As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra: Thoughts on…Home Delivery, ATM-frenzy, ECOBANK Share Offer

Home delivery
I woke up on Saturday 27 May a very preoccupied man. I would be attending the funeral of a truly good, beautiful, caring and loving married friend, Mrs Nana Amma Osei-Ahenkorah.

I still cannot believe that I have not cried. Maybe the experience of t he demise of Samuel, my one and only elder brother, on 8 May, 1991, has fortified my attitude on the significance of death. Don’t get me wrong: death is still a very painful "enterprise", as it were, for the family and friends of those left behind, but taking succour from the fact that we shall meet again, maybe mitigates the pain.



I still see no reason why one should hold back from crying. On Saturday, I was so distraught—to the extent that after attending the cemetery service (wanted to know where she is buried), I seemed okay, but upon going back home, couldn’t help talking about her to my parents. My Dad -- jokingly I hope – was wondering whether Nana Amma was not my girlfriend. As I confessed elsewhere, I initially had a crush on her, but knowing there was no way anything could happen between us, we proceeded as friends. She became like a big sister to me—we confided in each other on a lot of things. I will admit, upon retrospect, that not only do I have her picture on my desk at work, but I do think I loved her a great deal.



It regrettably had to take her demise for me to realize this. I am just waiting for the tears to come. Maybe like that of my brother’s, it is delayed, and will only ‘surface’ in a couple of week’s time… What is clear, though, is that Nana Amma has veritably gone "home", where she belonged.



We shall meet again:-)

On another case of home delivery, it was with great joy that I stumbled over a copy of the "Daily Graphic" on Wednesday night around ten thirty, lying quietly on my terrace. It had been delivered by the Home delivery service who had thrown it there, clearly afraid of the incessant barking by our dog, Fenix. I got a copy of the 1 June edition, which looked like the picture to below left:



ATM Frenzy
Yesterday was a deeply hectic day. I needed money from the bank, and the most convenient place to get it was by way of an ATM, especially one of those visa-branded ones like this one below:



So, I went to an ECOBANK one at my place at A&C Shopping Mall (pictured right). That was out of order. Quickly, I called a taxi, and went to the University campus area one (Legon). Also out of order. So, on I went to Silver Towers, where Stanbic Bank and ECOBANK, along with Ghana International Airlines share lodging. Also out of service. On back to the so-called EZI-Services (hosted by ECOBANK) at the Airport Shell. No luck.

37 Liberation Road (SG-SSB bank) proved equally futile—as did the ATM at On the Run, not too far from 37 military hospital.

So, it was decided to go to Ring Road Central (RRC). Thankfully, I stopped at the ECOBANK branch there instead of going to SG-SSB that was up ahead.

Hurrah!! Result. Card in, money out.

The prospect of facing a queue was not on my list of things to do.

I then went back to the office, wondering whether it might not just be a good idea to have a single ECOBANK Savings account at the plush branch located at Silver Towers. Time will tell…

Speaking of ECOBANK, the share offer is in its final day today. Since 15 May, the bank has been offering 8,750,000 shares or so for sale, with one share selling at ç11,000, or almost €1.00.

Suffice to say that my parents and I are now proud shareholders in our small way of ECOBANK.

The future might just be that much brighter.

Health Watch
According to this morning's Statesman newspaper, which carried the headline "HOSPITALS HOLD GOVT TO RANSOM", the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is facing the prospect of many strikes in the country’s hospitals. Government has consistently failed to present new payment structures and, as such, it is causing a number of strikes, with doctors saying that they won’t go to work unless arrears of months have been paid.

The most distressing thing about this situation is that whilst they are entitled to strike, what, then, happens to the rest of us who want medical assistance. Most people cannot afford to go private, so what do they do? Go untreated? The paper maintains that since Monday, Ghana’s biggest teaching hospital, Korle-Bu, has had junior doctors go on strike! They claim that until money from January to May 2006 is paid, they will not resume work.

Apparently, if this news is anything to go by, the NDC, former government in power, did something right with the so-called Additional Duty Hours’ Allowance (ADHA), introduced in 1999, and sadly terminated by the incumbent government last year. Doctors who were then earning GHC 6,000,000/month (almost $US700) under that scheme are now earning just under half that.

Without a doubt, a lot more needs to be done by the NPP government on healthcare policies -- especially those of healthcare workers -- otherwise people might go down the private route – unprepared, and with dire consequences on the families of those that remain if things don’t go well in private either…


SOME THINGS I REALISED I LIKE ABOUT ACCRA:

1. the verdant scenes (greenery) almost replete in the capital (on the left--a view of the road that leads to the airport (right) and up ahead, Airport Shell station);



2. although could have been better-designed, the Tetteh-Quarshie interchange (a view of it going towards Madina, Aburi, East Legon);

3. the ATMS!!

SITE OF THE DAY

CITI97.3FM’s site has been re-vamped. Go check it out: http://www.citifmonline.com

Mourners wave Goodbye to Nana Amma...

Goodbye Nana Amma: mourners at the Police Church, 37, on 27 May, 2006 wave goodbye to Nana Amma. Her coffin moves gracefully outside towards the hearse--and Osu cemetery, located twenty minutes away.

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final excerpt...

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Excerpt 4/5: CITI97.3FM's Nana Agyeman Castigates Ghana's Prediliction for Foreign Coaches

callers get ready to rain invective on Doya on his comments, whilst text messages are saying he should be sacked...

too many (foreign) coaches who walk around with a ball under their arm, and we say "coachito" (Nana Agyeman). Ghanaian coaches need to be trained overseas...

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The Black Stars Coach Saga--CITI97.3FM extracts (cont.d)

excerpt#3:

the coach does not have any real regard for the Black Stars...

UK-trained Ghanaian coach Nana Agyeman comments on Doya, and the impact of his racist statements on the morale of the Black Stars...

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excerpt#2: even though the coach has made racist remarks, should we keep him, or say because we have little time for the World Cup, we should dismiss his comments?

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This is the first recording I made from the Accra-based radio station CITI 97.3FM, where the host, Bernard Avle, is beginning to open the phone lines, and text messages for listeners to comment on the racist comments by Ghana's Black Stars' coach, Doya, that Africans do not have discipline. Recorded the day after Africa Union Day (25 May) on 26 May, 2006

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More on Public Health care, or Korle-Bu; & How ECOBANK Won the Day

I woke up to the news on CITI-FM about the 14-yr-old boy who was suing Korle-Bu for having been operated on the wrong leg. Briefly taken aback, I was very happy that I had been given the opportunity to comment on something that had preoccupied me the whole weekend, and that was evidently the passing of Nana Amma, mentioned earlier, who had passed away from complications surrounding an operation for brain tumour.

When I got to work, I made sure that I called with the contribution that ran something like this:

I think it’s important that whilst we are talking about Korle-Bu, we also bring in the question of private versus public health care. A lot of people might be tempted to beg or borrow money to go private, because they hear it is faster and more efficient. As I indicated, my good friend passed away at a private institution, and that, for me, speaks volumes. The more we talk about the negative aspects of Korle-Bu, the more we might go to feed the perception that private is better. We should also be talking about public investment in our public health care institutions. A debate needs to be had so that people’s relatives don’t go dying [in droves] on us…”

I suspect I rambled a bit, but I called my Mum to check whether the argument was sufficiently coherent; she agreed in the affirmative. However, one thing I forgot was to include the fact that when something goes wrong in a private hospital, no-one gets to hear about it, but once it’s Korle-Bu, it’s as if it’s the worst institution in the country!

The debate evidently continues, but I am glad that CITI FM decided to spend a large amount of time covering it…as well as the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) Awards, which was, foolishly in my view, sponsored by AREEBA Ghana—yet again!

On the news front, ECOBANK has won, according to the Daily Graphic the most-covetted “Bank of the Year”. Here’s the Graphic article:

---

Ecobank Tops Them All

(5/8/2006)


Ecobank Ghana Limited has been adjudged the Bank of the Year 2005, the fourth time, at the Ghana Banking Awards ceremony in Accra at the weekend.

The award ceremony, which was on the theme: “Efficiency and Competitiveness in Banking Industry”, saw 19 banks receiving various awards in 12 categories namely, Best Corporate Bank, Best Retail Bank, Best Product Innovation, Best Bank in IT infrastructure, Best Growing Bank and Best Bank in Trade Financing.

The rest of the categories are Best Competitive Pricing, Best Bank in Advisory Services, Best Bank in Customer Care, Most Socially Responsible Bank, Best in Short Term Loan Financing and Best Bank Long-term Loan Financing.

Commenting on the awards, the Managing Director of Ecobank Ghana, Mr Samuel A. Adjei, said it was due to the hard work and the focus given to the various products which were tailored to the needs of their customers.

Mr Adjei commended the bank’s customers and members of the staff for their commitment to the bank and said the award would urge his team to aspire for more laurels.

Ecobank won in several other categories including Most Socially Responsible Bank, Best Growing Bank, Long-term Loan and Short-term Financing, Best in IT, Trade Finance as well as the Best in Corporate Banking.

Merchant Bank, Ghana, Ghana Commercial Bank, Unibank, Standard Trust, Standard Chartered Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, SG-SSB Bank, among others, had plaques, handshakes and certificates.

Mr Afotey Odarteifio, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporate Initiative Ghana (CIG), the organisers of the programme, said the award was to give the banks an even playing field that would have a positive effect on the consuming public.

He said the aim of CIG was to work towards the creation of an excellent corporate environment in the country.

Story by Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu

---

Till the 25th of May!!

As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra...Thoughts on the Death of a Good Friend at a Private Hospital; Japan-Ghana relations; STANBIC/ECOBANK

The week began pretty much the way it ended last week—with news on the President John Agyekum Kuffuor’s re-shuffle, with many key ministers being “fired”. Fired because some are perceived to be playing the political game of campaigning for 2008. This, unfortunately, included people like former Sports and Education Minister Osafo-Maafo. I use that word “unfortunately”, because in my view, he did quite a good job – what with his introduction of FCUBE, which provided a decapitation grant (free education for pupils up to primary school); free buses for pupils; loans for teachers, and whatnot, and better conditions for teachers—not to mention qualification of Black Stars, which Osafo-Maafo was instrumental in.

The Paradox of Korle-Bu, or Public Health Care

I am still reeling from the news of the sudden death of one of my very good friends (pictured above), Nana Amma, at a private hospital near the Spintex Road. It is Day Three since I heard the news that she passed away on Mayday, but I wake up every day feeling that I can give her a call. I still have not deleted her phone number, neither have I deleted the last txt msg she sent me. I won’t either. I want to preserve them for posterity, and for her memory. I even went to the trouble of saving our online chats on msn messenger. I am still grieving, because I miss her very very much.

Why Nana Amma’s passing is critical in this weekly review is because it calls into question the debate of private versus public health care. A lot of people, including myself, appreciate the efforts of public health care, but see it as still insufficient. I have tended to believe that private is better, because of the quality of the time spent with you, and the service provided. Nana Amma’s case has proved a rude shock that this is not always the case.

Once my work colleagues heard the news, everyone wondered why she did not go to Korle-Bu, which is one of the biggest hospitals in the sub-region and the continent. It was only this week that the Graphic reported that the President had inaugurated a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computer Technology (CT) Centre "to help in the diagnoses of serious diseases" at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

The machine, procured at the cost of ç27.5billion "will be used for the early detection of diseases, such as stroke, cancer, and breast diseases which are not easily detected by the normal X-ray machines."

Regrettably, it came too late for Nana Amma.

She will be more than sorely missed.

In other considerably less lugubrious news, the Japanese prime minister Koizumi was in Ghana this week. I suspect that his visit has resonance with the attempt by China to take over Millicom—operators of Tigo, in the sense that it heralds, or reflects, the interminable competition between the two countries on expanding their appetite overseas for goods and markets in Africa. Whilst we are on mobile news, Areeba might just be taken over by South Africa’s MTN. In my view, though the profit-motive is never far away, it might just be good riddance to Areeba who have been taking us for more than a ride for too long!

On my way to Tudu (located not too far from NOVOTEL), to buy electricity yesterday, I caught sight of Stanbic Bank, one of South African’s biggest banks. I was not amused, yet ironically very bemused. All I could see was this edifice at the Airport City Tower, where ECOBANK opened its offices some weeks ago, next to the recently-embattled Ghana International Airline’s offices reminding me of the ongoing battle between SADC and ECOWAS. ECOBANK Ghana is the sixth largest bank in the country, with original investment from sub-regional body, ECOWAS.

Whether there is SADC money in Stanbic Bank, it is hard to say, but it’s clear that the South Africans are moving in Ghana in a big way.

Whilst foreign investment is fine, once it falls under the purview of serious government regulation, I do not think that the leitmotiv calling for FDI from all over, including the South Africans (there is Woolworths here, DsTV, many South African brands, etc...) is altogether healthy for Ghana's fragile economy and nascent democracy.

MTN coming into Ghana is giving me serious mental pabulum on whether Ghanaians ought to accept every Tom, Dick and Harry of the investment world to entrench themselves in the country.

As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra...Thoughts on the Death of a Good Friend at a Private Hospital; Japan-Ghana relations; STANBIC/ECOBANK

MetroTV versus Information Services Dept

Osman, of METRO TV interviewing Mawutodzi Abissath, of Information Services Department.

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Part V--Experimental TV Production

Here is TV3's Henry Herbert Malm interviewing Selassi, a Photojournalist from Myananse.com

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Vida and Veronica, or Joy FM and Metro TV

Joy's Vida reponds to TV Africa's Veronica in this experimental TV production

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Experimental TV Production--Part III

This is Akua, of Metro TV, interviewing Kojo Oppong of Radio Peace, Winneba (Central Region)

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TV Production (Experimental) at Ongoing PenPlusBytes ICT Seminar Workshop

Here is Veronica, of TV Africa, interviewing Vida, of myjoyonline.com at the ongoing PenplusBytes ICT Seminar. Actually, this is of Vida responding to Veronica's question

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Video Clip#2: everyone is captured!

This is part two of the long-ish video I took of my ICT seminar colleagues working on their computers;-)

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Video Clip: Day Three of PenplusBytes--PUSH/PULL publishing; Content Management System, etc

Kwame A, our instructor from PenPlusBytes, is currently talkling about PUSH and PULL-publishing for the Web. We have just heard from Vida, from myjoyonline.com, and Abaa, from Ministry of Information. I was just asked how mine works--simply Content Management System (CMS) also.

Cellphones now, we use a PULL system, because the system goes to pull info about my credit. It is currently 11.53am, and we are visiting the penplusbytes,net website...

more later:-)

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Pictures from the Three-Day ICT Seminar for Journalists Workshop

Some of my colleagues -- a few wearing PenPlusBytes.net -- T-shirts working intensely in front of their computers in one of the BusyInternet halls


some of my colleagues still intensely working on the computers:-)


This is Rayborn Bulley, in session eleven, about to explain ICTs application in Journalism



This is the blog (ICTPOWERHOUSE)that was created yesterday. The picture is of Eric, PenPlusBytes Director, but he's looking a little funny;-))

Testing from the PenPlusBytes workshop

i am trying to post a picture

This is Where I Shall Be from 26-28th April: Being Trained With "Journalists in Ghana on the Information Society" | Ghana Passports, anyone?

Ok, so I turn 29 tomorrow, but that's not the motivation for this post. What is is that I will most likely be blogging from BusyInternet, described as...:

...the largest privately owned & operated ICT centre in Africa. With a unique mission to provide both commercial services as well as social development, Busy has been featured as a promising ‘hybrid’ model for Africa

I have the priviledge of being accepted for this three-day course, organised by PenPLusBytes, the International Institute of ICT Journalism.

This is one of the motivations for attending the course:

Journalism around the world today has moved from the use of simple desktop applications such as MS Word to the WWW3 and its amazing opportunities. Internet research is an integral part of journalism today; new technologies such as blogging and podcasting are also catching on in the media world. Yet online journalism is still in its embryonic stages in Ghana. Most media houses do not have up to date online presence and those that do have, are not using universal online journalism styles and ethics

from: http://penplusbytes.blogspot.com

These are the topics we shall be working on:

Session One: Implications of information society developments

Session Two: Introduction to ICT Journalism

Session Three: Knowledge Management for the Media:

DAY TWO – 27th Thursday April 2006

Session Five: Online Journalism

Online Journalism can be defined as the reporting and publishing content mostly through online means basically the internet. During this session we shall take a look the history of online journalism, types of online journalisms, online journalism in practice and the future of online journalism.

Session Six: Practical

Group Work, Discussion & Group Presentation

DAY THREE- 28th Friday April 2006

Session Seven: Re-cap of Day 1 (clarification of concepts)

Session Eight: Online Journalism –blogs and Content Management Systems (CMS)

Session Nine: Practical - Online Research using the Internet

On weather news, the sky went dark around ten o'clock this morning, followed shortly by tremendous precipitation. At work, the electricity went off -- as per usual -- and the generator kicked in shortly. The trees swayed, and many of us sighed: more rain! But, it was very, very welcome, considering the heat of earlier days.

What was not welcome (news) at all this morning on the CITI Breakfast Show with Bernard Avle was the news that an investigative reporter of the Crusading Guide private paper had uncovered this:

<
some of the workers inside this house called the Passport Office of Ghana are busily destroying Ghana’s pride and image by fraudulently processing original Ghanaian passports in large quantities, for export to ‘non-Ghanaian criminals’, in countries like Libya, Italy, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Holland, Britain, Germany and others.

Without recourse to due procedures, they process the original passports which are signed by the Director of Passports in Ghana at a wholesale price of three hundred thousand cedis.

This is later retailed to the ‘non-Ghanaian criminals’ for between $300 and $400 and £250 to £300 internationally.

The Ghanaian Passport which was revered and respected across the world has now been reduced to an ordinary booklet, stripped of its solemnity and dignity

from:http://www.talkghana.biz/readnews.asp?arch=no&c=general&r=21283

I am no conspiracy theorist, but I do feel the need to copy this portion of the whole article for posterity in the (unlikely) event that some up higher might feel that the findings, irking them, should be "disappeared". These kind of things do happen in democracies, please let's not kid ourselves...

WANNA READ MORE ON BUSYINTERNET?

How BusyInternet Started up in Accra, Ghana

TECHNORATI TAGS

CITI FM Breakfast Show

Ghana passports

Ghana journalists

accra rain

As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra: Thoughts on…Armed Robbery, Easter, and AREEBA vs ONETOUCH (Ghana Telecom)

As per usual, my parents and I went to the Central Region, by way of Weija (see picture below), Winneba. The road from which I took this picture is close to Weija, where the police barrier is, and is the newly-constructed route that is trying to lend itself to "dual carriageway". Confusion is evident by the fact that the white truck is also passing us on the left. I thought it should be our right of way--and only ours...who drives on the road to the extreme right of us, then?



At the time that this was going to “press”, there was news that the occupants of a taxi in Dansoman, a suburb in Accra, had all been killed by policemen who believed them to be armed robbers. It is sounding like a case of mistaken identity, as some of the occupants, so the news reporters at CITI FM maintain, were themselves victims of an armed robbery!



This calls to question the vigilante-like tactics of police officers who shoot-to-kill without verifying, plus the hard-nosed attitude of the police these days towards armed robbers. The latter is a very good point, given the spate of armed robbery, but mistakes like these are bound to occur if proper regulation by higher-up authorities is not maintained. My view is that given this attitude by the police, armed robbery has been clamped down considerably, but, as always, the double-edged sword is that innocents get killed. That should not be toyed with.


Serendipity and Tribulation at Kokomlemle
It was with a great degree of joy that I uncovered not too far from BusyInternet on the Ring Road this place called Phones and Phone City. The reason why I went there at all stemmed from the Easter break, and me having a small accident with my SAGEM myx-7 phone. Although it is covered, I accidentally put it with some things, which included pure water. By the time we ended up in the Central Region, after almost two hours of driving, the pressure from the pure water (chill, actually) had formed condensation on the plastic sheath of my phone, which, in turn, had gone into the battery.

This meant that a bit of water affected my battery!!

I spent the better part of the weekend plugging and re-plugging my phone—only for it to start up once it was plugged and stop a third of the way as the SAGEM logo was about to be displayed.

I was crest-fallen. I had to be decisive, so I decided that upon returning to the capital of Accra, I would check out the Ghana directory for mobile phone places. After calling and re-caling for phones, I was informed that the SAGEM phone they had was an myx-5, or myx-5-2v, which had a camera. That sounded great, but I wanted one that was very close to my sagem myx-7. Turns out Phones and Phone City had SAGEM myx-6. Not the myx-6-2, which has MP3, regrettably.

Whatever the case, I was overjoyed that the shop just next door to that place, in Kokomlemle, was selling my x-7!!!...at a quite prohibitive price of ç1,700,000. They said they would offer it me at ç1,500,000. I told them “no need”, and whipped out mine. In explaining the problem to them, I told them to that end, I would want a new battery. Lights were out, so there was no way of testing.

I ended up taking it to Phones and PhoneCity, where the very personable young woman (Eastern Region—I know cos I suspected and asked (she had the vestigial beauty of an Eastern Region woman, including my girlfriend!) – decided she would test it for me—irrespective of the lights not being on.

It worked!!!

My frustration was over. My serendipity had been consolidated—I did not know much about Kokomlemle, but thanks to this, I am glad to know it, and, finally, I know a good place/area to get some really decent mobile phones and accessories ;-)

Easter suicide

The picture was taken by yours truly of an Easter Convention gathering in Mankessim, Central Region

The papers have been replete with little else than after-effects of Easter. One news story that has carried through the short week of Tuesday to today has been that of a man who committed suicide in a church on Easter Friday or so. The sad thing is that he had been with the church for around fifteen years, and was also sponsoring a child. No-one is quite sure what motivated him.

Areeba vs GT--Who Wins?
The afternoon has been fraught with confusion on the areeba airwaves, because for a good two hours, connectivity was virtually impossible. Any time you tried to make a call from one areeba customer to another, it said “Busy network!”. Yet, calling Onetouch from Areeba, or onetouch to onetouch was a walk in the park. This prompted speculation by some of my colleagues that the erstwhile war going on between AREEBA and Ghana Telecom, operators of ONETOUCH, are still rife.

Connectivity at the time this goes to the blog (5.25pmGMT) is still very poor. My text message to a friend from thirty minutes ago is still not sent.

The battle, I guess, continues…

SITE OF THE DAY

My parents and I have extolled the virtues of Nollywood acting. This site is impressive, going to complement the perception that Nigerian films are doing very well:http://www.30daysthemovie.com/

(My) Most Popular Song for 2005

Here's a sampling of one of the most popular songs in Ghana at the moment. It is sung by Kwabena-Kwabena, who is also a "Mentor" on TV3's new reality show run much like "Pop Idol", or BBC's "Fame Academy"

ASO.AMR
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Accra Picture(s) of the Day

This is a great place to get FRESH croissants delivered to your place of work, or home. Just make sure you tell them a day before!



Taken yesterday evening on nthe Spintex Road. This is the GOIL filling station that is situated a few hundred metres from the junction that leads to Regimanuel Gray Estates and Manetville.

The picture is taken from a taxi.

Have a good Easter. Might be off to the Central Region. Might not. If so, will most definitely bring back pictures:-)

have a good one!!

Accra's Spintex Road Makes an Eponymous Entry

The Spintex Road in Accra is one of the fastest-growing, traffic-inducing roads just outside the Accra Metropolis. It leads to Teshie-Nungua, and onto Tema. From that road, you reach the famous (or should that be infamous?) Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange, where you either get confused by the structure or follow the automobile crowd.

This is in no way a coherent entry, but given the relative absence, I thought I'd broach the very important issue of the Spintex Road. A picture of the road from the infamous tunnel graced an entry way back in 2005, which you can read here.

The picture to the right is that of a taxi a few minutes away from the-said tunnel.

In any event, the Spintex Road is also the road that boasts the most badly-lit semi-highway in the country. Rumours have abounded that streetlights would be a feaeture this year--Ghananian drivers, and ECOWAS ones to boot, who ply the route regularly have yet to see it.

What is clear, and that is a bit odd considering how dark it can be;-) -- is that the government is paying scant regard to a route that will prove to be a great source of frustration and enjoyment for drivers going to, and coming from, Teshie-Nungua/Tema/Baatsona/RegiManuel/Manetville Estates--for a very long time to come.

Hopefully, this third edition of the "Spintex Brief Community Journal" has made inroads into the consciousness of Ghanaians on how to make our frustrations better heard.

Ghana's ONETOUCH May Rock, But Seriously Making Strides on Internet also...

I was down near Cantonments yesterday afternoon -- precisely to go to the GT care4U centre (see picture) to purchase an extra ONETOUCH Chip. Onetouch has done it again! The latest is a promotion from the semi-privatised company, being run by Norwegian TELENOR management, for new users. Those neophyte ONETOUCH users in April get 20K cedis worth of units FREE every month for five months, which means 100K cedis in those five months free.



I also find that Onetouch's latest i-share unit transfer represents one of the better ways of truly sharing your credit to a friend, or a loved one. Areeba, though the first to start unit transfer in the country, has been more problematic for people like myself, because of having to go to specific places to have your units transferred, when you could easily do it from the comfort of your...erm, phone.

On another note, thanks to the persistence and perserverance of my parents, we can now access internet at home. Like in the West, you need a landline first, which was the biggest hurdle. Now that has been cleared up, things have made us pleasantly surprised, because we now have a mailbox, plus this website here -- Talkingdrum.com -- where you will find "DIALUP4U" and "BROADBAND4U" login to your email from anywhere in the world.

It was interesting to note that the webmail that Ghana Telecom uses is provided free--yeah, it's open source software. Here is the disclaimer:

---

Open WebMail 2.51 20050310

Copyright (C) 2001-2005
Chung-Kie Tung, Nai-Jung Kuo, Chao-Chiu Wang, Emir Litric,
Thomas Chung, Dattola Filippo, Bernd Bass, Scott Mazur, Alex Teslik

Copyright (C) 2000
Ernie Miller (original GPL project: Neomail)

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the version 2 of GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Removal or change of this copyright is prohibited

---

The actual website can be accessed here: http://webmail.ghanatel.com.gh

Kudos, GT!!

Video Clip: Driving on Accra's Spintex Road at Night

This is how dark it gets on the Spintex Road at night. Taken around 8.30pm, you can see for yourself that the number of cars passing at quite high speed suggests a busy road, and yet...no streetlights!! The placard (yellow) I am trying to capture to the right of the video is that of "Papaye" on the Spintex Road. I am in a taxi, and radio is on 104.3FM--Peace FM, where the presenter is discussing Sports and the Black Stars performance in Germany.

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Video Clip of April Sunday Shower in Accra

This is a video clip of the skies of Sunday 2 April, 2006--a few minutes before rain started to fall. The noise you hear shortly after is the sound of the rain doing more than "pitter-pattering":-)

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Video of Accra April Showers

It rained more than cats and dogs yesterday, and so reminded me of those proverbial April showers one used to experience whilst living in Brussels. The following video shows the intensity of the rain (viewed from my abode) in East Airport Residential area.

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As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra: Eclipse 2006; ECOBANK; Ethnicity

I started last Friday by attending a seminar at the British Council entitled "Ethnicity and Politics in West Africa", which was organised by the Institute of Statistical, Social & Economic Research at the University of Ghana. They had invited the following people to come speak about the topic:

1) PROF. FRANCES STEWART, Director, CRISE, University of Oxford
2) PROF. FRANCIS AKINDÈS, Universitè de Bouakè, Côte d’Ivoire:
3) DR. ABDUL RAUFU MUSTAPHA, Lecturer, University of Oxford
4) MR. RICHARD ASANTE, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana




This was the entrance of the British Council, a bit more heavily-guarded than usual. The guard looks like he is going to kick ass;-)



From left to right: the CHAIRMAN: Hon. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey
Minister of Tourism & Modernisation of the Capital City; PROF. FRANCES STEWART, Director, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security & Ethnicity (CRISE), University of Oxford ; MR. RICHARD ASANTE, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana; DR. ABDUL RAUFU MUSTAPHA, Lecturer, University of Oxford.

To be fair, I think Obetsebi-Lamptey, as a communications man, chaired the programme rather well, and the debate and discussions were interesting, albeit a bit too general. For example, Ghana, it was claimed, has "political inequalities" that are worsening, but without any concrete elaboration on what they are.

I felt compelled, furthermore, to ask why Bolivia was a success story, and what lessons were there for West Africa. Some of the explanations given were this:

Bolivia had been inclusive in the sense that it had involved indigenous Bolivians in the politics of the country

;

the State had behaved in a more responsible way [how?? not elaborated]

...unlike Guatemala and Peru, where there had be no recognition of local people, as well as a military that was tremendously implicated in social injustice.

My main question ran like this:
Rwanda is an example of a country where the PERCEPTION of ethnicity has gone horribly wrong. I mean even if we look back to the 1960s, at the instance of the first genocide when the Belgians and the Germans were the colonial masters...it is clear that ethnicity was a key issue. We know what happened in 1994, but if we can go back to the present. Only last week, it was splashed in the Daily Graphic that an ID Bill had been passed. I would like to know whether that will have adverse effects for Ghana or not..."

To which Dr.Mustapha answered that an ID card is "neither good nor bad, it is what you use it for", which I think excellentlye encapsulated the sometimes-unnecessary fear that surrounds society in its thinking that it is being restricted by the State. He also added that Nigeria had been trying it for the past two years now. I think it is a debate that merits serious looking into.

---

Now, I guess you do not need me to tell you what has been dominating the news left, right, and centre this week. It's ofcourse been the eclipse. I caught three videos, but was only able to post two. The first is a more comprehensive one, which you can download here

To the right are some of my colleagues on the compund at work, with their camera-phones, digital cameras and whatnot trying to prepare to capture this phenomenon of epic proportions.

Those who looked at the sun ensure that they were wearing their protective spectacles, even if they wore them reluctantly, cursing the capitalist enterprise surrounding the procurement of it...;-)



That same evening, I was at the British Council to attend (29 March, 2006 ofcourse!) a lecture from the ISSER-MERCHANT BANK series of annual lectures. This year's is on Globalisation, and this particular one was on Corporate Governance.



Meanwhile, ECOBANK has been in the news, because, according to the Daily Graphic, ECOBANK is keen to...

...raise funds through an Initial Public Offer (IPO) on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) [as well as...]

"currently working closely with its Transaction Advisors and the relevant regulatory bodies on the proposed floatation and listing on the GSE"

"intend[ing] to utilise the funds to support its expansion plans, which includes the opening of additional branches and agencies throughout the country and a further upgrading of its technology platform"

If my experience of their customer service is anything to go by, ECOBANK's aspiration to become, in the words of former ECOBANK heavyweight Albert Essien, a reliable pan-african institution can only evince the words...



Enough said.

Might as Well Wax Lyrical about ECOBANK

 

31 Mar, Fri, 12:27:30

http://www.google.com/search?hl=fr&q=ECOBANK+the+west+african+bank&lr=

 

I am heartened to know that many searches lately for “ECOBANK” arrive directly to my blog.

 

I have blogged about ECOBANK before here:

 

n       http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2005/12/future-of-west-african-regional.html

n       http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-i-love-accra-genesis.html

 

…and suffice to day that I will continue to blog about what I see is a very exciting indigenous private sector initiative that has serious roots to ECOWAS.

 

Checking on one of the links that I came across, I uncovered something that I think you might be interested in knowing:

 

<blockquote>

“"African banks are leapfrogging technology developments. Whereas many Western Banks have been utilising technology for many years and are battling with backend system integration problems brought about by improved front end delivery mechanisms such as the internet, Ecobank's solution consists of a fully integrated core banking system, with internet delivery via satellite communications - placing it ahead of many international banks."

Founded in 1985, Ecobank offers full service banking from 42 branches across West Africa. JSE-Listed Global Technology is the leading provider of solutions to the financial communities across Africa and Australia.

"Ecobank's customers will have a front-end into the bank's core GLOBUS banking system through the GLOBUS Integrator, which will be installed at their head office in Togo, from which transactions from the other countries will be routed," says Leonard.”

</blockquote>

 

From: http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/software/2001/0105020925.asp?A=AFN&S=All%20Africa%20News&T=Section&O=C

 

Fancy that! ECOBANK is ahead of many international banks—and who said Africa cannot do things for itself, huh?

 

Long live regional integration! Long live ECOWAS!

Video Entry#2 of Ghana's ECLIPSE, as Featured on TV3 News

This is the first report (3 minutes) I captured froom Tv3 evening news of how the eclipse fared for residents of Accra and beyond...


eclipse1.asf
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Ghana ECLIPSE 2006--TV3 Evening News Video!!

I captured this video entry, as some kind of foray, as it were, into radicalising and revolutionising the way I blog. It proved useful as it turns out that not many people at work caught TV3's evening news as they usually all sleep early!!:-)


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Darkness Falls...ECLIPSE

So there we were outside on the compound at work, anticipating the solar eclipse that would engulf the country to make it comprehensively dark. Sporting the special eclipse shades, which many believed not to be that special, most of us wanted to witness the phenomenal experience of seeing outside get dark between 8.30 anad 9.30am in the morning...

As the time of the eclipse grew closer and closer, jubilation was written over ALL our faces. THIS is what living is all about, no? After all, the statistics indicate that few people (around 1/10) ever get to witness an eclipse. So to have witnessed an eclipse a second time (the first being in Belgium in the late nineties--11 August, 1999) is a blessing of epic proportions;-)

To be frank, I was not all that elated, and that surprised me. I was over-joyed, and definitely not underwhelmed. I didn't need this eclipse to remind of the greatness of God, but it has definitely re-inforced my belief that there is a God...

...especially hearing very shortly from my parents, by way of a phone call, that Charles Taylor who had escaped Monday from his villa after hearing that he might be taken to Sierra Leone for war crimes has been caught on Cameroon border in North-Eastern Nigeria.



Shame on you, Taylor!!



Like the eclipse that ended in this dark picture (to the left) of the compound at work, this is most definitely the beginning of the end of this execrable man's career.

Well done, Nigeria!! long live ECOWAS!

As the Week Draws to a Close...Thoughts on Ghana's Housing Sector; Ghana's National ID Bill (Passed); Areeba Ghana's Mobile Internet (GPRS)

It was with a great degree of joy that last Saturday, I saw the Ghana's leading Daily Graphic lead with the front-page news that there has been a new boost in the housing sector, with the introduction of the so-called Red Sea Housing company, a Saudi-based company that produces pre-fabricated houses, going for between $10,000 and $12,000.

Whilst for a developing country, that price and its equivalent in cedis is rather prohibitive, it is conceivable that with the falling interest rates in the country, people can obtain loans from banks, and pay off the amount that way. Regrettably, there is also only one mortgage financing company in the country, called Home Finance Company , which enables one to purchase a house, with them providing 80 percent of the loan, whilst you provide 20% deposit.

Or so they claim.

When I actually called them last week, it emerged that they have a ceiling for the amount they can give you. This means that, say I want to buy a house that runs to the tune of $50,000, and my salary enables me to qualify me for the remaining 80% of the amount, I can actually only get 36% of the value of the house!!

This called into question the need to save more, which there is nothing against, but at least, it would help if they reflected this on the website!

SO it was yet again interesting to see that there is in existence--since 1956--a mortagage-financing inistitution called First Ghana Building Society, which offer you the FULL 80%--irrespective of the amount. They are making some serious inroads into the country, and from what one of the top-brass people there told me when I called them, they will by mid-next year become a fully-fledged mortgage financing company--and this is good.

If you look at the astronomical rates of the houses in this country, as exemplified by the capture of WAC Properties that I got, when Ghanaians say they are suffering, it is little wonder why they arrive at that conclusion.


wac properties capture 

Affordable housing is a prerogative of every citizen. It hell should be considered a human right!! The incumbent government likes to talk about a property-owning democracy. Whilst one can give them the credit that this a step, it's a step too little!

In my view, the housing problem in Ghana is less a problem and more of a situation. I think that experience has shown us that the human condition has a visceral desire to exploit a vaccum, since nature abhors one. It is therefore little wonder that not much is happening by way of regulation. Rent, for example, is often quoted in US dollars, and you have to pay a year--or sometimes, two--in advance!

This is not just speculation; I have done that twice since I started paying rent in 2004.

As regards National ID, like I intoned some weeks back, I grew up in a culture that imposed ID cards on you, so my view of the utility of it is refracted through that view.

Having said that, an article on Ghanaweb, by Ghana News agency entitled "National ID Card in the offing", reminds us that way back in 1972...

"The Acheampong regime promulgated the NRDC129 in 1972 that required citizens of Ghana aged 16 and above to be issued with identity cards. In 1973, national ID cards were issued to citizens in five boarder regions in the country including Volta, Northern, Upper, Brong Ahafo and parts of the Western Region. The project was discontinued three years later due to the lack of financial and logistic support. In 1987, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) revisited the idea of national identity card and had been on the minds of policy makers to this day"

That one can be identified to me sounds reassuring, though the possibilities of another piece of legislation facilitating corrupt practises are not lost over me!

As for AREEBA Ghana, far be it for me to promote their GPRS, or Global Packet Radio System, which enables mobile internet (in all senses of the term), but I think it's woorking rather smoothly, which makes a change with Areeba's general provision of working telephony!

So I went on Tuesday 21 March, with the speed of light, to AREEBA's offices at 37 (so-called because that is where the military hospital 37 is located, as well as vehicle licensing, as well as the Lebanese-owned Max Mart that is treating its numerous workers with impunity, but that's another story...) to pay 50 thousand cedis, and get my phone connected to the GPRS network. Regrettably, multimedia messaging (MMS) is not working:-( so I have to go down there and sort it out.

This is the phone I use:

regrettably blurred picture of my SAGEM MyX-7 phone connecting to AREEBA Ghana's GPRS 

It is a French mark, and originally looks like this:

I tried to capture it for the blog connecting and receiving, but somehow my camera couldn't do it, so you will just have to wait for the short video of it connecting;-)

I can assure you that you see "connecting and receiving" at the bottom of the screen, and within seconds, you can see the AREEBA page. If I go through another way, I get to chose my own URL, by way of the bookmarks. Yahoo is the first. The others take quite a bit of time, and, by extension, considerably more units!

Thankfully, my phone now has "GPRS" permanently featured in the right-hand side of the screen.

My parent's NOKIA phone has been more problematic in the setting up. My Mum's had to go back to Areeba for a look-over. It is far less user-friendly, too. Ouch!! This is surprising as most Ghanaian mobile users utilise NOKIA, and it's frankly a common mark here than any of the other brands!!

The UK's Prospect Magazine has an article in last month's edition about digital exuberance. The crux of the article is about how "technologies of connectivity can threaten stability and community".

It holds, in my view, a degree of resonance with regard to ICTs like GPRS and their potential impact for development, but it is somoething I will broach on another day.

On a lighter note, I called CITI 97.3FM's Programme Manager Nii Amah Dagadu to ask him why two programmes were no longer coming on -- "Every Home", which airs on the station on Saturdays, and "Teen Page".

"Every Home", like CITI FM's "Question of Law" that is hosted by one Mac-Diamond Nyamerko-Amerko (spelling?) a lawyer with the Attorney General's department, with a penchant for most-things spiritual (he also hosts a Sunday religious programme on the same station called "Hotline to Heaven"), is an icredibly thought-provoking programme that discusses relationships (role of fathers, mothers, parents in self-esteem; relationship building--divorce, looking good, being there for partners, building self-esteem with partners, etc...). It is in sharp contrast with the "Sex in the Citi" programme I huffed and puffed about last year.

In any event, "Every Home" is airing tomorrow, and the "Question of Law" will no doubt be looking, as per usual, at the LEGAL aspects of the week's news.

As for "Teen Page", I understood that it was not doing well, so a new host has been found, and it is being "re-packaged".

It is interesting to note that when I asked about CITI-FM's excellent one-month programme of "Heritage Month", I discovered that due to a virus, the whole programme was erased, but thankfully, an organisation that records programmes of radio stations in Accra can be contacted to get the recordings from them. They are called "Steadman Media Monitoring".

Fancy that.

have a good weekend!!

Areeba on GPRS!!!

Ok, so the launch date is tomorrow--21 March--, but I called again today--just to be safe.

Here are the instructions:
1. your mobile phone needs to be GPRS-compatible, which makes sense!!
2. you pay 50K cedis, or approximately $US5.5 in order to have your mobile GPRS-compatible
3. units are dependent on size of information you get
4. every 100kilobytes will attract 6.5 units
5. once GPRS is activated, you can get MMS also, which enables you to send and receive videos and pictures by text.

Can't wait!!

you might as well, while you wait in expectation and palpitation, check out TIGO (it replaced BUZZ some two weeks ago under the moniker of "a new cellular experience"):Tigo Ghana's website

A Rainy and Windy Day in Accra...

The capital did not prepare for rain today. Most people felt it was going to be a sunny day, so this downpour was wholly unexpected. How accurate, then, are our meteorological services, I wonder??

In Response to Koranteng's Toli on Kwame Nkrumah, and His Redemption Thereof

By way of Global Voices, I came across an article written by Koranteng on his blog. Pls check the link on the title. Koranteng is a very well-educated man, and I appreciate the arguments he raised about Nkrumah, but his intimation that Nkrumah was a dictator, because he made Ghana a one-party state is too explicit to be subtle!

Let's face it: Nkrumah made some mistakes, because he was human--and not super-human, plus the fact that he was also a politician, and did some things that are wont of politicians, but a careful assessment of his accomplishments should not go unnoticed. This was my response on his blog:

"deeply alienated from significant portions of the Ghanaian populace" That is a serious fallacy. Nkrumah was a man of the people. Even JB Danquah, hailed as the doyen of Ghanaian politics, as much supported this when he said that "even if we fail you, Nkrumah won't."

I know this, not just because my paternal grandfather worked with the Nkrumah regime [as Minister of Works and Housing], but also because I have in front of me the book, published by the Socialist Forum here in Ghana, entitled "The Great Deception: The Role of the CIA and Rightwing forces in the overthrow of Nkrumah".

It contains de-classified documents by the CIA, with extracts of letters written by Nkrumah to the US government about his aspirations for Ghana, and by extension Pan-AFrican movement.

Not only that, but documentary evidence of the same JB Danquah going to the new US ambassador to Ghana demanding why his pay from the US government was not forthcoming!!!!

I feel the heat here in Ghana, because somehow, somewhere, the acceptance by both parties that Nkrumah was a great man, with all his flaws--the Preventive Detention Act of 1958 for example was deemed a mistake, but was used in equal measure by the British over Northern Ireland in the seventies -- is coming into form.

Both the NDC, and even the ruling NPP, have recently accepted that Nkrumah was a great man.

Finally, I do not think that you have to be a socialist to appreciate the magnitude of social development Nkrumah brought to Ghana. SO, statements like "the economy tanking under the weight of socialist central planning nostrums, trusting in the show of force represented by military support" that amazeddad makes isn't just fallacious, it is a great disservice to the memory of not just the founding father of Ghana, but ALSO of Pan-Africanism.

I must preface all this by saying that I am an amateur diplomatic historian by training, so the ideas over bias are not lost on me. To boot I challenge anyone to provide PROOF that Nkrumah can be likened to those dictators like Mobutu and Bokassa who seriously regressed Africa.

That’s my two cents, cheers!!

I must even also add that Nkrumah was not power-hungry for the sake of it: this was an intellectual, who had studied for his Ph.D, as well as Theology. He was an enlightened man, who made Ghana what it is today by encapsulating ALL manner of tribes within government. Compare that to the Rwandans, and other parts of Africa, where the ethnic divisions were accentuated to disasterous levels.

Ghana has never had that level of violence--except in the Northern region. Apart from coups in Ghana, have you, in Ghana's 49th years, ever heard of a civil war in Ghana even when JJ.Rawlings ruled the country in 20 years?

Please...