Takoradi--More than a Tale of Two Cities

For the past few days, the folks and I have been in the capital city of Africa's newest oil-producing capital of Takoradi.

There are two incontrovertible truths about this beautiful, littoral city by the Atlantic ocean: it made news in the oil world on 15 December, 2010 when Ghana officially became an oil-exporting country; secondly, the capital of the verdant and lush Western region is a twin city alongside Sekondi, making it known as Sekondi-Takoradi.

Although on our way to Takoradi, we passed through Sekondi, it was not for long to be able to sufficiently speculate about the city, but what I can say is that much of the topography is undulating and hilly. Little wonder oil has been found here, we thought.

Suffice-to-say that we have not been here long enough to truly compare with the equally-green Central region, but with all certainty, the Western region is a beautiful one, where it feels more expansive than the former.
But perhaps, not for long.

A 'SKYY FOCUS' newspaper (published in Takoradi, tel:0312025299) reports a headline story 'The Oil and Gas Industry is affecting our livelihood'.

From long traffic queues to jacked-up rents, ordinary Western region residents are likely to suffer the birth of the oil industry.

I do so hope back in the capital of Accra, these impacts will be the talking point in 2011.
Happy New Year from a very rainy Takoradi!

___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.268.891.841/ekbensah@ekbensah.net
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As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra: Xmas Preparations

So much has happened over the past month that it's difficult to know where to start.

I have been to a wedding and quite a number of funerals; gotten ill (for which I am recovering); been swamped by work (as you do at this time) and generally taken time out to do more tweeting than blogging and facebooking (on account of office restrictions).


Suffice to say, the fat lady has not sung, which means that the blogging show is not quite over. There's quite a bit I want to add to the debate on Ivory Coast, such as that the ECOWAS Standby Force (under the ambit of the African Standby Force) ought to intervene over the diplomatic pussy-footing and tergiversation.

Africa has come of age, and it's time the Ghanaian media pointed these out instead of the cacophony over Ghana producing oil (as important as that may be) since 15 December.

I will officially take a blogging hiatus from the 23rd of December up to New Year 2011.

Till then, the fat lady still got some practising to do!;-)