Open letter to Australia High Commissioner designate to Ghana

I introduce myself as a long term resident in Australia.

I congratulate you on your appointment as Australia’s next High Commissioner to Ghana. This open letter would be helpful when you take up your appointment in the next two weeks.

Let me note here that the next three years would be most challenging because the diplomatic relations between the two countries have never been warm.

Early diplomatic issues

It would be recall that conflict in Ghana-Australia started early - in the 60s.

Australia through its Chancery in Accra played a significant role in the 1966 military coup that overthrew the Government of Ghana and African leader Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Many described it as boy scout role,

In 1972, the Supreme Military council that overthrew the Busia successor Government placed embargo on interactions between Government employees and Australian diplomatic personnel throughout the duration of the SMC (72-79).

During Limann government between 1979-1981, and the first part of the JJ Rawlings’ PNDC military Government between 1981-1984, the relations between the two countries remained lukewarm

Diplomatic hiatus

Four years into the Rawlings PNDC military Government, disaster struck – cessation of physical representation in each other’s country for the first time since 1957.

The announcement on 19 March 1985 in the Canberra Times stated: “The department had decided to open missions in Ethiopia and Mauritius following a review of Australia's overseas representation. However, the new missions had to be opened within existing resources. Something had to go”. What had to go was the mission in Ghana, then Australia’s oldest African mission.

Thereafter the Ghana High Commission in Malaysia and later Japan looked after Ghanaian interests in Australia, and the Australia High Commission in Nigeria looked after Australia’s interest in Ghana.

Ironically it was this period of diplomatic hiatus that saw the warmest relations between the two countries; a period of increased and robust resource engagement.

The current Australian Prime Minister RT Hon Malcolm Turnbull, in partnership with former NSW Premier Neville Wran owned the goldmine Golden Shamrock in Ghana. Incidentally Neville also became Consulate General of Ghana in Sydney who may have nurtured diplomatic relations between the two countries back to normalcy.

Restoration of diplomatic normalcy

In 2004, after almost 20 years, the Australian High Commission reopened offices in Ghana, and took a low profile till the appointment of Joanna Adamson in 2013.

No doubt, with the help of husband Geoff Randal, former New Zealand High Commissioner to South Africa, in a duumvirate High Commissionership, Joanna stepped up the activity of the Australian High Commission, although she raised eyebrows in some quarters.

Your appointment

Your appointment was announced in a press release on 5 May, one business day to spare before the current Government entered caretaker mode for the 2 July Australian general elections; the release being a truncated version of your background at www.wheelercentre.com as follows - Andrew Barnes: Andrew Barnes is Director of the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Section in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

As well as managing Australia’s bilateral relationships with the countries of Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, Andrew’s section has responsibility for the management of DFAT’s Extractives Program in Africa. Prior to joining the Africa Branch, Andrew was Director of DFAT’s Counter-Terrorism Cooperation Section managing CT capacity building programs in Indonesia and the Philippines.

During his career in DFAT, Andrew has had postings in Canada and Stockholm and also worked in the Department’s Western Australia State Office. In 1995-96, he worked for the World Food Program and then with an NGO in southern Sudan, managing emergency food relief operations, and IDP camps.

Your appointment is high profile indeed! Your skills set is perfect for protecting Australia’s interest in the region, as you are also non-resident High Commissioner to Ghana’s three neighbours as well as Senegal and all the English speaking Western African countries except Nigeria.

The recent kidnap of an Australia couple in Mali, the restlessness of Australian miners working for up to 20 mining companies in Ghana alone and the growing terrorist menace in West Africa may have informed your appointment. But there are challenges you may face, outside Australia’s parochial interests such as economy, education, science, culture, communication and commerce, as well as challenges peculiar to the Ghana-Australia relations.

Challenges

1. Australia – Ghana relations

Some hold the view that Australia does the dirty work for the West in our countries because of the advantage of being less noticed. That view has persisted in Ghanaian intelligence circles since the coup of 1966. Australia must look after her exclusive interests and convince her Western allies that any activities outside those narrow interests in our countries can be counter-productive.

2. Australia African policy

From September 2013 to September 2015, during Tony Abbott leadership, Australia saw a most virulent anti-African posture, with Australia slashing Aid to Africa; particularly the West African region by 70%, and relegating Africa to the lowest rung in diplomatic priorities. Ironically it was during this period that Africa backed Australia membership of the Security Council in 2013 and 2014.

In your duties as High Commissioner in the region, you must give feedback to Canberra to revise the recent appalling disposition towards Africa. You would be in a position-particularly in Ghana-to impress on Canberra that Australia gains more from Africa diplomatically and economically than Africa gains or could ever gain from Australia.

There are 230 companies owned by Australians in 42 African countries, with a combined total annual turnover of 10 billion dollars, equivalent to 10 months of Australian debt servicing per annum.

Reason for the adverse Australian policy has been attributed to the entrenchment of White South African émigrés in powerful positions in Australian institutions, industry and politics.

You may like to disabuse Africans of this view, but it is the view of most Africans and the view I gathered from the AU secretariat – and one that could banish Australia in the political consciousness of Africans for some time.

3. Africans in Australians

To address the declining place of Africa in Australia foreign policy, leading African leaders in Melbourne launched an annual Australia-Africa dialogue series and invited Kevin Rudd on 21 May 2013 to give the inaugural Australia-Africa Dialogue address at La Trobe University.

When Rudd regained the Prime Ministership in June 2013, he sought to effect some of the feedback he had at the summit; prominent among them was a standing Prime Ministerial African Advisory Committee drawn from the African community in Australia. When Tony Abbott became Prime Minister in September 2013, he abolished the PMAA committee, slashed Aid by 70% to Africa, truncated all existing African scholarships and was by deeds and actions virulently anti-African.

The African Academics who organized the inaugural Australia-Africa Dialogue address at La Trobe University were all made redundant. They constituted 80% of La Trobe academics

That was not the only example of the arbitrariness with which African employment is handled in Australia. Last year, I undertook investigation of 14 Africans who lost their jobs under irregular circumstances during the first year of the Abbott Government.

One that touched me the most was a physically disabled African who lost his job after first being taken off ongoing employment, to contract employment - renewable yearly, and after being ordered to share toilets with patients where before he had access to staff disable persons toilets. I represented him at the Australian Human Rights Commission, which ruled that if he had accepted and worked under the changed conditions, he could not complain later.

Our pleas fell on deaf ears - that there was neither performance appraisal nor prior adverse report on his performance nor changes in work availability facing his employers before the change in his work conditions, and that he accepted the changes under duress because of a need for employment. The employer’s obligation to provide for a person of disability became a footnote in the whole matter.

The truncation of his quest for redress was not a typical of Africans in Australia employment distress. Most abandon legal redress because they find regulatory bodies, workplace tribunals and the courts so hostile, insensitive and unhelpful that they elect not to add to their emotional trauma and the devastating consequences on health and family.

From discussions with the Ghanaian diaspora in other Western countries, this is peculiar to Australia.

The best Ambassadors of Australian interest in Africa are not only your diplomats in Africa, but those Africans that have presence here and integrated within the Australia society. Those with the greatest interface with decision makers and forefront community leaders are incidentally those most affected.

In your appointment as H.C in Ghana, you might like to keep an eye on how Africans are treated in Australia, particularly in the workplace. While this might appear an odd request for a diplomatic representative, your predecessor took keen interest in what Ghanaians in Australia discussed on the many Ghanaian internet discussion, and I thought you might like to put that facility to better use.

4: Australia Aid to Africa

I am not one of those who believes Australia or for that matter, any other western country does Africa a favour by giving her Aid. Because you take more from Africa than you give in Aid.

Slashing already pathetic levels of aid is therefore not an option. I am in agreement to Aid withdrawn where the Aid is not being used for the purpose it was given, i.e. ends up in the pockets of corrupt government officials.

But the option is diversion to projects that you can ensure ends up in realizing its purpose. You may like to find out from the Yankees how they built the Bush Highway in Accra

If you are able to achieve half of what I propose here, you would be an African hero of all time; and not because you rescued Australian hostages or established a Maginot line in West Africa against terrorists.

Dr. George Kweifio-Okai

Melbourne, Australia.