Unbearable Lightness of Blogging--Part II : Close Encounters of a WTO Kind

I spent my lunch period with a very very personable young woman today at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence, whose link you can access here: http://www.aiti-kace.com.gh. They currently have this fair going on. I met an interesting group from ASHESI UNIVERSITY, studying computer science, who explained to me a new traffic system that they have come up with that would be used on the LABADI road in Accra.

 

Basically, the system is designed such that rather than having a policeman guide traffic, ultra-sonic sensors would detect – from a distance of 50 metres as yardstick – whether there were any cars up to that distance. If there are, then the traffic lights remain red; if not, it goes green.

 

And the brains behind this are Ghanaians!

 

Can you imagine that they would like to use LINUX software, which would enable them to change the code—as opposed to traditional Microsoft et al, that will not. Coupled with the fact that they can use JAVA applications, too.

 

I’d like to visit the place tomorrow with my colleague at lunch.

 

For now, though, my blogging will be a tad light as I prepare myself for my colleagues who are preparing to go to Hong Kong. In a post reminiscent of the August one (http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2005/08/shuttling-around-is-this-accra.html), I’d just like to get you to try and read between the lines.

 

My colleagues are preparing to go down to Hong Kong in a couple of day’s time for what will prove to be another historic battleground for social and trade justice groups.

 

I can already feel the World Trade Organisation excitement building up…and it’s building big time.

useful links

http://www.ginks.org

Accra by Night

I do not think I have ever shown a picture here of Accra during the evening, so drum roll...here goes:

	The picture to the extreme left (top) is that of Fenix lying in the dark last Saturday evening. To the right (top) of that is the front of Papaye, fast-food eaterie, where they sell mostly fried rice and seriously delicious-yet-imported broasted chicken. To the immediate left of this text is inside Papaye, taken two nights ago, minutes before there was a power-cut!

Back to Rain...and AREEBA Inanity

 

As I write this, rain is pouring down this side of the capital of Accra, and we at the office are all tempted to just stay in and not go out to lunch. Few are intrepid here, faced against the weather-- and for a bunch of social activists, that’s pretty ironic, but that’s another story…

 

I arrived ten thirty pm on Tuesday evening to a 28-degree Accra. The flight, by way of Alitalia, was okay—could have been better, though. We left around 2.45pm, were served lunch around 3/4pm. But whatever happened to dinner? Instead we got some cake and a drink! What is that about?

 

We stopped at Lagos for a good hour and a half (nothing indicated on the itinerary/manifest!), before taking off.

 

It’s always been my experience since we started coming to Ghana in 1997 that each time the plane landed after flying from Amsterdam, or Malpensa, or Germany, for the passengers – predominantly African – to clap.

 

They clapped again as we touched down to the almost-obscurity of Lagos airport. I am sure one of the things the Italians—like the Dutch and the Germans-- like about us Ghanaians is our empathy to their plight of flying a good six or seven hours from their respective European capital—only for those darkies to appreciate their flying with a clap. I think everyone enjoys being appreciated, and pilots are hardly an exception.

 

I have to say I was surprised by the number of people who clapped after the forty-odd minute journey from Lagos to Accra!! Yet these were the same people who were mumbling that we were taking too long at Lagos airport…

 

Things like these make me proud of being African, Black, Ghanaian.

 

I got my hand-luggage only yesterday afternoon. It failed, along with a couple of passengers’ things, to turn up with my suitcase on Tuesday evening. Got home around 11.30pm…and went back to work on Wednesday!!

 

Regrettably, I am back to the inanity of those torturous AREEBA ads (the latest is winning a MERCEDES C Class once you buy a starter pack, and may be selected, or something like that). And whilst we are talking about starter packs, who would want to get another starter pack after buying one?!! Get me a phone goddamit—not another number!! What can I do with another number when I have no phone???

 

Honestly, AREEBA, please do grow up…

 

More: http://www.areeba.com.gh/

 

On a positive front, I enjoyed Buffy Wednesday, who has somehow met her doppelganger--another slayer! Mmm...the plot thickens...

 

Ghana Stand Could Have Done Better

As for the Ghana stand, my colleague and I were rather disappointed with them. The best they could do was showcase…our beleagured National Communications Authority, and annoyingly badly-performing AREEBA. Actually, not quite. Sudan did that very nicely for us. What Ghana also showcased was Ghana’s privatised “ONETOUCH” service. I almost forgot. Must buy the sim card at 30 thousand cedis before the end of November, once I get back to Accra. Obour, with his almost indefatigable energy, has had ONETOUCH co-opt his song “SHINE YOUR EYE” for the promo, where you are supposed to get 10 SMSs free, since early October.

Even the African Development Bank was giving out t-shirts—I know, cos the lady there asked me to come at 3 pm, and I was there on the dot!—yet we had nothing free to give out.

More later this Saturday. I am off with my colleague to Hammamet, a more beautiful and historic place to see.

So, We Finally Voted…

…and boy, was it laborious. Democracy in Africa, I swear! No wonder we are so left behind, our democratic process is like the oil that cogs the wheels. I had to run out of there after 9.30pm. After everyone was elected, kind of, they were going to proceed with the voting of the President.

Poof! I was all handshakes, smiles, and out the door to catch the Tunis bus into the town centre 20km away!

Only to come back to see that BBC had contacted me about my humble reportage of the WSIS process, and I had missed it! You can read about here:

It hurts. It hurts…

Still at Palexpo Kram

We continue to deliberate over which sub-regional coordinators should be represented. Nigeria was not amused at the fact that a predominant number of the people there were francophone, plus the fact that the text of ACSIS statues was available ONLY in French.

Yes, the francophone/anglophone divide exists very much in Africa. It is a great shame. This is one of the reasons why it will take long for us to move forwrd. We started at around 5.15pm. It is now 8.18pm. How much longer?!!!

Running Late to Vote for the African Civil Society on WSIS (ACSIS)

The title says it all. Oh, I posed at the Rwanda stand yesterday with no-one less than Republic of South Africa Thabo Mbeki. He is actually shorter in real life than he seems on tv.

You cannot imagine the security detail that trailed him. Surprisingly, he was VERY friendly, urging all those round to take a picture with him, too. I got to even shake his hand. But I was not in awe. Not when he is going round portraying South Africa and NEPAD like the panacea to Africa's problems.

Not on your nelly!

I have to go vote for the very very personably young woman at this ACSIS election now...

I am Humbled, BBC...More on A&C (Ghana)

Out of 12 pages of looking for "Tunis WSIS", the British Broadcasting Corporation decided to take a look at mine. Obviously, noone left a comment, but they were there!!! Or, rather, they were here...;-)

On the Ghanaian front, someone who has access to aandcdevelopment webmail :(16 Nov, Wed, 11:49:13 http://webmail.aandcdevelopment.com/src/read_body.php?mailbox=INBOX&passed_id=490&startMessage=1 ) visited this site.

I now know that A&C Development FINALLY has a website, which you can readily take a look at here: http://aandcmall.com/.

Why I never thought of going into PR beats me. Honestly...

Off to another workshop, which started late...only ten minutes ago...

Incidentally, the UN delegates deliberations have been beamed through to the Palexpo Kram,and so as I type this, I could literally give you a running commentary...but won't bother. Too jaded by it all really;-)

Microsoft is about to talk, but the CEO of KDDI will talk right now. Let's go:

No idea what company that is. The guy is Japanese; he is talking about "how to enhance" something or other "for developing countries".

PLease change the record!

Reflecting the Eccentric World of...WSIS

For your info, I am writing two variants of my experience of WSIS 2005, Tunis. The one, for the more international audience is at this link here, and the one for the pan-african audience(though all nationalities are welcome!) is on this particular blog.

Thanks, Global Voices, for picking up on my feeds, nut honestly, I cannot for the life of me understand why people would be looking for links like these:

1. 15 Nov, Tue, 17:26:45 Google: wantto have sex in ghana in madina or east legon

In the words of Buffy, in one of those memorbale episodes back in Season I, "I think I speak for everybody when I go "huh?!" "

Ok, ok, so I'm a relic. Sue me!

What, Do I, Like, Look French to You?

Ah stereotypes! Stereotypes, stereotypes, stereotypes. It is bound to run amok in a gathering like this. I hear Kofi Annan is in town. Obviously, the hotel is probably kept secret.

I am in the Civil Society area of the Palexpo Kram. Sorry I cannot bring you any piccies as my Zire Palm decided to give up on me a few days before I left. There was no time to do anything about it...

Pooh, so I am resorting to normal pictures:-( Talk about low-tech in a hi-tech place like this, where almost everyone with a laptop is checking out their emails whilst a meeting goes on. Yes, WI-FI, or wireless internet is in FULL swing, baby!

As for the taxi-driver, well, I had to go deliver something on behalf of my Dad to his acquaintance who works at the African Development Bank. Can you actually believe that there is a road called "Avenue de Ghana", that is one of the three streets that leads to the ADB? Wow...

Anyway, did that, left and caught a cab. He bemoaned the state of Tunis, telling me that "c'est un police d'Etat". Funny, my Dad's friend also said the same thing. You wouldn't think it to see it, though. I thought the place was so secure because of the UN status of the summit and the high number of dignatries--ouch spelling!!--attending.

Both two bemoaned that the police was too much, and what are the Tunisians afraid of? A policeman almost round every corner. Seriously. That bad. For foreigners, I think it's quite welcome, but I can understand why the denizens do not think the same way.

Oh, well.

The taxi driver was interesting. He tried to teach me how to say "welcome" and "bonjour" in Arabic. Sounded cool! Not that I could say it without chuckling or anything, but the language is seriously very elegant. He asked me where I came from, and I was not surprised when he associated football with Ghana. He said that he could detect an anglophone accent.

Conversely, two or three people right here during the past two hours have addressed me in French--and I have responded straight back at them, with a smile, in English, triggering a visceral chuckle from both of us. The anglophone accent and the stunted attempt at speaking French is so detectable:-), don't you think? I doubt any anglophone can ever pass the French test of speaking fluently with a francophone accent -- do you? Bar Jodie Foster, whom I heard, what, four/five years ago in an interview on Belgian television speaking IMPECCABLEMENT. Sexy.

What One Tunisian Newspaper is Saying about WSIS...The Eve of Day Two of Internet Governance Discussions

It's a cool, dry Sunday evening. It's almost 8pm, and I am sitting at the Internet cafe of the Hotel. I have in my hand one newspaper--Le Renouveau. It's subtitle is "organe du rassemblement constitutionnel democratique", and the redacteur en chef, or editor-in-chief is one Nejib Ouerghi.

Here are some of the headlines on WSIS in today's paper:

1. XVIIIeme Anniversaire du Changement--Le Chef D'Etat recoit des messages de felicitations de plusiers organisations et associations. Cohesion autour de Ben Ali et engagement a faire reussir le SMSI:: 18th Anniversary of Change. The Head of State Receives Messages of Congratulations from Many Organisations and Associations. Cohesion around Ben Ali and an engagement to make WSIS Succeed.

2. Reprise, aujourd'hui, des travaux de la Prepcom3. Le document politique et la declaration de Tunis, a l'ordre du jour: The Resumption, today, of PrepCom3. The policy document and the Tunis declaration top the agenda.

3. L'urgence de reduire la fracture numerique: The urgent need to bridge the digital divide

4. Les Jeunes Au SMSI:Une mobilisation remarquable, un engagement total: Youth at WSIS: a Remarkable Mobilisation, Total Engagement

5. Intel entend lancer un projet de modernisation par le tout numerique en AFrique du Nord et Moyen-Orient: Intel counts launching a modernisation project...in North Africa and the MIddle East

6. Quatre secteurs seront cibles par investissement: l'entreprenneuriat local, l'education, laccessibilite au systeme digital et la specialisation des competences techniques: Four Sectors will be Targetted for investment: Local Entrepeneur, Education; Accessibility to Digital System, and the Specialisation of Technical competencies

...and many more.

Looks like Tunis is capitalising big-time, as one would do, on its status as the cynosure of the place where information society sits at the cusp of historical change.

And it certainly looks to be a big summit. Internet governance talks started tpday, but I stayed in the hotel most of the time, being fed French news and some French inanity left, right centre. It was only later in the afternoon that I decide it was time to listen to the radio, and check out a few good radio stations.

Of course good is relative.

I ended up, apart from Radio Mosaique that inspired yesterday's title, finding two or three other stations. There was Radio Tunis international on 98.2 FM. They surprisingly have a mosaique of languages. First, I heard English, where they interviewed around 2.30pm a civil society activist on the WSIS, then later French news, then later Italian, and some Italian music.

Talk about eclectic.

The other stations were playing some alluring and rather sensual Tunisian music, which sent signals viscerally to your body to shake some body stuff, y know:-)

Later, after having my bath, strolled down the boulevard that runs adjacent to the street that leads to the Hotel I am staying in, and I enjoyed the fresh air and psychedelic lights.

I went to one particular hotel -- Hotel Africa -- that is a towering edifice located right in the heart of the boulevard. AFter passing through the hotel security, where I was asked to take off my watch, several dinar coins and other metalliuc stuff on me, walked through the elegant hallway that made no bones that it was a five star hotel.

I just had to try the food here. SO up I went to the fifth floor. I knew it was fifth because I was here yesterday evening to an empty room.

It was empty again, but I persisted. I asked for Couscous and Lamb stew.

Sumptious!

Couldn't even finish it all. For dessert, Tunisian patisserie, which was predominantly pistache and sugar baked together very elegantly. Didin't finish that either. My orange juice, like yesterday at another eaterie, was freshly-squeezed.

AFter about an hour, feeling a bit cut-off from the outside world as I sat all alone on the fifth floor eating, I left--with a very full stomach.

I needed to walk, so I walked plenty...found some papers, and here I am.

Earlier, met two civil society delegates from Zimbabwe who were doing some passive window-shopping. Passive, because the shops were mostly closed.

As I write now, shops are re-opening, and activity has begaun anew.I've been here almost two hours again.

Tomorrow promises to be interesting; I am definitely looking forward to it, but before I take leave of you, must note for posterity that the magasine I bought just a few hundred metres away from here had the alluring title: SMSi. Les Enjeux du Sommet de Tunis WSIS: The Stakes of the Tunis Summit.

Internet Governance is certainly one of those.

I hope to be able to blog from the Kram Exhibition Park tomorrow, despite the business of the place.

Tunis : A Mosaique of Breathtaking Frenchness and Beauty

"En Tunis, si tu oublie quelque chose, tu peux y aller et venire, ca restera au meme place". This is how I would begin a memorable period in a country I never dreamt of visiting – let alone for a UN World Summit on Information Society.

It’s getting to 7pm, or 19heures, over here in Tunis. I’m sitting at an Internet café specially prepared for participants of the WSIS, or SMSI in French. I am the only one here, yet I know that there are WSIS participants staying at the hotel. To my immediate left are transparent doors that look into and outside this place.

Goodlooking—nay, gorgeus-looking—women pass with their boyfriends, friends, etc, passing a poster that says “KILL BILL. Cette Semaine au Cinema”.

How long has the film been out again? I thought it was almost a year. Reminds me of the legendary questionable rights that Tunisians are supposed to have. When I say rights, I am talking about censorship.

I’m actually thinking of checking that film out. Maybe not tonite, though. I have to pretend to myself that I can do something serious whilst I am preparing for the Internet governance discussions to begin 13 November. It ends on 15 November. The following day, 16, is when the Summit ends, only to end on the 18. I get almost two days free time.

Almost.

There are workshops, or ateliers, that I and my colleague are bent on attending, so I am not going to shirk that one.

The information society maybe lost to many people. In the beginning, even I couldn’t get my head round the utility of a conference round it, but now having back-pedalled and seen the bigger picture, I am beginning to think that it’s pretty cool being here.

Especially in Tunis.

We are treated like royalty. We, being those delegates going to the WSIS. These people are far friendlier than I ever anticipated or expected. Many of them after they ask me where I am from say “bienvenue. Tu es chez toi.” Alright so they are tutoieing me, that is not using “vous” since they do not know me, but I am not bothered. They seem to like me, and I certainly find them personable.

They have been very accueuillant, or welcoming, as they say. My French is upping the ante again big time. There is no CNN in my room. Just TF1, France 2 and a host of Tunisian/Arabic stations. I wish I could speak Arabic. Considering it’s a UN language. We sometimes forget don’t we that it’s spoken by a sizeable part of the world.

But a sizeable part of the world do not have signs contemporaneously in French and Arabic. Neither, as far as I know, have predominantly French influence in a country that is supposed to be predominantly Moslem.

There are many Peugeots here—the funk, latest ones—as well as the latest BMWs, even rovers. The buildings like white a lot—as they like blue, shiny faces too. Looks swell.

As I arrived into the town centre (rue de Marseillaise) near the Hotel Oscar, you could have sworn you were approaching Paris. I swear, man.

This is a gorgeous city. It certainly is not reminiscent of Africa, which in many ways is a shame. What happened to the dusty roads?

The security detail (men taking turns in the lobby and outside with their inimitable earpiece) treats you like royalty and you are sure that you will come to no harm.

When I stupidly forgot my suitcase at the badging centre yesterday, I was assured by security that they would find it and bring it back to me. Though they didn’t find it initially, when I was asked to return with the bus people (they did come to the hotel after I reported it), they asked me to tag along.

Within minutes, I found it not far from where I forgot it. It had been on the bus, but in all our haste to get to the badging centre, I forgot it on the bus after I helped a Rwandan delegate who’s bag got torn, leaving all contents trailing. God her colleague was just this side short of very sexy. The slender Rwandan physique, the smooth physiognomy, and that beautifully permed hair she kept on stroking. Wow.

I must have been driven to distraction.

Never again!

The sweat beads that trickled down my face as I pondered over the prospect of losing my suitcase was too great.

And so, when the friendly, congenial and gregarious security man who happened to be a police officer monitoring activity at the badging area late last night told me that "In Tunis, if you forget something somewhere, you can go and come and find it there", I was inclined to believe him.

Just behind us read the gigantic sign "Aeroport Fret".

I was not lost in the irony.

Lights Off...I'm Off! Go Buffy!

As I write this, I am getting a live feed from Parliament, thanks to CITI-FM97.3, of the proceedings leading up to the discussions on the budget. Yes, for the first time ever, Finance minister Baah-Wiredu is reading the budget a month ahead of time. Usually, the budget is delivered in February the following year. News reports this morning were indicating that he has lived up to the constitution.

 

Good stuff.

 

Accra has been interesting off-late.

 

What with the taking off of Ghana International Airlines late October this year. Speculation became rife that because GIA was selling tickets to London at $398 plus taxes, Lufthansa and British Airways were slashing their prices, too. In fact, KLM, in tune with its 45th celebration of flying to Ghana, is selling its tickets st $450 to...anywhere in the world.

 

No, I'm not prepared to do any dubious advertising; I want GIA to succeed, even if 30% is owned by a consortium, with government of Ghana owning the rest. But, for me, it represents exciting times in the country and the aviation industry, especially with Ghana considering itself the gateway to Africa and, I hear anecdotal evidence that Nigeria is...the destination;-)

 

Good one.

 

Latest news from my personal side is that, God willing, I will be en route to Tunis, Tunisia, by way of Italy this evening. I'm off, with my colleague, to attend the UN Summit World Summit on Information Society (http://www.itu.int/wsis). There will be a myriad of side events taking place and it promises to be an interesting eleven nights in North Africa. Another colleague at work has suggested that I read some history on the country so that the place comes alive, once we get there. Seeing as diplomatic history is a major area of interest to me(especially 1815-1914--pls check: http://writing_center.tripod.com/pol211/pol211-index.htm) , I was out to the 'Net and the printer in a flash printing everything and anything I will pretend to read while contemporraneously dosing under my specs...:-)

 

Ho hum...

 

Now, back after an hour and a bit of of two mini-meetings, it is now lunch time, and I'm getting butterflies in my stomach. I'm preparing to go down to Alitalia to get me and my colleagues transit visa through Italy.

 

Just now, the live feed on the reading of the budget by Baah-Wiredu, Ghana's finance minister, is making uncomfortable hearing.

 

First, there will be considerable tax breaks for companies. Just the type of things many NGOs, like Third World Network-Africa here are campaigning against in the light of the campaign against the Minerals and Mining Bill that is currently in parliament. You can obtain an insight into the campaign at this link here: http://www.twnafrica.org/news_detail.asp?twnID=847

 

Thankfully, tracking of goods by our CEPS (Customs, Excise, Preventive Service) will be intensified. CEPS is one of the biggest collectors of revenue for the state through goods that come into the country.

 

On a lighter side, which, frankly, is ironic, I got home yesterday evening to darkness that had fallen.

 

It would continue to be dark up until 3am this morning. I know it wasn't earlier, because I woke up around 2am for a pee and it was still dark outside with only the beautiful moonlight lighting up the area, and houses.

 

Mosquitoes were not too bad this time as we lit the coils earlier. I heard on the radio that the lights were going to come back around 10pm. Alas, no.

 

We ended up using our silent generator to watch tv for a good two hours or so. We caight Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, as per usual, on Ghana's TV3. Buffy has been showing for a few months now, and I find myself enjoying it. Yesterday's episode involved Buffy's ex-boyfriend seeking to be a vampire, as well as immortality. So he decides to sacrifice Buffy to a hard-nosed vampire who goes by the name of Spike, who tags along with what has been described as a "criminally-insane" sensual-yet-dangerous vampire. (Episode 5V06)

 

Back in Brussels, I always changed the channel when I saw it on BBC2.

 

Reality is very much different these days!!:-)

 

BTW, I check up on detailed programming on buffy at this link here: http://www.buffyguide.com/episodes/episodes2.shtml

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...And It's Off!

culled from GHANAWEB.com. Ghana International Airways makes its maiden flight 

With characteristic pomp and pageantry, Ghana's new "national carrier", as designated by one of our ministries, called GIA, or Ghana International Airways, made its maiden flight Saturday, ending 3 full months of speculation that it could never take off.

I guess everyone would have preferred "Ghana Airways", but, hey, this reality should serve to remind Ghanaians that things can only get better.

Of course, things getting "better" is always ever-so-relative;-)


headerfrom GIA website 

We are All Nigerians Today

117 lives lost from Nigerian plane crash 


The contemporraneous passing of Nigeria's first lady, Stella Obasanjo, and the perishing of the 117 people on board the Boeing 737 flying under Nigeria's privately-owned Bellview respectively, has brought into sharp relief how indiscriminate death is.

Whether you are the wife of the highest official in the land, or bank officials from Ghana's National Investment Bank attending a seminar in Abuja, or a German or Briton, or even the second top official in the regional grouping of ECOWAS, when your time is up, it's up.

That might sound crude and uncalled for at this very sober time, but what can explain the fact that the highest ECOWAS official (Executive Secretary), Mohammed Ibn Chambas, credited for bringing resolution to a number of crises in the ECOWAS region, is reputed to have MISSED this particular plane?

Reminisces of people who called in sick on that fateful September 11, 2001 comes to mind.

I spoke to my very good friend today who was equally shocked. She suggested that maybe God should just tell us when we are born that you have x number of years on this earth to perform x, y, z. After that time, he will come to take us back.

My question, though, is at what point does He tell us this? And who is to say that we do not forget what He has told us?

Plus, what do you do about such plane crashes where people completely perish like that,where, according to the report on The Star Online.com,

"

A wig, human intestines, clothes, foam seats and a hand were visible wedged in the sodden earth.

"

And what about this?

A cheque for 948,000 naira ($7,300) from the evangelical Deeper Life church was one of a number of personal papers found in the smouldering wreckage

How do you explain the fact that the person to whom the cheque was destined will NEVER see that money.

The questions go on and on. But what remains is that we will have to thank God for small mercies, and one of that is that the instantaneous death meant that there was no suffering.

Regrettably, suffering for the families of those who perished will remain for some time to come.

May they ALL rest in peace.

Incidentally, I was rather distraught in June this year when, at the airport, waiting to board the plane for Bamako, Mali for a work-related project, we were informed through the tannoy that due to a crash at the airport in Nigeria, the plane had been cancelled.

It wasn't my time to go.

ECOWAS Airline
Speculation was rife in the media last week that ECOBANK is moving towards establishing a regional airline.

Imagine the European Union with its OWN airline, something like EUROAIR? Feasible? Why not? That is if Lufthansa, Alitalia, and BA had anything to say about that?

In the region, they are contemplating ECOAIR. ANd this is no lame idea. A serious amount of capital has been disbursed by no less than ECOBANK, as the private sector arm of the regional grouping ECOWAS, and other ECOWAS-related institutions towards the realisation of something that had been mooted in 1999/2000.

This will not necessarily mean that other operators cannot operate in the region, but it will definitely create the competition that is so needed in this region of circa sixteen countries.




ECOBANK moves towards establishing a regional airline


A regional airline to give the needed impetus to free and easy movement of people and trade development across West Africa, a key protocol of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), is soon to be established.

The Board of Directors of the airline's promotion company has already tasked a four-member steering committee it has put in place to identify an international strategic partner as well as private investors for the project's development by the middle of next month.

Mr Gervais K. Djondo, Chairman of the ECOBANK Group, the principal sponsor, made this disclosure when he led a delegation of the committee to pay a courtesy call on President John Agyekum Kufuor at the Castle, Osu on Monday.


from: ECOBANK moves towards establishing a regional airline

SOBERING STATS for the day

---

2005

22 October: A Bellview airlines Boeing 737 carrying 117 people on board crashes soon after take-off from the Nigerian city of Lagos,
killing everyone on board.

5 September: A Mandala Airlines plane with 112 passengers and five crew on board crashes after take-off in the Indonesian city of Medan, killing almost all on board and dozens on the ground.

23 August: A Tans airline Boeing 737-200 crashes on an internal flight in Peru, near the city of Pucallpa, with at least 40 people reported dead.

16 August: A Colombian plane operated by West Caribbean Airways crashes in a remote region of Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board. The airliner, heading from Panama to Martinique, was packed with residents of the Caribbean island.

14 August: A Helios Airways flight from Cyprus to Prague with 121 people on board crashes north of the Greek capital Athens, apparently after a drop in cabin pressure.

16 July: An Equatair plane crashes soon after take-off from Equatorial Guinea's island capital, Malabo, west of the mainland, killing all 60 people on board.

3 February: The wreckage of Kam Air Boeing 737 flight is located in high mountains near the Afghan capital Kabul, two days after the plane vanished from radar screens in heavy snowstorms. All 104 people on board are feared dead.

from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2008892.stm

---

1. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2005-34%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=%22Bellview+Airlines%22%3ANigeria

2. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-34,GGLG:en&q=%22ECOBANK%22&sa=N&tab=wn

Customer Service at its Best

ECOBANK Headquarters, near Ridge. British Council is on the immediate right of this picture, just after the signboard, where you can see the turquoise bus 

SO there I was on a Saturday morning, when around 10.15am, just when I was listening intently to a Saturday programme on the radio, my cellphone rings, with an unknown number ringing.

My mind would process the number quickly--021.680431--only to remember that the "680" looked like one of the prefixes that accompany ECOBANK's H/Q.

I was right.

"Hello"

A young man answered.

"Is that Mr.Emmanuel Bensah?"

"Yes, who is this, please?"

"My name is...I'm calling about the problem you had with your card yesterday"

So, I explain that I tried getting some money from the ATM at A&C Shopping Mall, East Legon only for my money to be debited on the receipt, but no cash from the ATM. I called my accounts officer who informed me that it sometimes happens that way, but assured me that the bank can tell when the money is taken.
What a relief it was to hear that!

In any event, the man assures me that he has my details. He asked me to read out my card number for verification. He even saw on the system that I had shopped earlier, which meant I had been able to get my money.

"We'll credit your account on Monday", he added after some minor checks.

Now that is what I call customer service

I might just go to their cocktail invite next time!

An Afternoon with CITI-FM Staff Makes me Remember the first President, Dr.Kwame Nkrumah.

At CITI-FM HQ. The station's news bus @ no.11, Tetteh Loop 


Merchant Bank, Adabraka. Taken: Tuesday, 18 October 2005 (c)E.K.Bensah II. Just to the right of this picture is the police station. Just opposite that is where CITI-FM is located 

So there we were--near CITI-FM headquarters yesterday, at an eaterie--2 broadcast journalists, and one journalist of a web-kind. All products of inter-marriage by our respective parents (Brong Ahafo-Ashanti region; Eastern-Central region; Volta-Central region).

Thanks to our first president Dr.Kwame Nkrumah who, through a deliberate policy of "ethnic decentralisation", scattered people from all of Ghana's ten regions into the many different schools he built.

People subsequently found themselves attending schools in regions they knew nothing about. What mattered was that you were Ghanaian. That still matters today. My Dad, for example, was born near the Volta region, but spent most of his schooling in the Central region, whilst my Mum schooled in the Ashanti and Greater Accra, when she was born in the Central.

Once again, thank you, Kwame Nkrumah, for banning ID cards as far back as my grandparent's time--unlike the colonisers who visited it on the Rwandans of Central Africa, as well as many other parts of Africa.

Controversial Song Puts Tuobodom {BRONG AHAFO region} On World Map (BBC)

Controversial Song Puts Tuobodom On World Map

Ghanaians defend 'backward 'song

BBC -- A Ghanaian band has defended a hit song and video that poke fun at a rural town, portraying locals as backward.

Angry elders in the small western Ghanaian town of Tuobodom campaigned to get the song banned, saying it was making all their lives a misery.

But controversy over the song, which showed Tuobodom residents mesmerised by a tarred road, made it a bigger hit.

The male duo, Nkasse, told the BBC the song referred to events some 80 years ago and was not about inhabitants now.

"We don't find anything in the song which should make them mad," Naa K and Shy told the BBC's Network Africa.

"The video had to show how the town might have looked back then," he said.

"We can't sing a song about a town 80 years back, and go and shoot the modern place," they said.

However, students who come from the town are said to be keeping their birthplace to themselves at campuses across the country for fear of ridicule.

And teachers from the village who are working in other parts of the country are reported to have asked to be sent home because students have been making fun of them.

Other Ghanaians, though, have expressed a desire to visit the previously little-known place.

Source: BBC

 

From: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=92320

 

Playing Receptionist...

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Black Stars of Ghana off to Germany's World Cup in 2006! 

From time to time, I get to play receptionist at the office. And given that free opportunity, I use it to the maximum by calling friends and acquaintances;-) In any event, I called a friend, whom I haven't spoken to in a long time. She failed an exam twice, but by hook or by crook has managed to get a permanent job in the same industry she was doing the exams for.

Don't get me wrong; this is someone I genuinely like, even though she could do better in getting in touch with me, but I genuinely abhor such things, especially when I know of many people perhaps brighter than she is, who have not yet secured a job...

Ofcourse, I would understand if my comments resonate with a degree of naiveite, after all, some would say, isn't this the way of the world? Old boy networks and all that? Hardly makes it right, but there you go. Maybe she prayed, and God listened--and she secured this permanent job. Good on her anyway...

As for the other friends, I'm trying to take my mind off the break-up with my girlfriend--the most gorgeous woman I know with whom I have the most genuine and heartfelt feelings for (I think it's called love last time I looked) -- who wants to remain friends. I am hoping "for now". As you know, these things are pliable, and they can change with time once we get to know each other properely as friends...

But, yes, you guessed it: I AM digressing.

To the point is this: I am contacting other friends, including a former CITI-FM presenter who is now in law school, for lunch next week. It's good to have friends in high places!!;-)

Seriously though, a re-examining of where I fit in to the whole Scheme of Things is critical in these doubtful days where I ruminate over my reliability in the bilateral formula they call a "relationship".

I love Gee. And it's not going to stop any time soon. If you're interested in how I got here, might I suggest, with many apologies to Elsa, my "international" blog here.

When Sports becomes a "Continuation of Politics by Other Means"

Yaw Osafo-Maafo, incumbent Education and Sports Minister 

Ghana is a funny country.

In so many ways, its major passions are not dissimilar to that of its British colonial masters. Like the Brits, we Ghanaians are equally obsessed with politics as we are with sports. The difference between us and them is that whilst the Brit's apparent obsession with politics is micr-managed in the context of their national development, we Ghanaians prefer to obsess over politics...for the sake of it! Also, it appears our journalists prefer to do that as it is positively easier than talking about fundamental issues, such as sanitation and health.

Okay, so now we have a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)in place--yet to be fully operative, but campaign for registration has gone nation-wide, and even CANADA's CBCNEWS.com reported on it in June, which you can read here.

As regards sanitation, we have numerous debates in the papers--both print and electronic--that basically go off-tangent. When Accra mayor Stanley Blankson cleared the busy busy Accra business streets a few months ago, in a manner akin to peace enforcement soldiers, his resolve would soon break when the hawkers decided, with characteristic obduracy, to come back down to ply their informal trade.

Equally praised and criticised, the mayor's popularity has yo-yoed in a manner akin to Ghanaian's attention towards stories that involve corruption of a ministerial kind.

But I digress.

Sports, without intentionally forcing a pun, is a whole different ballgame.

I was sitting with my parents watching a live feed -- from Cape Verde on one of Ghana's premier TV stations, Metro TV -- of Ghana's football team -- the Black Stars -- playing against Cape Verde. Ghana would win 4-0. Michael Essien, Chelsea player and player of international repute, was in mid-field. Speculation on the private radio stations here in the capital were rife that he may have been frustrated by not being able to score in a manner characteristic of his reputation. Small wonder he offered no comment after the game was over!

Someone who did comment was the Honorable Minister of Education and Sports,Yaw Osafo-Maafo, former Minister of Finance in the previous NPP administration (2001-2004). This was the same be-spectacled man who some would say blazed the trail for Ghana's now-hailed macro-economic stability, earning Ghana a B+ rating with Fitch. Ghana also paved the way for the low inflation of around fifteen percent that Ghana, despite the third petrol hike introduced last week. The minister is equally responsible for introducing the so-called F-CUBE, which I referred to in September.

I cannot begin to think that the irony was lost over CITI-FM listeners when discussion of sports, as well as a possible qualification of Black Stars to Germany was discussed on the "Inside Politics" segment of the CITI Breakfast Show on Thursday.

Carl von Klausewitz might just be turning in his grave.

Conversely, Osafo-Maafo, now an interesting element in the equation that took Ghana's football team for qualification to Germany's World Cup in 2006, might just be turning towards the presidency in 2008.