Move over, Lagos and Johannesburg, Accra too has a burgeoning media and entertainment sector. A 2016 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) predicts the sector in Ghana could be worth more than $1 billion in 2019.
Proving this are events such as the Exclusive Men of The Year (EMY) Africa Awards, which last year brought together 1,000 people including some of Ghana’s top CEOs, founders and achievers. Held on Father’s Day the last two years, it spotlights businessmen who are also role models at home, a campaign Daniel Kojo Soboh, Executive Director of EMY Africa, is hoping will transform the role of men in societies across Africa.
“We did a lot of research and realized there were homes that had no positive male role models young children could look up to. We know that the father’s role is very key, so it’s very important we project some of these men who are doing so great with their family, their work and their business,” says Soboh.
The event is dedicated to celebrating men in Ghana and Soboh is looking to expand his footprint in other African countries as well.
Those awarded include previous FORBES AFRICA covers, Papa Kwesi Nduom and Joseph Siaw Agyepong, for their impact as leading business magnates and inspirational role models.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/09/01/father-ghanaian-theater/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Father Of Ghanaian Theater</a>
“We select people from across various industries, people whose work is impacting society positively. We wanted to present them to young people who learn about them and who can read their stories and be inspired…,” says Soboh.
His own experiences growing up in a mining area in the Western Region of Ghana with a father he looked up to helped shape his outlook.
“My father encouraged us to be anything we wanted to be so long as it was 100% legal,” he reminisces as we sit down in his office in downtown Dzorwulu, Accra.
Soboh’s dream was to become a pilot. He opted for computer science at university instead until he stumbled into the entertainment sector.
“Two years into my course, I wanted to quit because I realized it was not something I wanted to pursue. I fell in love with entertainment… I organized a lot of events so everything pointed to the fact that I was an entertainment person. I loved putting stuff together and putting smiles on people’s faces and I also loved organizing and giving people a good time.”
Soboh joined Imajin Advertising, an events company in Ghana, where he was part of organizing some of Ghana’s most successful events such as the Legends and Legacy Ball, The Stand Up GH concert, and The Ghana Stands In Worship concert. The time was right.
According to the PWC report, Ghana’s entertainment and media sector generated revenues of $685 million in 2016, representing a year-on-year- growth above 25% from its $214 million mark in 2012.
Soboh decided he wanted a chunk of this lucrative market.
<div id="attachment_35818" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35818" class="size-medium wp-image-35818" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/IMG_9360-1.jpg 1365w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Daniel Kojo Soboh. Photo supplied.</div>
“I started my own agency called Carbon AD to partake in opportunities in this growing sector. I partnered with Exclusive Men’s Magazine as a managing partner and together we created the EMY Africa Awards… The event has grown very quickly and become a household name&#8230;”
Ghana’s entertainment industry has seen significant changes over the past decade, and it has become imperative for companies like Soboh’s to continue to innovate. This relies on sponsorships, and that has not been an easy task for Soboh.
“We strive to raise the bar in terms of events in Ghana&#8230; I mean other people are doing it in Nigeria and Kenya, where they are producing state-of-the-art events and these things come at a cost,” says the man promoting exclusive men in Africa. Are they listening?

kojo

From Accra To Africa

<blockquote>“If we focus on humanity, accountability and the citizenship of the people over the next 60 years, Ghana should become a truly shining example, not only on the continent of Africa but globally.” &#8211; Former Ghanaian President John Kufuor</blockquote>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-34036" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Penresa-Logo.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
In 2017, 60 years after Ghana claimed independence, President Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP political party came into power amidst much rejoicing, optimism and hope around the country. The administration immediately displayed its intention to build a budding economy replete with developed infrastructure and programs to fortify the agricultural, financial and energy sector, focusing all the while upon its large population of youth. “The hope for the youth is very significant” Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia states “which is why we’ve initiated a policy of free secondary school education to prioritize our most important resources, the children.”
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Penresa-Shining-Bright-Ghana-Full-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">READ THE FULL REPORT</a>
The industrial policy ‘1-District-1-Factory’ is President Akufo-Addo’s flagship and representative of the administration’s vision and ambition for Ghana. It was launched as a project aimed at creating jobs for the youth and eventually reducing the developmental gaps and rural-urban migration. The idea is to build a factory in each of Ghana’s districts establishing as President Akufo-Addo claims “at least one major industrial project, based on the natural endowment of economic potential of each district.” In this way value will be added to Ghana’s very rich and vast raw materials by processing them on the very land where they grow. This will reduce importation and increase food availability as well as allowing the participation of the private sector.
To promote the growth and development of entrepreneurship and to accelerate youth job creation, President Akufo-Addo has also introduced the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NIEP). The government’s approach to stimulate enterprise activities and provide integrated national support for start-ups and small businesses. “There are a lot of unemployed youth who could be employed” states Dr. Aaron Issa Anafure, CEO of SIC Life “not directly by government but with their help, they can fund them to set up their own businesses.”
Ghana’s mission to be a leading entrepreneurial country is dependent on Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta’s major tax reforms. These focus mainly on the abrogation and reduction of the taxes that have been holding back the growth of the private sector. “Ghana represents a pillar of stability in the region and it is our job to let the black star shine again and attract the needed investment to create a region that is both productive and profitable.” Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta states, “We have started the reforms to get the private sector to work again. We aim to provide stable exchange rates, lower interest rates, stable energy supply, a shift in taxation to support growth, while spending in critical areas of the economy.”
Ghana’s efforts to focus on the private sector to boost the economy and financial sector has brought about transparency and accountability. Clearance of goods from Ghana’s ports will be 100% paperless while all internal customs barriers in the country will also be removed to facilitate the movement of goods. Dr Ernest Addison, Governor of the bank of Ghana confirms the positive and swift change taking place, “Ghana is making progress on all fronts, that is politically, socially and economically. One of the few democratically stable African countries&#8230; Ghana has vast potentials of natural resources and investment opportunities, with friendly people and a favourable business climate.”

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FOCUS ON GHANA: Welcome to Africa’s Rising Black Star

The first time I visited Ghana’s capital, Accra, was in 2014 and it was an impressive experience. From the airport to the hotel, I met people who treated their country’s guests with dignity.
When it was time to hit the street market of Accra, I exercised caution because I was about to experience the discomfort that accompanies shopping in a typical African market where you must sweat it out under the sun, guard your wallet, and watch out for other types of social menace. My brain was very alert throughout my visit at the famous Makola Market. Within minutes, this unpleasant experience was replaced with one of pleasure as I entered the modern Accra Mall. The ambiance was relaxing and consumers were treated with respect.
The success of entrepreneurs in this economic system will be determined by how good they are at selling what consumers want, which includes respecting the dignity of people.
Customers crave a welcoming smile, honesty, respect, convenience and high-quality. Offering what matters to customers, but which is not always easy to find, will be where African entrepreneurs find success.
In Africa, there is a scarcity of love being expressed towards citizens. This is evident in the continent’s poor infrastructure, hunger, poor healthcare facilities, and lack of empathy from politicians. This is why Africans are longing for anything that represents dignity.
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This is one opportunity that entrepreneurs cannot ignore. Despite challenges, the retail business is growing in Africa. Malls are always busy, not necessarily because the products are cheaper, but because many Africans, for the first time, are shopping in a dignified atmosphere. The demand for foreign goods is simply a result of customers craving self-esteem.
In Nigeria alone, the growth of modern shopping malls is fast and expected to double with new malls springing up every month across the country. The same is said of Nairobi that has the largest square meter shopping malls in sub-Saharan Africa. What is driving this investment? One reason could be the replacement of the humiliating market experience with malls that are clean and comfortable. The foundation of this business model is love for customers, driven by the need to restore dignity to the day-to-day shopping experience.
If you visit Lagos, Nigeria, at the moment, one of the things you will notice is the massive investment in infrastructure. This will enhance human dignity and promote business. A typical example is the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) scheme in Lagos that is threatening the age-old yellow buses, popularly referred to as Danfo. In the BRT buses, customers are treated to air conditioning and comfortable seats. In a Danfo bus, you have to endure stifling heat and stinging insults from bus conductors.
Lagos public bus users will naturally flow to where the dignity of the consumer is respected at a competitive price. Similarly, an entrepreneur can either attract or repel people to their business. When you care about your customer, you will see increased patronage and profits grow.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/10/30/west-africa-less-attractive-investors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why Is West Africa Less Attractive To Investors?</a>
In my years of reading and relating with other entrepreneurs, I have found that most strategies and models are vulnerable to disruption and prone to failure; but the love strategy never fails. Business disruptors are usually entrepreneurs who try to improve current systems. Since the law of service says that your reward in life is directly proportional to the value that you give to others, these people are able to attract commensurate value which sets them apart.
The reality is that a business that attracts consumers and investors alike is one that focuses on meeting the needs of people on a consistent basis. These needs go beyond the obvious to include comfort, dignity, respect, care and, ultimately, love. &#8211; Written by Victor Mamora

Love Comes Before Money

How is it that West Africa only accounts for 5% of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the African continent? The World Bank wondered this in July this year.
This is a region that includes the continent’s largest economy, Nigeria, with gross domestic product (GDP) of $406 billion in 2016, about 29% of sub-Saharan African output of $1.4 trillion. By comparison, South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy has a size of $294 billion. Furthermore, the largest and most dynamic francophone African country, Ivory Coast, with a $36 billion economy, is also West African. So why the scant foreign investor interest?
Jack Ma, one of Asia’s richest men, led a group of people with similarly deep pockets to East Africa in July. His first stop was Kenya, an economy barely one-fifth of Nigeria’s size. Ma also visited Rwanda, a tiny landlocked neighbor to Kenya.
If corruption, terrorism and the occasional rebellion in Nigeria and Ivory Coast is disturbing, why is Ghana overlooked? With an economy almost as large as Kenya, Ghana has a better democratic record and has proved to be one of the most stable African countries. And just as Nigeria struggles to deal with the Boko Haram terrorist group in its northeast, so does Kenya with Al-Shabaab. Additionally, political violence is more of a problem in Kenya than it is in Nigeria.
So why did Ma and his 38 billionaire friends find relatively smaller African countries more attractive to the larger coastal countries in the West with such cosmopolitan cities like Lagos and Abidjan? The reasons are not farfetched.
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The World Bank asserts cumbersome administrative procedures and corruption at the ports hinder the speedy clearance of goods, for example. These apply to most African countries, though. It attributes access to finance as well. This is not significant though, as foreign investors bring their own capital. But if a country’s exchange rate policy is controlled and not transparent, this can be stymied.
East African countries have been more reliable in this regard, allowing their currencies to trade without much interference and not hindering the free flow of capital in and out of their jurisdictions, even during periods of crisis. Historically, this has not been the case in West Africa, especially Nigeria, which until recently not only rationed hard currency but blocked the repatriation of capital, causing great losses to foreign investors. Also, myriad bottlenecks around doing business in most West African countries are worse than they are in East Africa. Little wonder the World Bank ranks Rwanda and Kenya 56th and 92nd out of 190 countries respectively in its latest ease of doing business index. Ghana and Nigeria are ranked 108th and 169th respectively.
Even though corruption underpins the relatively more difficult business conditions in West African countries, it is not likely the reason they are less attractive investment destinations. Kenya is perceived by some to be more corrupt than Nigeria, for instance. In fact, Transparency International ranks Kenya as more corrupt than Nigeria in its corruption perception index.
The reason could be that East African countries are more economically integrated. In contrast, West African countries, under the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have been more successful at political integration than economic cohesion.
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A more innovative streak is also a factor, especially with information technology; albeit West African countries, like Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria, are increasingly demonstrating technological progress as well. Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, visited Nigeria in August 2016, for instance.
So what can West African governments do to attract more FDI? They must make doing business easier. The World Bank is helping via a European Union funded four-year ‘Improved Business and Investment Climate in West Africa Project’. It is hoped the ECOWAS Investment Climate Scorecard will bring quicker progress with integration.
With patronage-based politics continuing to be crucial to the stability of most West African countries, however, there is not much political will towards economic integration. Move too quickly and they might have bigger problems than just being difficult to do business in. &#8211; Written by Rafiq Raji

Why Is West Africa Less Attractive To Investors?

A handful of spices and condiments can whet a person’s appetite for business and keep the cash registers ringing, as Ghanaian food entrepreneur Essie Bartels has proven.
For as long as the New Jersey-based Bartels can remember, she has lived a life around food. From an early age, she was the only one of her five siblings tasked with cooking for the entire family.
“I started cooking around the age of seven. I am the first daughter so my mother wouldn’t let me out of her sight when she was cooking. At the time I hated it because when you are that young you don’t want to be in the kitchen, you want to be playing with your friends but that was what she wanted me to do at the time so that is what I did,” says Bartels.
Those early culinary lessons would eventually prepare her to launch Essie Spice, a flavorful journey that has led to a whole foods brand featured in TIME magazine and now stocked in over 13 stores across the United States and Africa. Her love affair with spices was ignited in Ghana.
“My mum used to travel to London and buy spice racks which were very pretty but she would only use like five or six spices out of a rack of 15, so all the other spices would be left unused because they were not traditional spices and as a result they would go bad and be thrown away. So I would take them and figure out what to use all those spices for and I would come up with ideas.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/07/20/tough-times-cocoa-bean-counters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tough Times For Cocoa Bean Counters</a>
Her childhood dream was to become the CEO of a large corporate organization; but her first passion was science. That helped as, in a way, food is science.
Bartels went on to graduate cum laude from Marywood University in Pennsylvania where she studied international business and management with a minor in French.
“So for a semester I lived in the south of France and that also spurred my whole travel bug, which has played a huge part in my products. It is easy to travel in Europe so we would go away to all these different places for the weekend.”
<div id="attachment_32920" style="width: 299px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32920" class=" wp-image-32920" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/030-copy-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="289" height="434" />Essie Bartels (Photo supplied)</div>
Bartels graduated in 2008 at the height of the global financial meltdown and spent six months unemployed surviving only on odd jobs before landing her first job in procurement at Hitachi. The economic downturn got worse and soon Bartels was out of a job again.
“I spent another five months at home and then got another job at Panasonic. I went from a procurement assistant to a procurement specialist. I was there for two years and then got a job at Unilever, which was eight minutes from my home. I negotiated deals between Unilever and our research partners,” says Bartels.
While at Unilever, the idea for Essie Spice was still simmering in her head, with Bartels spending half her pay-cheque on funding her dream. It was not until she quit Unilever for a job she hated that she decided to take her spice dream more seriously.
“This was a very pivotal time for Essie Spice and I decided to give it six months of my undivided attention. I told God if nothing happens with the brand in six months I am going back to the corporate world. At the time I was getting offers from L’Oreal and other big brands. It is during that time that I got into Shoprite, Whole Foods and I got features in TIME magazine and Cooking Light magazine. It is crazy because it was at the very end of that six-month period and I said God is really funny.”
Essie Spice’s unique selling point lies in the brand’s ability to marry the flavors of West Africa where Bartels got her culinary start, with her experiences and travels all bottled in a jar. In just over three years the brand has expanded into the competitive whole foods market with a steady flow of about 1,000 repeat customers on their website each year.
That journey has not been without its challenges though.
“I had my formulas but they needed to go through FDA testing to make sure people would not fall sick when they ate them. So I had to send it to the lab for them to test and make recommendations of things I needed to change to be able to make it safe to consume by other people. That was very challenging because it takes a lot of money.
“The other challenge was regulatory, paying taxes and licenses and there was so many of them that you need to comply with. The other challenge was finding a place to make the sauce. By law in the United States if you are making a liquid product you have to make it in a commercial kitchen and I didn’t have a commercial kitchen so I needed to find one, which was an issue. I had to pay them by the hour and get people to work with you as well as pay for insurance which is all a huge capital expense,” says Bartels.
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In three years, the company has sold over 5,500 jars; her best-seller is the Mango Chili Medley, a mouth-watering profusion of flavors.
Playing with unique exotic spices has helped Bartels&#8217; bottom line. Through experimentation and an inquisitive mind, she has created an amalgamation of flavors bottled in a jar taking customers with an insatiable appetite for exotic flavors on an aromatic journey that keeps them coming back for more, and more.

Going Down The Spice Route

Weak global cocoa prices have caused much grief to African producers. Global cocoa futures were down 40% in late April from August 2016, when the decline started.
Côte d&#8217;Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of the commodity, has cut its 2017 budget by 10% consequently. Neighbouring Ghana, and second largest cocoa producer, also missed out on about $1 billion in cocoa export earnings due to the bearish market, according to Joseph Boahen Aidoo, Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), on the sidelines of the emergency International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) meeting held in Abidjan in late April.
The $1.8-billion loan the Cocobod took for the 2016-17 season was spent carelessly or misappropriated to road contracts by Ghana’s erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration ahead of elections in December 2016, causing it to run out in March. The Cocobod had to seek $400 million in bridge financing via cocoa bills from the Bank of Ghana, the country’s central bank.
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In light of the debilitating effects their cocoa troubles are having on their finances, Côte d&#8217;Ivoire and Ghana have been forced to collaborate more. Unfortunately, the countries, which together account for about 60% of global cocoa supply, have different pricing systems.
“We are trying to harmonize how we do our systems for trading so we can use that to monitor the market and coordinate the sale of cocoa,” said Aidoo in April.
To reduce price volatility, cocoa producers resolved at the ICCO meeting to better manage supply.
Poor bean quality, especially high acidity, is a downer as well. Farmers also worry about above normal humidity levels. In mid-March, Ivorian cocoa grinders were rejecting as much as half of the beans from farmers, as acidity levels were sometimes more than double the European Union ceiling. Dry weather and bad storage are believed to be responsible for the bad beans.
Although it is hoped improved, but late, rains could see better beans come from the April-September mid-crop harvest, worries remain. The rains were quite heavy in mid-April for instance. As a deluge tends to make pods fall from trees, the harvest may not be bumper. Also, heavy rains raise the risk of a disease or pest outbreak. They also make road transportation more difficult, as roads become less than ideal.
Still, a supply crunch is highly unlikely. For the 2016-2017 season, the ICCO forecasts in its February market review that world cocoa bean production would increase by about 15% to 4.55 million tons, with grindings to also rise by about 3% to 4.24 million tons.
Out of this, Côte d&#8217;Ivoire is expected to produce at least 1.9 million tons, 42% of the world total and 20% more than its production of 1.58 million tons in the last season. ICCO projections for Ghana in February for the 2016-2017 season is 850,000 tons. However, Cocobod lowered the target to 800,000 tons in March, a little above the 780,000 tons it produced in the previous season.
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With a glut of the commodity in Côte d&#8217;Ivoire and room for more in Ghana, unsurprisingly cross-border smuggling has been rampant. Depending on the times, cocoa price disparities between the two countries tend to encourage smuggling either way. Although farmgate cocoa prices were set at 1,100 CFA francs per kilogram by the Ivorian Coffee and Cocoa Council for the 2016-2017 main crop harvest, a supply glut due to stockpiles in warehouses from crops as late as December have crashed prices. Suddenly, the 900 CFA francs per kilogram for the commodity in Ghana seemed like a steal. Guinea has also been a beneficiary of Ivorian cocoa smugglers, where it is sold for about 850 CFA francs per kilogram. Such is the despair that Ivorian grinders have been able to strike attractive bargains, with offers ranging from 500 to 600 CFA francs per kilogram. A common market would eliminate these distortions.
Incidentally, the prices for manufactured cocoa products, such as liquid deodorized butter and natural powder, have been steady this year. With cocoa prices so low, and European manufacturers enjoying a boom, there couldn’t be a stronger case for more value addition by African producers. &#8211; Written by Rafiq Raji

Tough Times For The Cocoa Bean Counters

At least the new president Nana Akufo-Addo is optimistic. In a press statement he called for reflection on what makes Ghanaians who they are. This year’s theme, according to him, is:  “Mobilizing for Ghana’s Future.” That is, a year for Ghanaians to understand their country’s shortcomings and look at ways to improve.
Good timing, when growth is falling. According to figures from the World Bank, Ghana’s economy grew by 4.9% during the first quarter of 2016. However, overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the whole of 2016 could be below the 3.9% achieved in 2015, due to production problems in oil.
Inflation is at 16.7%, made worse by the country’s erratic energy supply that sees businesses put prices up when they use generators.
Victor Ohene Oppong, Founder of Invest Hub, a financial advisory firm in Accra, is, like many of his countrymen, in no mood for jubilation.
<div id="attachment_4605" style="width: 245px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4605" class="size-medium wp-image-4605" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/GettyImages-146126958-235x300.jpg" alt="" width="235" height="300" />Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of newly independent Ghana, Ghana, mid to late 1950s. The British crown colony of the Gold Coast, became its own country of Ghana on March 6, 1957, with Dr. Nkrumah as its first President. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)</div>
“Sixty years ago our founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah famously opined, Ghana your beloved country is free forever, and we all thought managing our own resources would lead to prosperity for everyone but that has simply not been the case. We have issued our fifth Eurobond debt for $750 million and the oil crisis has led to a sharp contraction in oil exports. Businesses are fighting for survival because when there is no cash flow you die. So what is there to celebrate?” he says.
Economic hard times have hit Oppong in the pocket. Last year, he had to lay off five expatriates and close down one of his two branches because of low revenues.
“The debt to GDP ratio stands at about 70% and the last unemployment figures show at least 42% of people are still struggling to find jobs. I think the president is right when he calls this a time of reflection, we need to think very hard and carefully about the future of this country,” says Oppong.
Richmond Nartey, Managing Director of RN Shipping in Tema, agrees.
“Sixty years is a lifetime. For most people that is the age when they begin to think about retirement and enjoying life. But that is not the case for Ghana. The value of our currency is still very weak against the dollar and even though we decided to use our own local currency, many companies still charge in dollars. Foreign currency restrictions in Ghana are still a big issue for our kind of business. What happens to businesses that cannot get their hands on the much-needed dollars to be able to run their business?” says Nartey.
Following the end of decades of rule by former coup leader Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, Ghana has done its best to clean up its democratic act. Ghana’s two-party electoral system is earning the confidence of the world for its peaceful political transitions. For this reason alone, Mary Osei, Account Manager at HFC Bank, believes there is cause to celebrate.
“This is a time to remember all the things that make this country a wonderful place to live. Yes, there are several challenges we are facing, but which economy isn’t facing challenges? We have to continue to work together to build on the achievements we have and make this nation great,” says Osei.
“If there was ever a day to be proud of your Ghanaian heritage and to be patriotic, there is no better day than March 6, so I do not agree with the naysayers and people who believe there is no need for celebrations,” she says.
Yet the debate over how to celebrate Ghana’s 60th birthday has been fierce. Akufo-Addo set up a 30-member committee to plan the celebrations with a budget of GHc20 million ($4.57 million), which has proved controversial on the streets.
“If there is anywhere that money needs to be spent, it should be in the creative industry instead of throwing it away on branding buses with faces of old presidents or parties. There are failing sectors in the economy where that money could be put to much better use,” says Adamz, a hip-hop artist in Ghana.
The influence of Ghana’s independence over Africa cannot be underestimated. It was the first black African nation to cast off colonialism and inspired many others to follow suit.
&#8220;At long last, the battle has ended!  And thus, Ghana, your beloved country is free forever!&#8221; said Ghana’s first leader Kwame Nkrumah on independence night in 1957. The new leader wore his prison cap – a symbol of his incarceration by the British during his independence struggle – with the letters PG, for prison graduate, embroidered on the front.
Martin Luther King Jr. was with half a million Ghanaians at the ceremony and saw a parallel with Ghana’s freedom and his struggle for civil rights in the United States.
“Before I knew it, I started weeping. I was crying for joy. And I knew about all of the struggles, and all of the pain, and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment,” recalled King in an interview years later.
Nkrumah, the father of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which evolved into the African Union, drew many admirers in his first bold steps as a pan-Africanist leader. They included a young teacher by the name of Robert Mugabe who had been seconded to Ghana, by the then Rhodesian government, to a training college.
Mugabe was very taken by the sight of confident Africans in an independent nation and returned home determined to fight for an independent Zimbabwe.
Independence turned out to be bittersweet for Ghana – it was followed by assassination attempts and coups. The idealistic Nkrumah disappointed many when he declared himself president-for-life in 1964.
At least, in the 21st century, democracy in Ghana is closer than it probably ever has been to the shining ideals of 1957.

Ghana At 60

Sirdic Grant has been here before. Top of the league, historic cup success and facing the boot in a few months. It’s as emphatic and simple as that.
He did it all with Hereford FC in a 2015-16 season that included a championship triumph and a Wembley appearance in front of 46,000. Now he is on a similar journey with Westfields, a club submerged even deeper in the backwaters of English football and, intriguingly, just down the road.
So what is a boy from Accra, Ghana, doing on this unusual odyssey and why the certainty of having to say another sad goodbye in May if he becomes a title winner for the second year running?
The answers are wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape. This unfailingly polite 20-year-old is a sports business management degree student at Hartpury College, 30 miles away in Gloucester, and, under the terms of his work permit, barred from playing higher than the fifth tier of the country’s non-league pyramid. That’s eight levels below the Premier League.
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Hereford won the Midland Premier League in 2016 and Grant, whose late-season goals included one as they thrashed Coventry Sphinx 4-0 to become champions, was reluctantly cast aside after appearing in the FA Vase final defeat against Morpeth – a sort of amateur clubs’ FA Cup which commands a Wembley final.
It’s barely 300 yards through the trees from Hereford’s Edgar Street home to Westfields’ allpay.park Stadium – a much humbler base overlooked behind one goal by the giant vats of a cider factory. So, amid interest from similar-sized clubs, it was predictable that the tricky winger, who doesn’t sample the local ‘nectar’ or any other tipple for that matter, moved in with the neighbors last July.
The winning feeling remained. His new club started with 17 successive victories and have strong title aspirations if they can cope with the fixture backlog caused by reaching round one of the FA Cup for the first time. And that could be the cue for him to decamp again.
“It is an unusual situation,” he smiles, recognizing the irony of, in effect, being too successful. “I will have to find a club who won’t get promoted! It’s frustrating but that’s how it is.”
“I just love playing and to enjoy those great times with Hereford and now be part of Westfields’ tremendous season has been so exciting. I have had an unbelievable first year at this level.”
Typically for someone more used to the heat and dusty pitches of Ghana’s capital city, Sirdic (pronounced Se-deek) has struggled with the cold and rain.
‘Shy’ is one word that comes to mind from initial phone contact. He is quietly spoken and acknowledges that his accent is difficult to pick up for the folk 15 miles or so from the Welsh border, where the immigrant population is by no means sizeable.
But his girlfriend Livi, a Hereford-supporting childcare worker, who has now also bought a season ticket at Westfields, heads the support network. She and his Hartpury and Westfields colleague Anderson Ongono provide the ‘wheels’ as Grant doesn’t drive and reveal how he is sometimes late emerging from the dressing room after games because he treats team-mates to some dance moves and singing.
“No singing today,” Grant smiles as we meet for the first time. We are pitch-side, 10 minutes after the final whistle at the 1-1 home Cup draw with Curzon Ashton that is off the scale as the biggest match in Westfields’ 50-year history. The BBC cameras are in attendance, partly to present from the ground the flagship Football Focus program.
No longer does the connection between this lovely cathedral city and the FA Cup finish with Hereford’s Ronnie Radford, a wonder goal against Newcastle United on a mudbath pitch and a sharp rise in commentator John Motson’s voice. But, today, Bonfire Night afternoon, the player is adamant: “I only sing when we have won.”
‘Sid’ is a product of the Ghana-born Right to Dream (RTD) Academy, which now has countless dots on the world map. He was very close to Abdul Majeed Waris, a forward the country took to the 2014 World Cup and is with Lorient in France. Another RTD and Hartpury graduate, David Accam, also a full international, plays for Chicago Fire.
The academy, which has reached out to talented youngsters elsewhere in West Africa, has a tie-up with Manchester City and Grant was thrilled to be whisked there in 2011 and introduced to one of Accra’s finest exports, Michael Essien. The midfielder is one reason he supports Chelsea – he has even played there in a charity game.
Sirdic found things tougher back home but not as tough as they might have been. He has one brother and one sister, his retired father having worked as a personal assistant in the Ghana Supply Company.
“We always had a meal on the table but you had to find a way of affording boots,” he says. “England has a better standard of living and football, with more privileges. I would probably have been at university and playing in the second or third division of the national league if I’d stayed in Ghana. There isn’t enough spent on football for youngsters there.”
Westfields, for whom Grant scored an early-season hat-trick against Highgate, were averaging crowds of 155 before 1,178 flocked to the Cup game. Hereford routinely pull in two to three times that latter number.
Sirdic will complete his second year of his degree course before considering a break in order to follow the path of his former Hereford team-mate, Mustapha Bundu from Sierra Leone, who is now playing in Denmark.
“I want to play as high as I can,” he adds. “The aim would be the Premier League but getting a team in Europe, maybe Scandinavia, would be a step. The work permit situation might be easier then.”
Westfields’ replay at Curzon was their eighth FA Cup game of the season. Manchester United played seven in winning the 2015-16 competition.
Westfields lost the replay 3-1 on November 14. An injury meant Grant didn’t even make the bench. That’s how cruel the FA Cup can be.

The Gifted Ghanaian Stranded In  Middle England

In the quiet residential area of North Ridge, a four-acre piece of land is being developed into a 200-unit apartment complex. The development in Accra, Ghana, is part of a trend of new real estate projects springing out from previously abandoned parks.
“This is a very competitive market, there are not many people with a lot of disposable income, so the market for potential buyers is very small with everybody going after the same pot,” says Godwin Ofori, real estate agent at BCD Properties.
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Skyrocketing prices for properties is making people desperate to find bargains, says Ofori. Kelvin Nyame, the Co-Founder of meQasa, is hoping to ease their anguish.
meQasa is an online property listings site connecting buyers to more than 23,000 commercial and residential properties across Ghana.
“There are about 27 million people in Ghana and we look at how many people have the budget to rent the types of houses that are available for rent, or office spaces, then you look at people who have disposable income. We feel that the market is very small, so either you are number one or you are out of the game and to be number one you need to have three times the content that your competitors have,” says Nyame.
Nyame believes content is king.
“In the listings, we are the highest right now, and traffic wise we have closed the gap with our competitors. We are doing about 40,000 serious seekers with over 290,000 page views per month. More than half of the 40,000 are converting and what that means is that they are sending emails to our agents and calling our agents to enquire about our properties and we hope to grow this number by up to 50,000 to 60,000 by December,” he says.
Nyame came up with the idea, along with Rashad Seini and Kofi Amuasi, at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST).
“So the whole idea of MEST is to learn software and online business. The program is structured such that you do capstone projects and in the capstone projects you form teams with everybody. The idea is that by your final capstone project you will want to develop your idea into a business and meQasa was one of the last two projects we were thinking of making into a business. After analysing our expertise and our skill set we decided to go for meQasa.”
Nyame and his team had to adopt a lean strategy from the start.
“The market is very small but there were a lot of big players and we just had $90,000 seed investment from MEST to operate with for two years. So if you do the maths, you can only spend about $3,000 per month and this includes employee salaries, office space, marketing and product development, so we were very limited and everyone was after the same customers, so it was very tough.”
There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of 2015, meQasa secured a much-needed investment of $500,000 from Frontier Digital Ventures, a global venture capital firm headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Nyame is using that cash injection to streamline the business.
“We started monetizing two months ago and we have what we call subscription for developers, so every developer has a fee they pay for a number of months with different bundles. We also have banner ads and also sell our newsletter. For agents, we have products that are customized as well and by 2017 there will be space for every agent that wants to list on the site.”
In just three years, meQasa gained a significant percentage of the property listings business, according to Nyame.
“The early days were tough. We did a lot of research but we made some assumptions. We tried models. As a business you want to look at how you can make money and some of the models didn’t work. One of the models was that we recruited agents who we called meQasa real estate agents. So basically we would give them some kind of resources and an ID card so they know that they work for us but they also have their own real estate business. The idea was to send them leads so that when they close the deal we share the commission but that didn’t work.”
“We also hired a meQasa agent relationship manager to manage the agents, which also didn’t work. We made a lot of mistakes by also looking at the US market and what will work over there, but again that is a very advanced market so it wouldn’t work here. Now we are looking more at emerging markets in Southeast Asia, who are not too far from us in terms of developments but they managed to find solutions.”
The company plans to expand to other African countries and Nyame hopes he’ll soon be the top player in the continent’s property game.

‘Either You Are Number One  Or You Are Out’

Burkina Faso, as the third biggest gold producer in West Africa, behind Ghana and Mali, does not get the recognition it deserves. In addition to gold, the nation is blessed with manganese and other rare earth metals, making it a premier destination for mining. With this in mind, it is not surprising that the government is in talks with mining companies to develop a world-class manganese mine.
Gold is Burkina Faso’s most valuable export, accounting for almost 80% of its income. But, the reliance on gold is waning, with focus turning to the exploration of other mineral deposits. A diverse base of minerals, especially with the discovery of manganese, will help ensure that Burkina Faso develops multiple revenue streams.
Considering that there was no industrial mining in Burkina Faso up to 2007, the sector’s rise shows what can be achieved in a relatively short space of time with government support and relative political stability. Companies that have an interest in setting up operations in the country include Canada’s Endeavour Mining and UK-listed mining company, Toro Gold, both of which are active players in the West African mining space. Another Canadian miner, Roxgold, is in the process of completing an IPO to develop a 95,000oz concession. Key to Burkina Faso’s success is the high grade of its gold.
Despite a rosy outlook, there are challenges. Power shortage is hampering the progress of projects and the Burkinabe government has started to construct a 33MW solar power plant to combat the problem. This approach will hopefully encourage investors.
In addition to Burkina Faso, Mali has historically had a vibrant mining sector with the country hosting many productive mines. Gold mined in the West African country last year produced 50 tons of gold, with production expected to surpass 60 tons by the end of next year. With both Burkina Faso and Mali having a degree of political stability, coupled with low taxes and other incentives, the region will no doubt attract investors who might have been sceptical about the region just a year ago.
As Nigeria aims to kick-start its mining sector, there have been significant developments. Canadian company, Thor Explorations, has taken steps to develop a 535,000oz resource and could become a leading player in Nigerian mining. As exploration and new discoveries in the region ramp up, unlocking the potential of the projects will depend on the ability to raise finance, but it has to be the right type of finance. Traditional financing often ostracizes smaller players and curtails smaller projects. Crowdfunding is a method that is gaining traction, especially in advanced mining countries such as Canada. Whether this method can be replicated in Africa remains to be seen but innovation – be it technological or financial – will be advantageous for local and international companies.
In the last couple of years, mining has started to attract the attention of boutique private equity firms. In some cases, financing for mining projects can be misplaced. Private equity traditionally takes a long-term view, with the objective of matching long-term capital with long-term projects. This year has seen an increase in global private equity mining deals, with many mining companies considering these deals as the best way to advance their projects and also provide strategic and managerial expertise.
The cyclical nature of mining means timing is crucial for investors. The price of gold has improved significantly but, with other base metals still performing at low levels, appetite is tempered. Due diligence on any project will determine the way forward but despite advancements in legislation, the perceived lack of transparency and bureaucracy associated with license acquisition deters investor confidence.

Crowd fund the mines

It’s a familiar scene on a hot day in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The alleys are packed with women, carrying children on their backs, selling vegetables and fake Louis Vuitton bags while men sell anything they can get their hands on. Here, you could be sold a drug that could kill you.
The danger is counterfeit drugs that masquerade as healers but threaten to do the opposite.
Victoria Amponsah claims fake drugs almost robbed her of her unborn child like a thief in the night. The day she was diagnosed with malaria she also learned she was two months pregnant. She went to the nearest pharmacy, in Accra, and bought prescribed anti-malarial drugs she thought would save her and her child.
“That evening, I took the medicine. After about two to three hours, I started shaking and vomiting. I felt weak. I called a cotenant and showed her the drug and she said ‘I know this drug, its ok’. But when she [took out the pills from the box] she said ‘this is not the drug that is supposed to be in this box,’” Amponsah told the NGO, United States Pharmacopeia (USP).
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_5209" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5209" class="size-medium wp-image-5209" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Bright_Pharmacy_Lonart_Phone_2015_hi-res-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Bright B. Simons is the brain behind mPedigree, a technology that&#8217;s used to counter counterfeiting of pharmaceutical products, wax prints and other products that are prone to piracy. Accra, Ghana.</div>
She was rushed to the hospital where a doctor confirmed the drug she took was fake. She managed to complete her pregnancy, but this was not the end of her struggle.
Near the end of her pregnancy, she almost died from a fake version of oxytocin, disguised in convincing packaging. Within 30 minutes of administration, Amponsah was sweating, shaking, vomiting and bleeding.
“I was bleeding so bad. [The doctors] were scared and didn’t want me to move,” she says.
She nearly lost her baby and was hospitalized for two days. For months later, she had to return to the hospital often, for checks.
“Sometimes I hear stories of a person who was fine, gave birth and the next minute the person has died and you find that they gave the person an injection and they died from it. I didn’t know it was that bad,” says Amponsah.
It is the poor, like Amponsah, that suffer. According to the Dutch Malaria Foundation, malaria is responsible for the death of one child dies every 45 seconds, but a third of malaria drugs sold in Africa are fake.
“My son was my biggest present; the center of my life. He is all I have… I am hoping that globally people understand that our lives are more important than the little money they will make out of bringing a fake drug out. [I hope] people will understand that it’s not all about money. It’s about life… the smallest thing, like just a tiny drug which is bad can cause so much damage in one’s life,” she says.
Amponsah and her son Denzel are among the few lucky ones. Over 30% of antimalarials in Africa contribute to nearly 450,000 preventable deaths each year, according to a report in the medical journal The Lancet. Fake tuberculosis and malaria drugs kill an estimated 700,000 people a year, according to the International Policy Network.
The manufacturers of this fake medicine make it look like the real thing. Mario Ottiglio, the Director of Public Affairs, Communications and Global Health Policy of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), says fake medicine thrives in countries with weak regulation.
“In areas of infectious disease, like malaria and tuberculosis, fake products with incorrect dosage of ingredients can result in antimicrobial resistance to genuine treatments. At a global level, analysis of reports over a five-year period, from 2005 to 2010, indicates that incidents of fake medicine increased by 122 percent, while diversion and theft increased by 66 percent,” says Ottiglio.
In 2009, 84 Nigerian children were killed by toxic chemicals that were laced with teething medications for babies. In 2012, Angolan custom agents busted counterfeiters importing what turned out to be one of the largest fake medicine imports in history, when containers shipped from China to Luanda, the capital of Angola, were filled with over 1.4 million packets of a fake version of the antimalarial drug, Coartem.
“In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global surveillance and monitoring system… Thus far, 48 percent of cases reported [to the system] have been in the African Region,” says Ottiglio.
A study published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease found one in every six pills in Africa to be fake. Furthermore, a survey conducted by the National Institute of Health, which examined over 2,600 malaria drug samples across 21 sub-Saharan African countries, found 20% of these drugs were fake and a third were of poor quality.
Ottiglio says the first line of defence is to always buy medicine from licensed and certified sellers. People can check the packaging of the product for spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Check for expiry dates and that the details on the outer package match up with the inner packaging. Those who are familiar with the medicine can check that the pill looks correct, is not discolored, degraded or doesn’t have an unusual smell.
Even with checks, there is still a problem. Some fake products are almost visually identical to the genuine ones. Often it’s difficult to tell the fake from the real thing.
Patrick Lukulay, Vice President of Global Health Impact Programs at United States Pharmacopeia, says during the outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, there were fake drugs on the market purporting to cure Ebola and people were attracted to them.
“The drugs most counterfeited though are lifestyle drugs such as Viagra and Cialis&#8230; Antibiotics and antimalarials are heavily counterfeited also because of demand for these drugs and the tendency for people to self-medicate. ARVs (antiretrovirals) are also counterfeited because of demand and the fact that people might seek to buy them in private settings for confidentiality purposes instead of getting them free from public facilities,” says Lukulay.
These drugs, according to Lukulay, are made in countries that have developed capacity for pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging, such as India, China, Vietnam and Malaysia.
He says the ingredients used for fake drugs are usually cheaper versions of legitimate ingredients. An example is diethylene glycol, which is toxic but 10 times cheaper than the legitimate pharmaceutical grade ingredient, glycerine.
“They may also include impure cheap raw materials, such as over-sulphated chondroitin sulphate, the one found in blood thinner, heparin, a few years ago that killed people in the US,” says Lukulay.
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Unfortunately, the problem grows at an alarming rate. Lukulay estimates the counterfeit drug market is worth over $75 billion per year.
Like many problems in Africa, it is seen as an opportunity by private money.
In Ghana, entrepreneur, Bright Simons, says he has developed a program that is helping to curb the counterfeit drugs.
In 2007, he launched mPedigree, a company that has created software manufacturers can use to label their product packaging with a random code hidden beneath a scratch-off covering. If a consumer wants to know if their product is fake or not, they can just scratch off the covering and SMS the code to a toll-free number. They will then be notified whether the product is authentic.
Simons claims his services are used by around 100 million people per year in 12 countries, from India to Uganda.
“Our biggest frontier now is predictive analytics, in particular the use of our EarlySensor technology to predict hotspots and flashpoints of emerging counterfeit activity by looking at large data sets across time and space. If we can predict retail points that are likely to be targeted by counterfeiters by disrupting upstream distribution networks, we can actually stop counterfeiting from even getting to the level of the consumer,” he says.
This will help prevent the suffering that Amponsah experienced. She at least lived to tell her story; many more were not so lucky.

A Deadly $75-Billion Business

In ancient Egypt, color was often used to provide insight on important matters. This use of color continues today. In psychology, color can be used as a tool for understanding your behavior and character traits. In the world of business, it is believed that one can use color to encourage sales, calm a crowd and boost the morale of a team.
When it came time for Mike Nyinaku to choose a name for his business seven years ago, he settled on the BEIGE Group. Under the color theory, beige is dependable, conservative and flexible.
Nyinaku is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the BEIGE Group, a hospitality, trade, real estate and logistics company. BEIGE Capital is the flagship brand in the group’s portfolio. The company currently controls around 30% of the total assets and liabilities of the savings and loans market in Ghana.
Despite Nyinaku’s success, it has been a long and tough journey.
“I have failed at probably a lot more than I have been successful and even the ones we succeed at, we failed at least five times before getting it right,” says Nyinaku.
Although relaxed, Nyinaku is dressed smartly with a shirt and bow tie, giving him an aristocratic look. Born to a banker mother and an accountant father, Nyinaku grew up with two siblings and had to fend for himself early in life when his dad was not around.
“I became an entrepreneur out of necessity,” says Nyinaku, as his voice resonates in his expansive, but minimalist, office.
“I started working at the age of 14 to raise extra money to take care of myself during the summer holidays. I was walking down the neighborhood and came across an overgrown lawn and asked the owner if I could mow it for a fee.”
He graduated from the Institute of Professional Studies in Ghana, where he studied accounting. While studying, Nyinaku needed money to feed himself. This forced him to go to small shops to offer his bookkeeping services.
“It was not that easy in the beginning. Out of every 20 to 30 shops I visited, I was able to make one sale, but that sale was enough to take care of my needs for about three days,” he says.
He managed to build a group of clients; around 25 small businesses used his general accountancy services, bookkeeping and savings planning. However it was his appointment at Deloitte which enabled Nyinaku to hone his skills. As an audit trainee, he gained invaluable exposure to practical accountancy.
“At Deloitte, I had the opportunity to be exposed to the financial reports of so many different companies across several different industries. If you are lucky, you get to do about 50 audits a year, you cannot place a value on that level of experience,” says Nyinaku.
As he completed more and more accounting jobs, Nyinaku came in contact with influential people across a number of sectors. One of those contacts made him an offer he could not refuse and, after two years, Nyinaku became a senior financial officer at OIC International, a United States-based organization with an office in Ghana that runs poverty alleviation programs. During this period, Nyinaku kept his private clients with Prime Consult, a firm he had started. He would dedicate two days in the week to meet his clients and manage their financial reports.
After eight years at OIC, Nyinaku’s private business grew and he could no longer manage the two. He made the difficult decision of quitting his job at OIC so he could focus on his own business interests. Nyinaku decided he wanted to venture into banking.
“I got introduced to the stock exchange during the windfall years where the stock exchange was making a lot of money for a lot of people and I had made quite a bit of money,” he says.
He had made around $500,000 which he used to start a micro-finance company. It was not smooth sailing. He applied for his micro-finance license from the Bank of Ghana but his application was rejected. The bank told Nyinaku he needed $1 million in start-up capital. He found a way around this by applying for a license through the Ghana Police Service. At that time, an alternative way of applying for a license to become a micro-finance license in Ghana was through an initiative with the police. This initiative gave birth to Nyinaku’s first banking company.
From humble beginnings, BEIGE Capital has grown to a company with 700 employees and an average return on equity of about 20% since 2010.
Nyinaku is frank about how he got this far.
“I have staked everything I have in my business. I believe if I want someone to invest in me, I have to make the commitment of investing everything I have and that is what I have done.”
Nyinaku took the risk of walking away from a promising corporate career to create something new. For many that risk can mean losing everything, for Nyinaku it was the starting point on his path to riches.

‘I Have Staked Everything I Have In My Business’

At the end of July, United States (US) President Barack Obama visited Kenya as a head of state for the first, and probably last, time.
Obama had previously set foot in Senegal, Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania in official state visits.
During his most recent visit, there were three main agendas for the US leader: he co-chaired the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, renewed relations between his country and Kenya and, finally, emphasized the US’s economic commitment with Africa.
At a dinner hosted by the Kenyan government, Obama confirmed that the idea of expanding trade and investment between Africa and the US had garnered support of both the Republicans and Democrats in his country. These words, and Obama’s attendance at the 6th Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, were apt. Kenya is one of the leading countries in Africa for entrepreneurial and innovative spirit.
Obama met entrepreneurs at an innovation fair. While in the country, he maintained a positive outlook on the pace and nature of innovation and entrepreneurship in Kenya. This is deserved. Kenya has revolutionized money transfer services with mobile technology and taken substantial steps at harnessing information technology to enhance both commercial growth and political accountability with platforms such as  .
In a nutshell, Obama’s visit to the country highlighted the innovative and entrepreneurial side of Kenya that the world may not be familiar with. It also provided a unique chance for the tourism sector in the country to receive a much needed endorsement to stem its dwindling fortunes. It is hoped that this visit will attract business back to the country.
Politically, Obama’s visit to Kenya was a welcome development to the current administration whose relations to the US had become frosty. After allegations of human rights abuses when the current government stepped into office, and threats of a more severe approach to economic engagements, the Kenyan government was forced to turn to China. Many, in the US and Africa, have been keen on ensuring that the US does not lose Kenya as an ally. This visit, which some sections of Washington referred to as a ‘renewal of ties tour’, provided the perfect opportunity for rebuilding strained relations between the two countries. Obama’s ancestral ties to Kenya were beneficial and by the time the US president was on his flight to Addis Ababa, after holding bilateral trade talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta, the relationship seems to have warmed.
It wasn’t all smiles though. Obama was critical of African leaders over corruption and gender equality. He attacked Africa’s culture of presidents-for-life, urging the continent’s leaders to respect term limits.
“I think if I ran I could win, but I can’t,” he said, referring to the end of his second and final term.
His comments came as Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in office and the Rwandan parliament voted for a constitutional change to allow President Paul Kagame to run for a third term.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe have been in power for more than 30 years.
“Nobody should be president for life. Your country’s better off if you have new blood and new ideas. I’m still a pretty young man but I know someone with new energy and new insights will be good for my country. It will be good for your country, too.”
At the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Obama kept reiterating the need for closer understanding and better economic partnerships between the continent and the US. China has quickly snatched at business opportunities in Africa, leaving many in Washington worried. China’s approach of business with no strings attached has enticed African nations into ditching the Western-based business partnership model. Trade between China and Africa reached an impressive $222 billion in 2014; triple the value of trade between the US and Africa. Obama and the 200 American investors who traveled with him would like to see this gap reduced.
To do this, the US might reconsider its approach to Africa and even try its hand at dealing with countries that it has previously disagreed with on ideological matters.

Praise, Promise And Reproach

Wind, solar and hydro energy have all been highlighted as sources of energy that help meet Africa’s growing power needs. Ghana’s Dela Wosornu is using garbage.
Decomposing organic material, known as biomass, releases gas that can be used to create energy in the form of biofuels. In Ghana, a country with a vast amount of degradable material, it is a viable option for alternative energy.
In Ghana, energy is costly and scarce; this hinders economic growth.
Biomass, such as wood and charcoal, is Ghana’s main energy source, supplying around 60% of the total energy used in the country. Biomass resources cover about 20.8 million hectares of land mass in Ghana. Most of this land is made up of crops and plants that can be converted into solid and liquid biofuels. Wosornu, a renewable energy entrepreneur, is taking advantage of this by transferring landfill gas to energy.
He is involved in the Oti Sanitary Landfill Gas-to-Energy Project, which eliminates the emission of harmful greenhouse gases as well as the spread of disease from the waste. The project reduces the reliance on producing power from fossil fuels by producing energy from the waste that would have otherwise been buried in the landfill.
The solution is quite innovative.
When organic material, such as food waste, is buried in the landfill, it is deprived of oxygen. In this condition, the organic material will decompose and turn into methane gas. The methane will slowly be released into the atmosphere, causing global warming. The project at the Oti landfill doesn’t let this happen. They cover the landfill with soil and drill holes into it. Pipes are then inserted and the gas is sucked out into a generator which makes heat and electricity.
“It’s really a matter of just bringing pipes to where the gas has collected and pumping it out through a vacuum process and then directing that gas to a generator,” says Wosornu.
According to Wosornu, the project is the first of its kind in Ghana. As cities grow and produce more waste, the environmental impact from open dumps becomes increasingly intolerable. The conversion of dumps to engineered landfills like the Oti project is essential.
“Our solution can be applied at any landfill that has received at least 400 tons a day of municipal solid waste and is in reasonably good shape. As there are many landfills in Africa and around the world that are not capturing gas, the future for landfill gas to energy projects is bright,” says Wosornu.
Landfill gas to energy projects have underperformed relative to projected gas and power output. Bearing this in mind, the projected output of the Oti project has been discounted by 70% so that its actual output will meet or exceed the projected output. The Renewable Energy Act in Ghana ensures that there are set prices for each class of renewable energy. It also offers an opportunity to redirect future investments into green energy.
The challenge for Wosornu, is finding reliable buyers for the project’s output. The high cost of doing business in Africa also makes the development costs of these projects higher than the rest of the world.
“There is no doubt that, if properly exploited, renewable energy resources in Africa can make a significant contribution to the continent’s energy supply. In particular, the potential of biofuels on the continent is huge. Within the context of the current financial crisis, stakeholders including policy makers, international partners and the UN should lead the debate on and collectively seek strategies for scaling up renewable energy use so as to increase access to energy and enhance energy security among the many potential benefits of these technologies,” says Kandeh Yumkella, Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
Wosornu is playing his part.

Tag: Ghana

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