And So What?
So how did all this end, and where does it lead us to or leave us? Is this just some intellectual babble? Did we just talk and end the matter there? I was resolved not to let all of the gems gathered in the discussion go to waste. So I made use of a facility on Facebook by which one can introduce people into ‘friendships.’ I was privileged to be Facebook ‘friends’ with a government deputy minister with direct responsibility for branding Ghana. I therefore introduced these ‘friends’ to each other and to this Deputy Minister, in the hope that some of the things we shared can move from the ‘talk’ stage to the ‘walk’ stage. Then we would have made some progress.
But as I was thinking about progress, then my beloved Cape Coast hit the headlines, this time on account of a political struggle over the control of public toilets. Let us be clear on one thing. Public toilets are very important in Ghana. Indeed, in many places, they constitute significant land marks. And just before anyone thinks that I am being merely cynical or flippant, I will want to refer to at least five local government regulations, which expressly mention certain public toilets as boundaries of some Town/Area Council Zones: LI 1421 (West Akyem), LI 1427 (Yilo Krobo), LI 1453 (West Dagomba), LI 1488 (Atebubu) and LI 1614 (Kumasi). Further, revenue from public toilet facilities is so critical to local government authorities that it has been legislated in our statute books. The Local Government Act, Schedule 6, titled “Revenue of Local Government Bodies”, Item 10 (viii), mentions “Toilet Receipts” as one of the statutory sources of revenue.
To my mind, public toilets should not be the first reference point for any citizen of this country who seeks to ‘answer nature’s call.’ But that is the case in many communities in Ghana, simply because in the 21st century, there are homes and workplaces in Ghana that do not have toilet facilities, and so many people have to use public toilet facilities all the time. But Ghana’s Building Regulations demand that every house must have toilet facilities. Under Part XIV of the Regulations, every house must have a water closet, where water is available, or an earth closet or chemical closet, where there is no water. The law also provides detailed specifications for installing and maintaining these in homes. With respect to offices, the Labour Act imposes a burden on all employers to ensure that employees have access to “separate, sufficient and suitable toilet and washing facilities and adequate facilities for the storage, changing, drying and cleansing from contamination of clothing for male and female workers.” The Factories, Offices and Shops Act also require that “adequate and suitable sanitary conveniences conveniently accessible to persons employed shall be provided, maintained and kept clean in every factory, office and shop, and effective provision shall be made for their lighting and ventilation.”
It is therefore illegal to build a home or run a factory, office of shop without toilet facilities. We must enforce these laws. The non-enforcement of these laws means that many people depend on public facilities as the first port of response when ‘nature calls.’ This is what has created a huge business and statutory source of income for local government authorities, who, ironically, are required to enforce the Building Regulations. Local government bodies, as we are learning, farm out the actual running of these facilities to various people, and the contractors are selected on the basis of their political party affiliations. Thus with every change of government we will have crises on our hands when the winning parties’ foot soldiers begin to demand a change in control over such facilities, so that they also can ‘enjoy’ the “toilet receipts.” This is the source of the problem, and we simply have to de-emphasise the importance of public toilet facilities by enforcing the laws.
The public toilet story from Cape Coast is not new or isolated. Each forcible take over or quarrel makes its way into the news. Ashiaman public toilets were taken over with force and threats of violence. I heard one public toilet ‘contractor’ screaming on Peace FM that she had placed an injunction on the ‘tsiafi’. Oh… Ghana! And the Cape Coast version of the story is on the internet (myjoyonline.com) for all to see. A prospective tourist who does a Google search on ‘Cape Coast’ probably seeking to visit the Cape Coast Castle, will see that the most topical issue to arise from the beloved city, since Obama left, is over who controls public toilets. In Accra, cows and goats and sheep still roam a road as major as the Graphic Road on an almost daily basis, competing with vehicles for space. The Obama-by-night road refurbishments are still in place and holding out against the rains. (Hey, did Obama take the rains away with him?) The polished and refurbished hospital and King’s Palace are still there for all to see.
My love for Ghana has not diminished. Obama was a high. The toilet fights are a low. Today, I am somewhere in between highs and lows on this sometimes creaking roller-coaster called Ghana. I am still incurably romantic to believe that I can be part of turning this wheel on which we turn, even if T.S. Eliot will call me “a fool fixed in his folly.”
Maybe Obama left Ghana with the smell of fresh paint in his nostrils, and with our rains. Maybe not. But we still have a nation to build and market, a nation that lives in many centuries at the same time. That is our beloved Ghana. But whilst at it, let’s simply enforce the law – one house, at least one toilet. Cage the cows and goats. That would be a great start. Simple.
Yours in the service of God and Country,
Kojo Anan
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
MARKETING GHANA: BETWEEN OBAMA, FACEBOOK DEBATES, STRAY COWS AND TOILET WARS!! (Part IV)
The Facebook Discourse
I turned the emotional overdrive into emails, Facebook and Twitter posts. I put out a ‘status’ on Facebook on 12 July, screaming: “What are we marketing about Ghana, especially after Obama? Has the tide simply ebbed as usual and that's it? There should be no calm after the Obama storm. We gotta keep this ball bouncing. Will we simply go to sleep from exhaustion? Has the adrenalin disappeared? Is ANYONE listening?” This elicited well over 100 responses on Facebook on that day alone, in the most frank, instructive, honest and no-holds-barred discussion that I have ever had on Facebook. Some of the statements were also bold and brutal: the truth hurts, sometimes.
Here is the discussion:
Ken: We have been there before! What is changed since then? The mentality is still the same....!
Kojo: Oga, the slogan and adverts should have been out there even before the visit. GIPC where are you?
Bridget: It is up to us,… Some of us are pushing 40. Let's ask what we impact we would've had on our community by the time we turn 48? We're running out of time!
Yaw (we call him ‘Krazy’): Marketing? The best bit of branding is the experience. We've got to make the product work for the brand. Advertising and sloganeering are but a small, tiny bit of marketing. If we leave a broken poor quality product as is, forget the talk about branding. And yet if it must take Obama to come and tell us this before we see the need to, I fear we then have a bigger problem. If we see another headline saying there's a fight about a latrine somewhere, no we are simply back to the same old…
Robert: Hear Hear Krazy.... When it comes to issues related to branding and marketing of Ghana, we have simply joked about it… We simply don’t get it and it amazes me, given the legion of marketing and brand experts in Ghana.
Bob: … It is horrendously expensive to mount an advert campaign of the type you see for Malaysia and India. And when the public has a negative perception of a product that is largely correct, the amount of money you have to spend to overcome that is huge. And any progress you may have can be quickly undone by word of mouth. Fix the product, then promote it.
Robert: …we are not even at the point where we understand what the product should be like, what its current ailments are, before we even start a conscious programme of fixing it. In a corporate setting it fairly easy to find out what the ailments, conduct an organizational/product/brand audit and then you start the fixing. So what are Ghana’s current brand or product ailments and how do we start fixing it?? Forget promotion for now!
Krazy: “…we do know the country is dirtier than we would like it to be. I doubt that the destination brand has place for cows and goats roaming everywhere. And that we want a country with no proper public toilet system, poor electricity and water supply etc. So we do know many of the systemic failures. What will a visit to Korle Bu for example say about us today? Or our airport? To get a point of parity with those who are successful, we need to fix this. So let’s get on and then while we are sorting this out, we can agree what the differentiator of the Ghana brand will be.
Robert: Hear Hear! Krazy the point I seek to make is that since the resolution of cows and goats roaming everywhere, proper public toilet system, poor electricity and water supply, and simple customer service at our international airports, are the first steps in an international marketing programme, we might need to conscientise Ghanaians to same. As it is these common garbage and power problems are not being solved in any expedient manner because both policy makers, and I daresay a large majority of Ghanaians, are not at the point where they realise that these are the basic building blocks. Maybe, if we are made aware that the most sophisticated advertising agency cannot produce and AD great enough to market a dirty country, we might be up and doing.
Me: There are indeed problems with this country. So we do not market even the little we have at all? This is no chicken and egg situation. Surely not rocket science too. Market what you have and fix what is broken. Ghana does not have to be a complete work before we market. There is dirt in America too. I have seen worse places in Chester, Pennsylvania. So until that is fixed, America should not market what they have? Or is it that we think that we have NOTHING? I am not a marketing guru, but what I am saying is that we can make a start with what we have. Angola is marketing CAN 2010. Is that wrong? We did nada for CAN 2008. Or that also had to wait till we fixed all of our problems? I disagree.
Kwaku: SPOT ON!!!! Yaw (Krazy) when it comes to Korle-Bu you know who I am????? I’ve seen similar or even worse hospitals in Montreal, London and Houston!!!!!
Robert: There is a lil’ problem with the ‘market what you have and fix what is broken’ thesis. When you draw visitors to a destination brand and they encounter what you hope to fix, they recoil and tell several others that Ghana is not worth patronising. Never mind you might have spent millions of dollars on such a campaign. So … [as] alluded to earlier, any progress you have made can be quickly undone by word of mouth. So the ‘market what you have and a fix what is broken’ thesis can be trick and destination brand marketers would be very cautious in proceeding down that path. And don’t forget, we do not have the luxury of coming from a part of the world that particularly enjoys good global press; so a visitor to “HOSPITABLE GHANA” who experiences stray cows and goats and power outages, could do you more damage by word-of-mouth that you can never fix through any marketing efforts.
Me: Sorry, Robert, I think that maybe you are being way theoretical on what tourists might want to see, and maybe I am being too simplistic. But power goes out in America too… So we might have our problems. But if we are marketing, say the Conference Centre as a conference tourism destination, common sense will demand that we fix the power issues there and in our hotels, or at least have stand-by power, as for the goats and cows on the streets, I think that you might see some of that in India, maybe not Delhi, yes. But if we are serious about attracting tourists, we very well should be serious about fixing the system. Maybe the two can move in tandem without one waiting for the other.
Kwaku: Brilliant using India as an example!!! The actors of award winning "Slum Dog Millionaire" were living in worse squalor than you can imagine in Ghana!!! The squalor was advertised and so.............???
Robert: I hear you.
Me: Obama did not bring us a plane load of cash, thank God. He left us with words that challenged us to think and move beyond where we are at right now!! That means doing something, heck, anything about our state. So on that, I think that we are all on the same page. Thus a clear strategy to move forward, even if predicated on what he said, which will involve fixing this system and selling what we have, is not really out of place. A person coming to Ghana to see slave forts cannot really expect the comfort of Los Angeles, just like the person who goes to Nepal to see or climb Everest. But like Nepal, we can begin to ensure that some decent level of facilities exists. So let's fix it. Let's fix the Elmina castle too. Let's ensure that both facilities have proper toilets, running water, electricity, better nearby hotels, etc., in the hope that the money we raise from tourists will be sufficient to maintain the facilities.
Bob: I don't think anyone is arguing that everything must be fixed before we can promote anything. But what we are selling (tourist destination or investment destination) need to actually work and the message needs to be consistent with the reality. Kojo Anan is right that tourists from developed countries will want an "authentic" experience rather than Accra Mall but there are minimum standards of comfort, health/sanitation, transportation, and service ethic which we do not yet meet. Some visitors (i.e., the "backpackers") want to rough it. Tourists with more money to spend really don't want it rough. Tourists want to see wild animals... they don't understand the variety or size of Africa. I am not referring to goats, cows, mosquitoes, or geckos. How do visitors get to Mole? And what experience awaits them there? I still remember a few years ago when I had visitors in town, and [the hotel] left us sitting in the outdoor lobby of one of their cottages, being eaten by mosquitoes, while one of their people ran back and forth (4 times, I recall) trying to get any card key to work in any room. That is what the visitors remember about Ghana. And before we pay any more homage to the Malaysia and India advertising campaign....does anyone have numbers to show if they have delivered results commensurate for their cost?
Me: Bob, I also have memories of at least one experience in a London hotel when the 'key' could not open the door, and it took a couple of visits to the lobby for the lady to re-programme the key. Finally, they changed my room. But it is not the only thing I remember about London. I am not sure that anyone can fully quantify the returns of an advertising campaign. For my kids, they have heard that India is INCREDIBLE and Malaysia is TRULY ASIA. But in India, cows still walk some of the roads. And in Malaysia, an opposition leader is in jail on contrived or trumped up charges of 'sodomy'. Whether marketing translates into sales is another matter; but marketing must lead to sales. But at least start thinking of, and exploit, the marketing opportunities, particularly one that falls freely on our laps like the Obama visit; and by all means fix your system.
Bob: Again, I don't think we have a fundamental disagreement. And I am not arguing that any other place is better or that mishaps don't occur everywhere. In the specific instance I mentioned, the two visitors did talk about that incident for several years afterwards; refused to stay at [the hotel] again; and seemed to be avoiding further visits to us to the extent that was possible. By the way, I am guessing you were not attacked by mosquitoes while resolving your key problem in London... ;-) Further… it is a fact of marketing life that negative experience and word of mouth trumps marketing message. And the dual downsides of marketing spend in advance of product readiness is that the marketing spend diverted resources from fixing the actual problem, and the amount of marketing spend needed later to overcome the negative perception spread by people who were drawn in during the first campaign and were disappointed. So we should target something we are capable of fixing well and quickly, and market that. Learn from the experience, and move on to bigger things.
Ato: Truly, if Prez Mills and co let this once-in-a lifetime PR opportunity go to waste without capitalising on the marketing potential, I'll......words fail me! I would've wished that there would've been a committee set up months ago with the sole aim of parlaying this into a huge marketing push for tourism and investment, showcasing the best of Ghana buttressed by solid infrastructural upgrades...
Krazy: … It almost amuses me that when we see some dirt in some part of another country we use that as some sort of reason why we are not alone. How many of you, let us bring this closer home, will advice a cell phone company that has major problems with its basic services (making calls) to leave that and splatter our cities with bill boards and TV ads? What would be your reaction? India has the Bangalore miracle, a middle class that by itself in numbers is more than 15 times the population of Ghana – you think the marketing jobs to be done are the same? Some parts of America may be dirty but many parts are clean. But in Ghana's case, some parts are clean and many are dirty. Korle Bu is our number one hospital – are you comparing to the number one hospital in Canada? Guys, just like in business, unless we face the reality, we do superficial stuff. And then when the marketing budget is blown, we see we go nowhere.
Ignatius: Guys, I'm just reading through your postings and enjoying the back and forth about branding Ghana, ad campaigns and all that good stuff. But here is the bottom line for me – we need a huge attitude change, as a country, and get our priorities right! We have a ministry of tourism (with ministers and deputies, special assistants etc.). and we have a Ghana Tourist Board. So what exactly do these folks do? Just take a trip to the Salaga Slave Market and the Well – just pathetic. In fact the well is an eye sore--there is really nothing preserved there, only a sign board... and a well hidden in the bush somewhere. But this is supposed to be of huge historical significance! I recall an American colleague of mine on the trip remarking that it wouldn't really require much to preserve the place...and I agree. I really don't think our leaders understand what tourism entails (after their numerous trips overseas to conferences etc). We really need to get our priorities right! Guess what, most of the good promotional stuff on Ghana I've seen on US TV have been produced by foreigners, and not Ghanaians – the Discovery channel/Travel Channel has done some good stuff (like their show titled "Ghana Presidential Tour") – they've basically given Ghana priceless exposure on US TV for free, and what have we done to take advantage of these?
Later that day, whilst watching CNN’s State of the Nation, I took pictures of Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Obama, Fritz Baffour (the wannabe tour guide) and the real Cape Coast Castle tour guide as they appeared on TV, and posted them on Facebook, and the following ensued:
Me: I am watching one of my most favourite programmes on CNN, and Anderson Cooper is interviewing Obama from Cape Coast. This is Cape Coast's finer moments. But is anyone going to take this forward from here?
Krazy: Go to Salaga Market, the baobab tree of Babatu still stands with metal fetters...priceless. I have been to the slave wells in Northern Ghana...breath-taking. Look at the crocodile pond in Paga. But they are all in the state of nature. What is it that makes Niagara Falls great and not Kintampo Falls? It is the augmented product. The EXPERIENCE built around service. We will go nowhere, I repeat NOWHERE, if we try to circumvent the basics of marketing in the hope that somehow we will find a great way to market without the fundamentals. Marketers of products frequently ask – how does this product fare against the competition in a blind test? There is a reason – branding is hard work, man.
Me: I have not said that we can simply market without getting the product fixed. I fail to see why we cannot market the castle in Cape Coast as it is whilst working at getting others in a better state. Granted. So let's discuss Cape Coast. WHAT, in your view, must Ghana do, to make it more attractive for marketing? That is what I mean by taking it forward from here. What we are saying are not mutually exclusive. It is not as if there is NOTHING right now. So sell what we have and improve on or create what we don’t have or have not developed.”
Krazy: Let us say one main source of interest is the Diaspora. How you get a visa; flight connections to Accra and then transport to Cape Coast; accessibility of clean functioning but reasonably priced hotels... add that to the possibility of well-resourced libraries and librarians nearby; if possible with audio-visual augmentation. Can we have close by DVDs and records of websites that record the thoughts of world authorities on slavery? Interviews and recordings of some of the debates, a hall of pictures of some of the relatives of governors and slaves, etc. etc? If a person came to the castle and wanted to go to Salaga market, dirt, goads, nothing other than the tree… no nearby good hotel, nothing! I don’t want to go on. In Kintampo I nearly wept at the state of affairs when I saw what nature had given us and what little we had done with it. Contrast that with say Wimbledon, where out of nothing there is now a global brand!
I had no response to this. By the way, Krazy has written a brilliant piece on how that once-little suburb of London has evolved and re-branded itself into what it is today.
I turned the emotional overdrive into emails, Facebook and Twitter posts. I put out a ‘status’ on Facebook on 12 July, screaming: “What are we marketing about Ghana, especially after Obama? Has the tide simply ebbed as usual and that's it? There should be no calm after the Obama storm. We gotta keep this ball bouncing. Will we simply go to sleep from exhaustion? Has the adrenalin disappeared? Is ANYONE listening?” This elicited well over 100 responses on Facebook on that day alone, in the most frank, instructive, honest and no-holds-barred discussion that I have ever had on Facebook. Some of the statements were also bold and brutal: the truth hurts, sometimes.
Here is the discussion:
Ken: We have been there before! What is changed since then? The mentality is still the same....!
Kojo: Oga, the slogan and adverts should have been out there even before the visit. GIPC where are you?
Bridget: It is up to us,… Some of us are pushing 40. Let's ask what we impact we would've had on our community by the time we turn 48? We're running out of time!
Yaw (we call him ‘Krazy’): Marketing? The best bit of branding is the experience. We've got to make the product work for the brand. Advertising and sloganeering are but a small, tiny bit of marketing. If we leave a broken poor quality product as is, forget the talk about branding. And yet if it must take Obama to come and tell us this before we see the need to, I fear we then have a bigger problem. If we see another headline saying there's a fight about a latrine somewhere, no we are simply back to the same old…
Robert: Hear Hear Krazy.... When it comes to issues related to branding and marketing of Ghana, we have simply joked about it… We simply don’t get it and it amazes me, given the legion of marketing and brand experts in Ghana.
Bob: … It is horrendously expensive to mount an advert campaign of the type you see for Malaysia and India. And when the public has a negative perception of a product that is largely correct, the amount of money you have to spend to overcome that is huge. And any progress you may have can be quickly undone by word of mouth. Fix the product, then promote it.
Robert: …we are not even at the point where we understand what the product should be like, what its current ailments are, before we even start a conscious programme of fixing it. In a corporate setting it fairly easy to find out what the ailments, conduct an organizational/product/brand audit and then you start the fixing. So what are Ghana’s current brand or product ailments and how do we start fixing it?? Forget promotion for now!
Krazy: “…we do know the country is dirtier than we would like it to be. I doubt that the destination brand has place for cows and goats roaming everywhere. And that we want a country with no proper public toilet system, poor electricity and water supply etc. So we do know many of the systemic failures. What will a visit to Korle Bu for example say about us today? Or our airport? To get a point of parity with those who are successful, we need to fix this. So let’s get on and then while we are sorting this out, we can agree what the differentiator of the Ghana brand will be.
Robert: Hear Hear! Krazy the point I seek to make is that since the resolution of cows and goats roaming everywhere, proper public toilet system, poor electricity and water supply, and simple customer service at our international airports, are the first steps in an international marketing programme, we might need to conscientise Ghanaians to same. As it is these common garbage and power problems are not being solved in any expedient manner because both policy makers, and I daresay a large majority of Ghanaians, are not at the point where they realise that these are the basic building blocks. Maybe, if we are made aware that the most sophisticated advertising agency cannot produce and AD great enough to market a dirty country, we might be up and doing.
Me: There are indeed problems with this country. So we do not market even the little we have at all? This is no chicken and egg situation. Surely not rocket science too. Market what you have and fix what is broken. Ghana does not have to be a complete work before we market. There is dirt in America too. I have seen worse places in Chester, Pennsylvania. So until that is fixed, America should not market what they have? Or is it that we think that we have NOTHING? I am not a marketing guru, but what I am saying is that we can make a start with what we have. Angola is marketing CAN 2010. Is that wrong? We did nada for CAN 2008. Or that also had to wait till we fixed all of our problems? I disagree.
Kwaku: SPOT ON!!!! Yaw (Krazy) when it comes to Korle-Bu you know who I am????? I’ve seen similar or even worse hospitals in Montreal, London and Houston!!!!!
Robert: There is a lil’ problem with the ‘market what you have and fix what is broken’ thesis. When you draw visitors to a destination brand and they encounter what you hope to fix, they recoil and tell several others that Ghana is not worth patronising. Never mind you might have spent millions of dollars on such a campaign. So … [as] alluded to earlier, any progress you have made can be quickly undone by word of mouth. So the ‘market what you have and a fix what is broken’ thesis can be trick and destination brand marketers would be very cautious in proceeding down that path. And don’t forget, we do not have the luxury of coming from a part of the world that particularly enjoys good global press; so a visitor to “HOSPITABLE GHANA” who experiences stray cows and goats and power outages, could do you more damage by word-of-mouth that you can never fix through any marketing efforts.
Me: Sorry, Robert, I think that maybe you are being way theoretical on what tourists might want to see, and maybe I am being too simplistic. But power goes out in America too… So we might have our problems. But if we are marketing, say the Conference Centre as a conference tourism destination, common sense will demand that we fix the power issues there and in our hotels, or at least have stand-by power, as for the goats and cows on the streets, I think that you might see some of that in India, maybe not Delhi, yes. But if we are serious about attracting tourists, we very well should be serious about fixing the system. Maybe the two can move in tandem without one waiting for the other.
Kwaku: Brilliant using India as an example!!! The actors of award winning "Slum Dog Millionaire" were living in worse squalor than you can imagine in Ghana!!! The squalor was advertised and so.............???
Robert: I hear you.
Me: Obama did not bring us a plane load of cash, thank God. He left us with words that challenged us to think and move beyond where we are at right now!! That means doing something, heck, anything about our state. So on that, I think that we are all on the same page. Thus a clear strategy to move forward, even if predicated on what he said, which will involve fixing this system and selling what we have, is not really out of place. A person coming to Ghana to see slave forts cannot really expect the comfort of Los Angeles, just like the person who goes to Nepal to see or climb Everest. But like Nepal, we can begin to ensure that some decent level of facilities exists. So let's fix it. Let's fix the Elmina castle too. Let's ensure that both facilities have proper toilets, running water, electricity, better nearby hotels, etc., in the hope that the money we raise from tourists will be sufficient to maintain the facilities.
Bob: I don't think anyone is arguing that everything must be fixed before we can promote anything. But what we are selling (tourist destination or investment destination) need to actually work and the message needs to be consistent with the reality. Kojo Anan is right that tourists from developed countries will want an "authentic" experience rather than Accra Mall but there are minimum standards of comfort, health/sanitation, transportation, and service ethic which we do not yet meet. Some visitors (i.e., the "backpackers") want to rough it. Tourists with more money to spend really don't want it rough. Tourists want to see wild animals... they don't understand the variety or size of Africa. I am not referring to goats, cows, mosquitoes, or geckos. How do visitors get to Mole? And what experience awaits them there? I still remember a few years ago when I had visitors in town, and [the hotel] left us sitting in the outdoor lobby of one of their cottages, being eaten by mosquitoes, while one of their people ran back and forth (4 times, I recall) trying to get any card key to work in any room. That is what the visitors remember about Ghana. And before we pay any more homage to the Malaysia and India advertising campaign....does anyone have numbers to show if they have delivered results commensurate for their cost?
Me: Bob, I also have memories of at least one experience in a London hotel when the 'key' could not open the door, and it took a couple of visits to the lobby for the lady to re-programme the key. Finally, they changed my room. But it is not the only thing I remember about London. I am not sure that anyone can fully quantify the returns of an advertising campaign. For my kids, they have heard that India is INCREDIBLE and Malaysia is TRULY ASIA. But in India, cows still walk some of the roads. And in Malaysia, an opposition leader is in jail on contrived or trumped up charges of 'sodomy'. Whether marketing translates into sales is another matter; but marketing must lead to sales. But at least start thinking of, and exploit, the marketing opportunities, particularly one that falls freely on our laps like the Obama visit; and by all means fix your system.
Bob: Again, I don't think we have a fundamental disagreement. And I am not arguing that any other place is better or that mishaps don't occur everywhere. In the specific instance I mentioned, the two visitors did talk about that incident for several years afterwards; refused to stay at [the hotel] again; and seemed to be avoiding further visits to us to the extent that was possible. By the way, I am guessing you were not attacked by mosquitoes while resolving your key problem in London... ;-) Further… it is a fact of marketing life that negative experience and word of mouth trumps marketing message. And the dual downsides of marketing spend in advance of product readiness is that the marketing spend diverted resources from fixing the actual problem, and the amount of marketing spend needed later to overcome the negative perception spread by people who were drawn in during the first campaign and were disappointed. So we should target something we are capable of fixing well and quickly, and market that. Learn from the experience, and move on to bigger things.
Ato: Truly, if Prez Mills and co let this once-in-a lifetime PR opportunity go to waste without capitalising on the marketing potential, I'll......words fail me! I would've wished that there would've been a committee set up months ago with the sole aim of parlaying this into a huge marketing push for tourism and investment, showcasing the best of Ghana buttressed by solid infrastructural upgrades...
Krazy: … It almost amuses me that when we see some dirt in some part of another country we use that as some sort of reason why we are not alone. How many of you, let us bring this closer home, will advice a cell phone company that has major problems with its basic services (making calls) to leave that and splatter our cities with bill boards and TV ads? What would be your reaction? India has the Bangalore miracle, a middle class that by itself in numbers is more than 15 times the population of Ghana – you think the marketing jobs to be done are the same? Some parts of America may be dirty but many parts are clean. But in Ghana's case, some parts are clean and many are dirty. Korle Bu is our number one hospital – are you comparing to the number one hospital in Canada? Guys, just like in business, unless we face the reality, we do superficial stuff. And then when the marketing budget is blown, we see we go nowhere.
Ignatius: Guys, I'm just reading through your postings and enjoying the back and forth about branding Ghana, ad campaigns and all that good stuff. But here is the bottom line for me – we need a huge attitude change, as a country, and get our priorities right! We have a ministry of tourism (with ministers and deputies, special assistants etc.). and we have a Ghana Tourist Board. So what exactly do these folks do? Just take a trip to the Salaga Slave Market and the Well – just pathetic. In fact the well is an eye sore--there is really nothing preserved there, only a sign board... and a well hidden in the bush somewhere. But this is supposed to be of huge historical significance! I recall an American colleague of mine on the trip remarking that it wouldn't really require much to preserve the place...and I agree. I really don't think our leaders understand what tourism entails (after their numerous trips overseas to conferences etc). We really need to get our priorities right! Guess what, most of the good promotional stuff on Ghana I've seen on US TV have been produced by foreigners, and not Ghanaians – the Discovery channel/Travel Channel has done some good stuff (like their show titled "Ghana Presidential Tour") – they've basically given Ghana priceless exposure on US TV for free, and what have we done to take advantage of these?
Later that day, whilst watching CNN’s State of the Nation, I took pictures of Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, Obama, Fritz Baffour (the wannabe tour guide) and the real Cape Coast Castle tour guide as they appeared on TV, and posted them on Facebook, and the following ensued:
Me: I am watching one of my most favourite programmes on CNN, and Anderson Cooper is interviewing Obama from Cape Coast. This is Cape Coast's finer moments. But is anyone going to take this forward from here?
Krazy: Go to Salaga Market, the baobab tree of Babatu still stands with metal fetters...priceless. I have been to the slave wells in Northern Ghana...breath-taking. Look at the crocodile pond in Paga. But they are all in the state of nature. What is it that makes Niagara Falls great and not Kintampo Falls? It is the augmented product. The EXPERIENCE built around service. We will go nowhere, I repeat NOWHERE, if we try to circumvent the basics of marketing in the hope that somehow we will find a great way to market without the fundamentals. Marketers of products frequently ask – how does this product fare against the competition in a blind test? There is a reason – branding is hard work, man.
Me: I have not said that we can simply market without getting the product fixed. I fail to see why we cannot market the castle in Cape Coast as it is whilst working at getting others in a better state. Granted. So let's discuss Cape Coast. WHAT, in your view, must Ghana do, to make it more attractive for marketing? That is what I mean by taking it forward from here. What we are saying are not mutually exclusive. It is not as if there is NOTHING right now. So sell what we have and improve on or create what we don’t have or have not developed.”
Krazy: Let us say one main source of interest is the Diaspora. How you get a visa; flight connections to Accra and then transport to Cape Coast; accessibility of clean functioning but reasonably priced hotels... add that to the possibility of well-resourced libraries and librarians nearby; if possible with audio-visual augmentation. Can we have close by DVDs and records of websites that record the thoughts of world authorities on slavery? Interviews and recordings of some of the debates, a hall of pictures of some of the relatives of governors and slaves, etc. etc? If a person came to the castle and wanted to go to Salaga market, dirt, goads, nothing other than the tree… no nearby good hotel, nothing! I don’t want to go on. In Kintampo I nearly wept at the state of affairs when I saw what nature had given us and what little we had done with it. Contrast that with say Wimbledon, where out of nothing there is now a global brand!
I had no response to this. By the way, Krazy has written a brilliant piece on how that once-little suburb of London has evolved and re-branded itself into what it is today.
MARKETING GHANA: BETWEEN OBAMA, FACEBOOK DEBATES, STRAY COWS AND TOILET WARS!! (Part III)
The Visit
When I heard that Obama would be visiting Ghana, I was over the moon. This was THE cool man, coming to THE cool country and visiting THE cool city. I hurried home from a trip to his country, just to be here and feel his presence. To me, the trip was all that I expected it to be, except in one material particular. Obama denied us the opportunity to pull the biggest crowd that he would ever have seen in his life, when post-9/11 security concerns did not permit a Clinton-style outdoor event. I am told that in 1998, Clinton pulled about 500,000 people to the Black Star Square (which by the way, received a significant poetic mention by no mean a person than Maya Angelou, and at no mean event than Michael Jackson’s funeral service). Obama could have pulled 10 times that crowd, easily, to confound the noise that was made when he pulled 700,000 in Oregon and 200,000 in Germany, during the campaign. Somehow the Sadam Hussein/Osama bin Laden combi denied both Obama and Ghanaians such a history-making and record-shattering event.
Those security concerns meant that majority of Ghanaians, including my humble self, could only watch Obama on home TVs. Having only to watch him on TV, Obama could have been anywhere in the world. But we knew that he was HERE, for three main reasons. First, traffic movement in Accra was restricted on account of blocked roads, making it wiser to stay at home and expect that there would be no power cuts. Second, we had witnessed roads being fixed at midnight with floodlights, and a hospital and a King’s palace were refurbished and repainted with great speed. I hear, and it is probably not true, that a world leader once said: “all Third World countries have the same smell – the smell of fresh paint.”
The third reason (and how could we ever forget that he was in Ghana?) was the pathetically poor picture and sound quality that GTV and MetroTV conspired to inflict on us. There was absolutely no excuse for that shambolic performance. Those TV stations humiliated Ghana, and it was painful watching major networks like CNN, BBC and Sky, carrying the awful live pool feed with a disclaimer: that the poor quality was from the “source”. It hurts to think that people were paid to transmit that picture and sound quality, which did not even sync. I am convinced that even my mobile phone could have done a better job. Being as smart as they are, those more serious news networks did their own filming and immediately threw whatever they recorded from our feed into the trash bin, so that their playbacks of the event were crystal clear.
I will not go too much into what Obama had to say to us. Let’s just say that only a black man could have said that to Africa. Neither Bill Clinton nor George Bush (nor any American President before them) summoned enough guts (or maybe even cojones) to say what Obama said to us, to us in our face. And, if this had been John McCain, we would have jumped up and down on his bare back and screamed “don’t you dare patronize us.” Why? Those past American Presidents might look like each other on dollar notes, but they don’t have enough melanin! But this was one of our own, a son of the African soil with African blood running through his veins, telling us the painful home truth, from his heart, and his famous Teleprompters, that we are responsible for our own fate. Oh, and some even felt that he delivered the speech ex tempore. That is Barack Obama. And whilst at it, can someone buy Teleprompters for our Presidents, for now and the future? Teleprompters are cool, just like Cape Coast.
Then Obama went to Cape Coast, where he was given a tour of the Cape Coast Castle by Comedian-Turned-MP-Turned-Castle-Tour-Guide, Fritz Baffour. Obama was also interviewed by Anderson Cooper for CNN and Adam Boulton for Sky News. It was great seeing Cape Coast’s name on TV when the most important person on earth, Obama, was being interviewed. My Fante-ness was in full flow. I felt warm and cold at the same time. This was it – Obama was marketing Cape Coast (and Ghana) for us, for free. Every news organisation on earth, worth its salt (even FoxNews and Wall Street Journal, even if reluctantly), was focusing on us. I went into a romantic overdrive. My head was a tad reluctant to get involved, but my heart was busy telling my head to “stay at home and stop interfering,” as Edward Monkton would have put it. This was our opportunity to milk the event and sustain the attention on Ghana, particularly our tourism potential. I thought that it was time to brand Ghana the way Malaysia is ‘Truly Asia’ and India is ‘!ncredible’. “Get on CNN the way Angola is marketing CAN 2010!” I screamed.
When I heard that Obama would be visiting Ghana, I was over the moon. This was THE cool man, coming to THE cool country and visiting THE cool city. I hurried home from a trip to his country, just to be here and feel his presence. To me, the trip was all that I expected it to be, except in one material particular. Obama denied us the opportunity to pull the biggest crowd that he would ever have seen in his life, when post-9/11 security concerns did not permit a Clinton-style outdoor event. I am told that in 1998, Clinton pulled about 500,000 people to the Black Star Square (which by the way, received a significant poetic mention by no mean a person than Maya Angelou, and at no mean event than Michael Jackson’s funeral service). Obama could have pulled 10 times that crowd, easily, to confound the noise that was made when he pulled 700,000 in Oregon and 200,000 in Germany, during the campaign. Somehow the Sadam Hussein/Osama bin Laden combi denied both Obama and Ghanaians such a history-making and record-shattering event.
Those security concerns meant that majority of Ghanaians, including my humble self, could only watch Obama on home TVs. Having only to watch him on TV, Obama could have been anywhere in the world. But we knew that he was HERE, for three main reasons. First, traffic movement in Accra was restricted on account of blocked roads, making it wiser to stay at home and expect that there would be no power cuts. Second, we had witnessed roads being fixed at midnight with floodlights, and a hospital and a King’s palace were refurbished and repainted with great speed. I hear, and it is probably not true, that a world leader once said: “all Third World countries have the same smell – the smell of fresh paint.”
The third reason (and how could we ever forget that he was in Ghana?) was the pathetically poor picture and sound quality that GTV and MetroTV conspired to inflict on us. There was absolutely no excuse for that shambolic performance. Those TV stations humiliated Ghana, and it was painful watching major networks like CNN, BBC and Sky, carrying the awful live pool feed with a disclaimer: that the poor quality was from the “source”. It hurts to think that people were paid to transmit that picture and sound quality, which did not even sync. I am convinced that even my mobile phone could have done a better job. Being as smart as they are, those more serious news networks did their own filming and immediately threw whatever they recorded from our feed into the trash bin, so that their playbacks of the event were crystal clear.
I will not go too much into what Obama had to say to us. Let’s just say that only a black man could have said that to Africa. Neither Bill Clinton nor George Bush (nor any American President before them) summoned enough guts (or maybe even cojones) to say what Obama said to us, to us in our face. And, if this had been John McCain, we would have jumped up and down on his bare back and screamed “don’t you dare patronize us.” Why? Those past American Presidents might look like each other on dollar notes, but they don’t have enough melanin! But this was one of our own, a son of the African soil with African blood running through his veins, telling us the painful home truth, from his heart, and his famous Teleprompters, that we are responsible for our own fate. Oh, and some even felt that he delivered the speech ex tempore. That is Barack Obama. And whilst at it, can someone buy Teleprompters for our Presidents, for now and the future? Teleprompters are cool, just like Cape Coast.
Then Obama went to Cape Coast, where he was given a tour of the Cape Coast Castle by Comedian-Turned-MP-Turned-Castle-Tour-Guide, Fritz Baffour. Obama was also interviewed by Anderson Cooper for CNN and Adam Boulton for Sky News. It was great seeing Cape Coast’s name on TV when the most important person on earth, Obama, was being interviewed. My Fante-ness was in full flow. I felt warm and cold at the same time. This was it – Obama was marketing Cape Coast (and Ghana) for us, for free. Every news organisation on earth, worth its salt (even FoxNews and Wall Street Journal, even if reluctantly), was focusing on us. I went into a romantic overdrive. My head was a tad reluctant to get involved, but my heart was busy telling my head to “stay at home and stop interfering,” as Edward Monkton would have put it. This was our opportunity to milk the event and sustain the attention on Ghana, particularly our tourism potential. I thought that it was time to brand Ghana the way Malaysia is ‘Truly Asia’ and India is ‘!ncredible’. “Get on CNN the way Angola is marketing CAN 2010!” I screamed.
MARKETING GHANA: BETWEEN OBAMA, FACEBOOK DEBATES, STRAY COWS AND TOILET WARS!! (Part II)
Barack Obama
I am also one of those Ghanaians who believe that the Obama visit to Ghana has given us a rare opportunity to market this country. The mix of Cape Coast and Obama is unbeatable. On the eve of the Obama visit, Bono the musician said wrote in the New York Times that Ghana is the ‘Birthplace of Cool”. He was right generally; but wrong on specifics. “Cape Coast IS the Birthplace of Cool.” You see, I like Barack Hussein Obama, the most unlikely American president with the most ‘un-American name’ possible and who does not look like the rest of the Presidents on the dollar notes. This man makes it cool to be black, and has even stopped using the rather ridiculously anglicized version of his name “Barry,” which he bore when he played basketball in High School. If he had been from Cape Coast, he still would be “Barry”. Just check out the name my Fante dad gave to me…, and I say this with a smile. Good beads don’t bling… I like that.
I first read about Obama when he became the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. I knew then that this guy was in for big and great things, and probably would become the first black President of the United States. Years later when I watched clips of his ‘audacity of hope’ speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, I was moved to tears. I downloaded that speech from the internet, memorized substantial portions of it, unashamedly plagiarized other portions for my own speeches and writings to the unsuspecting public, and, of course, did not acknowledge my source! What is worse, I smuggled portions of the speech into those of a couple of Ghanaian CEOs who asked me to read over and edit some of their speeches. Guilty as charged. Copying Obama is cool. Cape Coast defines cool… whatever you do to Cape Coast, expect retaliation.
When Obama announced his candidacy for President, I had some doubts as to whether he could make it. It seemed a very long journey. For a while, and although I have no vote in the United States, I put my emotional ‘weight’ behind John Edwards. My friend and classmate, Kofi Dom, could not believe that I was backing Edwards when I was the first person he knew, who owned and had read all of Obama’s two books. My other friend, mate and self-proclaimed ‘son in law’ Abieku Neizer-Ashun in faraway Washington State also felt a tad betrayed because he had bought and brought to me, Obama’s ‘Audacity of Hope’. But my initial lack of confidence in Obama winning the race to the White House was a lack of confidence in my own mind, thus: how on earth would a predominantly white America, vote for a black person as President? After all, it was in North America that I discovered that I was black. For all of the one year that I lived and schooled there, their dogs would sometimes barked at me. I must have looked strange to the canines. When OJ Simpson was engaging in that live, slow car chase with the LAPD in the aftermath of his wife’s murder, drunk Caucasian boys and girls made silly noises and pointed at me, and two other black school mates (one from Barbados and the other from Tanzania), as we made our way to and from the eat-all-you-can-for-four-dollars Chinese food eatery, Buffet Uncle Tong, in downtown Kingston, Ontario.
So I thought I had sufficient basis to mask and cushion what I considered the impending, obvious disappointment of an Obama loss by supporting Edwards. But the watershed and defining moment was when Obama won the Iowa caucuses, because on that night, I swung my voteless, meaningless support behind him. If any black man could win a caucus in the almost lily-white land of corn, beans and steel, otherwise known as Iowa, that person was going to be the next President of America. I stayed up on every primary night to watch him whip Hillary Clinton silly, and then make that beeline for the White House, trampling on a hapless John McCain and a clueless, winking Sarah Palin in the process. I reckon McCain is still wondering what hit him. Palin has never recovered – she just announced a confused resignation as Governor of Alaska. To McCain’s credit, he pulled the highest number of votes for any losing candidate in American electoral history, I hear. But he was up, not against a person; he was up against a movement. Obama’s time had come, and history could not afford to wait for Obama a day longer.
I wept on the dawn when Obama was declared President. I was ashamed that in some way, I had allowed some of the not-too-pleasant aspects of my rather short stay in school in North America to define who I was and what I had become. But my resolve, after watching him deliver that speech in Chicago, was that the mere fact that God gave me more melanin than others, hence my darker skin colour, was no longer an excuse to carry a chip on my shoulder that was the size of Africa – with Madagascar added on for good measure. Not that I have ever sought to make that an excuse, but deep in the recesses of my mind, I still felt quite looked down upon and sometimes patronised by some Caucasians, even friends… sometimes. Often, when you are almost the only black face in a class, meeting, course, seminar or conference, you either shut up and hope to leave unnoticed or feel you have to work or think twice as hard to earn your place. To date, when I enter some shops in some countries, I still feel the eyes of the security personnel trained on me, with some actually following me to ensure that I don’t nick a pen from the shop. I appreciate that maybe some of this is more of my own perception than reality, but that was how I felt. But with Obama’s victory, I would be ashamed of myself to ever feel that way again. The Thousand could not defeat the Thirty… that is the spirit of Cape Coast.
I am also one of those Ghanaians who believe that the Obama visit to Ghana has given us a rare opportunity to market this country. The mix of Cape Coast and Obama is unbeatable. On the eve of the Obama visit, Bono the musician said wrote in the New York Times that Ghana is the ‘Birthplace of Cool”. He was right generally; but wrong on specifics. “Cape Coast IS the Birthplace of Cool.” You see, I like Barack Hussein Obama, the most unlikely American president with the most ‘un-American name’ possible and who does not look like the rest of the Presidents on the dollar notes. This man makes it cool to be black, and has even stopped using the rather ridiculously anglicized version of his name “Barry,” which he bore when he played basketball in High School. If he had been from Cape Coast, he still would be “Barry”. Just check out the name my Fante dad gave to me…, and I say this with a smile. Good beads don’t bling… I like that.
I first read about Obama when he became the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. I knew then that this guy was in for big and great things, and probably would become the first black President of the United States. Years later when I watched clips of his ‘audacity of hope’ speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, I was moved to tears. I downloaded that speech from the internet, memorized substantial portions of it, unashamedly plagiarized other portions for my own speeches and writings to the unsuspecting public, and, of course, did not acknowledge my source! What is worse, I smuggled portions of the speech into those of a couple of Ghanaian CEOs who asked me to read over and edit some of their speeches. Guilty as charged. Copying Obama is cool. Cape Coast defines cool… whatever you do to Cape Coast, expect retaliation.
When Obama announced his candidacy for President, I had some doubts as to whether he could make it. It seemed a very long journey. For a while, and although I have no vote in the United States, I put my emotional ‘weight’ behind John Edwards. My friend and classmate, Kofi Dom, could not believe that I was backing Edwards when I was the first person he knew, who owned and had read all of Obama’s two books. My other friend, mate and self-proclaimed ‘son in law’ Abieku Neizer-Ashun in faraway Washington State also felt a tad betrayed because he had bought and brought to me, Obama’s ‘Audacity of Hope’. But my initial lack of confidence in Obama winning the race to the White House was a lack of confidence in my own mind, thus: how on earth would a predominantly white America, vote for a black person as President? After all, it was in North America that I discovered that I was black. For all of the one year that I lived and schooled there, their dogs would sometimes barked at me. I must have looked strange to the canines. When OJ Simpson was engaging in that live, slow car chase with the LAPD in the aftermath of his wife’s murder, drunk Caucasian boys and girls made silly noises and pointed at me, and two other black school mates (one from Barbados and the other from Tanzania), as we made our way to and from the eat-all-you-can-for-four-dollars Chinese food eatery, Buffet Uncle Tong, in downtown Kingston, Ontario.
So I thought I had sufficient basis to mask and cushion what I considered the impending, obvious disappointment of an Obama loss by supporting Edwards. But the watershed and defining moment was when Obama won the Iowa caucuses, because on that night, I swung my voteless, meaningless support behind him. If any black man could win a caucus in the almost lily-white land of corn, beans and steel, otherwise known as Iowa, that person was going to be the next President of America. I stayed up on every primary night to watch him whip Hillary Clinton silly, and then make that beeline for the White House, trampling on a hapless John McCain and a clueless, winking Sarah Palin in the process. I reckon McCain is still wondering what hit him. Palin has never recovered – she just announced a confused resignation as Governor of Alaska. To McCain’s credit, he pulled the highest number of votes for any losing candidate in American electoral history, I hear. But he was up, not against a person; he was up against a movement. Obama’s time had come, and history could not afford to wait for Obama a day longer.
I wept on the dawn when Obama was declared President. I was ashamed that in some way, I had allowed some of the not-too-pleasant aspects of my rather short stay in school in North America to define who I was and what I had become. But my resolve, after watching him deliver that speech in Chicago, was that the mere fact that God gave me more melanin than others, hence my darker skin colour, was no longer an excuse to carry a chip on my shoulder that was the size of Africa – with Madagascar added on for good measure. Not that I have ever sought to make that an excuse, but deep in the recesses of my mind, I still felt quite looked down upon and sometimes patronised by some Caucasians, even friends… sometimes. Often, when you are almost the only black face in a class, meeting, course, seminar or conference, you either shut up and hope to leave unnoticed or feel you have to work or think twice as hard to earn your place. To date, when I enter some shops in some countries, I still feel the eyes of the security personnel trained on me, with some actually following me to ensure that I don’t nick a pen from the shop. I appreciate that maybe some of this is more of my own perception than reality, but that was how I felt. But with Obama’s victory, I would be ashamed of myself to ever feel that way again. The Thousand could not defeat the Thirty… that is the spirit of Cape Coast.
MARKETING GHANA: BETWEEN OBAMA, FACEBOOK DEBATES, STRAY COWS AND TOILET WARS!! (Part I)
Cry A Beloved City
Being a Ghanaian and living in Ghana has its own dynamics and is often like a roller-coaster ride – one minute you are up, the next minute you are down, and the very next minute, you are somewhere in between up and down. Often, I feel like the schizophrenic ghost in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost, wondering whether I should go to Cape Coast or Elmina. When President Barack Obama’s trip planners were faced with this choice, they chose Cape Coast, much to the angst of the good people of Edina: the land where in 1471, the Portuguese Don Diego d’Azambuja met wise King Kwamena Ansah, and learnt about the sea’s impossible dream of living in the houses of men. Things happen in Ghana that literally send your mind to the Elmina-Cape Coast junction and make you wonder whether we can turn this wheel on which we turn.
There was this sinking feeling when Joy FM carried the news item from Cape Coast of a threatened brawl between the Metropolitan Chief Executive some members of the local NDC over the control of public toilets. Public toilets? In the 21st Century? As the story has it, in many parts of Ghana, the immediately past NPP government gave control over public toilets to its ‘people’. Thus, come the change of government, members of the NDC in those parts of the country believe that it is their time to also assume control of such toilets and the ‘riches’ that are derived from the desire to ‘answer nature’s call.’ Has anyone listened to the latest political satire of a song by the always irreverent Hiplife artist called A-Plus, where he belts out the question: ‘dem tsi-efi yi, whana ne tse-ifi aa…?”
THIS is the country and the very proud city of Cape Coast that Barack Obama just visited!
I like to say that this is the country of “beautiful nonsense” and that I will never exchange my Ghanaian passport for any other. If anyone tries to take away my Ghanaian-ness, we will be headed to court for a brutal fight, and I assure you, there will be blood all over the floor – not mine. And it will take quite a bit…, quite a bit…, ok, really a whole lot, to get me to live permanently outside Ghana.
I am also one of those ‘local mixed breed’ and ‘proudly, ethnically impure’ Ghanaians, who claim lineage to quite a few tribes in Ghana. Of all the tribes that I have blood connections with, I think that I am most in love with my Akyem and Fante sides. The Akyem is from Achiase, from where my mother (when all the other tribal connections are discounted) hails, where my late father was born and grew up, the home of the Jungle Warfare School, the only city with a railway junction in Ghana, known and dearly called ‘Russia’ by ‘Achiaseans’ in the diaspora, which includes even those residing in Accra. My claim to being associated with Fante-ness is because my late father really came from and is buried in the beautiful, serene beach city of Biriwa. But there are other reasons why I love my Fante links. I lived and schooled in Fanteland, and somehow, there is something about being associated with Fante that never leaves you. And, the Fante language is the smoothest language on earth. For instance, almost every language I know of has a monosyllable for the word ‘Yes’. But not Fante – we have the dual-syllabic ‘ee-nyo’.
I like to think that I have roots in Cape Coast, the capital of the Central Region, and easily Ghana’s education capital. I did one term of primary education at ‘Master Sam’, where we sang the same song at each Friday worship service: Captain of Israel’s Host and Guide. The two verses of that Methodist hymn are literally etched in my brain! Then I spent seven years of secondary school at the only School on earth, Mfantsipim, the birth place of secondary education in Ghana. How do you say Dwen Hwe Kan in English? Impossible! Yes, yes, there are other institutions of learning scattered all over God’s earth, but there is only one School! Although I have spent more years living and working in Accra, my Ga has never been as good as my Fante. Cape Coast holds many good memories for me, as it was the city in which I really grew up. The city whose biggest football clubs are called DWAFS and VIPERS. It was in Cape Coast that I first heard the phrase “ahwen pa nkasa” to wit “good beads don’t bling.” But it was in the same city that I heard the proud statement:
Oguaa akoto, akoto dwrodwroba aa ogu won tu ano
Aduasa nye apem koo ee, aa apem antum won
Eyee Oguaa den na Oguaa aanye wo bi?
Tomorrow, I will post Part II of this writing, to introduce Barack Obama into this mix.
Being a Ghanaian and living in Ghana has its own dynamics and is often like a roller-coaster ride – one minute you are up, the next minute you are down, and the very next minute, you are somewhere in between up and down. Often, I feel like the schizophrenic ghost in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost, wondering whether I should go to Cape Coast or Elmina. When President Barack Obama’s trip planners were faced with this choice, they chose Cape Coast, much to the angst of the good people of Edina: the land where in 1471, the Portuguese Don Diego d’Azambuja met wise King Kwamena Ansah, and learnt about the sea’s impossible dream of living in the houses of men. Things happen in Ghana that literally send your mind to the Elmina-Cape Coast junction and make you wonder whether we can turn this wheel on which we turn.
There was this sinking feeling when Joy FM carried the news item from Cape Coast of a threatened brawl between the Metropolitan Chief Executive some members of the local NDC over the control of public toilets. Public toilets? In the 21st Century? As the story has it, in many parts of Ghana, the immediately past NPP government gave control over public toilets to its ‘people’. Thus, come the change of government, members of the NDC in those parts of the country believe that it is their time to also assume control of such toilets and the ‘riches’ that are derived from the desire to ‘answer nature’s call.’ Has anyone listened to the latest political satire of a song by the always irreverent Hiplife artist called A-Plus, where he belts out the question: ‘dem tsi-efi yi, whana ne tse-ifi aa…?”
THIS is the country and the very proud city of Cape Coast that Barack Obama just visited!
I like to say that this is the country of “beautiful nonsense” and that I will never exchange my Ghanaian passport for any other. If anyone tries to take away my Ghanaian-ness, we will be headed to court for a brutal fight, and I assure you, there will be blood all over the floor – not mine. And it will take quite a bit…, quite a bit…, ok, really a whole lot, to get me to live permanently outside Ghana.
I am also one of those ‘local mixed breed’ and ‘proudly, ethnically impure’ Ghanaians, who claim lineage to quite a few tribes in Ghana. Of all the tribes that I have blood connections with, I think that I am most in love with my Akyem and Fante sides. The Akyem is from Achiase, from where my mother (when all the other tribal connections are discounted) hails, where my late father was born and grew up, the home of the Jungle Warfare School, the only city with a railway junction in Ghana, known and dearly called ‘Russia’ by ‘Achiaseans’ in the diaspora, which includes even those residing in Accra. My claim to being associated with Fante-ness is because my late father really came from and is buried in the beautiful, serene beach city of Biriwa. But there are other reasons why I love my Fante links. I lived and schooled in Fanteland, and somehow, there is something about being associated with Fante that never leaves you. And, the Fante language is the smoothest language on earth. For instance, almost every language I know of has a monosyllable for the word ‘Yes’. But not Fante – we have the dual-syllabic ‘ee-nyo’.
I like to think that I have roots in Cape Coast, the capital of the Central Region, and easily Ghana’s education capital. I did one term of primary education at ‘Master Sam’, where we sang the same song at each Friday worship service: Captain of Israel’s Host and Guide. The two verses of that Methodist hymn are literally etched in my brain! Then I spent seven years of secondary school at the only School on earth, Mfantsipim, the birth place of secondary education in Ghana. How do you say Dwen Hwe Kan in English? Impossible! Yes, yes, there are other institutions of learning scattered all over God’s earth, but there is only one School! Although I have spent more years living and working in Accra, my Ga has never been as good as my Fante. Cape Coast holds many good memories for me, as it was the city in which I really grew up. The city whose biggest football clubs are called DWAFS and VIPERS. It was in Cape Coast that I first heard the phrase “ahwen pa nkasa” to wit “good beads don’t bling.” But it was in the same city that I heard the proud statement:
Oguaa akoto, akoto dwrodwroba aa ogu won tu ano
Aduasa nye apem koo ee, aa apem antum won
Eyee Oguaa den na Oguaa aanye wo bi?
Tomorrow, I will post Part II of this writing, to introduce Barack Obama into this mix.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Buying Landed Property in Ghana – Frequently Encountered Issues
I presented a paper at a Property Seminar organised by Legacy&Legacy at the La Palm Royal Hotel on 28th April 2007. These are my notes; probably a rough-and-ready checklist for land transactions in Ghana.
- Freehold
o Highest interest in land
o Indefinite period
o Devolution ad infinitum, except upon a failure of successors
o Constitutional bar on granting freehold over stool lands
o Constitutional bar on granting freehold to non-Ghanaians
o Overall gradual shift from freehold to leasehold, especially in urban areas - Leasehold
o Interest granted for a specified period
o Especially in the case of Government lands
o Constitutional bar on granting leasehold exceeding 50 years to non-Ghanaians
o Most leases are renewable - Procedure for purchase
o Identify the land
o Preliminary physical inspection
o Take copies of vendor’s title deed and filed site plan
o Searches at relevant land registries
o Other inquiries as to ownership/availability, e.g. make inquiries in the area, if property owned by company – registered encumbrances (with Registrar-General’s department)
o Consents
o Drafting of transfer document
o Payment of final purchase price and execution of transfer document
o Stamping and registration
o Additional inquiries in respect of buildings:
Proper building permits
Compliance with zoning and planning regulations
Structural defects - Closing & Thereafter
o Possession/occupation
o Complete the contract (signing, witnessing, oath of proof and oath of execution)
o Pay the balance of the agreed consideration, if any
o Pay stamp duty (within 2 months or you pay a penalty)
o Registration with Land Title Registry (registrable areas) or Deeds Registry (yet-to-be-declared registrable areas). Might involve the re-drawing of the site plan as part of plotting.
o Capital Gains Tax – Vendor
o Gift Tax by the beneficiary, if the land was gifted
o Annual property rates (levied on buildings)
o Annual ground rent, subject to the contractual terms (levied on land generally)
o Note renewal terms, if any, with respect to leaseholds. - CHECKLIST
(1) Visual inspection
(2) Title documents: title deed, site plan, land title certificate, etc.: a. Does the grantor have capacity? (i. Government – acts by Lands Commission ii. Stool – Head of Stool with concurrence of elders, Lands Commission and the Office of Stool Lands Administrator iii. Family – Head of Family acting with consent of principal members); b. Signatures/Thumbprints (i. Grantor/Lessor, ii. Grantee/Lessee , iii. Concurring signatories); c. Consideration (How much? Mode of payment?)
(3) Description: a. Street name and number, b. Plot number, c. Particular description/designation, e.g. Joey Villa
(4) Type of Use: a. Residential, b. Commercial, c. Mixed Use, d. Compliance with planning and zoning permission, and e. Home Improvement – have the necessary permits been secured?
(5) Type of Interest: a. Freehold, b. Leasehold, c. Others (e.g. licence)
(6) Searches: a. Land Title Registry, b. Deeds Registry/Lands Commission
(7) Stamping: a. LVB number, b. Adequacy of stamping,
(8) Registration: a. Presentation & Plotting, b. Deeds Registry number, c. Land Title Registry number
(9) Covenants in Leases: a. User and other restrictive covenants, b. Overriding interests – rights of way, natural rights of water, easements
(10) Consents: a. Lands Commission – Government and stool lands, b. Minister for Lands & Forestry via Administrator of Stool Lands
(11) Litigation status: a. Courts, b. Traditional authorities
(12) Property tax payments: check with the relevant Metropolitan/Muncipal/District Assembly
(13) Home Improvements: a. Construction/alteration permits, b. Approved site plans – approval letter and date, c. Compliance with zoning and planning laws – Town & Country Planning Departments, d. Compliance with regulations of central and local government authorities, e. Structural report by Building Inspector/Engineer
Promoting Responsibility and Professionalism: The Law Court and Media Freedom
I presented a paper as the Guest Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism Sam Arthur Memorial Lecture on 25th April 2006. It focused on what I termed, “Journalistic Pitfalls and Minefields in the Post-Criminal Libel Era.” The main theme was that agenda-setting by journalists and the constitutional protection given to journalists and the media come with a price. Journalists must therefore know what these potential pitfalls and minefields are. These are my notes from that lecture.
STATUTORY OFFENCES
Threats of libel or slander
Extorting property from another person by means of threats
Failure to register a newspaper or publication: a maximum of 12 months imprisonment and/or a fine
Failure to publish a rejoinder: a fine
Failure to comply with the laid down broadcasting standards: a penalty including a pecuniary penalty determined by the National Media Commission
CONTEMPT OF COURT
Criminal Contempt
Words or acts that obstruct or tend to obstruct or interfere with the due administration of justice. It is in the nature of public injury and seeks to protect the public interest.
Contempt in facie curiae
Contempt in the face of the Court, i.e. any word spoken or act done in or in the precinct of the court, which obstructs or interferes with the due administration of justice or is calculated to do so, for example:
assaults in court
insults to the court
interruption of court proceedings
recording, filming, photographing or sketching in court without the court’s permission.
Contempt outside the Court
Words spoken/published, or acts done outside the court, intended or likely to interfere with/obstruct the fair administration of justice, for example:
publications intended or likely to prejudice the fair trial or conduct of proceedings
publications which prejudge issues in pending proceedings
publications which scandalize or otherwise lower the authority of the court
acts that interfere with or obstruct persons having duties to discharge in a court
acts in abuse of the processes of the court.
Civil Contempt
Disobedience to a judgment, order or other process of the court, for example:
refusal or neglect to do an act required by a judgment order of the court generally or within a time specified
disobedience of a judgment or order requiring a person to abstain from doing a specified act
breach of an undertaking given to the court
CIVIL DEFAMATION
Publication of words that tend to lower a person in the estimation of right thinking members of the society
Note the relevant defences:
o Justification: You must be able to justify the precise imputation complained of, and the onus to justify the imputation complained of is on you
o Fair Comment: (a) that each and every statement of fact in the words complained of are true; and (b) that the comment on the facts so proved was bona fide and fair on a matter of public interest
o Qualified Privilege: You have a legal, social or moral interest and duty to make or publish the matter complained of (without malice), to the person to whom it is made, and that the person to whom it is made, has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it.
Damages: Societal/Judicial response to the quality of stories? New reach of media (radio and TV reviews, internet, etc.)?
PRODUCT ADVERTISING
News media to ensure that claims made on behalf of a product can be substantiated
Food
False, misleading or deceptive adverts regarding the character, nature, value, additives, substance, quality, composition, merit or safety of food
Advertising food in breach of prescribed standards Advertising salt that is not fortified with potassium iodate
Advertising infant formula, any other product marketed as being suitable for feeding infants up to six months of age, follow-up formula, feeding bottles, teats and pacifiers
Beverages
Alcohol ads are not to:
o be targeted at children, be played during or in close proximity to children’s programmes or feature children or role models
o imply success upon consumption, or therapeutic, stimulating, sedative or tranquilizing qualities
o infer improved performance or preference for high alcohol content, or link consumption to driving or aphrodisiac effects
o suggest that it is acceptable, helps resolve personal problems, is essential attributes of masculinity of femininity
o portray favourable aggressiveness or promote anti-social behaviour
o show alcohol consumption whilst working
Drugs
False, misleading or deceptive ads regarding a drug’s character, constitution, value, potency, quality, composition, merits or safety
Advertising drugs in breach of prescribed standards
Ads of drugs to treat, prevent or cure the following: STD’s and other genito-urinary diseases, AIDS or diseases connected with the human reproductive functions, Amenorrhoea, Arterio-Sclerosis, Bladder Stones, Blindness, Cancer, Deafness, Diabetes, Diphtheria, Dropsy. Epilepsy or fits, Erysipelas, Gallstones, Goitre, Heart disease, Hernia or rupture, Kidney stones, Leprosy, Locomotortazy, Lupus, Nephritis or Bright’s disease, Paralysis, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Poliomyelitis, Scarlet fever, Septicaemia, Smallpox, Tetanus or lock-jaw, Trachoma, Tuberculosis or consumption.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Individual journalists should join the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and be prepared to submit to the powers of the Ethics and Disciplinary Council
There should be corporate membership of GJA for news media organisations
Constitutionally protected rights of the media are not absolute (national security, public order and public morality considerations)
Lack of Adequate Training in legal issues
Bravery/Investigative Journalism/Sheer Foolhardiness
Issues of privacy and what constitutes “fair game”
STATUTORY OFFENCES
Threats of libel or slander
Extorting property from another person by means of threats
Failure to register a newspaper or publication: a maximum of 12 months imprisonment and/or a fine
Failure to publish a rejoinder: a fine
Failure to comply with the laid down broadcasting standards: a penalty including a pecuniary penalty determined by the National Media Commission
CONTEMPT OF COURT
Criminal Contempt
Words or acts that obstruct or tend to obstruct or interfere with the due administration of justice. It is in the nature of public injury and seeks to protect the public interest.
Contempt in facie curiae
Contempt in the face of the Court, i.e. any word spoken or act done in or in the precinct of the court, which obstructs or interferes with the due administration of justice or is calculated to do so, for example:
assaults in court
insults to the court
interruption of court proceedings
recording, filming, photographing or sketching in court without the court’s permission.
Contempt outside the Court
Words spoken/published, or acts done outside the court, intended or likely to interfere with/obstruct the fair administration of justice, for example:
publications intended or likely to prejudice the fair trial or conduct of proceedings
publications which prejudge issues in pending proceedings
publications which scandalize or otherwise lower the authority of the court
acts that interfere with or obstruct persons having duties to discharge in a court
acts in abuse of the processes of the court.
Civil Contempt
Disobedience to a judgment, order or other process of the court, for example:
refusal or neglect to do an act required by a judgment order of the court generally or within a time specified
disobedience of a judgment or order requiring a person to abstain from doing a specified act
breach of an undertaking given to the court
CIVIL DEFAMATION
Publication of words that tend to lower a person in the estimation of right thinking members of the society
Note the relevant defences:
o Justification: You must be able to justify the precise imputation complained of, and the onus to justify the imputation complained of is on you
o Fair Comment: (a) that each and every statement of fact in the words complained of are true; and (b) that the comment on the facts so proved was bona fide and fair on a matter of public interest
o Qualified Privilege: You have a legal, social or moral interest and duty to make or publish the matter complained of (without malice), to the person to whom it is made, and that the person to whom it is made, has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it.
Damages: Societal/Judicial response to the quality of stories? New reach of media (radio and TV reviews, internet, etc.)?
PRODUCT ADVERTISING
News media to ensure that claims made on behalf of a product can be substantiated
Food
False, misleading or deceptive adverts regarding the character, nature, value, additives, substance, quality, composition, merit or safety of food
Advertising food in breach of prescribed standards Advertising salt that is not fortified with potassium iodate
Advertising infant formula, any other product marketed as being suitable for feeding infants up to six months of age, follow-up formula, feeding bottles, teats and pacifiers
Beverages
Alcohol ads are not to:
o be targeted at children, be played during or in close proximity to children’s programmes or feature children or role models
o imply success upon consumption, or therapeutic, stimulating, sedative or tranquilizing qualities
o infer improved performance or preference for high alcohol content, or link consumption to driving or aphrodisiac effects
o suggest that it is acceptable, helps resolve personal problems, is essential attributes of masculinity of femininity
o portray favourable aggressiveness or promote anti-social behaviour
o show alcohol consumption whilst working
Drugs
False, misleading or deceptive ads regarding a drug’s character, constitution, value, potency, quality, composition, merits or safety
Advertising drugs in breach of prescribed standards
Ads of drugs to treat, prevent or cure the following: STD’s and other genito-urinary diseases, AIDS or diseases connected with the human reproductive functions, Amenorrhoea, Arterio-Sclerosis, Bladder Stones, Blindness, Cancer, Deafness, Diabetes, Diphtheria, Dropsy. Epilepsy or fits, Erysipelas, Gallstones, Goitre, Heart disease, Hernia or rupture, Kidney stones, Leprosy, Locomotortazy, Lupus, Nephritis or Bright’s disease, Paralysis, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Poliomyelitis, Scarlet fever, Septicaemia, Smallpox, Tetanus or lock-jaw, Trachoma, Tuberculosis or consumption.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Individual journalists should join the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and be prepared to submit to the powers of the Ethics and Disciplinary Council
There should be corporate membership of GJA for news media organisations
Constitutionally protected rights of the media are not absolute (national security, public order and public morality considerations)
Lack of Adequate Training in legal issues
Bravery/Investigative Journalism/Sheer Foolhardiness
Issues of privacy and what constitutes “fair game”
Friday, July 10, 2009
PROSTITUTION – LEGALIZING A LEGALITY… OR A HIDDEN AGENDUM?
I was intrigued by a campaign for the ‘legalization’ of prostitution in Ghana, particularly when that was coming from the Ghana Aids Commission. I wrote this piece which got published in the Daily Graphic. Please read on:
This campaign pre-supposes that prostitution is illegal, because calling for ‘legalization’ of a thing assumes that the thing is unlawful in the first place. My contention, however, is that prostitution, as defined in our statute books, is not an offence. Accordingly calls for its ‘legalization’ have no bases in the law. Simply, there is nothing to legalize, as far as prostitution as an act is concerned. What the law does is to criminalize certain acts that accompany or are related, supplementary or incidental to the actual act of prostitution. I would not want to believe that what the “Legalize Prostitution” campaigners are asking, is for those related offences to be legalized. I beg to differ. It would appear that the campaigners have not averted their minds to the real impact of their argument in the face of the law. The purpose of this piece to highlight what the law actually says because a debate or campaign that fails to take into consideration the actual state of the law is, respectfully, uninformed and amiss.
Definition
The Criminal Code defines the term “prostitution” to include:
“… the offering by a person of his body commonly for acts of lewdness for payment although there is no act or offer of an act of ordinary sexual connexion.”
The use of the word “include” could mean that the definition is not absolute and all encompassing. It could also mean that the meaning of the word is so well known, accepted and notorious that all that is required is to expand its scope to cover possible gray areas. Whichever way one looks at it, the above definition contains three key ingredients as follows:
(1) Offer by a person of his/her body: The definition is not limited by gender. By this ingredient the person must present or tender his/her body to another person for the purposes stated in the definition. Accordingly, if there is no such offer of a person’s body by that person, the act will not fall within the legal definition.
(2) Acts of lewdness: The definition covers “lewdness” whether or not it involves, results in or leads to actual sexual acts. Although the Criminal Code does not define the word “lewdness,” that word is generally accepted to be synonymous with other terms such as gross indecency, licentiousness, immoral or degenerate conduct, and lustful and lecherous acts.
(3) Payment: In a restricted legal sense a payment is the performance of a duty, promise or obligation, or the discharge of a debt or liability by delivering money or something else, where the money or other thing is accepted as extinguishing or reducing the debt or obligation. In effect the “acts of lewdness” must create a debt or obligation in favour of the person who offered his/her body (the “prostitute”). Payment then occurs where the prostitute accepts anything as imbursement or compensation for the said use of his/her body.
Nowhere in the Criminal Code is prostitution, as defined above, made a crime. It is on this basis that I consider the “Legalize Prostitution” campaign as stillborn and fundamentally and incurably flawed. However, Chapter 7 of the Code, which is aptly headed “Offences Against Public Morals”, criminalizes certain acts that are closely related to prostitution, and it is a discussion of these that I now turn.
Exposing Children to Prostitution
The first related crime is committed by a person who has the custody, charge or care of a child under the age of 16, and allows or permits that child to reside in or frequent a brothel. A brothel, according to the Code, is any premises or room used for prostitution purposes. There is persuasive authority to the effect that a prostitute who lives with his/her child in premises that he/she uses for prostitution is guilty of this crime. This provision, seeks to protect children from exposure to prostitution. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” Surely, the campaigners are not saying that the law should be amended to permit children to live in or visit brothels.
‘Pimping’
The second related crime is committed by a person who either (i) “knowingly” lives on the earnings of prostitution, or (ii) for the purposes of gain, exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute in a manner that aids, abets or compels prostitution. This covers what is generally referred to as “pimping”. It is arguable that the prostitute also commits this offence because he/she lives on the earnings of prostitution. However, a full reading of the law shows that that provision only applies to a person, other than the prostitute, who knowingly lives on such earnings. The Code shows this by empowering District Magistrates to issue search and arrest warrants where there is evidence on oath that any person residing in or frequenting a brothel “is living wholly or in part on the earnings of any prostitute.” Further, a person who (i) lives with a prostitute, (ii) is habitually in the company of a prostitute or (iii) exercises any control over a prostitute, is deemed to be “knowingly” living on the earnings of prostitution, unless he is able to satisfy the court to the contrary. There is persuasive authority to the effect that a person who allows a prostitute to have the use of his room at specified times at a charge is guilty of this crime.
Pimps are known to be people who control prostitutes and subject them to all forms of maltreatment, thereby keeping the prostitutes in subjection and under their influence. Often this is against the will of the prostitutes themselves, some of whom would gladly leave the ‘profession’ but for the morbid fear that they have of such criminals. I am yet to hear of a pimp who would be so depraved that he will allow his/her child to become a prostitute. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” Surely, the campaigners cannot be arguing that we should amend the law and unleashing such criminals on society.
Soliciting or Importuning
The third related crime is committed by a person who publicly, persistently solicits or importunes to obtain clients for a prostitute or for any other immoral purpose. Soliciting connotes begging and pleading for clientele, whilst importuning denotes a more aggressive pestering and harassment of prospective patrons. In one decided case, a person who stood at street corners, made faces and smiled at people, made suggestive gestures with the mouth, and paid several visits to public toilets, was held to be guilty of this offence even if he did not speak with or touch anyone; and even the absence of evidence that his acts had any impact on anyone was not considered a sufficient defence.
I am not certain if any of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners has been solicited or importuned by a prostitute, which can be a most revolting experience. If this is removed from our statute books as an offence, it will expose all of us to blatant, shameless and barefaced approaches and harassment by prostitutes who are ‘marketing their wares’. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” The campaigners will have to show us what society will stand to gain if by freeing up prostitutes to bang on our cars (pun unintended) and accost law-abiding people on the streets.
Keeping Brothels
The fourth related crime is committed by a person who keeps a brothel. A person is guilty of this crime if he/she (i) keeps, manages or assists in managing a brothel, (ii) as a tenant, knowingly permits premises to be used as a brothel or for habitual prostitution, or (iii) as a landlord, rents out premises with the knowledge that it will be used as a brothel. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” The campaigners have to show how the establishment up huge brothels in Ghana, and probably advertising the services provided in our newspapers and on radio and television will help the society.
Other ‘Related’ Crimes
The other crimes provided for under Chapter 7 of the Criminal Code are not directly related to prostitution. These are:
1. Publicly and wilfully committing grossly indecent acts (such as having sex in a public place);
2. Compelling a person to undergo immoral or indecent widowhood rites;
3. Publishing or selling books, objects or matters of an obscene nature (such as pornography);
4. Making indecent inscriptions at any public place; and
5. Advertising material relating to venereal diseases, sexual infirmity and aphrodisiacs without the authority of the Minister of Health.
Conclusion
In conclusion, prostitution is said to exist when (i) a person offers his/her body, (ii) for lewd acts, and (iii) for payment. The act of prostitution per se is not an offence, but certain specified related acts are criminal. Since prostitution itself is not an offence, it stands to reason that it cannot be legalized, and calls for its legalization are respectfully, uninformed. What the law says is that although prostitution is not an offence, it is an offence to (i) publicly solicit for clients, (ii) expose children to brothels, (iii) work as a pimp, and/or (iv) keep brothels. These are the acts that are criminalized by our law, ought to remains prohibited by our law, and I would not want to believe that this is what the campaign is really about.
This campaign pre-supposes that prostitution is illegal, because calling for ‘legalization’ of a thing assumes that the thing is unlawful in the first place. My contention, however, is that prostitution, as defined in our statute books, is not an offence. Accordingly calls for its ‘legalization’ have no bases in the law. Simply, there is nothing to legalize, as far as prostitution as an act is concerned. What the law does is to criminalize certain acts that accompany or are related, supplementary or incidental to the actual act of prostitution. I would not want to believe that what the “Legalize Prostitution” campaigners are asking, is for those related offences to be legalized. I beg to differ. It would appear that the campaigners have not averted their minds to the real impact of their argument in the face of the law. The purpose of this piece to highlight what the law actually says because a debate or campaign that fails to take into consideration the actual state of the law is, respectfully, uninformed and amiss.
Definition
The Criminal Code defines the term “prostitution” to include:
“… the offering by a person of his body commonly for acts of lewdness for payment although there is no act or offer of an act of ordinary sexual connexion.”
The use of the word “include” could mean that the definition is not absolute and all encompassing. It could also mean that the meaning of the word is so well known, accepted and notorious that all that is required is to expand its scope to cover possible gray areas. Whichever way one looks at it, the above definition contains three key ingredients as follows:
(1) Offer by a person of his/her body: The definition is not limited by gender. By this ingredient the person must present or tender his/her body to another person for the purposes stated in the definition. Accordingly, if there is no such offer of a person’s body by that person, the act will not fall within the legal definition.
(2) Acts of lewdness: The definition covers “lewdness” whether or not it involves, results in or leads to actual sexual acts. Although the Criminal Code does not define the word “lewdness,” that word is generally accepted to be synonymous with other terms such as gross indecency, licentiousness, immoral or degenerate conduct, and lustful and lecherous acts.
(3) Payment: In a restricted legal sense a payment is the performance of a duty, promise or obligation, or the discharge of a debt or liability by delivering money or something else, where the money or other thing is accepted as extinguishing or reducing the debt or obligation. In effect the “acts of lewdness” must create a debt or obligation in favour of the person who offered his/her body (the “prostitute”). Payment then occurs where the prostitute accepts anything as imbursement or compensation for the said use of his/her body.
Nowhere in the Criminal Code is prostitution, as defined above, made a crime. It is on this basis that I consider the “Legalize Prostitution” campaign as stillborn and fundamentally and incurably flawed. However, Chapter 7 of the Code, which is aptly headed “Offences Against Public Morals”, criminalizes certain acts that are closely related to prostitution, and it is a discussion of these that I now turn.
Exposing Children to Prostitution
The first related crime is committed by a person who has the custody, charge or care of a child under the age of 16, and allows or permits that child to reside in or frequent a brothel. A brothel, according to the Code, is any premises or room used for prostitution purposes. There is persuasive authority to the effect that a prostitute who lives with his/her child in premises that he/she uses for prostitution is guilty of this crime. This provision, seeks to protect children from exposure to prostitution. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” Surely, the campaigners are not saying that the law should be amended to permit children to live in or visit brothels.
‘Pimping’
The second related crime is committed by a person who either (i) “knowingly” lives on the earnings of prostitution, or (ii) for the purposes of gain, exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute in a manner that aids, abets or compels prostitution. This covers what is generally referred to as “pimping”. It is arguable that the prostitute also commits this offence because he/she lives on the earnings of prostitution. However, a full reading of the law shows that that provision only applies to a person, other than the prostitute, who knowingly lives on such earnings. The Code shows this by empowering District Magistrates to issue search and arrest warrants where there is evidence on oath that any person residing in or frequenting a brothel “is living wholly or in part on the earnings of any prostitute.” Further, a person who (i) lives with a prostitute, (ii) is habitually in the company of a prostitute or (iii) exercises any control over a prostitute, is deemed to be “knowingly” living on the earnings of prostitution, unless he is able to satisfy the court to the contrary. There is persuasive authority to the effect that a person who allows a prostitute to have the use of his room at specified times at a charge is guilty of this crime.
Pimps are known to be people who control prostitutes and subject them to all forms of maltreatment, thereby keeping the prostitutes in subjection and under their influence. Often this is against the will of the prostitutes themselves, some of whom would gladly leave the ‘profession’ but for the morbid fear that they have of such criminals. I am yet to hear of a pimp who would be so depraved that he will allow his/her child to become a prostitute. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” Surely, the campaigners cannot be arguing that we should amend the law and unleashing such criminals on society.
Soliciting or Importuning
The third related crime is committed by a person who publicly, persistently solicits or importunes to obtain clients for a prostitute or for any other immoral purpose. Soliciting connotes begging and pleading for clientele, whilst importuning denotes a more aggressive pestering and harassment of prospective patrons. In one decided case, a person who stood at street corners, made faces and smiled at people, made suggestive gestures with the mouth, and paid several visits to public toilets, was held to be guilty of this offence even if he did not speak with or touch anyone; and even the absence of evidence that his acts had any impact on anyone was not considered a sufficient defence.
I am not certain if any of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners has been solicited or importuned by a prostitute, which can be a most revolting experience. If this is removed from our statute books as an offence, it will expose all of us to blatant, shameless and barefaced approaches and harassment by prostitutes who are ‘marketing their wares’. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” The campaigners will have to show us what society will stand to gain if by freeing up prostitutes to bang on our cars (pun unintended) and accost law-abiding people on the streets.
Keeping Brothels
The fourth related crime is committed by a person who keeps a brothel. A person is guilty of this crime if he/she (i) keeps, manages or assists in managing a brothel, (ii) as a tenant, knowingly permits premises to be used as a brothel or for habitual prostitution, or (iii) as a landlord, rents out premises with the knowledge that it will be used as a brothel. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” The campaigners have to show how the establishment up huge brothels in Ghana, and probably advertising the services provided in our newspapers and on radio and television will help the society.
Other ‘Related’ Crimes
The other crimes provided for under Chapter 7 of the Criminal Code are not directly related to prostitution. These are:
1. Publicly and wilfully committing grossly indecent acts (such as having sex in a public place);
2. Compelling a person to undergo immoral or indecent widowhood rites;
3. Publishing or selling books, objects or matters of an obscene nature (such as pornography);
4. Making indecent inscriptions at any public place; and
5. Advertising material relating to venereal diseases, sexual infirmity and aphrodisiacs without the authority of the Minister of Health.
Conclusion
In conclusion, prostitution is said to exist when (i) a person offers his/her body, (ii) for lewd acts, and (iii) for payment. The act of prostitution per se is not an offence, but certain specified related acts are criminal. Since prostitution itself is not an offence, it stands to reason that it cannot be legalized, and calls for its legalization are respectfully, uninformed. What the law says is that although prostitution is not an offence, it is an offence to (i) publicly solicit for clients, (ii) expose children to brothels, (iii) work as a pimp, and/or (iv) keep brothels. These are the acts that are criminalized by our law, ought to remains prohibited by our law, and I would not want to believe that this is what the campaign is really about.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
WHO IS A SHADOW DIRECTOR?
In the times following the judgment in the case of Republic v. Ibrahim Adam & Others (FT/MISC 2/2000, 28/4/03), also known as the Quality Grain Case, the issue as to who is a shadow director of a company came up for discussion with some considerable difference of opinion. The judge had referred to Professor Mills, then the immediate past Vice-President of Ghana, and Ghana’s current President, as a shadow director of the Quality Grain company. The Professor was not amused. At the time, it appeared that prior to this decision, the term ‘shadow director’ had not been discussed in any relevant Ghanaian statute, decided case or legal literature, save a brief mention in an article by one Dr. Mweda Kenneth Kaoma on Zambian law but published in [1996-1999] Vol. XX University of Ghana Law Journal. The humble purpose of this piece when I first had it published in the Ghanaian Times was to attempt to shed some light on the concept of ‘shadow directors’ with the view of informing that debate.
Directors
In law, a company is known as an artificial entity, the persona ficta. As an artificial person (as opposed to a natural person) the company can only act by agents. Usually, the persons by whom a company acts and by whom the company’s business is carried on and superintended are called “directors”. Section 179 of Ghana’s Companies Code therefore defines a director as any person who is “appointed to direct and administer the business of the company.” This section constitutes the Board of Directors into the supreme and original authority in matters of regular business management. Directors are the chief administrators, and have invested in them, by law, the power and duty to manage and superintend the ordinary business of the company. Under section 137(4) of the Companies Code, the directors are not servants to obey directions and orders given to them by the shareholders, although the management and control of the company are entrusted to the directors for the benefit and protection of all the shareholders.
Definition & Scope
By virtue of having such wide powers entrusted in them, section 179 of the Companies Code imposes on directors a duty not to act on the directions or instructions of any other person. However, the reality is that in some situations directors are subject, or allow themselves to be subjected, to the exercise by another people of considerable control and authority over the company and its business and affairs. The effect of this is that while the law holds directors personally liable for their acts and decisions, those acts or decisions may in fact be dictated, imposed or controlled by some other person who has not been appointed as a director but who, through some means (e.g. a controlling shareholder or even the government) is the driving force behind the company and the acts of the directors. Directors who allow such a state of affairs are in breach of their duties as directors.
But the law, not being blind to the existence of such a state of affairs and frowning upon the existence of shadow directors, provides under section 179 that a person “on whose directions or instructions the duly appointed directors are accustomed to act” is subject to the same duties and liabilities as a duly appointed director. Note that the law does not say that the person also has the same rights of a director. What it does is to impose on him a director’s “duties and liabilities”.
Further, the Companies Code does not expressly call such a person by the name “shadow director;” but that is the name by which such persons are generally called in Company Law. A shadow director is therefore not a director properly so-called. He does not have the rights of a director, and is an interloper in the affairs of the company. But the law recognises his existence and imposes upon him the duties and liabilities of a director by virtue of his control over or domination of the directors of the company.
The fact is that a shadow director does not claim or purport to act as a director, and the company does not hold him out as a director. He rather lurks in the shadows and shelters behind others who are the duly appointed directors. The generally accepted test in ascertaining whether a person is a shadow director is as follows:(1) Who are the directors of the company?(2) Did the ‘third party’ direct those directors how to act in relation to the company?(3) Did the duly appointed directors act in accordance with such directions?(4) Were the duly appointed directors accustomed so to act?
Accordingly, central to a determination as to whether a person is a shadow director is, first, there is a board of directors claiming and purporting to act as such; and, second, there is a “discernible pattern of behaviour” in which the board did not exercise any discretion or judgment of its own, but acted in accordance with the directions of the third party. If these are answered in the affirmative, then that third party is a shadow director. Accordingly the definition of shadow director presupposes that there is a board of directors who act in accordance with instructions from someone else, the èminence grise (literally the “wise old man.”) Another appropriate illustration of a shadow director is that he is, in effect, the puppet master who controls the actions of the board, and the directors are his ‘cat’s paw’.
“Accustomed to act”
The use of the phrase “accustomed to act” in section 179 would also suggest that the directors must be people who act on the directions or instructions of the shadow director as a matter of regular practice. It therefore applies to instances where the third party is shown to issue instructions and directions, and the directors are shown to comply with such, as a regular course of conduct over a period of time. Reference must therefore be made, not to acts on an individual occasion, but over a period of time and as a regular course of conduct. Simply put, a one-off instruction and compliance will not satisfy the “accustomed to act” criterion.
However, it is not necessarily required that there be directions or instructions embracing all matters involving the board, or extend over all or most of the corporate activities of the company. It is also not necessary to demonstrate a degree of compulsion in excess of that implicit in the fact that the board was accustomed to act in accordance with them. Rather it only required that as and when the directors are directed or instructed, they habitually and regularly obey and act accordingly. The idea is that the third party ‘calls the tune’ and the directors ‘dance’ in their capacity as directors. It is therefore sufficient to show that the duly appointed directors had cast themselves in a subservient role or surrendered their discretions in the face of the directions or instructions. What is important is that the third party is shown to have exercised real influence in the corporate governance of the company, and the key question is: Where, for some or all purposes, is the locus or place of effective decision-making? If the answer to this question is a person other than the board of directors, then it is open to find that that person is a shadow director.
Illustrations
Directors of Parent Companies: Flowing from the above discussion, it has been held that the directors of a parent company per se would not make themselves shadow directors of the subsidiary if they act in their capacity as the board of the parent so as to give instructions to the directors of the subsidiary. However, individual and personal instructions from a director of the parent to the directors of the subsidiary could bring that director within the definition of a shadow director.
Creditors: In one English authority, the activities of the company were financed by a loan. The security for the loan was a 125-year lease of the company’s premises, which the creditor then leased back to the company. The rent payable was to be used to amortise the loan. Subsequently the company became insolvent and could not pay the rent. Thereupon, weekly management meetings were held between the managing director of the company and officers of the creditor with a view to rescuing what the creditor could out of the company (e.g. making terms for the continuation of the credit in the light of the threatened default). It was held that the officers of the creditor were merely defending the creditor’s interests and imposing terms for the protection of those interests. That did not constitute them into shadow directors, especially when it was clear that the directors of the company were quite free to take the offer or leave it.
Conclusion
Section 179 of the Companies Code constitutes statutory recognition that effective legal control over the central management of companies requires restrictions that may extend beyond the regulation of those formally appointed by the company as its directors. The law disapproves of the existence of such a person, who, not having been appointed as a director, yet becomes one on whose instructions and directions the directors are accustomed to act. It therefore provides that directors have a duty not to obey such third parties, and imposes the duties and liabilities of a director such third parties.
To be able to make a conclusive finding that a person is a shadow director of a company it may be ascertained that there is a discernible pattern of behaviour or a relevant regular course of conduct over a period of time that supports the conclusion. It may also be shown that the directors have cast themselves in a submissive and compliant role or given up their discretions in the face of the directions or instructions.
In sum, the answer to the question, “who is a shadow director?” lies in yet another question, to wit, “who is the effective corporate decision-maker?” There are no problems if the answer to this question points to the Board of Directors. However, if the answer directs us to a person other than the Board, i.e. a third party, that third party is a shadow director – the èminence grise, (in normal Ghanaian parlance the “BIG MAN”); and that person is subject to all the duties and liabilities (but not the rights) of the duly appointed directors.
Directors
In law, a company is known as an artificial entity, the persona ficta. As an artificial person (as opposed to a natural person) the company can only act by agents. Usually, the persons by whom a company acts and by whom the company’s business is carried on and superintended are called “directors”. Section 179 of Ghana’s Companies Code therefore defines a director as any person who is “appointed to direct and administer the business of the company.” This section constitutes the Board of Directors into the supreme and original authority in matters of regular business management. Directors are the chief administrators, and have invested in them, by law, the power and duty to manage and superintend the ordinary business of the company. Under section 137(4) of the Companies Code, the directors are not servants to obey directions and orders given to them by the shareholders, although the management and control of the company are entrusted to the directors for the benefit and protection of all the shareholders.
Definition & Scope
By virtue of having such wide powers entrusted in them, section 179 of the Companies Code imposes on directors a duty not to act on the directions or instructions of any other person. However, the reality is that in some situations directors are subject, or allow themselves to be subjected, to the exercise by another people of considerable control and authority over the company and its business and affairs. The effect of this is that while the law holds directors personally liable for their acts and decisions, those acts or decisions may in fact be dictated, imposed or controlled by some other person who has not been appointed as a director but who, through some means (e.g. a controlling shareholder or even the government) is the driving force behind the company and the acts of the directors. Directors who allow such a state of affairs are in breach of their duties as directors.
But the law, not being blind to the existence of such a state of affairs and frowning upon the existence of shadow directors, provides under section 179 that a person “on whose directions or instructions the duly appointed directors are accustomed to act” is subject to the same duties and liabilities as a duly appointed director. Note that the law does not say that the person also has the same rights of a director. What it does is to impose on him a director’s “duties and liabilities”.
Further, the Companies Code does not expressly call such a person by the name “shadow director;” but that is the name by which such persons are generally called in Company Law. A shadow director is therefore not a director properly so-called. He does not have the rights of a director, and is an interloper in the affairs of the company. But the law recognises his existence and imposes upon him the duties and liabilities of a director by virtue of his control over or domination of the directors of the company.
The fact is that a shadow director does not claim or purport to act as a director, and the company does not hold him out as a director. He rather lurks in the shadows and shelters behind others who are the duly appointed directors. The generally accepted test in ascertaining whether a person is a shadow director is as follows:(1) Who are the directors of the company?(2) Did the ‘third party’ direct those directors how to act in relation to the company?(3) Did the duly appointed directors act in accordance with such directions?(4) Were the duly appointed directors accustomed so to act?
Accordingly, central to a determination as to whether a person is a shadow director is, first, there is a board of directors claiming and purporting to act as such; and, second, there is a “discernible pattern of behaviour” in which the board did not exercise any discretion or judgment of its own, but acted in accordance with the directions of the third party. If these are answered in the affirmative, then that third party is a shadow director. Accordingly the definition of shadow director presupposes that there is a board of directors who act in accordance with instructions from someone else, the èminence grise (literally the “wise old man.”) Another appropriate illustration of a shadow director is that he is, in effect, the puppet master who controls the actions of the board, and the directors are his ‘cat’s paw’.
“Accustomed to act”
The use of the phrase “accustomed to act” in section 179 would also suggest that the directors must be people who act on the directions or instructions of the shadow director as a matter of regular practice. It therefore applies to instances where the third party is shown to issue instructions and directions, and the directors are shown to comply with such, as a regular course of conduct over a period of time. Reference must therefore be made, not to acts on an individual occasion, but over a period of time and as a regular course of conduct. Simply put, a one-off instruction and compliance will not satisfy the “accustomed to act” criterion.
However, it is not necessarily required that there be directions or instructions embracing all matters involving the board, or extend over all or most of the corporate activities of the company. It is also not necessary to demonstrate a degree of compulsion in excess of that implicit in the fact that the board was accustomed to act in accordance with them. Rather it only required that as and when the directors are directed or instructed, they habitually and regularly obey and act accordingly. The idea is that the third party ‘calls the tune’ and the directors ‘dance’ in their capacity as directors. It is therefore sufficient to show that the duly appointed directors had cast themselves in a subservient role or surrendered their discretions in the face of the directions or instructions. What is important is that the third party is shown to have exercised real influence in the corporate governance of the company, and the key question is: Where, for some or all purposes, is the locus or place of effective decision-making? If the answer to this question is a person other than the board of directors, then it is open to find that that person is a shadow director.
Illustrations
Directors of Parent Companies: Flowing from the above discussion, it has been held that the directors of a parent company per se would not make themselves shadow directors of the subsidiary if they act in their capacity as the board of the parent so as to give instructions to the directors of the subsidiary. However, individual and personal instructions from a director of the parent to the directors of the subsidiary could bring that director within the definition of a shadow director.
Creditors: In one English authority, the activities of the company were financed by a loan. The security for the loan was a 125-year lease of the company’s premises, which the creditor then leased back to the company. The rent payable was to be used to amortise the loan. Subsequently the company became insolvent and could not pay the rent. Thereupon, weekly management meetings were held between the managing director of the company and officers of the creditor with a view to rescuing what the creditor could out of the company (e.g. making terms for the continuation of the credit in the light of the threatened default). It was held that the officers of the creditor were merely defending the creditor’s interests and imposing terms for the protection of those interests. That did not constitute them into shadow directors, especially when it was clear that the directors of the company were quite free to take the offer or leave it.
Conclusion
Section 179 of the Companies Code constitutes statutory recognition that effective legal control over the central management of companies requires restrictions that may extend beyond the regulation of those formally appointed by the company as its directors. The law disapproves of the existence of such a person, who, not having been appointed as a director, yet becomes one on whose instructions and directions the directors are accustomed to act. It therefore provides that directors have a duty not to obey such third parties, and imposes the duties and liabilities of a director such third parties.
To be able to make a conclusive finding that a person is a shadow director of a company it may be ascertained that there is a discernible pattern of behaviour or a relevant regular course of conduct over a period of time that supports the conclusion. It may also be shown that the directors have cast themselves in a submissive and compliant role or given up their discretions in the face of the directions or instructions.
In sum, the answer to the question, “who is a shadow director?” lies in yet another question, to wit, “who is the effective corporate decision-maker?” There are no problems if the answer to this question points to the Board of Directors. However, if the answer directs us to a person other than the Board, i.e. a third party, that third party is a shadow director – the èminence grise, (in normal Ghanaian parlance the “BIG MAN”); and that person is subject to all the duties and liabilities (but not the rights) of the duly appointed directors.
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