As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra: T&TofaFADINGHA Gets Noticed!; Gear Up For Gold Cab!

The week has ended with some degree of sanity on the Spintex Road. I have not received the proverbial call from the NRSC for the past few days, but I rest assured that the MTTU is doing their job, so I'm quite satisfied.

That said, satisfaction is far from my mind as the country went political again, what with the President reading the State of the Nation, and incurring the wrath of the hapless opposition who should, frankly, be booed out of the august house of Parliament for the time-wasting that they practice there!

But to the point:

There I was minding my business on a Friday lunchtime, checking the latest entries on ghanablogging.com, when I notice a blog entry by Global Voices Online co-"author" for GhanaGayle Pescud and now author of An Insider's Guide to Ghana. Her entry was on "Ghana Blogs I like".

Now I know this humble site--though five years and some 369 posts old --is not as popular as some of the newer ones who have been around for only a year, so I far from expected that it would top her list--but it did. She wrote:

Another top Ghanaian writer is E.K. Bensah and his blog The Trials and Tribulations of a Freshly Arrived Denizen of Ghana, with a fantastic view of Akosombo Bridge as the main header. If you want to know what it's like to get caught in Accra traffic, read  The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Spintex Road Traffic. (Great title, crappy situation.)

She also praises another ghanablogging colleague Mac Jordan, who does have a great site. I exhort you to go check it out.

Now, while we're in the self-congratulatory mood(;-), allow me to direct your attention to one of my first posts of 2005 and here on this blog, which you can click here: http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2005/03/im-in-accra.html!!

Gear up for Gold Cab!

For the past almost-four years, I have been patronising the services of "Gold Cab", located in the centre of town (Kokomlemle). Though I have never been to their head offices, they have always been a phone call away. They are useful because they can go where commercial vehicles are unable to go, because they have WHITE number plates, which are the preserve of private cars (unlike yellow ones that dominate the taxi landscape).

Only this week, their fares per hour went up from GHC10.00 to GHC12.00, which is, respectively, US$6.66 to US$8.00. Not bad per hour, considering normal taxis have now gravitated towards that amount.

What makes them even more special is the fact that the cars are all new, or fairly new (roughly 1-2 years old) and are all air-conditioned. They first started with this fiat in the captured picture in this post, went to TOYOTA YARIS (no funny thoughts, pls!!) some 12 months ago...and will now go to...the Black Cabs of the UK.

Two GOLD CAB drivers have confirmed independently that the British Black Cabs will not be as big as in the UK, and will be converted from right hand- to left-hand drive. Another driver told me yesterday that they are currently at the ports.

I seriously look forward to seeing a slice of British cabbies here in Ghana very soon! If you're ever tempted to patronise Gold Cab's services, let me know and I'll pass you the info. Frankly, their communication strategies are poor. Despite the fact that they have a fleet of some 25 cars (painted in inimitable GOLD), they do NOT have a website!

In the 21st century?!

This free ad, I hope, ought to get them some patronage;-)

Just in case you missed what the GOLD CAB TAXI SERVICE CAR looked like in 2006 before it was painted a gold colour, here it is:

In Praise of the Trotsky (Tro-Tro)

When you're confronted with news like that of Joy Fm online (

Road accidents consume 1.6% of GDP

) that road indiscipline is killing Ghanaians (and it is!), and you also hear and witness the execrable driving of tro-tro drivers, you're inevitably going to feel that they remain the bane of traffic woes.

Trust me, though, that there are as many bad private drivers as there are commercial ones.

Before I set off for work this morning, I needed to run an errand in town (Osu), and decided in order to save money and all that, I'd take the trotsky. It cost me almost three-quarters less of the price. To get into town--specifically 37--I paid GHp0.40 (forty pesewas, or almost thirty US cents). A taxi "dropping" would have cost me a cool GHC4.5-GHC5.00 maximum!

On the way, I saw a young, personable and well-dressed lady, with a cute haircut who was holding a lovely Nokia n900 series phone! I am serious! I wondered what someone like her was doing a trotsky like this. Someone might have asked the same thing about me, too! Except to say I'm neither cute nor particularly well-dressed, nor personable!:-) Oh, and though I have a Nokia phone, too, it's profoundly exclipsed by this lady's!

On a more serious note, I kept on observing and wondering about the utility of the trotsky. If only they got the drivers to go back to school and know the road signs; plus get some uniforms for good measure, a great number of Ghanaians would probably patronise it?

There are so many trotsky's in town, and I guess it's a reflection of the supply-and-demand associated with the choice of commuters to shun expensive "dropping" (chartered) of taxis, and opt for a mode of transport that would compromise their safety, and/but get them from A to B in the cheapest manner possible.

For that reason, I foresee that they'll be around for a while!

some site has compiled all of my transport stories here: http://www.wowzio.com/pulse/846201_ghana-transport

Spintex Road Diaries: The Bigger Scheme...

Another manic monday that has flown faster than a purpose-driven mosquitoe on a lights-off night.

It,s 18h39 and the tro-tro engine has burst to life, taking the order-of-four-seated commuters to "bush road! nungua side" destination. Ofcourse some of us will stop closer.

Have to say that it seems rather incongruous listening to Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words are My Own";, and have a few commuters whistling to the lively tune behind me.

Go on, call me a snob.

While ur doing that, spare a thought for those languishing in hospitals out of family negligence, or those who have broken up on Valentine's day.

Those seem to be the small things, but they really are not...in the bigger scheme of things.

Good health is a virtue, and having someone to call your partner or lover are two of the age-old and time-tested formulations that remind us of our humanity. and make it simultaneously meaningful.

Can't wait for CSI tomorrow morning--even if it might make me soporific the subsequent couple of hours!!

It sure is great to be alive, and have and make choices.

___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.208.891.841/ekbensah@ekbensah.net

These words brought to you by Ogo.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being...Broke!

These days--and it's not just because it's an election period--no matter how careful you are with your money, the primary considerations that enter your budgeting are:

1. credits for your phone
2. if you have a car, petrol. If not, transport

Given that quite a number of us own more than one phone, the amount allocated for units becomes all-too-high!

You might have noticed that my series on Westernisation was a non-starter on account of the comments I got when I submitted it to Ghanaweb.com. A combination of bad formatting by Ghanaweb and an attempt to get ideas from an article that might not have been fully-fledged all conspired to get me tremendous criticism from a large number of readers who called me unprintable names.

I still think it was great food for thought to fashion a better argument on the putative westernisation of Accra.

I am only really mentioning it at this stage, because I am wondering how even I whom many might consider middle class is "suffering" from the way money is spent so quickly and easily these days, I wonder how the "working class" and itinerant vendors are doing?

God have mercy on all of us!

Taxi Tales#3: Long or Short?

This isn't a trick question, but conceiving of it seems a bit absurd--at first.

According to one taxi driver I took from down the road from where I work, he prefers to ply short routes than long ones.

Don't ask me how I got to know. There I was, looking forward to enjoying my fresh bread,then he starts that his "paddy" (he isn't Irish, incidentally!) asked him to go to Teshie Nungua, which is some thirty minutes drive, near Tema--the port--, away, and he declined. He maintained that if he had received 80,000 cedis (circa $7.50), he wouldn't have gone, because for him you make more money from short ones, where he charges 10,000 cedis, than the long ones.

So, it's all about the money, then, is it? I thought, wondering why he wasn't wearing his mandatory blue uniform and navy trousers.

Taxi Tales#1: The driver's got Cheek!

I am a taxi person in the sense that I move around Accra a lot by way of taxi. Very rarely will I use the tro-tro, and now that the Mass Metro buses are becoming de rigeur, and even the new Gold Cab services, which is based in Kokomlemle, some minutes from Busy Internet at Circle, or the so-called Silicon Valley street of Accra, is stationing itself conveniently in ECOBANK agencies, to name but one, around the capital, I STILL will take the taxi anyday for the convenience, and when the pocket is a bit lighter;-)

The news that taxi drivers will be wearing uniforms is welcome news:

---

With effect from 1st February, all taxi drivers in the Accra Metropolis will dress in uniforms of sea blue shirts and dark blue trousers.

According to a press release issued by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, all taxi drivers in the Metropolis are also expected to pay ¢250,000 each to have an identification number embossed on the front doors of their vehicles.

This amount, according to the release is been heavily subsidised by the AMA.

The release noted that at a meeting held on January 18 this year chaired by the Mayor of Accra, Mr. Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson, executives and representatives of the GPRTU, PROTOA, Cooperative Transport Union and COMTSA came to the above agreement between members of the transport sector and the AMA.

The release explained that the identification number to be embossed on the taxi cabs would make for easy identification of taxis and help protect drivers from mugging and the frequent stealing of their vehicles.

---

Any attempt to bring sanity into the capital must go down very well for a lot of denizens. All that said, it is for one of these reasons that I am introducing taxi tales to bring directly to you some of the less-than-mundane experiences and conversations I have with taxi-drivers.

The first instance is yesterday when a taxi driver picked me up from the A&C Shopping mall. En route, his engine sputtered and came to a somewhat abrubpt stop. Opening the door, he went out to the engine for what seemed like a few minutes, came back and sparked the car. Off we went.

Now, I was heading for equity pharmacy, in East Legon, where we went for some seven minutes.

We got to the office, and I handed him ç15,000 (around Euros1.5), only for him to tell me that it wasn't enough, and that he wanted ç25,000!

The effing cheek, I thought.

So I asked him: "when your car sputtered on the road there, did I charge you?" He pretended he didn't hear [please note this characteristic of taxi drivers and commercial workers, when you tell them a truth, they will FEIGN BAD HEARING!!], asking "what did you say?"

I pretended I didn't hear him, and told him I was giving him ç20,000--and would not be giving him the ç5,000 extra.

He wasn't amused, but I certainly was;-)

Welcome to Ghana's latest entry into mobility: Gold Cab!

Welcome to Ghana's latest entry into mobility: Gold Cab!
Originally uploaded by ekbensah.

This afternoon, I went to Madina (featured earlier) to go buy some groceries, with a friend who works where this car was parked (A&C Shopping Mall).

This would probably have not been news, except for the fact that this white car--a brand-new FIAT Sereno(sp?)--fully air-conditioned took me around East Legon, Madina for the two hours I used it for, charging me a cool Ghanaian cedis100,000/hr (that's under $10/hr).

It's one of twenty cars from this Kokomlemle-based Cab service. Kokomlemle is very near BusyInternet, which has also been featured on this blog earlier.

Coming to fetch me at East Legon cost NOTHING to me. I jsut had to pay for the hours I used them. The guy came in uniform, speaks very good English, and engaged in small, but good conversation.

Definitely one to recommend if ever you come to Ghana one of these days. TEL:+233.21.235.069 / +233.21.235.091.

That inscription you see on the car is their logo. Click to enlarge!

So, in Ghana, we have, by way of transport:
a. privately-registered taxis that come in dual colours [Henry Osei is the owner of these cabs above, a businessman I am told];
b. tro-tros
c. private cars
d. metro mass buses
e. cab service--new!

Hooray for diversity!

On Petroleum Prices and the Ghana Government

It is an article of irony that the very week that my organisation is discussing the liberalisation of services under the World Trade Organisation, and the adverse impacts it will have on gender, development, and community rights at our Pan-African meeting is the same time that the government allows so-called Oil Marketing companies, which I wrote about back in 2005 when I attended a meeting in which the then-Minister of Energy Professor Mike Ocquaye extolled the virtues of liberalising the downstream sector of Ghana's petroleum sector, to raise petroleum prices from 10-15%.

All this simply goes to confirm the increasingly neoliberal stance that the government of Ghana is adopting to its people.

Now that the rate of petrol is at exactly $US5.00/gallon, how are Ghanaians supposed to manage? Where are the safety nets in place that the government should be thinking about to cushion its citizens from the effects of the world market? SO, just because there is a serious inter-necine conflict going on in the Middle East, where Hezbollah is being targetted for wiping out by the Israelis, so we, in the developing world, have to suffer the consequences?

Now this issue was, thankfully, raised by Bernard Avle of the CITI Breakfast Show the beginning of this week, which was great.

Having said that, as much as I praise CITI-FM, I really think that the media does woefully in presenting to the public key issues, such as the challenge of liberalisation of services.

Liberalisation of services is merely a big word for opening up the services sector (tourism, finance, banking, waste disposal, etc) to the degree that foreign investors can come into this country--and any other developing country--and enjoy "national treatment"(in ther words, the same type of treatment and beenfits accorded indigenous enterprises) and tax exemptions so that they can charge fees on the locals, and expropriate (take away) profits from this country to theirs, or simply offshore, and out of this country. Much like the telecommunication companies of AREEBA and TIGO do. Didn't know? Now you do...

The question is: to what extent can public opinion be awakened to the urgency of these issues by way of the media, without it necessarily coming from civil society activists, like myself, who already are perceived in one way or another by policy-makers and the media alike for having more time on their hands than the media.

I think Dr.Graham, Coordinator of TWN-AFrica, hit the nail on the head when he...

...called on the media to offer analysis of the law governing the provision of services and generate debate that would enhance major transformations of the service sector
from: TWN discusses challenges of service liberalisation.

My final point is this: liberalisation and privatisation has been with us since the Reagan-Thatcher nexus, which in my view, was "the greatest exponent of a modern and amoral Realpolitik", as maintained by US historian Norman Rich in his classic book "Great Power Diplomacy".

That said, with the increasing and growing appetite of the US and EU for African markets on water, health and whatnot sector, they threaten to LOCK-IN permanently any commitments our clueless and hapless and uninformed African governments may be faced with.

The time for resistance against this locking in of liberalisation, or forever facing compensation of ALL WTO members is nigh...unless Africa wakes up -- seriously.

TAgs: Ghana liberalisation; Ghana petroleum; services liberalisation; services