Today was a tour of Accra area, including the famous Makola market. This market made any and all markets that I have seen everywhere else in the world look tame. There was the usual set of fruits, food, fish (dried and "fresh"), shellfish (alive & dead, including the biggest snails in the word, crabs, shrimps), lots of pig parts and far too many pigs feet for my liking. Add to this the usual set of everything else (soap, clothes pegs, shoes, clothes, dishes, rice cookers, stacks of pots and pans 20 feet high, etc). And THEN add to that an crazy amount of car traffic (pooh pooh on all those motorbikes that are the vehicle of choice everywhere else) and to THAT add large numbers of women carrying all of the above on their heads while weaving through the traffic, pedestrian and motor.
The really scary bit about all of this is the sheer number of vendors, official, unofficial, others, and the fact that the business operating permits and revenue permits that are collected from these vendors should make up almost 30% of the revenue of the city of Accra. Should, but does not. Right now, this money is collected in many different schedules and processes, all implemented by a human (over 500 of them to be exact), some collecting as little as the equivalent of $0.10USD from EACH AND EVERY VENDOR EVERY DAY. Did I mention that there were (not kidding) tens of thousands of these vendors?
Our job over the next three weeks is to help the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (the AMA) modernize and make efficient this process and increase the revenue owed that is actually collected. Once we have done this, the additional revenue can be used to build new schools, buy textbooks for children, train teachers, and generally improve education. So we have a hard problem with high stakes and the ultimate reward - improving the educational standards and effectiveness for the children of Accra. Whew!
(Repost from IBM Connections blog)
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