Reflections from 2026 accountants conference
There is a peculiar irony in travelling extensively across a region and yet managing to bypass one of its most significant towns.
For years, the Volta Region had been a familiar canvas <\_> its winding roads, its riverside communities, its festival colours, all well-known to me.
Yet somehow, through a combination of circumstance and coincidence, Ho, the regional capital, has never featured on my itinerary. That changed in May 2026.
When the 2026 Accountants Conference was announced with Ho as its host city, I seized the opportunity with quiet determination. Whether by divine orchestration or the deliberate hand of fate, the time had finally come. From May 18 to 22, I was present in Ho and the city did not disappoint.
The road to Ho
The journey from Accra to Ho was a study in contrasts. Significant stretches of the road are currently under construction, and several sections remain in poor condition, demanding patience and a certain tolerance for discomfort from every traveller.
The ride was far from smooth, punctuated by diversions, uneven surfaces, and the slow progress that characterises road rehabilitation projects across the country.
Yet, the moment one crosses into Ho, the experience transforms entirely. Well-asphalted roads welcome visitors with a smoothness that is almost theatrical in its contrast to what came before. Driving through Ho is not merely convenient it is genuinely enjoyable. The roads are smooth for comfortable movement, and lined with the kind of greenery that signals a city that has, at least in part, taken its environment seriously.
It must be stated plainly: the road network from Accra to Ho requires urgent attention. A city of Ho's character and potential deserves an access route that matches its own internal standards. Improved road infrastructure would not only ease the commute for residents but would dramatically increase the flow of local and international tourists who are currently deterred by the condition of the highway.
The Pragia phenomenon
One of the more striking features of Ho's transport landscape is the ubiquity of the tricycle motorbike the Pragia. These three-wheeled vehicles, now a common sight in many Ghanaian cities and towns, have in several places earned a reputation for erratic and undisciplined driving. In some parts of Accra and other cities, encounters with Pragia operators can be a source of frustration for motorists and pedestrians alike.
Ho tells a different story. The Pragia operators in Ho navigate the roads with discipline and orderliness that is both refreshing and instructive. They appear to understand their role in a shared traffic ecosystem and conduct themselves accordingly. This is not a trivial observation it speaks to a broader civic culture that pervades the city and sets it apart from more chaotic urban environments. The question worth asking is: what practices and norms in Ho have produced this outcome, and can they be replicated elsewhere?
The serenity of Ho
Perhaps the most lasting impression Ho leaves on a visitor is its serenity. The city moves at a calm pace without being sluggish, purposeful without being frantic. The hills that frame the city are cloaked in lush, immense greenery a visual gift that lifts the spirit and cleanses the senses. Walking or driving through Ho, one is aware of breathing differently. The air carries a quality that cities choked with industrial fumes and construction dust have long since sacrificed. Ho's air is clean. It is, in the truest sense of the phrase, oxygenated.
During my five days in the city, I did not once observe a police officer concealed behind a traffic light in anticipation of a motoring offence a sight so commonplace in Accra as to have become an accepted, if unfortunate, feature of urban life. In Ho, the traffic management appears to rest on a different foundation: one built more on civic compliance than on surveillance and punitive enforcement. Whether this is a function of the city's size, its culture, or intentional policy, it is an environment worth studying and celebrating.
Ho as Ghana's green city
Ho is already informally referred to as the "Oxygen City" a title that captures the essence of what makes it distinctive. However, it must be acknowledged honestly that this branding has not yet gained meaningful traction beyond a limited audience. The concept exists; the infrastructure for communicating and monetising it does not yet match the ambition. This represents both a challenge and an extraordinary opportunity.
The case for positioning Ho as Ghana's premier Green City is compelling and multidimensional. In an era where urban dwellers are increasingly anxious about air quality, food safety, environmental degradation, and the psychological toll of congested city living, Ho offers a natural counterpoint. The city has what other urban centres are spending billions to artificially recreate or desperately trying to preserve.
To capitalise on this, however, requires a degree of strategic intentionality that goes beyond informal tourism promotion. Government, civil society, the business community, and the traditional authorities must align around a shared vision not merely to celebrate Ho's greenery, but to protect it, commercialise it responsibly, and communicate it to the world.
Pure and organic
One of the most compelling economic opportunities available to Ho and the broader Volta Region lies in food production. While many parts of Ghana are currently grappling with the devastating environmental consequences of illegal mining popularly known as galamsey Ho and its surroundings remain largely untouched by this scourge. The soil is uncontaminated. The water sources are clean.
The food grown in this region is, in the most literal sense, organic.
There is a market for this. Consumers both domestic and international are increasingly willing to pay a premium for food that is provably free from toxic heavy metals and chemical contaminants. The authorities and farmers of the Volta Region should pursue professional certification of their produce as organic, free from the residues of illegal mining activity. This is not merely a health issue; it is a branding and economic development strategy of the highest order.
The contrast with affected regions practically writes the marketing campaign. While one region's food carries the shadow of mercury and cyanide contamination, Ho's produce can legitimately carry a clean provenance story. That story, told well, is worth millions.
Guarding the green
All that Ho has its clean air, its fertile soil, its scenic hills, its psychological calm is predicated on one non-negotiable condition: the preservation of its natural environment. It is precisely for this reason that the threat of illegal mining must be treated with utmost seriousness.
Galamsey has proven to be an existential threat wherever it has taken root in Ghana. It contaminates water bodies, degrades farmland, destroys vegetation, and leaves communities poorer not richer in the long run. The communities and towns across Ghana that have ceded their environments to illegal miners have not prospered; they have been hollowed out, their futures mortgaged for short-term cash that benefits a few while impoverishing many.
The chiefs, queen mothers, opinion leaders, and people of Ho must form an unwavering front against any attempt to introduce illegal mining into the area. The value of what Ho has in its hills, its air, and its soil far exceeds anything that can be extracted from beneath the ground by destructive means. The city authorities must enact and enforce strong local ordinances that make galamsey not merely illegal but socially unacceptable a betrayal of the community's identity and future.
A city worth investing in
Ho is a city that surprises. In an age of urban anxiety where the costs of development are measured in polluted skies, gridlocked roads, and fractured communities Ho stands apart. It is not perfect; no city is. Its road connections need urgent work, its brand awaits a louder voice, and its economic potential remains largely untapped. But the foundations are sound.
The 2026 Accountants Conference brought hundreds of professionals to Ho professionals who returned to their cities carrying impressions of a town that does certain things remarkably well. That informal ambassadorship matters. But it is no substitute for deliberate strategy, sustained investment, and fierce environmental stewardship.
Ho has the hills, the air, the calm, and the character. What it needs now is the resolve from its leaders, its people, and its well-wishers to protect what it has, build on it wisely, and share it with the world.
The writer is a member of the KasCity Society of ICAG.
