2014 in retrospect
The year 2014 is almost over and the curtain goes down on arguably one of the most dramatic years in Ghana’s history. Filled with economic crunch, political turbulence, Ebola scare, energy crisis, scandals and allegations of corruption as well as some progress for a country struggling to keep pace with its infrastructural deficit, 2014 will also be remembered for its many industrial strikes and demonstrations.
Advertisement
The year was very interesting politically. It was characterised by intrigues and acrimony. There was tension, especially within the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress, and many times, it rose to a crescendo that many thought the tiny thread that bound the parties together would break.
The Cedi’s fall and rise
Just a step into the New Year, the cedi laced it boots for a race against the country’s major trading currencies. That race took its toll on the currency. If the cedi were to be a human being suffering from diarrhoea, it would have really been emaciated. The depreciating cedi proved to be the worst nightmare for businesses and consumers. The Ghana cedi depreciated cumulatively by 29.8, 29.3 and 24.9 per cent against the dollar, the pound and the euro respectively, from January to August. 
There were even predictions by some analysts that the currency would fall to GH¢ 5 to a dollar by December but it did not reach that far.
Desperate to salvage the situation, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) threw in some measures from February 5, 2014 —including pumping $20 million; cash withdrawals for foreign exchange accounts and foreign currency accounts were permitted for travel purposes and would not exceed $10,000, and the banks were also directed to ask all exporters to collect and repatriate, in full, the proceeds of their exports to their local banks within 60 days of shipment.
However, the action failed to pull the brakes on the fall of the currency, until the measures were reviewed. This somewhat helped the cedi to recover from almost GH¢ 4.0 to a dollar in September to about GH¢ 3.2.
This year, inflation, the rate at which the prices of goods and services change in Ghana also hit 17 per cent for the month of November, the highest in the last four years.
The IMF bailout
While the economy continued to stumble, the government announced its decision to seek an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to “get policy credibility,” as President John Dramani Mahama put it. Negotiations for the financial rescue which ended in November were led by a former Finance Minister in the Rawlings regime, Prof Kwesi Botchwey. The aide is expected to arrive next year and probably last until 2017.
Other Trending Stories
Senchi consensus
Long before the government headed for the IMF, there was a three three-day National Economic Forum at Senchi in the Eastern Region in May, ostensibly to find an antidote to the country’s economic woes.
Among other things, the report from the forum, which has become known as the ‘Senchi Consensus,’ called for the nation to be guided by the Directive Principles of State Policy in national development efforts, anchored in a long term national development framework with a compelling vision. Related to this is the call for a long-term national interest which should supersede all other interests in setting any national development agenda.
2015 budget
In November, the Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, took the nation’s budget to parliament to seek the legislature’s blessing to spend GH¢ 41.4 billion, out of which GH¢30.2 billion is the country’s expected revenue. The deficit is expected to be financed by the country’s partners, some of which have been unwilling to part with funds because of allegations of corruption in the public sector. The European Union was one such partner that kept its purse closed.
Hand of death
It spares no one and does not differentiate between the prominent or ordinary man. The icy hand of death was busy at work in 2014. The nation woke up to the shocking news of the death of one of its iconic journalists with the BBC, Komla Afeke Dumor, on January 18, 2014. June proved to be a black month for Ghana as a number of prominent people passed away.
It was not only the 41-year old celebrated host of the BBC Focus on Africa that was hurriedly swept away by death, clerics— the Ameer and Missionary in charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission in Ghana, Maulvi Dr Wahab A. Adam and Apostle Dr Augustine Annor-Yeboah, the Founder and Presiding Bishop of Christian Praise International Centre (CPIC), breathed their last four days apart on June 22, 2014 and June 26, 2014, respectively. A former Minister of Fisheries in the Kufour regime, Madam Gladys Asmah, also passed away on June 24.
Ebola scare and cholera epidemic
Death continued its rampage, killing close to 200 people in the worst cholera epidemic in three decades in Ghana. More than 12,000 others were hospitalised. As if that was not enough, Ebola, the deadly virus, turned Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone into an epidemic zone, killing at least 7,793. World Health Organisation estimates show that there were more than 19,980 confirmed cases.
The Ebola scare resulted in the delay in opening universities in the country and a ban on international conferences.
The government, with the support of the international community, also built three Ebola treatment centres, provided personal protection equipment and rolled out some measures to tackle any possible spread of the disease.
Strikes and demonstrations galore
While death was busy at work, strike and demonstrations also flowded. In May, the Polytechnic Teachers Association (POTAG) declared an indefenite nationwide strike over the government’s plan to scrap the book and research allowance and instead establish a national research fund.
This lasted for three months and during the period, the government decided to freeze the salary of the striking lecturers, a decision that further fuelled the anger of the teachers but eventually the strike was kept off just in time for polytechnic students to write their examination and prepare for their national service posting. 
Before the dust settled on the POTAG strike, the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) joined their colleagues in the polytechnics over delay in the payment of their book and research allowance.
The mother of all strikes, however, was in October when 12 labour unions made up of public sector workers including doctors, teachers, local government employees, and nurses laid down their tools to compel the government to release their second tier pension funds.
Advertisement
The sticky point of disagreement had been over the appointment of Pension Alliance Trust to manage the funds when the workers claimed they had their own schemes to manage their money. Eventually, the workers called off their strike after the government secured an injunction to restrain them.
While the workers fumed over their pension money, demonstrators were also on the street protesting against a wide range of issues, including fuel prices, the state of the economy and the energy crisis.
From Occupy Ghana’s protest tagged as a middle class demonstration, the NPP led “Ya y den? to wit “what have we done”in Kumasi, the Alliance for Accountable Governance’s “Aagbe w)” and “We are being killed” through to Trades Union Congress’ (TUC) demonstrations, Ghanaians were resolute in demanding a better performance from the government.
Scandals, corruption allegations and controversies
Advertisement
This year did not spare us scandals in public office. They came in abundance. In September, the Daily Graphic broke the story of how the Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Ms Lauretta Lamptey, had, since August this year, moved into a hotel after the US$5,500 monthly rent for her apartment at the African Union (AU) Village expired. Apart from the Auditor-General who queried the anti-corruption institution, Ms Lamptey is also to be investigated by the Chief Justice after the establishment of a prima facie case against her.
Just a month after the CHRAJ scandal, the Daily Graphic again broke another story about a stinker at the National Service Secretariat 
(NSS) where officials of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) uncovered a GH¢7.9 million deep-rooted rot at the scheme. The former Director of the NSS, Alhaji Alhassan Imoro, is under prosecution. A new director, Dr Mike Kpesah-Whyte was appointed to lead reforms at the NSS.
In January, the government signaled its determination to stem corruption in the country, with the termination of all contracts between the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) through the Ministry of Youth and Sports on one hand and its service providers, on the other hand. Several companies were paid huge sums of money for contracts they failed to honour. A former coordinator of the agency, Abuga Pele, is being prosecuted for some financial malfeasance that occurred during his administration.
Another topical scandal for 2014 was the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority scandal where trees were planted by ACI Construction Limited, a company said to be a subsidiary of Roland Agambire’s AGAMS Group, could not be accounted for.
Advertisement
The Authority’s Guinea Fowl Project also did not yield any egg, in spite of the millions sunk into it. The authority had GHc 200 million to spend. Six officials of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) were asked to pay back over 830,000 Ghana cedis to the authority.
HIV Ambassador’s U-turn
In the last lap of the year, Joyce Dzidzor Mensah, one of the women who represent the face of demystifying HIV stigmatisation in the country stunned the country with a rather dramatic U-turn that she was not HIV positive. She had been a living lie for the past seven years, after the Ghana AIDS Commission made her an AIDS Ambassador in 2007, a contract that was terminated in 2012.
Legon tollbooth and national security show of power 
This saga also makes the A-list of Ghanaian controversies in 2014. The summary is that the decision of the university to collect tolls from February 1, 2014 to pay back the loan contracted for the maintenance of the roads became a subject of controversy and public anger. The university claimed it owed its debtors GHc 8 million and the tolls was meant to offset the debt and also bring sanity to the campus.
Even though Parliament has put its stamp on the initiative; the government has opposed the payment, with the Chief of Staff advising the university to rescind its decision.
With back and forth between the government and the university going on, operatives of national security went to demolished the tollbooth with the National Security Coordinator, Lt Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey (retd), described the tollbooth as a “public nuisance” and stated that the “exercise was carried out for the larger interest of the public.”
Lt Col Gbevlo-Lartey was later fired in April and replaced with Mr Yaw Donkor, the then BNI Director.
Ministerial musical chair
Talk of replacements in public office, and President Mahama did his part in 2014 in the musical chair of reshuffles twice this year. In March, the reshuffle had regional ministers changing places—the second time in recent history after firmer President Rawlings carried out a similar exercise in the late 1990s. In May, it was the turn of the sector ministers and their deputies.
VIP drug burst
Ruby Adu Gyamfi alias Nayele Ametefe thought she has things going in her favour when she left Ghana through the VIP Lounge of the Kotoka International Airport with 12.5 kilogrammes of cocaine worth $3.5 million. She was caught at the Heathrow Airport in London on November 10, sparking a great debate about the country’s fight against the drug war. 
Rumours about her carrying diplomatic ebbed and flowed but the British High Commission to Ghana discrete the allegation. He, however, said there was no collaboration between the two countries in the arrest of Nayele contrary to a press statement issued by Narcotics Control Board (NACOB).
Other arrests, including a certain Alhaji Dawood who allegedly made calls for Nayele to have access to the VIP lounge, were made in Ghana and the UK in connection with the drug burst.
Nayele pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in a UK court on November 27. The case has been adjourned to January 5, 2015.
Long before Nayele’s ill-fated trip, 36-year-old Ghanaian business woman was arrested for possessing 10 kilogrammes of a brownish substance suspected to be heroin at the KIA, on April 14.
Mercy Agyeman Prempeh, was arrested at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) by officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) on her arrival from Tanzania, carrying drugs worth $650,000.
In May, two Ghanaians, including the owner of Le Baron Hotel at East Legon in Accra, David Kwadwo Anim, have been busted at the Heathrow Airport in London for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering.
Castro’s disappearance and Kenu’s slaps
It has been almost 6 months and the disappearance of hiplife musician, Castro and his female companion who drowned while jet skiing at Ada is still a topic for discussion. The musician together with his friend Asamoah Gyan, the Black Stars Captain, and others, were in the area to have fun when the unfortunate happened.
With Ghana’s law stating that a missing person could only be declared dead after seven years, Castro still remains a missing person.
This has, however, brewed a lot of speculations in the ‘pot of rumours.’ In September, a Daily Graphic reporter, Daniel Kenu’s , attempt to seek information to clear the air during a Black Stars pre-match press conference in Kumasi, allegedly earned him (Kenu) some beatings in the hands of Baffour Gyan, the brother of Asamoah Gyan, and some thugs.
The state began the prosecution of the case but in a move that shocked the entire country, Mr Kenu withdrew the case on September 19, before a packed courtroom in which the Managing Director, Mr Ken Ashigbey and Director of Newspapers, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo were present but had no knowledge of the decision.
He later apologised for the decision citing personal reasons and the health of his mother. On November 19, he was fired by the company. However, in a swift reaction, the board of the company and the National Media Commission directed that Mr Kenu should be reinstated.
Missing baby saga
Castro cannot be found, and so is the entire country still looking for Madam Swabia Abdul-Mumin’s baby that disappeared at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi. The baby was allegedly stillborn to on Wednesday, February 5, this year, but her body could not be found.
Her relatives reacted to the incident and descended on the hospital allegeding that the baby was stolen.
The Ministry of Health ordered investigations into the scandal and some hospital staff, including nurses and a doctor on duty were interdicted and later arrested by the police. They were asked to proceed on leave in February. The Chief Executive Officer of the hospital Professor Ohene Adjei, was also asked to take all his accumulated leave in March.
Apart catching the attention of Parliament, the Attorney General’s Department also opened investigations into the saga.
Footbal matters
A messy Brazil 2014 appearance
Kenu was the only person in sports circles to be at the receiving end of slaps and punches. Black Stars midfielder, Sulley Muntari, and a Black Stars management member, Moses Parker, traded blows in a messy Brazil World Cup appearance that marred the nation’s image internationally.
The messy affair started with players demanding their appearance fees before their final group game against Portugal. The government had to fly $4 million to the players. The team was booted out of the competition in the group stages, the first time since Ghana’s first appearance since Germany 2006.
A three-man Presidential Commission chaired by a High Court judge, Justice Senyo Dzamefe was inaugurated to investigate the events that unfolded in Brazil. Tears flowed freely when the former Youth and Sports Minister, Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah and former Adenta Member of Parliament, Mr Kojo Adu-Asare, a member of the team in charge of supporters and logistics, appeared before the committee.
Black Stars coach sacked
Black Stars coach, Mr Kwesi Appiah, was also axed on September 11in spite of being in a good position to qualify the team to Morroco 2015 which later became Equitorial Guinea 2015. No reason was given for his removal but the speculation was that it was because he granted radio interviews that he wanted a technical director when in fact he agreed to it much earlier.
New Black Stars coach
In November, Avram Grant, former Chelsea Coach arrived as Appiah’s successor. He has been charged to lead the Black Stars to a respectable place in the 2015 AFCON but must win the ultimate in 2017 to retain his job.
Equitorial Guinea was handed the right to host the AFCON after Morroco’s exit over a possible Ebola spread.