The first place that I went on my return from Ghana was Tim Horton's (yes, I stopped by Canada on the way back to Austin to spend time with my family). Did I ever have egg on my face when I remembered that Timmy's is basically a cash-only environment. So much for take the cash out. Good news is that the prices are published, and I could get a half dozen doughnuts for under $5. Bad news is that they were not at all interested in negotiating.
I did breath a huge sigh of relief to be back in AT&T coverage zone so that I wouldn't get killed with their awful pricing structure. For those that count / care about these things, if I had used my AT&T phone to call or receive calls while in Ghana, the going rate while on International Rate Plan is $2.49 per minute. If I used my little local pay-as-you-go Ghana phone, the rate was approximately $0.05 per minute. NOT KIDDING.
It was glorious to be able to use my iPad for anything other than watching movies. The wireless connectivty that we encountered is more accurately described by what we DIDN'T encounter. The USB sticks we used for Internet connectivity were good (not fast, but reliable) but sadly none would work with an iPad.
What else?? Oh yes, coffee! Live and learn - Africa as land of coffee does NOT include Ghana. Not good coffee there. Except for the US Embassy/State Department. They had great coffee. Too bad it was not easy to get to!
What do I miss? Working with a team where we were all sitting in the same room! Business by email is no good for me, and even phone calls are not as effective. I am going to put in effect a new rule for my day-to-day activities though - more than three emails on one topic and I am going to insist on a phone call. We are in danger of becoming too disconnected, from our teams and sometimes even from reality.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Final Readout Today
Our final "readout" (presentation) is today in just under two hours. This is the culmination of the work we have been doing here in Accra for the last 2.5 weeks and the work we did over six weeks in the lead up to our time here in Ghana. We have interviewed over 70 stakeholders, from within the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), from trade associations, federal government groups, and global NGOs (the World Bank, USAID in particular). I have filled up more than half of a notebook with my handwritten notes from our interviews. We have reviewed reports, thesis, articles, anything we can get our hands on to help us understand the problems identified by the residents and citizens of Accra and Ghana. And most importantly, we have listened to their recommendations and opinions and made that the cornerstone of our findings.
We have a 100 page presentation with our recommendations. So we have already fallen afoul of the executive disease - information exchange via Powerpoint (and slight grumble that I was the only one with Symphony so we had to use ppt). We do go in to detail with our recommendations - enough detail that the AMA can take ownership of the steps and timing to build their own roadmap and strategy for the city. Its just that our details happen to include LOTS photographs, pictures, and clip art. It does make for a very pretty and readable presentation.
Our key recommendation is to "take the cash out". Accra, and Ghana in general, is a cash society. Credit cards are pretty much never used. I have used mine once, in the hotel, and it was so painful that I have resorted to cash for everything. No major economy in the world is still a cash-based one. Moving to electronic payment, mobile payment, heck, even cheques, will reduce the temptatation to take the cash out of circulation between the payor and the AMA coffers. This recommendation requires a fundamental shift in how the people of Accra go about their daily routine. It will require changes to how people pay their local fees and taxes, it will require changes to how these are collected, and it will force changes to the widely accepted fraud within the system due to the presence of a traceable chain of custody for all monies collected.
HOWEVER, taking the cash out of the system, and introducing transparency to system will increase the monies collected by the AMA. This will in turn increase the money available to provide social services (sanitation and waste removal being VERY high on the list), which will in turn reduce tax dodging, which will increase revenue, meaning more comprehensive services, and so the upward, "virtuous" cycle will go.
Mind you, reducing fraud and bribery can also be done with some pretty simple steps. For example, we recommend more widely publishing the rates that people must pay for traders licenses. Directly involving traders or their union & association representatives in the rate setting is a key recommendation (sadly rate setting is called "fee fixing" here -not a good term to use in this concept if you have a Western mentality or if you have followed the trials of Wall Street). This should have the effect reported by the World Bank in the Ghana eServices launch last Friday: "There is evidence that publishing the rates of fees and taxes reduces bribery and corruption"
We have made recommendations for eight key process areas (Identify & Register, Assessment and Valuation, Collection, Accounting, Monitoring and Audit, Compliance and Enforcement, Communication, Social Services) and then put our recommendations in to the context of People, Business and Technology.
We have also provided examples of the steps required to improve each of the process areas, including timing of these steps (when to start, how long it should take). This is a complicated problem with many moving parts and the solution is not easy. But it is do-able: we have provided an overall roadmap to move Ghana from a "Foundational" state, through "Advanced" and in to "Leading Africa" by 2015.
To paraphrase our overall conclusions to the Honourable Mayor: This is an aggressive roadmap. But it IS achievable. It will turn Accra in to a leading city in Africa, one that others look to as a model to be emulated. It requires a very strong leader to own, sponsor and drive. And it takes the political will and vision to drive these changes through. It won't be easy, but the benefits will be more than worth it.
We have a 100 page presentation with our recommendations. So we have already fallen afoul of the executive disease - information exchange via Powerpoint (and slight grumble that I was the only one with Symphony so we had to use ppt). We do go in to detail with our recommendations - enough detail that the AMA can take ownership of the steps and timing to build their own roadmap and strategy for the city. Its just that our details happen to include LOTS photographs, pictures, and clip art. It does make for a very pretty and readable presentation.
Our key recommendation is to "take the cash out". Accra, and Ghana in general, is a cash society. Credit cards are pretty much never used. I have used mine once, in the hotel, and it was so painful that I have resorted to cash for everything. No major economy in the world is still a cash-based one. Moving to electronic payment, mobile payment, heck, even cheques, will reduce the temptatation to take the cash out of circulation between the payor and the AMA coffers. This recommendation requires a fundamental shift in how the people of Accra go about their daily routine. It will require changes to how people pay their local fees and taxes, it will require changes to how these are collected, and it will force changes to the widely accepted fraud within the system due to the presence of a traceable chain of custody for all monies collected.
HOWEVER, taking the cash out of the system, and introducing transparency to system will increase the monies collected by the AMA. This will in turn increase the money available to provide social services (sanitation and waste removal being VERY high on the list), which will in turn reduce tax dodging, which will increase revenue, meaning more comprehensive services, and so the upward, "virtuous" cycle will go.
Mind you, reducing fraud and bribery can also be done with some pretty simple steps. For example, we recommend more widely publishing the rates that people must pay for traders licenses. Directly involving traders or their union & association representatives in the rate setting is a key recommendation (sadly rate setting is called "fee fixing" here -not a good term to use in this concept if you have a Western mentality or if you have followed the trials of Wall Street). This should have the effect reported by the World Bank in the Ghana eServices launch last Friday: "There is evidence that publishing the rates of fees and taxes reduces bribery and corruption"
We have made recommendations for eight key process areas (Identify & Register, Assessment and Valuation, Collection, Accounting, Monitoring and Audit, Compliance and Enforcement, Communication, Social Services) and then put our recommendations in to the context of People, Business and Technology.
We have also provided examples of the steps required to improve each of the process areas, including timing of these steps (when to start, how long it should take). This is a complicated problem with many moving parts and the solution is not easy. But it is do-able: we have provided an overall roadmap to move Ghana from a "Foundational" state, through "Advanced" and in to "Leading Africa" by 2015.
To paraphrase our overall conclusions to the Honourable Mayor: This is an aggressive roadmap. But it IS achievable. It will turn Accra in to a leading city in Africa, one that others look to as a model to be emulated. It requires a very strong leader to own, sponsor and drive. And it takes the political will and vision to drive these changes through. It won't be easy, but the benefits will be more than worth it.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Connectivity and Blogging
I haven't written anything in several days, for several reasons. To find out what we are up to, check out Lucy Chan's blog - she is an industrious blogger!
For the rest of us, connectivity has on many days gotten the better of us. We have ethernet in our hotel rooms and there is supposed to be wireless access in the hotel. However, I can count on one hand the number of times the signal has been strong and consistent enough to be useful. I suspect that this is a hotel issue, but only partly. We have been trying to make up this gap using 3G USB sticks - which is where I had "put my money" and faith for connectivity. I had been very much counting on wireless access everywhere, and was not prepared for the lack of it. I made this assessment based on the assumption that Africa would have skipped the laying of cable/copper/fibre and moved straight to cell/wireless technologies. This is true and was valid. What I hadn't counted on was that even though there is 3G coverage, this too would be spotty enough, and slow enough, to impact our connectivity.
We have also been dealing with a skills gap with the local IT team maintaining the hotel network and access. We had no connectivity for over 36 hours until some other hotel guests (German systems integrators also on "long term stay" at the Alisa) got with the team and pointed out some IP address conflicts that were blocking access to the local DNS server.
So this is my excuse for no blogging. I am going to use this in a glass half full way to highlight what we are all hearing -LOTS of issues to overcome, and LOTS of work to do with skills development. This translates to LOTS of potential in and for Africa. If we all are willing to work hard to make it happen.
For the rest of us, connectivity has on many days gotten the better of us. We have ethernet in our hotel rooms and there is supposed to be wireless access in the hotel. However, I can count on one hand the number of times the signal has been strong and consistent enough to be useful. I suspect that this is a hotel issue, but only partly. We have been trying to make up this gap using 3G USB sticks - which is where I had "put my money" and faith for connectivity. I had been very much counting on wireless access everywhere, and was not prepared for the lack of it. I made this assessment based on the assumption that Africa would have skipped the laying of cable/copper/fibre and moved straight to cell/wireless technologies. This is true and was valid. What I hadn't counted on was that even though there is 3G coverage, this too would be spotty enough, and slow enough, to impact our connectivity.
We have also been dealing with a skills gap with the local IT team maintaining the hotel network and access. We had no connectivity for over 36 hours until some other hotel guests (German systems integrators also on "long term stay" at the Alisa) got with the team and pointed out some IP address conflicts that were blocking access to the local DNS server.
So this is my excuse for no blogging. I am going to use this in a glass half full way to highlight what we are all hearing -LOTS of issues to overcome, and LOTS of work to do with skills development. This translates to LOTS of potential in and for Africa. If we all are willing to work hard to make it happen.
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