PHILOSOPHICAL MUSINGS: ON LIFE AND MATURITY

If at first I don't succeed I will just try, try and try again until I do!

If there is anything I have learnt from the all the events of the recent past, it is that our perception of things is not always as they seem. And most of all, every individual has a unique cognizance of themselves and the environment around them. Life is tough and only gets tougher as you live longer; I guess that is the epiphany we gain as we grow up into adults. It is quite a struggle to come to terms with reality because we are naturally incapable of complete objectivity as human beings. But I believe that the more maturity and experience we gain, the more objective we become. Perhaps not perfectly so, but more so than without going through the exploits that shape us, our thinking, our decisions and our actions. We are what we know, where we have been and what we have done. Even our expectations, dreams and desires are shaped by our backgrounds; education, family and culture. Anomalies are to be expected but they are the exceptions to the rule, not the norm. Therefore it would not likely come as a shock to most people when fate brings due rewards to the deserving and appropriate consequences to those that warrant them. I have been greatly transformed by my many whirlwind adventures and my presently "reduced" circumstances so I no longer take certain things for granted. In fact I no longer take anything for granted. I am hungry for spectacular success because I am in a competition; not with other people but with my own self to satisfy my own grandiose desires.


I always claim to be such a narcissist, but perhaps I am not so self-centered after all. Truth be told there are people far more self-centered than me, to the point that even a narcissist like myself would acquiesce and feel chastened. I also feel I am a genius with an infallible memory but I keep forgetting things I shouldn't. And there are loads of far more intelligent people than I can ever be. As wealthy and accomplished a family as I am fortunate to be a member of, there many more that are wealthier and more accomplished. As handsome as I feel I am there are scores of much better looking men than me. As proud as I can be, I am the picture of humility in comparison to others. As majestic as my dreams are, there are those whose imaginations are truly awe-inspiring. I delve into science fiction novels and realize they put things in perspective; considering the myriad of galaxies filled with stars and their orbiting satellites, even Terra (Earth) in all its blue complexity is utterly insignificant, a speck of dust in the coldness of an boiling universe. So in measuring one's self worth, it is perhaps best to put things in the right perspective.


The prudent thing to do as a mature adult then is to simply understand oneself, and make use of available resources, both innate and acquired to reach personal goals - as they say use what you have to get what you want. However to become truly and consistently happy is not necessarily to be content with what you have but rather to be content with who you are. It is a fallacy to believe that having material possessions provide happiness, they only provide comfort. Undoubtedly comfort constitutes a part of happiness, but more so than that true happiness consists of being reconciled with yourself - accepting yourself for who you are and not who others desire for you to be. Too many times I find that most people (myself included) are caught in the trap of doing things to please others; family, friends, co-workers etc. Gradually I am learning to avoid this predicament and concentrating more on discovering just who I am and what makes me truly happy - and then pursuing those things with all the single-minded passion I can muster. If at first I don't succeed I will just try, try and try again until I do. Perhaps it is this determination to be true to myself and my desires as much as possible that makes me such an enigmatic and fascinating character; well at least to those that find me interesting :)

Perhaps,
But then again,
Perhaps not!


Cheers and have a wonderful week!

SPRINTING ONWARDS AS THE WORLD RECOVERS: A CHANCE TO LEAP - PART TWO

Private Equity Funding is needed to push Ghana further!

The entrepreneur and his ad hoc enterprise is truly the answer to Ghana’s many problems. After all 90% of all businesses in Ghana are SMEs that were formed through the indigenous entrepreneurial spirit. What these businesses need to support and sustain their growth – which will directly affect the nations growth as a whole; increasing that fancy macroeconomic term politicos love so much, GDP – is access to mezzanine capital (growth funding) and managerial and technical support especially for the smallest businesses that exist at the grassroots level.

We have a flourishing banking system except that it is plagued by dearth of risk tolerance. Commercial banks are too risk averse to help the majority of businesses in Ghana because they are adamant in demanding that debt financing (loans) provides a wide margin of safety in the form of usurious interest rates because the commensurate risk is seemingly high. This argument makes sense from a certain perspective but I believe that the criteria for loan disbursement for most banks is too stringent, westernized and inappropriate for a Ghana looking to leap high into the second decade of this century. It causes banks to miss out on so many burgeoning opportunities provided by SMEs that seem risky but with proper supervision and support can become profitable enterprises indeed. In reality most banks operating in Ghana are passive financiers, content to rack up savings, and reluctantly disbursing loans only to already big and established businesses whiles avoiding SMEs like the atavistic fear of the black plague. That is why I believe that Private Equity financing (especially Venture Capital) can become a critical success factor in Ghana’s leap towards middle-income status. Venture capitalists have a three-tiered approach of providing private equity finance to small, fledgling or start-up companies or SMEs; providing active managerial and technical expertise to help the firms that have received funding to maximize the investment and lastly to leverage the investment made for a profit once the company has reached a predetermined growth stage. This is not to say that there are not other viable sources of financing rapid socio-economic growth and development but that Private Equity has to be given a more expansive role in Ghana and West Africa at large.

Venture capital funding has to be provided its own enabling environment to grow and flourish as the banking industry has been helped through deregulation and other incentives. Private equity funding based on the venture capital model can be a stopgap source of funding for SMEs that are either too small or new to grow to a stage where that can also enjoy debt financing from banks. This can be visualized as a sort of pre-processing plant for raw materials before they are turned into the final product. The Venture Capital Trust Fund (Act 680) is definitely a step in the right direction but so much more needs to be done. It is encouraging that at least the government is trying to do its part but I would like to encourage those so-called ‘high net worth’ individuals and successful corporations to pool together their private resources and supply the badly needed credit deficit that SMEs need to grow through venture capital initiatives. It is necessary for the involvement of wealthy entrepreneurs to step into the picture and provide what is lacking, and in the process create a mutually profitable scenario for themselves and those businesses that access this funding. If Ghanaians ourselves do not provide in this badly needed resource, foreign concerns will certainly step up to the plate because this gap is quite real and begging for attention.

Ghana has sauntered for over 50 years and we are finally jogging and hoping at any moment to break into a sprint. In order to do so I believe that access to credit on a system wide basis has to be greatly increased with appropriate measures taken to mitigate and manage associated risks. However our public equity capital market (Ghana Stock Exchange) is a playground for 37 exclusive giants (many foreign controlled), and our banking industry is risk averse. By encouraging wealthy entrepreneurs to provide private equity financing to up and coming entrepreneurial firms through venture capital, Ghana will not just leap, but leap high indeed.

SPRINTING ONWARDS AS THE WORLD RECOVERS: A CHANCE TO LEAP - PART ONE

This is Our Chance to LEAP!

Ghana is on the cusp of achieving an unprecedented level of development and an increase in the general standard of living, and this process has already begun. All around us we see skyscrapers reaching up, we hear the hustle and bustle of growing cities and we can almost feel it in the air; in our very bones, that our country is finally beginning to wake up and leave behind a past of poverty in favor of a bright and prosperous future. Therefore if as a nation we can play our cards right, we can accrue benefits that will accelerate our level of development even more. There is palpable change afoot, the world is recovering from the depths of a deep recession that left Ghana relatively unscathed; this is our chance to leap and achieve prosperity.

In the perpetual economic race between nations, the West stumbled, fell and caused a pile up that affected everybody, but fortunately Ghana escaped with only a few scrapes. We were so far behind, and still so crippled that we were not financially sophisticated enough to be seriously affected by the global credit crunch; after all access to credit in Ghana is next to impossible for most people. How much more could credit have tightened if it was practically non-existent? Our banking industry even saw some healthy growth whiles the world’s biggest banks were suffering great woes. All this illustrates is that developed countries have slowed down, whereas Ghana is perhaps one of the few developing nations in the world that can sprint onwards, and if not catch up with the frontrunners, at least leave the seat filled with the backbenchers.

The country is marching slowly but inexorably from a mostly illiterate agrarian society towards an industrialized economy. However, the developed world has the lead on us, they are in the deep throes of a post-industrial age where access to information is almost as crucial as access to natural resources. After all Ghana is not an island in a vast sea, we are competing with many other nations, developed and developing nations all for dwindling resources to sate their hungry masses. We can only remain competitive by leveraging our nation’s assets and resources; appropriately branding the country as a safe haven for business for both the local and foreign investor, reducing the cancer of institutionalized corruption, and hopefully the government will also provide that “enabling environment” where rapid but sustainable development can occur instead of spitting the same rhetoric over and over again.

However let us be frank and pragmatic here, the established inefficiency of government bureaucracy and a deeply stagnated socio-cultural and political system is no longer the key to achieving our development goals. Various political regimes have come and gone, many more will come and go but the preserve of Ghanaian politics has always been a particular affinity for the verbose eloquence of a conman. Our leaders certainly have some commendable plans, but I have lost my faith in their turgid prose; I believe that Ghana needs to look elsewhere for the impetus we need to increase and manage our momentum as we hurtle up the economic ladder.

Personally, I believe that the private sector holds the key, and that the entrepreneur is this key. I am not lambasting the government as completely useless and inefficient, but I believe that their role is simply to create the conceptual and policy framework that will provide incentives to existing and would be entrepreneurs to do what they do best, bear risk and create wealth. The brunt of the work should be borne by the private sector with the public sector providing the needed support. I believe that we need to move away from a system dominated by public bureaucracies to one dominated by private adhocracies. Adhocracies are fluid and dynamic organizations that can rapidly adapt to constantly changing environments and can better handle one of the biggest problems of the 21^st century as coined by Alvin Toffler, information overload. The entrepreneur sets up an ad hoc business to achieve his particular aim by identifying a niche within which to profitably operate across a vast, confused and inefficient system that is fraught with so much information, most of which is useless, therefore the adhocracy quickly discards with it. A bureaucracy is a big lumbering beast that must swallow all the information presented even though it cannot make sensible or profitable utility of most of it. Instead of concentrating on pampering bureaucracies, we should be encouraging our adhocracies to prosper.

To be continued - Come back for more NEXT WEEK!

I SPY 00233: What Is Worth Spying On In Ghana - PART TWO

Ghana needs more places like this.....TOURIST TRAPS!

PART TWO

For the sake of plausible deniability, Mr. Spy is simply called Kweku, his obroni name is classified. Anyway, in the shortest possible time he begun to deduce pretty solid and truthful observations and conclusions about Ghana and its people, its culture and its potential and I think I should share some of his thoughts and suggestions. I guess his trained mind and my inquisitive mind naturally delved into an interesting conversation where he educated me on ways not just to improve my burgeoning business interests and my personal self, but ways to improve my immediate environment and perhaps effect some gradual system-wide changes as well. (Eii Masa, YOBBING SOOO!) Our conversation was mostly deliberating one issue – Tourism and its potential in developing Ghana. The question he posed to me was this, “How do you get many rich, white people to vacation in a place like Ghana, and spend thousands of dollars daily, feel safe and secure and still feel like they have been exposed to the vibrant local culture and beautiful scenery.” How indeed, but why should Ghana's economy even depend on funds accrued from tourism in the first place, we don't even need these rich white people, right? Wrong! There are some very funny facts I have come across: it appears the US is the third top tourist destination in the world (how France den Spain chop 1st & 2nd be Awam sef) and the number one tourism revenue earner, as well as having the number one tourist attraction – you guessed right, Times Square. All these tourists go the US and do one thing, SPEND! They spend huge amounts of money that in concert boost the local economy by creating jobs and providing foreign exchange.

Mr. Kweku raised a very salient point; the Carribean is just like Ghana, same food, same people, same lovely weather, same language and just one difference – massive investments in Attractive, Safe and Secure tourist destinations where tourists can loose themselves in the beckoning beaches and sites, the local foods and flavors, and do what they do best Spend and Spend. Look at Dubai, why would an Oil rich emirate decide to invest massively in tourist infrastructure and not a huge financial and banking setup rather? The answer is that tourism will eventually bring along all these other industries or develop in situ sectors further. Every developed nation is primarily a massive tourist trap for both Local and Foreign tourists. Does Ghana even promote Local Tourism, how many Ghanaians, born and bred, have been to Mole National Park or the Paga Crocodile pond, certainly not me, but Kweku Spy will go there and take lots and lots of pictures and end up knowing more about Ghana than Ghanaians do. Imagine Ghana with a vacation resort paradise about the size of Monaco somewhere on an accessible beach; how much for construction costs, how much for wages, how much for tax – I mean, AHIAAAA. This is a plausible idea that can be successfully implemented by indigenous people, however we will most likely wait and let some rich Saudi Prince come and build it for us and then complain when he takes all the money back to his country. I mean look at Ghana's newest hotel and tourist landmark, Holiday Inn, do you think it is owned by some through and through bibini black man, Nope! Its some smart Lebanese dude with the opportunity, funding and necessary effort who put it up and will consequently be chopping money from Kotoka’s daily arrivals. Every plane wey e go drop, minimun 20% go de inside man in hotel for accomodation. E no be me I tok oh, but Kweku Spy. You see, if you know me you probably know I love to talk, but this was one of those situations where you shut up and listen well, take notes, pay attention and think well before speak.

Changing Ghana from this mediocre and practically unknown tourism gem waiting to happen and polish it into Africa's premier Vacation Mecca is not nearly as difficult as it seems. Mr. Kweku Spy gave me the two most important things any tourist anywhere in the world is looking for - Safety & Security. If you can guarantee that the tourist will be safe and secure in terms of their comfort, health, enjoyment, and that they will leave Ghana far better and relaxed than when they arrived then why would they not troop here and SPEND, Spend, and spend some more. Mr. Kweku gave me a very common and crippling problem we face in Ghana – the lack of security in spending money; everything is cash based instead of credit based and these Abrofo realy don't like handling cash. Even as a Ghanaian my ATM card is my best friend, Ezwich will join the family when Mr. Ampofo and his concerted business efforts bear some fruit. This process of moving from a cash-based society to a credit-based society, at least at crucial interchange and 'exposure' points should be sped up efficiently so as to encourage the unleashing of the big bucks – enough with the petty cash. I mean, should we wait and let Foreigners always exploit all the good investment opportunities before we the local investors and talent either lag behind or end up working for them, is that the way to sustainably develop our own country and our continent? As for me, God willing, I will find ingenious ways to make people - both Ghanaian and Foreign alike – to invest in the local EKOMINI and keep doing so on a sustainable basis. This is the integral part of my confidential business strategy. As they pay La Palm and Holiday Inn now, so shall they pay me and you 10 times more in 10 years time, that is with a little bit of luck and a whole bunch of sweat, blood and tears. Then maybe Ghana will finally have something worth spying on, Right?

May God richly bless you all and may your dreams come true....!!!

I SPY 00233: What Is Worth Spying On In Ghana - PART ONE

PART ONE

In the course of my constantly intriguing life, I somehow came across a genuine spy; I mean the real McCoy, a full-blown, 20/20 vision, soft-spoken intelligence operative with a mind like a sponge. Guess what, this guy is learning how to speak Twi at such an exponential rate that I'm convinced he will be graduating to Ga, then Hausa before he leaves Ghana, his temporary stay here will not be for long. Amazingly, he is quite self-depreciating when discussing his “profession”. I guess the romanticized images of Hollywood do not quite portray the practical realities on the ground, I mean look at what the new 007 is doing now, AABA! It does however serve as perhaps a hyperbolic clue to the underlying truth - certain people (governments) will expend much effort and resources to gather information (intelligence) no matter how seemingly mundane or apparently useless it seems to everybody else, save their own clandestine self interest. Upon broaching this issue as a joke, the spy replied, "What is there to spy on in Ghana though?" I raised my hands defiantly and gestured towards the bushy shrubs and forests our bus was speeding past and exclaimed with a silly smile, “This is all we have, nothing?” Of course at the time, I did not think to jump to the most obvious reason for the increased interest being showed in Ghana of late; Ghana has high quality, light sweet crude OIL, and in abundant quantities in a global setting that is faced with the intractable problem of dwindling petroleum supplies and concurrently rising demand.

So if we have nothing worth spying on, then why waste so much resources building a state of the art infrastructure and allocating funds to beef up a security and intelligence gathering system here then? This suggests then that I may have been slightly misdirected, in the sense that this spy's employer may see not see Ghana as critical to its national interests, but certainly as a country of some strategic importance; perhaps not just for its own selfish interests alone but for the betterment of Ghana itself, and the whole West African sub-continent as a whole; or simply, as just another country to keep tabs on. To be honest though, I really am fishing here, who knows what exists in the minds of those big-shot political bureaucrats in the former marsh (cough, cough:  A certain capital of a certain world power used to be a mosquito ridden marsh). Who knows their end game or even cares in this small country, certainly not me. Truth is, I was once told that our expectations of things are very different from how we actually perceive them, so I am trying to do away with my expectations and rather deal with my perception of things; the spy, what he said, how he said it and the clues he gave me – clues that can certainly benefit this ‘poor’ country his employer is intensifying its monitoring of and thereby its relationship with.

Ruminating on this conversation brings back memories of my heady high school days. One of my favorite teachers in high school was some acerbic white man called Mr. Paulson. He was my favorite teacher not because I liked him, or because he liked me, or even because I got good grades in his class, which I did of course. He was my favorite teacher because I could sense that he genuinely respected me, though I was so young, and this respect was mutual. But he made my life hell for some odd reason, I felt that I never got the grades I deserved, he tormented my friends and me in class and he went as far as to leave me stranded on an international school trip, but through this all, our mutual respect increased, because I saw all these obstacles as tests and I never failed a Paulson Test. I bested him constantly and in the end he acquiesced and gave me a good Final parting grade before he zoomed of to train (or torment depending on how you look at it) some more 'native' kids in Peru or was it Puerto Rico. Please note, he as much as admitted that he was a spy himself. Sometimes I feel he was probably bitter because he probably hit the rock ceiling in some high-risk job and had to retire or perhaps felt his considerable skills were being underutilized in a backwater country like Ghana. I don't know because I'm fishing again here. Paulson's story is important here only because if he taught me nothing at all he taught me two things; that International Relations is a complicated chess game of sticks and carrots, and that the world is becoming a fast paced integrated global society where Information, the right kind of information, is key to winning and staying ahead. (This should ring a TOK bell).

To be continued!