How to be a great girlfriend

I was in Cotonou (Benin) this past weekend when news broke on Sunday afternoon that the Minister of Energy had been fired from her post.  Over dinner, there were stories of her time in office that I can't publish.  One story led to another and, eventually, a 'funny' one about another female minister in one of the countries on the southern tip of the continent (a potential bric).

As Communications Minister, she proposed to host an ICT conference and invited bids from event organisers.  The highest bid was the equivalent of $4.5m, the next highest was about $3m and less and less...

The $4.5m bid must have been truly outstanding because it won! The company had been incorporated for less than 1 week, it was owned by Madam Minister's boyfriend and the successful bid was settled 100% upfront.  Gives 'sweetheart deal' a literal meaning, eh?  The smart owner promptly sub-contracted the work to the $3m bidder which was a firm with a long track record in organising conferences.

Madam Minister took a short holiday in Madrid before the conference to recover from the rigours of the tendering process.  She returned in time to give the opening speech on how the ICT industry should do things right, a very well-delivered speech in her spanking new Louboutin shoes.

A girlfriend to be very proud of :)

Consensus

I was led by a post on Greg Mankiw's blog to read an op-ed by Larry Summers on ft.com. The quote below is interesting:

Concern about politics and the processes of international co-operation is warranted but the best one can hope for from politics in any country is that it will drive rational responses to serious problems. If there is no consensus on the causes or solutions to serious problems, it is unreasonable to ask a political system to implement forceful actions in a sustained way.

In a large population, it is reasonable to expect consensus in broad terms, for example, on property rights. However, can we expect consensus on the causes of and solutions to specific problems? Perhaps Mr. Summers' opinion gives politicians an unmerited free pass.  They put themselves forward to be elected as leaders based on their implicit and explicit promises to "drive rational responses to serious problems". In my opinion, a consequent expectation for them to do exactly that, to fulfill their promises, is reasonable.

Who's for Dinner (2012 - 2016)

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner" - James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Andrew Carnegie

I installed the 'iTunes U' app on my iPad. It opens up a whole new world of learning, makes available both free and paid high level courses in many subject areas.  I subscribed to the Yale Open course on financial markets presented by Robert Shiller.  One of the suggested texts is Andrew Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays", which is freely available in Googlebooks.

As one of the richest men and greatest philanthropists in history, I've read quite a bit about him in the past.  It's fascinating to read his own words, his beginnings, influences and perspectives. As a Ghanaian who is used to seeing rich men express their wealth in real estate, cars and ostentatious living without regard to their responsibilities to society, it's both comforting and sad to read this book.  It's comforting because I look at America today and appreciate the long term effects of what people like Carnegie did, and think that we can get there.  It's sad to think that, intellectually, we are so far behind. One may criticize some aspects of Carnegie's thinking but that he found time to publish his thoughts, relish the debate that ensued from criticisms and backed up his ideas with his money is not something that I see any of our "big men" doing now.

His key point it is useless to worry about wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few men because men have varying capacity for wealth creation. However, beyond a modest requirement for oneself, the wealth is only held in trust for society and so must be applied to causes that promote the social welfare. The wealthy man who does not use his wealth for social good in HIS LIFE TIME but leaves a substantial estate, even if to charity, is not to be commended because he would have taken his wealth with him to the grave if he could, only parted from his wealth unwillingly. 

A direct quote from the book:

The purpose of this paper is to present some of the best methods of performing this duty of administering surplus wealth for the good of the people. The first requisite for a really good use of wealth by the millionaire who has accepted the gospel which proclaims him only a trustee of the surplus that comes to him, is to take care that the purposes for which he spends it shall not have a degrading, pauperizing tendency upon its recipients, but that his trust shall be so administered as to stimulate the best and most aspiring poor of the community to further efforts for their own improvement'

I wonder what he would have thought of Ghana's elites.

My Saturday

I enjoyed a pleasant drive to Peki today. I had to attend the funeral of a friend's dad.

I love driving around Ghana; the verdant scenery and watching the small town residents go about their business. The high poverty level is always apparent and often overwhelming. The poor roads dilute the pleasure somewhat. However, the total experience of intriguing place names, various entrepreneurial activities and the mental exercise of thinking through how we can collaborate to improve lives is always interesting. These experiences inform my opinions whenever I've had cause to speak.

I enjoyed the church service in parts as always. I thoroughly enjoy choral music perhaps because I'm a distinctly average singer. There's a soothing purity to many great voices singing together in tune. The E. P. Church at Peki-Blengo had many choirs in attendance including the very good resident choir. There were others from New Achimota and Nima (Accra) and Cape Coast.

RIP Mr. D. M. Tutu. You looked a stern man but you always had a broad smile and a hello for me when I visited. Fare thee well.

So what killed President Mills?

I've read opinions on may fora that imply that the secrecy surrounding the exact state of health of President Mills and inordinate efforts by him and others to prove his good health somehow led to his death.  I don't know whether it's right and proper that the governed should know the exact state of health of the governor, especially if opinions vary on the extent to which the alleged ill health impacts his ability to deliver.  Perhaps we should know, perhaps it's none of our business; I don't know.

However, I think we should be told the cause of death.  It should be disclosed in some official capacity. Not in any gory detail but an assurance that he died of natural causes is good.  Which leads me to the current assumption of death by many Ghanaians: that he died of cancer.  The original Reuters report gave the cause of death as a heart attack.

I'm more inclined to believe the latter, considering known information.  The president returned from a medical visit to the USA less than 2 weeks ago.  He was well enough to jump, or attempt to, and walked without aid.  He was shown on TV when he hosted journalists for his birthday last Saturday, 3 days before his death and he seemed no worse off than we knew him to be.  Parliament is said to have been notified of an impending trip to Nigeria in the morning, yesterday.  I heard a rumour that the President complained of some discomfort on Monday evening, felt fine on Tuesday morning and then was suddenly taken ill later.

I've been unfortunate to witness 2 deaths from cancer.  I'm not a doctor and I don't claim any relevant expertise but I've never heard of any sudden deaths from cancer.  It usually puts the patient down for a while, in truly awful pain such that usually the end comes as a relief to both patient and observers.  I stand corrected but I don't think President Mills could have been walking about under his own steam he was suffering from terminal-stage cancer.

So what killed President Mills? I think that it would be good for Ghanaians to know if only as a matter of procedure.

I'm ditching my Macbook Pro and iPad next year..

Microsoft unveiled their Surface tablet yesterday. It look delicious!  This is the first time in about 7 years that I've been definitely tempted by a Windows-run device.

I love my Apple devices for their functional simplicity, seamless integration and great design.  When I update my Contacts on one device, all 3 are updated either by direct connection or via iCloud.  I love my Macbook Pro because it just works.  Took me a while to warm up to the iPad but I'm getting there.  My wife grumbles about my iPhone and she's right, it's the real love of my life. Aside the obvious uses, it's my primary e-reader, sat-nav, iPod, expenses tracker, diary, dictionary, camera, etc.  It helps that I run my wireless network on the Apple Time Capsule, which quietly backs up everything each hour.

However, I have my frustrations.  My work requires mobility and I'd love to have full computing power on the go, in a convenient package.  So I'd ditch my laptop quicker than you could say "Jobs" if I could.  My ideal computing device would be the iPad with genuine Microsoft Office app and 1 or 2 USB ports to take an external hard drive or, at least, a flash drive.  It would help if Apple allowed the Flash player on their devices so that one could get full functionality from all websites.

I've been looking at Microsoft's Surface on the internet all morning and it seems to tick all my boxes.  It's built to work! It will run on Windows 8, have a full Microsoft Office suite designed for it, a USB port, 128GB hard disk space, what looks to be a great, full QWERTY keyboard and it's great to look at.  All this in an iPad-sized package.  Being Windows, there will probably be issues of reliability and many more viruses than an Apple user usually worries about but hey, welcome to proper mobility.  As usual, I'll let it come out, assess it practically for 6 months or more and then decide.  But I'm excited already.

Mopping up excess liquidity...

There's a report in the Graphic today that the Bank of Ghana has mopped up GHS1.2bn in excess liquidity.  Good luck to them, perhaps even well done.

1. However, my stupid mind just wonders why it's only every 4 years, in election years, that we have excess liquidity?  
2. Is it that the intervening years are so good that by the fourth year, Ghanaians have more cash than we know what to do with?
3. Seeing that excess liquidity could result from too much money in the pockets of people desperate to consume but could also be attributed to changes in production and investment decisions of businesses, should we always apply the mop? Especially as this has never arrested inflation and currency depreciation in the election years anyway?
4. If there really is excess liquidity but it's due to cautious production and investment decisions as businesses protect themselves against 'election risk', shouldn't the Govt and BoG focus on boosting business confidence rather than a "mop-up"?  If businesses are warehousing capital, whether in Ghana or offshore, does a "mop-up" by the BoG not make capital even more scarce and, consequently more expensive, with knock-on effects on inflation as still-operating businesses pass on the higher cost of funds to customers?
5. Should politicians begin to realise that the bedrock of every modern economy is business and household confidence?  The focus should perhaps be on "mopping up" anything that affects this confidence?

Should a person be congratulated when he's done the wrong thing well?

Hmm...sometimes...sometimes...

I'm going to mop up some Kofi Brokeman for lunch!

Wedding pictures

Hilarious!  Sorry for the poor picture quality though.

Theatre at SOS HGIC

The student cast taking a bow at the end of a truly excellent staging of Moliere's Tartuffe. Great performance. Happy to be here.

Hermann-Gmeiner Art Exhibition

I'm attending and art exhibition at the SOS HG International College. Some of the art works by the students are impressive!

What does this sentence mean?

I'm fascinated by the lingo of evangelical Christians.  I saw a prime example in the newspaper today.  On page 47 of the Daily Graphic, there is a full page colour advert wishing Rev. (Mrs) Rita Korankye-Ankrah a happy 50th birthday. The interesting sentence is:

"Mama Rita, we salute the oil upon your life"

The consensus in my office is that it refers to anointing but no one could tell me what the sentence actually means. Hmm...

Facebook IPO

Follow this link to the best perspective that I've read on the Facebook IPO.  If Facebook shares were available on the Ghana Stock Exchange, I wouldn't buy the shares.  Try as I may, I can't understand the business model and how they propose to generate enough earnings to justify such a huge valuation.  I'm NOT suggesting that investing in Facebook won't be a good (or even great) investment; I just don't put invest in stuff that I don't understand.  $100 billion for a firm that earns $1 billion, a 100x multiple? Hmm...that's making a huge bet on earnings potential (growth) of the firm.

Good luck to Mark Z and his crew anyway, they've worked very hard for this.  They've certainly created something that ~1 billion people find useful.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Arrived in Ouaga yesterday.  My first time here.  I don't know what I expected but it's way more urbanised than I expected :).  I really like the place but my very poor French does not allow me to plug in as well as I'd like.  Staying at the better than okay Splendid Hotel on Avenue Kwame Nkrumah.  Shows how close Ghana and BF are that one of their main thoroughfares from the Airport into the city is named after Ghana's first president.

My hosts have just treated me to a fabulous dinner at the Restaurant Gondwana.  Great ambience, free wifi, great service and some of the best food I've ever eaten.  Highly highly recommended.

I'll certainly be back!

A great article on Joao Havelange?...

...and interesting comments.

BBC Website


"Tim Vickery: For better or worse? How Havelange's global vision changed football
www.bbc.co.uk

Laid low by an infection, former Fifa president Joao Havelange is gravely ill in a Rio hospital, where no doubt he is profoundly irritated at being forced to interrupt his daily routine of swimming 1,000 metres. At the age of 95, Havelange remains a force of nature."

How Ghanaians maintain their sanity...

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.

Bertolt Brecht, "Motto". Culled from Ngugi wa mThiong'o's "Dreams In A Time Of War"

The Woyome Song

UG Graduation

I attended the graduation ceremony at the University of Ghana yesterday. Just a few observations:

• The School should limit the number of guests that a graduand may invite. Seating was difficult to find even though I was on right on time. Some graduands seemed to have turned up with their entire clans. If they were limited to, say, 3 visitors each, then the number of seats that must be provided becomes a simple arithmetic.
• Many people at the ceremony seemed totally unconcerned with it. They walked about all through the speeches and the constant chatter was distracting.
• The venue has always been the Athletics Oval. However, with little actual grass, the place is too dusty. Might be better in a well ventilated hall.
• The Vice Chancellor announced a decision to hold 2 graduations, in July and November of each year starting in 2012. I like it. Shorter wait times for students to receive their degrees and smaller ceremonies.
• The best graduating student attended Nkroful Senior High School. He had a grade point of 3.97. He was a Sociology major. Outstanding!
• The guest speaker was my old classmate, Abena Amoah. Her speech was anchored on chasing value rather than money, integrity and developing a savings habit. I thought it was a brilliant speech.

Old Age Care

A brilliant article from the New York Times. It analyses issues that must be familiar to most Ghanaians but in an American context.

Welcome, Ally

My little girl, born Dec 8, 2011