Following an upsurge of pre-election violence that has killed three people and injured many others in northern Ghana, experts fear hostilities will continue in the months leading to December presidential and legislative elections.

Charred remains of houses, walls riddled with bullets, and burnt cars and are talismans of last week’s violence in the Northern Region's capital of Tamale. Violence erupted  following a shooting incident on 31 August that abruptly ended a political rally organised by the ruling New Patriotic Party.
 
A 12-hour curfew is currently in force and additional joint military-police patrols have been deployed on the streets.

Fred Degbe, president of the religious non-profit Christian Council, told IRIN, “If Ghana burns because of politics we have nowhere else to go, so it’s in our interest to do everything possible to preserve the peace we are known for in the sub-region.”

Burnt remains

Affected by the violence was Alhaji Mahama Jeboni, an opposition party chairman for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who is based in Tamale.

His 30-year-old daughter, Sayakulu Mahama Jeboni told IRIN, “The attackers asked my father to choose between his life and his properties. There were about a hundred people all armed. They were arguing whether to burn the houses first or my father’s commercial vehicles. They set fire to all of his eight cars.” She said the flames razed their three homes to the ground. “Everything was burnt, all our possessions, possessions dating back to one hundred years. We have nothing left,” Jeboni told IRIN.

Violent flashpoint

There have been other conflicts since the beginning of 2008, mostly based on land rights, but none that turned deadly.

In early August 2008, violence erupted during voter registration as supporters of the two main political parties vandalised registration centres and traded gun shots.

December elections

In December 2008 Ghana’s President John Kufuor is expected to hand over power as he has served the maximum constitutional eight-year term.

The ruling New Patriotic Party seized power from the National Democratic Congress in 2000 during the first peaceful democratic transition of power since Ghana attained independence in 1957.

Now for the first time in 16 years the NPP, a party that won power while in opposition, must hand over the presidency and with polls predicting a close race with a high possibility of a run-off, that president could equally come from the NPP or the NDC.

But for Degbe, who is helping to launch an anti-violence campaign in the north, “the importance of the elections can never be a justification to destroy the country’s peace.”

IRIN

Ahmed Ould Neda, reporter of Akbar Info, a Nouakchott-based independent news agency was on August 7, 2008 arrested and detained by the Mauritanian police while covering a demonstration against the new military regime in the country.
Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that Neda’s camera with pictures of the police assault was confiscated. 

The demonstration had been organized by a broad coalition of four political parties against a coup d’état that ended the young democratically elected regime of President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.

On August 6, a group of military officers led by General Mohammed Ould Abdul-Aziz, former head of the presidential guard toppled President Abdallahi’s administration after he (General Abdul-Aziz) and three other senior officers were dismissed.

However, another demonstration in support of the takeover on the same day and led by General Mohammed Ould Abdul-Aziz went on without interruption.

The arrest and detention of Neda brings to three, the number of journalists detained in Mauritania. Two other journalists, Mohamed Nemar Omar, and Mohammed Ould Abdelatif, editor and reporter respectively of the “Al Houriya” an Arabic newspaper have been in prison since July 23, 2008 over an article they published relating to corruption in judiciary of the country.

MFWA is deeply concerned about the highhandedness displayed by the police in Mauritania. We are requesting for the immediate release of the journalists.

Media Foundation for West Africa  

Discontent in Senegal’s capital Dakar, where millions depend on imported rice and foodstuffs, has increased in lockstep with rising global food and utility prices. The government has touted a “self-sufficiency” rice growing campaign as its answer to people’s problems, but experts say the scheme is flawed.

“The government has not set out a credible vision for agricultural and rural development. Their vision is not one that will really help develop the rural economy,” Jacques Faye, ex-director of the agronomy research institute of Senegal, told IRIN.

In the latest show of public concern about rising food and fuel prices, around 1,000 protestors marched in Dakar on 26 April, some carrying signs reading “we are hungry”.

The march was peaceful, unlike previous demonstrations in November 2007 and March 2008 when marchers were dispersed by riot police.

The plan

Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade announced on 18 April that the country will become self-sufficient in staple foods by 2015 through a “massive” crop expansion programme, dubbed “the grand agricultural offensive for food security”.

Under the new plan the government says it will increase rice production to 600,000 metric tonnes (mt) annually - up from the current 100,000 mt.

This marks a shift in government strategy, which since the 1970s has shown an unwillingness to invest in agricultural development, according to Matar Gaye, regional livelihoods manager for non-governmental organisation (NGO) Oxfam.

What high-quality rice Senegal currently does produce is exported, leaving the country heavily import-dependent. “It is almost impossible to find local rice in Senegal,” Gaye said.

“State has to create right conditions”

The country has the right environmental conditions for high yields, said Amath Sall, the agricultural minister, and enough land to surpass the 600,000 mt target.

“The soil and climate in Senegal is as good as in Thailand from where we import much of our rice, and our yields in the north at 6 mt per hectare are higher than Thailand’s 4 mt,” Sall announced to the press in mid-April, estimating that there are 250,000 hectares of irrigable land in the north of Senegal and in Casamance in the south.

“We have enough land, good soil, all we lack is the money” said Saliou Sarr, a rice cultivator in northern Senegal. “We can fill the gap, but the state has to create the right conditions.”

Few experts have come out to say the targets are unachievable, but many are hesitant to endorse them. One agricultural expert told IRIN: “Theoretically it is possible to meet these [rice] targets… but jumping from 20 percent to 100 percent, given the trend of the past 20 years where yields have been stagnant or even decreased, will certainly be a challenge.”

Funding

Amadou Tidiane Wane, an agricultural engineer, estimates that boosting rice production to 534,000 mt per year will require US$335 million, which is equivalent to the government’s total agricultural budget for the past five years.

So far, the government has announced US$23.7 million to tide over vulnerable people in rural areas but has not outlined how much it will spend on boosting long-term agricultural development overall.

While there is plenty of land available, levelling it to make it cultivatable costs up to $7,181 per hectare, according to Gaye, not even taking into account the costs of maintaining it in the future.

Currently, rice producers in Senegal rely on credit from investors to underwrite their seeds, fertiliser and pesticide inputs. Without credit, rice producers cannot afford to buy fertilisers and pesticides, the prices of which are also steadily rising.

Likewise, rice processors who buy paddy rice from producers to turn it into edible white rice cannot afford to buy without credit, leading to bottlenecks, according to Gaye.

Rice production is however seen as a risky investment because of environmental hazards. In 2006 half of the rice seed in the Senegal river basin in the north was eaten by birds before the harvest, according to producers associations.

Loans from the national bank dried up after large numbers of rice producers defaulted on their repayments in the 1990s.

"If the goal is self-sufficiency in rice, the credit issue must be solved. The state must regulate this, and grant loans to farmers. Without credit they can’t do anything,” said Abdou Fall, executive director of the Agricultural Development Corporation.

Addressing the credit crunch

To solve the credit crunch Woré Gana Seck, president of the Council of Non-Governmental Organisations Development Support (CNODC), proposes that investors and donors help establish cooperative banks with low interest rates to avoid producers becoming indebted to international financial institutions.

“Farmers must be stakeholders in the credit system so if there are threats to the crop and they risk defaulting everyone can cushion the blow rather than credit being further restricted,” said Gaye.

The slate should be wiped clean for rice producers who are now being denied credit because of loan defaults in the past, according to NGO Self-sufficiency, Development and Integration in a press release on 25 April.

This will require support from donors and international financial institutions, according to the Agricultural Development Corporation’s Fall, and they appear to be ready to increase the current pot in view of the potential crisis in import-dependent countries.

The World Bank announced in early April it would nearly double loans from US$450 to 800 million dollars to the agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa, while Louis Michel, the European commissioner for development, said the European Development Fund would double its funds to US$1.8 billion for its 2009 funding round.

But Senegal-based agronomist Ibrahima Sene wants to see this money spent on a holistic redevelopment of the agricultural sector, not just on rice production.

"The government project… does not yet address all agricultural products, including peanut seeds and millet, and does not address how farmers will surmount fertiliser and fuel prices to enable them to reach these targets.”

Innovation

Elsewhere in West Africa, to try to boost self-sufficiency, rice-breeders are creating new locally-adapted breeds of rice which are early maturing, disease resistant and have the same taste that local communities prefer, as well as “spikes” that protect the rice from birds.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is spearheading a project in 10 West African countries, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, to do this, and Senegal is likely to be included in future trials - funding permitted - according to Stella Kihara, project spokesperson.

For the World Bank’s director of operations, Madani Tall, the jury is still out on whether or not the target can be reached, but he concluded: “There is no magic wand for Senegal to go from being a rice importer to becoming self-sufficient in grains. There is only sweat, and gradual, rational reform of the agricultural system.”

Thousands of members of the Congress of South African trade Unions (COSATU) took to the streets of Johannesburg on Thursday to protest rocketing food and electricity prices.

The unionists made their way through the city’s central business district and then marched on the headquarters of the national power utility, ESKOM.

“Prosecute those responsible for price fixing and collusion” and “food security: a caring society”, read some of the placards carried through the streets by the 5,000-strong singing and dancing crowd.

“It’s not right for the Government to ask for a 53 percent increase of electricity tariffs”, said Blade Nzimande, secretary-general of South Africa’s communist party, to the applause of the throng.

“Workers are the most oppressed; we are retrenched now and then, and many of us work as casuals so we can’t afford such a high increment,” he said.

After signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) presented to him by the protesters, ESKOM’s Chief Executive Officer, Jorgen Vos, said he took the COSATU concerns “very seriously”, and that ESKOM was working with stakeholders to “ensure that the poor do not feel the heavy impact of power cuts”.

Geoffrey, one of the protesters, said the poor suffered most from South Africa’s ongoing electricity crisis. “We can’t afford any other source of power like gas - we are not rich.”

The entire country has been hit by widespread planned and unplanned power cuts, or “load shedding”, that is affecting every sector of the economy and sparking fear of job losses.

Food also beyond reach

The march then turned to a major supermarket chain, Pick n Pay, where protesters handed general manager Kevin Krom another MOU demanding action on spiralling food prices. Krom said he would share their concerns with senior management and other retailers.
“It looks like there is collusion between the supermarkets and government to fix the prices of some commodities. I can’t run my life now,” another marcher, William, told IRIN.

According to a COSATU statement released earlier this month, “For more than a year now, food prices have been rising much more rapidly than overall inflation”, the labour umbrella body maintained.

With wages barely rising over the same period, the poor have borne the brunt. “The fact is that low-income households spend a far greater proportion of their income on food than the rich - food price increases are fuelling economic and social inequality at a faster pace than the state social security system has been set to address,” COSATU warned.

Vusi Maduna, a mother of two participating in the march, said food prices had risen so sharply that she could barely feed her family.

The COSATU statement also pointed out that high interest rates, high petrol prices and rising unemployment were compounding the problems of the poor.

Official estimates put South Africa’s unemployment rate at 25 percent, although independent economists have said the joblessness rate is nearer 40 percent.

COSATU vowed to organise more demonstrations throughout the country until the government gave in to their demands.

IRIN