963-64, Nkrumah’s radical approach to development had the support of many western economists.”
LET’S US PUT A STOP TO NEGATIVE REVISIONIST HISTORY.
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. 9 years ago
Esi Brooke, Ninsin is an Nkrumah fanatic, I prefer to deal with real scholars. The "unpleasant" fact of the matter is that Danquah - as attested by no less a personality than Kwesi Armah - did more for Ghanaian cocoa farmers ... read full comment
Esi Brooke, Ninsin is an Nkrumah fanatic, I prefer to deal with real scholars. The "unpleasant" fact of the matter is that Danquah - as attested by no less a personality than Kwesi Armah - did more for Ghanaian cocoa farmers and the economy than Nkrumah.
You may argue in whichever trashy way you want about the Amsterdam News; I have been quoted by the New York Times, so you are not dealing any "community college intellectual" but a real one who has read and done more meaningful research than many of the so-called Legon elites.
It was Danquah who made the viable economy that Nkrumah's copycat Russian-socialist programs/projects so heavily depended upon. So cut this nonsense; I am way post-Nkrumah and I don't intend to revisit your kindergarten level of scholarship.
Esi Brooke 9 years ago
Being so knowledgeable and yet ignorant at the same time is a pity. Most people who are knowledgeable don't blow their own horns like you do. What makes you think you are that smart. Is it because you,ve changed all adjective ... read full comment
Being so knowledgeable and yet ignorant at the same time is a pity. Most people who are knowledgeable don't blow their own horns like you do. What makes you think you are that smart. Is it because you,ve changed all adjectives into adverbs. I am sorry for your kind of intellectual discretion such that I will rather save my time than to debate you. A proverb in my dialect advices, not to argue with a fool, because people might not notice the difference. I will accede to that proverb and make no further comments.
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. 9 years ago
Esi Afropean, I didn't expect you to come back here with any comment, because you don't have any. You see, I know your kind in Ghana; you are largely the reason our beloved country is in such a Stygian mess. We also know who ... read full comment
Esi Afropean, I didn't expect you to come back here with any comment, because you don't have any. You see, I know your kind in Ghana; you are largely the reason our beloved country is in such a Stygian mess. We also know who the real fool is, don't we?
Esi Brooke 9 years ago
I said no more comments as courtesy to readers, because i didn't want to bore my readers over nonsense. If you say you want a go at it, lets have it.
I thought you were smart enough as you claim to avoid a bait so e ... read full comment
I said no more comments as courtesy to readers, because i didn't want to bore my readers over nonsense. If you say you want a go at it, lets have it.
I thought you were smart enough as you claim to avoid a bait so easy to identify. Unfortunately, you proved your frailty of wisdom.
Osama bin Laden, Augusto Pinochet, Omar Bashir, Sadam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Francis Franco, P.W. Botha,Benito Mussolini have all been quoted in The Virginia Military Institute journal, does that make them scholars too. May be it does in the fibble mind of Kwame Okoapa Ahoofe. If stupidity was a value you will have no want of it. You have it in abundance.
See if your Willig is ranked among the top of America's legal brains from link below, "Mr. Know it All"?
The New Times quoted you because Nassau Community College helped you publish one article in the letter section of the New York Times, just that one article. That is not a big deal!
How many of your works have been cited in any respectable American paper the New York Times? No one knows you there at the New York Times. Stop making too much noise.
Who is Prof. Angela Onwuachi-Willig? She is not known, a normal professor at the University of Iowa! What more is there to say? Mind you, Onwuachi-Willig is an ordinary professsor like you. What are you saying?
What has being quoted by another person got to do with anything? Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, and many other shallow scholars have been quoted here and ther, so what is your point?
Therefore, being quoted in Vanderbily Law Review does not mean a thing. How has that imprived anything in the world? YoU GET AN ORDINARY PROFESSOR TO QUOTE YOU AND YOU ARE HAPPY. How about your colleagues like Kwame Anthony Appiah, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, etc., who are quoted everywhere in the most prestigius places in the world?
Get lost, second-rate teacher! More is yet to come. How stupid can you get before you know it is enough?
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. 9 years ago
The one sibling I have who is Appiah and Gates' age is a Columbia University-educated nuclear physicist.
Fuck you, I don't write letters to editors like you, I write essays and articles of substance, you daughter of slaves ... read full comment
The one sibling I have who is Appiah and Gates' age is a Columbia University-educated nuclear physicist.
Fuck you, I don't write letters to editors like you, I write essays and articles of substance, you daughter of slaves!
Tweaa 9 years ago
We cherish descendants of slaves who have proved their self worth than a "bogus" aristocrat from rat infested back water in Akyem.
We cherish descendants of slaves who have proved their self worth than a "bogus" aristocrat from rat infested back water in Akyem.
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. 9 years ago
My Amsterdam News reviews have been cited in military law journals - see the Virginia Military Institute Journal; my work on pan-African studies has also been cited by no less a reputable scholar than Prof. Angela Onwuachi-Wi ... read full comment
My Amsterdam News reviews have been cited in military law journals - see the Virginia Military Institute Journal; my work on pan-African studies has also been cited by no less a reputable scholar than Prof. Angela Onwuachi-Willig in the Vanderbily Law Review. So what is this nonsense you spewing out here? You are not my classmate by any measure, you know? And the list goes on and on and on...
Esi Brooke 9 years ago
I said no more comments as courtesy to readers, because I didn't want to bore my readers over nonsense. If you say you want a go at it, lets have it.
I thought you were smart enough as you claim to avoid a bait so easy to ... read full comment
I said no more comments as courtesy to readers, because I didn't want to bore my readers over nonsense. If you say you want a go at it, lets have it.
I thought you were smart enough as you claim to avoid a bait so easy to identify. Unfortunately, you proved your frailty of wisdom.
Osama bin Laden, Augusto Pinochet, Omar Bashir, Sadam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Francis Franco, P.W. Botha,Benito Mussolini have all been quoted in The Virginia Military Institute journal, does that make them scholars too. May be it does in the fibble mind of Kwame Okoampa Ahoofe. If stupidity was a value you will have no want of it. You have it in abundance.
See if your Willig is ranked among the top of America's legal brains from link below, "Mr. Know it All"?
The New Times quoted you because Nassau Community College helped you publish one article in the letter section of the New York Times, just that one article. That is not a big deal!
How many of your works have been cited in any respectable American paper the New York Times? No one knows you there at the New York Times. Stop making too much noise.
Who is Prof. Angela Onwuachi-Willig? She is not known, a normal professor at the University of Iowa! What more is there to say? Mind you, Onwuachi-Willig is an ordinary professsor like you. What are you saying?
What has being quoted by another person got to do with anything? Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, and many other shallow scholars have been quoted here and ther, so what is your point?
Therefore, being quoted in Vanderbily Law Review does not mean a thing. How has that imprived anything in the world? YoU GET AN ORDINARY PROFESSOR TO QUOTE YOU AND YOU ARE HAPPY. How about your colleagues like Kwame Anthony Appiah, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, etc., who are quoted everywhere in the most prestigius places in the world?
Get lost, second-rate teacher! More is yet to come. How stupid can you get before you know it is enough?
Tweaa 9 years ago
Esi,Okoampa has proved to us that his other sibling has a brain.A vital organ missing in his entire body.
Esi,Okoampa has proved to us that his other sibling has a brain.A vital organ missing in his entire body.
Abeeku Mensah 9 years ago
Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe must sometimes get to know how futures or commodities trading are carried out globally even if Ghana's leaders are nowhere to be found at the table of globally accepted norms. No one I know of in the ... read full comment
Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe must sometimes get to know how futures or commodities trading are carried out globally even if Ghana's leaders are nowhere to be found at the table of globally accepted norms. No one I know of in the last 30 years or so buy commodities at current face value; in fact only fools will attempt to do so on the dime of others or nations where the elite are nothing but classroom paper tigers.
Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe know good and darn well in the US there have been many years where the price of crude oil had fallen and yet prices at the pump in the US had remained high despite fallen crude oil prices; it’s called futures. Yes The NPP and the Danquah-Busia ideologues have always stuck to their devious thinking patterns and continue to ascribe evil intent to others even when your own shit stink to high heaven.
In the first darn place why should a government subsidize prices for consumers in a free market driven economy that is espoused by the NPP? Would that not amount to socialism? What is a free market driven economy if all you nimble classroom educated clowns think there should be subsidies provided by government to reduce unrestrained practices of business that comes with a property seeking free enterprise practices on consumers?
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. 9 years ago
My argument is not about subsidies or socialism, it is squarely about fair market prices for gas at the pump. Here in America, other than social-welfare programs for the extremely poor, which owes no credit to socialism, by t ... read full comment
My argument is not about subsidies or socialism, it is squarely about fair market prices for gas at the pump. Here in America, other than social-welfare programs for the extremely poor, which owes no credit to socialism, by the way, pricing is done by supply and demand and the dictates of the market. And so where is this NPP/NDC poppycock coming from, Abeeku?
NOBODY 9 years ago
It's often said that ignorance is no excuse. To that, one might add, being demented and evil is no excuse. Okoampa-Ahoofe is sitting in his foxhole in New York while pouring out daily demented and dysfunctional propaganda on ... read full comment
It's often said that ignorance is no excuse. To that, one might add, being demented and evil is no excuse. Okoampa-Ahoofe is sitting in his foxhole in New York while pouring out daily demented and dysfunctional propaganda on behalf of Akufo-Addo, and he has the nerves to say "no thanks" for the fuel reduction. Nothing the government does ever satisfies lunatic Ahoofe and his clueless and visionless candidate. Okoampa-Ahoofe is living proof that a string of degrees is no replacement for common sense. No wonder Okoampa-Ahoofe is known on campus as a VIP, Very Ignorant Professor, a demented quack who also happens to be a serial liar working on behalf of a serial losing candidate.
WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!!!
NKRUMAH & THE COCOA MARKETING BOARD
(This writer is a very funny chap. It is sad how this Ahoofe guy simply cannot think. Having got stuck at a community college where many students are either high-school dropouts or simp ...
read full comment
Esi Brooke, Ninsin is an Nkrumah fanatic, I prefer to deal with real scholars. The "unpleasant" fact of the matter is that Danquah - as attested by no less a personality than Kwesi Armah - did more for Ghanaian cocoa farmers ...
read full comment
Being so knowledgeable and yet ignorant at the same time is a pity. Most people who are knowledgeable don't blow their own horns like you do. What makes you think you are that smart. Is it because you,ve changed all adjective ...
read full comment
Esi Afropean, I didn't expect you to come back here with any comment, because you don't have any. You see, I know your kind in Ghana; you are largely the reason our beloved country is in such a Stygian mess. We also know who ...
read full comment
I said no more comments as courtesy to readers, because i didn't want to bore my readers over nonsense. If you say you want a go at it, lets have it.
I thought you were smart enough as you claim to avoid a bait so e ...
read full comment
The one sibling I have who is Appiah and Gates' age is a Columbia University-educated nuclear physicist.
Fuck you, I don't write letters to editors like you, I write essays and articles of substance, you daughter of slaves ...
read full comment
We cherish descendants of slaves who have proved their self worth than a "bogus" aristocrat from rat infested back water in Akyem.
My Amsterdam News reviews have been cited in military law journals - see the Virginia Military Institute Journal; my work on pan-African studies has also been cited by no less a reputable scholar than Prof. Angela Onwuachi-Wi ...
read full comment
I said no more comments as courtesy to readers, because I didn't want to bore my readers over nonsense. If you say you want a go at it, lets have it.
I thought you were smart enough as you claim to avoid a bait so easy to ...
read full comment
Esi,Okoampa has proved to us that his other sibling has a brain.A vital organ missing in his entire body.
Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe must sometimes get to know how futures or commodities trading are carried out globally even if Ghana's leaders are nowhere to be found at the table of globally accepted norms. No one I know of in the ...
read full comment
My argument is not about subsidies or socialism, it is squarely about fair market prices for gas at the pump. Here in America, other than social-welfare programs for the extremely poor, which owes no credit to socialism, by t ...
read full comment
It's often said that ignorance is no excuse. To that, one might add, being demented and evil is no excuse. Okoampa-Ahoofe is sitting in his foxhole in New York while pouring out daily demented and dysfunctional propaganda on ...
read full comment