News that the government is engaging the services of Dr Liu Thai-Ker from Singapore, "an acclaimed master planner and architect of modern Singapore" to plan Accra and its surrounding towns has been greeted with mixed reactions.
Today, I had really wanted to wax lyrical on the ideological front regarding social interventions in our national development and the controversy sparked by the comments of Vice President Bawumia.
Last Monday, October 29, Ghana joined the rest of the world to mark this year’s World Stroke Day to raise awareness and advocate an improvement of stroke care services.
Last week, the CSIR organised a cocktail event to which it invited in excess of 60 public and private sector organisations, many of them selected on the basis of the contribution of scientific research to their very existence, growth and continued profitability.
The council needed money to push its 60th anniversary plan to propagate science and technology.
Only five of the companies showed up. The council’s Director-General, Professor Victor Agyeman, noticed it, and mentioned it in passing.
Methinks I felt a lump in the throat of the Master of Ceremonies as he attempted to give voice to his disappointment.
In my line of work, I used to get invited to launch schemes. Those ceremonies that attracted (and still attract) heavy patronage have something to do with beauty pageants: you would be impressed by the number of SUVs and V8s. In there, in black tie, are CEOs of the invited organisations.
The Christian Bible describes Jesus Christ as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
I have long accepted the fact that I am acquainted with disappointment.
In the case of the CSIR event, however, I was so disappointed I wept.
There was not a single CEO.
In my lamentation, an Akan proverb played loud in my thoughts. No-one enters the WC and comes back without having squatted.
To what do manufacturing entities owe their very existence if not research and development (R&D), in particular, and science, technology and innovation (STI), in general?
Innovation has long been recognised as an important driver of economic growth and the role of the private sector in promoting innovation is the subject of many theses.
The USA, China, Japan, Germany, Russia are called “advanced economies”.
The last time I checked, none of them got this far by organising Miss America or Miss China.
It is because they invested in STIs. Over there, many private companies have charitable foundations, whose budgets have STI as line items.
In some cases, companies’ annual budgets for science and research are in the US$5-10 million range.
In the USA, the business sector plays a predominant role in funding research. In the early 1980s, the sector’s support exceeded 50 per cent of all R&D funding. This steadily increased over the next 20 years, reaching a high of 69 per cent in 2000.
A colleague who is acquainted with such figures pointed out that private sector contribution in America has declined.
While accepting it as a fact, I was at pains to point out that the decline was the result of the 2001-2002 and the 2008-2009 recession.
Even in its decline, however, the 2009 private sector’s share of R&D total is 62 per cent.
All of the above does not absolve post-Kwame Nkrumah governments of blame.
Ghana government’s annual vote for scientific research is so paltry it is laughable; indeed, there would be no CSIR but for donor-countries and donor organisations, mostly foreign.
Years ago, the Mampong Centre for Plant Medicine discovered a local plant, ‘Nibima” as efficacious for the treatment of malaria.
Tonnes of ink were spilled in its documentation in local science journals.
That was all. Today, Ghana still spends billions to import anti-malarials when all that was (and is) needed is a government policy that would deliberately encourage private sector participation in making this plant the number one drug against malaria.
One of our malaria imports is the Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACTs), but how did it come about? When, in the 1960s, older malaria
The Koforidua Technical University (KTU) in the New Juaben South Municipality of the Eastern Region has honoured 39 of its teaching and non-teaching staff at a brief ceremony.
Kangaroo mother care method of caring for preterm babies is a simple but proven method that saves preterm babies and helps with their proper development by reducing complications such as hypothermia (low body temperature).
I like yams. I like everything about yams and I would eat with relish, every meal that is made from yams. I think my love affair with yams must have come from a famous grand uncle who was a farmer in Abutia when I was growing up.
In spite of the not-too-pleasant perception about insurance in general and life insurance in particular in our part of the world, I can say with some level of certainty that in Ghana, three out of five formal sector working persons have at least one life insurance policy!
There was a time in this country, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, when student agitations, or ‘aluta’, were almost a rite of passage for every university student.
Undoubtedly, there is economic hardship in Ghana. But is it new? Certainly not. Ghanaians, like people in many other developing countries, have faced “economic hardship” over a long period of time.
Since the passing of our dear headmaster, Francis F. Bartels, in 2010, no other demise has shaken the Mfantsipim fraternity than that of the iconic international leader, Kofi Annan, in 2018.
Our Nigerian Brothers have a proverb that no matter how far a man pisses across onto his neighbour’s compound, the last drop of urine is always at his feet.
When Sam Okyere arrived in South Korea to study, he was met with racism. But he found a way to transform his negative experiences into positive ones, making a name for himself as a popular television personality.
Similar to most Outpatient Departments (OPDs) at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the OPD of the Child Health Department is usually packed in the mornings with parents/guardians and their children/wards waiting to be attended to by health professionals.
There has been little public discourse on the subject matter of post-qualification even though it remains a very critical aspect in the evaluation of tenders/proposals/quotations under Ghana’s public procurement regime.
It was thought-provoking, how two very contrasting representations of Ghanaian youth made the headlines last week and earlier this week, the induction of the Nation Builders Corps (NaBco) trainees and the unprecedented university violence in Kumasi.
Ghana has for the first time been hit very hard by one of the worst financial crisis. Unfortunately, local indigenous banks are at the forefront of this crisis. Today seven of such banks (UT, Capital, The Royal, Sovereign, Construction, Beige and uniBank) have been collapsed by the central bank because they cannot be salvaged under any circumstance.
It was a bright and sunny Wednesday morning at Tarkwa in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality in the Western Region. I was part of a team of journalists who went on a four-day tour of some mining companies in the Western and Central regions with the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh.
