GHANA

[Guest]

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[KEDS]

What a waste of resources for a poor (or for that matter, any) country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7502716.stm

Ghana spends $1.4m on gold medals
By Will Ross
BBC News, Accra 


The Ghanaian government spent more than $1.4m (£704,000) buying 515 gold medals from a company based in the Channel Islands, officials have confirmed.

Almost half the medals were given out last week to prominent citizens at a colourful national awards ceremony.

The government says the rest will be presented over the next four years.

The medals are intended to reward outstanding contributions to Ghana. But critics say the money would have been better spent alleviating poverty.

Eighteen-carat gold

Recipients included politicians, chiefs, business leaders and even the country's President, John Kufuor, who will step down at the end of the year.


 We are suffering. As of now, some of us cannot even pay our school fees
Accra businessman 

He was given the highest award, the Grand Order of the Star and Eagles of Ghana.

Set in 18-carat gold, it was also the most expensive.

At $65,000 (£32,700), President Kufuor's award cost many times more than an Olympic gold medal.

This prompted one journalist to make a joke comparing Mr Kufuor to the medallion-wearing American rapper, 50 Cent.

Medals 'not extravagant'

As people woke up in Ghana to learn the cost of the medals from newspapers and radios, many were shocked and disappointed.

"We are suffering," one Accra businessman told the BBC. "As of now, some of us cannot even pay our school fees", he said.


 How can the president decorate himself with such expensive jewellery when people are in dire need of basic amenities?
Dr Tony Aidoo
National Democratic Congress (NDC) 

"The medals will not bring anything to the country", said another.

"They are just for individuals so the money has just gone to waste", he added.

The Deputy Information Minister, Frank Agyekum, disagreed.

"You can't put a price tag on an award which is meant to encourage, motivate and congratulate people for making a great contribution to the country," he said. "This was not extravagant."

"The remaining medals will be used for the next three to four years," he added, before noting that even beauty pageant winners are given a whole house these days.

Parliamentary enquiry

In recent years, the awarding of national honours has been a low key affair, but this year the government said it was keen to help unite the politically divided country.


Politicians from rival parties were offered medals, but the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), boycotted the event.

Not surprisingly, the NDC is now making a noise about the cost of the awards

"This was a severe misplacement of priority and an insult to the intelligence of Ghanaians," said Tony Aidoo, a senior member of the party.

"How can the president decorate himself with such expensive jewellery when people are in dire need of basic amenities?" he asked, calling for a parliamentary enquiry, and for evidence that the remaining medals really exist.

Stability 'priceless'

The fact that the head of the Ashanti Kingdom, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, could not collect his award because he was mediating a chieftaincy dispute, shows the need for nation building in Ghana.


 Peace and stability are priceless on the African continent
Bright Simons, Imani Centre for Policy and Education 

"Peace and stability are priceless on the African continent," said Bright Simons, of the Ghanaian think tank, the Imani Centre for Policy and Education.

"If the process had succeeded in building a lot of reconciliation across the political spectrum, it would have been worth it," he added.

Mr Simons said the intention was honourable, but suggested the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), could have managed the event better - by including members from across the political divide in an independent awards committee.

Ghanaians are also waiting to learn how the proceeds are spent from recently discovered oil in the country, estimated to total 2 billion barrels.

Those worried that Ghana may follow the lead of Angola and Nigeria will seek little comfort from news of how $1.4m has been spent on the medals.

Some Ghanaians are also asking why the medals could not have been produced locally - especially as their country is Africa's second largest producer of gold.

Story from BBC NEWS:

[Karoline]

Ghana will always have a special place in my heart. When you live there, even if it's just for three months, it changes your life. I am hopefully going back in the summer for one month as well. Has anyone else been there?

Man, I love omo tuo.

I was really confused when I didn't see Twi listed anywhere when there were talk about languages. Then Wikipedia told me it was one of the three dialects of the Akan language, so then I understood.

[waywardcats]

Here is an excerpt from an editorial written by Bono published in the New York Times on July 10, 2009 concerning Ghana.

Rebranding Africa

This is a country whose music of choice is jazz; a country that long ago invented a genre called highlife that spread across Africa — and, more recently, hiplife, which is what happens when hip-hop meets reggaetón meets rhythm and blues meets Ghanaian melody, if you’re keeping track (and you really should be). On a visit there, I met the minister for tourism and pitched the idea of marketing the country as the “birthplace of cool.” (Just think, the music of Miles, the conversation of Kofi.) He demurred ... too cool, I guess.

Quietly, modestly — but also heroically — Ghana’s going about the business of rebranding a continent. New face of America, meet the new face of Africa.

Ghana is well governed. After a close election, power changed hands peacefully. Civil society is becoming stronger. The country’s economy was growing at a good clip even before oil was found off the coast a few years ago. Though it has been a little battered by the global economic meltdown, Ghana appears to be weathering the storm. I don’t normally give investment tips — sound the alarm at Times headquarters — but here is one: buy Ghanaian.

So it’s not a coincidence that Ghana’s making steady progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Right now it’s one of the few African nations that has a shot at getting there by 2015.

No one’s leaked me a copy of the president’s speech in Ghana, but it’s pretty clear he’s going to focus not on the problems that afflict the continent but on the opportunities of an Africa on the rise. If that’s what he does, the biggest cheers will come from members of the growing African middle class, who are fed up with being patronized and hearing the song of their majestic continent in a minor key.

I’ve played that tune. I’ve talked of tragedy, of emergency. And it is an emergency when almost 2,000 children in Africa a day die of a mosquito bite; this kind of hemorrhaging of human capital is not something we can accept as normal.

But as the example of Ghana makes clear, that’s only one chord. Amid poverty and disease are opportunities for investment and growth — investment and growth that won’t eliminate overnight the need for assistance, much as we and Africans yearn for it to end, but that in time can build roads, schools and power grids and propel commerce to the point where aid is replaced by trade pacts, business deals and home-grown income.

[charity]

I really like that.  Thanks for posting it! 

[Amy-in-PHX]

Here is a link to a blog post by the Kiva Fellow currently serving with Field Partner CRAN, in Ghana, concerning the Field Partner's methods for collecting on past-due loans.  They are still trying to collect some amounts that were due as long ago as 2008.

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2011/03/29/owe-money-pay-money/