How well do you think new technology can be implemented in Ghana? Waiting for new gurus to emerge? You can be part of the design team. Mail to nanapee2@hotmail.com

Programmers are the future of the upcoming mind-evolution world. The way forward to administering Ghana's 'gates' in adjusting to the world enterprise has been sowed. The National Association of Student Programmers seeks to collaborate both student & non student PROGRAMMERS in fostering an amazing span of PROJECTS. Launching will be due coming September..Mail to nanapee2@hotmail.com for more details

For the techies, news of software for children to learn spelling in their indigeneous languages. IT people, note the licence, allowing modification for the west african market...

What do you think hampers the patronage of Open Source in Ghana?

...Sounds on da ground and seens on the see-ins

There has been a lot of controversy in Ghana lately about the recent National Honours Awards and who deserves awards and who should be giving them out. Naturally, we would want 'Ghana' to give out these awards and not the president of the nation or a bunch of people with various interests. So what if Ghana was a person? What would Ghana have to say to its people? If Ghana was a monarchy, the king would be Ghana. We don't have that. My buddy, Okyeame Kwame personifies Ghana in his Kwame Ghana song and tells us what Ghana has to say to its people. 6th march 1957 was a Wednesday while July 1st, 1960 was a Friday. Maybe Kwame Ghana's message sums up the thoughts of Okyeame Kwame, who after all is a Ghanaian as well.

Okyeame Kwame is a hiplife musician from Ghana. He is an original member of Akyeame, one of the first rap duos in Ghana. He's one of Ghana's finest rappers and one of the most respected. His first solo album was Bohye ba and he followed it this year with M'awensem (my poetry). Songs on his second album take the form of stanzas (mostly four lines). Some of his tracks include Medo mmaa nanso mempe mmaa, Woso, Odo nkyen, Tutu, Mbre, Mate ahwe ne do mu, Hello Maame, etc.

Kwame Ghana starts out like a dirge. Kwame Nsiah Appau is not happy about the current state of Ghana. He argues that Ghana is not happy with itself, apparently, it (he/she) is dying. The lives being lived by its children is killing Ghana softly. Okyeame Kwame talks about a number of social vices bedevilling Ghana and many other issues it is facing. According to him, Ghana is not alone as he mentions various African countries who he believes are in more or less the same predicament.

Okyeame makes a reference to monarchies. He talks about how a chief sells a piece of land to two different people. This is a small window to present the larger problem of land ownership. Prices of land in Ghana are shooting through the roof, especially around the metropolitan areas. The land tenure system has failed to do its job and different peopel claim to own different pieces of land. This is one of the greatest bottlenecks facing local and foreign investors alike. We need to get our land ownership system more organized and in turn push for better expansion of our metropolitan areas and planning of new settlements and communities.

The journalists and media are not left out as they are accused of fanning the partisan and tribal conflicts in Ghana. Kwame Ghana calls out to his doctors to have mercy on his citizens by accepting their salaries and desisting from strikes, etc. The people who pay the doctors are different from those who normally benefit from their services. The people who pay the doctors don't use the Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye facilities and they don't seem concerned about upgrading their facilities to an appreciable level. These people can't be the Ghana that is crying out to. The Ghana personified in Okyeame Kwame's song consists of the common Ghanaian who doesn't have access to the best medical facilities, education or financial opportunities. They won't be giving car loans because they wouldn't earn enough to pay them back and they don't have the financial muscle to benefit fully from the transport systems. They also have to live with the bad transport infrastructure which while improving, is not up to par.

Kwame Ghana is standing at the Kotoka Airport and admiring the faces of people travelling to seek greener pastures abroad and those returning to visit families. Increasingly, more people are coming to seek opportunities in Ghana where they believe they can become the next Ernest Chemists, Unique Trust or Databank. Ghana has seen its children through their education, bearing most of the cost and watches them send their skills abroad for better compensation. Ghana is too disorganized and nepotismized for an average person to make it. How can we retain our talent? If there is no space for them at home, can we at least have a say in what they do with the skill, where they achieve further training and enjoy the benefits?

The Rap Doctor could not leave out corruption which seems to be the biggest symptom in many ailing African countries. He starts with the government as usual and how they misuse money allocated for building and tidying up him aka Ghana the person. There are many instances of money mismanagement. For a start, we need to dedicate more money to the GETFund, we should not hold up the progress of our educational facilities for ransom. We have to follow through with all the good ideas, the school feeding program, National Health Insurance Scheme, amongst others. We don't want garnished walls and beautiful gardens when we can't pay our electricity bills or afford a generator.

In an indication that the moral decadence in Ghana has reached another level, Okyeame complains about same-sex marriages as well. He laments sexual relations at work (managers and secretaries) which ultimately lead to broken homes. Some people may see the latter situation as a class-leveller, a secretary who is in the middle class enjoys some rich class privileges as per her relations with her boss. How many stories had you heard of people in Ghanaian companies rising through the ranks to take up more responsibility? Look at our government, it's a rotation of positions and there is little initiative and creativity in growing our ministries, businesses and communities.

For some of you, Ghana is not dying. Okyeame Kwame and I will like to hear arguments to the contrary. Like I argued in my last blog entry, Ghana has a lot going on. The Ghana is crying out to its children not to neglect it and support it through thick and thin. We have to be more responsible, disciplined, self-sufficient and organized. We don't want our country to sing out dirges for our schools, hospitals, etc. Collectively, we can give Ghana life and a life worth living.

Full Kwame Ghana lyrics, audio.
Photo by Cimpsy

How many times do we hear that cliché? Well, as I read an article about japanese energy efficiency, I can't help but think about the "human resource" being even more important. To double output whilst maintaining energy consumption is incredible.

Considering recent events, I was impressed to read the transcript of an interview with paul kagame.

His comments regarding malaria control and an african supreme court were most interesting.

If anyone knows the e-mail address of the health minister, please forward the transcript! :)

Reading this article about changes to web domain addresses prompted me to wonder whether ghanaians would continue to use the roman script. At least now, phonetic script could be deployed.

Do you think the advent of Linux/Open Source will help Africa caught up with technological advancements in the "West"? Let me know your reasons?

Hey Osagyefo,

Please don't put me into your bad books due to this long silence. I have been thinking about you but I was preoccupied with thinking about my classes rather than dedicating time to preparing a letter to you. After all, no one is paying me to do this, but my classes are supposed to get me paid in the future. Eventually. So appreciate my efforts, Kwame, I am not being corrupted. I surely don't need any brown envelopes to share my thoughts on our beloved nation. Now think of those who are actually supposed to serve our nation. It's their job to do it. They are the ones whose jobs have been clouded in the controversy called corruption. It's a canker, but what can we do about it?

Corruption has become part and parcel of our culture that it is easy to overlook it. I was trying to think of corrupt practices I witnessed or engaged in when I was back home in Ghana and it took me awhile to count a few. The most popular culprits are the lawmakers themselves. If it's not the Christmas present you are handing out then it's the little widow's mite to the police for 'taking care' of us. If it's not the few cedis you are paying to save wasting a few minutes of going to the police station, it is the on-the-spot fine for speeding. But is there a spot fine for overspeeding? What are the rules on traffic offences? Ghanaians are not educated about road traffic rules but we complain about the bribery, corruption and punishments nonetheless.

A friend told me just the other day that I should prepare to go home and get one of those government contracts. "We for chop the money some". It seems the corruption is here to stay and you are better off putting yourself in a position to benefit than to complain about it. Is that how it worked in your time, Osagyefo? Was there any transparency in how contracts were awarded? Is it a crime to be friends with those who create the opportunities? In Uncle Sam's country, it is called networking. The processes are as transparent as they come but in the end, everyone hires someone he/she trusts. Maybe in Ghana, people hire those they trust where the trust is built on friendships, and family ties. What am I missing here?

People say the black man is corrupt. The white man buys into it as well. Power can corrupt anyone, even if/when the person who does not wield the power. I was at an African business conference the other day and the issue of corruption came up. We love these foreign businesses that try to get a presence in Ghana. They claim to fight corruption by not budging to the various demands but am sure they balance the books and look at the numbers, and eventually give in. As a result, we have low quality projects going up around Ghana and instead of building infrastructure, we are stuck with improving existing ones.

While we discuss how to prevent people from being corrupt and being corrupted, let's seek to fish out how to build our economies and industries more efficiently and effectively. There is too much disorganization in various public setups in Ghana to control wrongdoing. Kwame, we need discipline, first and foremost. When you have systems that don't work and require so much creativity to get by day in and day out, people will take advantage of the cracks in the system. The sad thing is, the richer are the ones primed to do so, in addition to those who are friends with the elite, and this does not bode well for national development and wealth creation.

Corruption seems to be the biggest deterrent for people who want to invest in Ghana. Ghanaians abroad know more about this than anyone. When they visit Ogyakrom, it is one of the first things they realise, it is unlike what they see in Western countries. This is the group that should be leading the charge against indiscipline, disorganization and corruption. Ghanaians abroad should not only be seeking to take advantage of government contracts; it would not solve the problems. We should give power to the common citizen, the entrepreneur and the hard worker. Power here represents opportunity, capital and resources.

Kwame, it is easier written than done. The highest position in the land seems to go to the highest bidder. How much did you bid in the run up to 1957? But like I said, no one is corrupting me to discuss corruption. Someone just gave me an opportunity. Thou shall give corruption no daylight. Thou should send some small cash though, there is nothing corrupt about that.

Yours truly,
Maximus.

The inaugural winner of our GhanaThink Foundation Invitational Programming Contest dubbed 1.GTPC.06 is in the news again. See information about the competition and the winning entry

In an effort to revive Africa's dormant game production industry, two leading game producers from Kenya and Ghana have teamed up.
Wesley Kiriinya, Kenya's top video game producer, and Eyram Tawia of Ghana are collaborating to produce world-class games. Kiriinya, who is the technical director at Sinc-studios, produced Kenya's first video game, "Adventures of Nyangi." The game is based on African folklore, a feature he intends to present to the world stage.

Rest of the news here
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/050708-kenya-ghana-collaboration-s...

We'll keep tabs of their exploits here. Does anyone know of any other African computer game makers/programmers?

Mr. Webmaster, there has been a lot of talks about more action and less talk lately. Well, a friend of mine has been doing just that. Fortunately, i have been able to convince him to share the progress report of a Ghanaian project he just worked on during the summer with Ghanathink readers. His project is about a technology to curb counterfeit drugs in Ghana and Africa as a whole. It makes an interesting piece for this site and needs to be posted for public consumption. I believe it's a great example to readers about the litte things we could do to change our country and continent. However, it's a pdf file of size 1.73MB (greater than 1MB allowed). How do I post it? Thanks
GK Dapaa

The GhanaThink call to action is "Less talk, more action" and over the years I've been personally motivated by this call. It has forced me to re-evaluate what it means to do more and talk less. In fact, it is a lot harder to take action than to talk about taking action. And I have found that until you take action, you do not really know what you are talking about.

Talking is good, to some extent. It exercises your mind and forces you to articulate your ideas. But to what end? I believe, talking should only serve the purpose of convincing others to join you in taking action. i.e. talking is a recruiting tool. Any other use is probably a waste of time for both the speaker and the audience.

Part of my excitement about GhanaConscious has always been driven by the belief that it was possible to form a community of Ghanaian practitioners online where one could return time and again to get inspiration to take more action. To that end, in the early days of GhanaConscious, there were occasional purges of the member rolls to remove those members who had signed on merely to observe or distract others. Controversial yes, but ultimately more effective in encouraging the right kind of community to form.

I never hoped for it to be a talking shop devoid of action. And so I am disappointed to see that the discussions on this forum have taken a decided turn in the direction of the hypothetical. "What if somebody?" instead of "I have done this and am looking for more ideas". This risks us becoming irrelevant and ineffective.

Please join me in calling out the talking heads and instead encourage the action-takers. Remember, Ghanaians have never had a lack of good ideas so merely spewing out ideas isn't impressive. What we have historically lacked are decisive action-takers. There are few people who have acted with conviction that and convincingly made a great impact on our national life--Kwame Nkrumah, J J Rawlings, Apostle Kwadwo Safo, Reggie Rockstone. For good or ill, they tried to do something good. They used words to convince others to join their cause, not to show off how "intelligent" they are. Let us learn lessons from the best among us.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

I encountered news of this event. Hopefully, someone in ghana will see the benefit of developing similar initiatives.

This a reply to an article I read in the Daily Graphic

Do you really think that open source will make an impact in Ghana? I will lke anyone interested to get back to me so we can start discussion on it. Thanks.

I thought I'd share this news article since good news should be celebrated.

However (!), in the time honoured african tradition, it seems the basic product is exported. Where is the innovation to develop new value-added manufactured products. When l'occitane sells 150 ml at £15, the maths tells its own story.

Whilst we cannot expect the women themselves to suddenly develop marketing know-how, we should expect some other entrepreneurial ghanaians to at least develop new brands, packaging styles, etc., to add value and generate profit.

Below is an article I read on AOL. Now whiles that may be something we’ve always known has been happening. The question is how are our leaders working round the issue and putting stringent policies on tax into place or is it still ‘back door hand the big dogs some dosh and stick your fingers up at the rest of the country’ scenario:

Tax evasion 'causing child deaths'

Last Updated: Monday, 12 May 2008, 04:50

First World tax evasion has been linked to child deaths
Tax evasion is causing 1,000 children to die every day, a charity report claims.
Christian Aid insists the 160 billion US dollars (£in tax revenue lost worldwide every year means poorer countries are losing out.
If the money was paid and allocated according to current spending patterns, the lives of 350,000 children under five could be saved every year.
The charity accused multi-national corporations of "routinely" paying as little tax as possible to the governments of developing countries.

Dr Daleep Mukarji said: "The abuse is so widespread and damaging that it is tantamount to a new slavery. The rich are getting richer on the backs of some of the most impoverished and vulnerable communities in the world."
Christian Aid has blamed tax havens for failing to tackle legal and illegal tax dodging, and accuses major accountancy firms of encouraging clients to take advantage of the lax regimes.
Nearly half the world's tax havens are UK territories, Crown dependencies or part of the Commonwealth.
Christian Aid is calling on the Government to take the lead in pressing for a crackdown on tax havens and encouraging multi-national firms to publish their accounts country by country.
Gordon Brown has recently called on businesses to do more to help developing countries because the UN goal to halve poverty by 2015 shows no signs of being met.

We have moved to a new server.

One could almost be forgiven in Ghana and in a wide African context for thinking that this is just part of everyday life. We raise an eyebrow and let it wash off or we snigger and pooh pooh about it but there are no consequences for the perpetruators.
Picture the adult man or woman who engages in illicit sexual liasons with a minor, or the paedophile who takes a minor without their consent or young girls being charted off to older husbands when their breasts are barely formed.

A lot has been said about Prostitution and Homosexuality in Ghanaian society with such fervour but little if any is said of Paedophilia. To date, the law on the age of consent has not been ingrained into the minds of citizens so they might be mindful of the consequences of sleeping with a minor and legal action barely takes place. Infact it is sometimes seen as a status symbol having A-youngies on ones list of bed notching. And it is not just older men or women who are to blame but young ones as well. Basically whether you are 18 or 90, having that sort of liason with a minor is wrong and unlawful.

I was reading a report on HIV rates in Ghana from Ghanaweb and a worrying scenario came up that young females were being infected more than their male contemporaries because of transmission from sugar daddies. One side feels the girls are clean and pure as they are very young and untarnished and the girls feel the old men are equally clean because being married signifies a sense of being free of infections. The situation is further compounded if the adults are luring the minors with money and goodies and minors for want of basic things or just plain greed rise to the occasion.

Its time this issue is discussed seriously at Parliamentary level because the social repercussions are huge and damaging; far outweighing personal choices by say prostitutes and Homosexuals because most often than not the victims of paedophilia are a voiceless group.