To The Ghanaian Feminist Forum - Power To Ghanaian Feminists Worldwide!

By Kofi Thompson

In the war of the sexes, I am firmly in the camp of the female of the species.

I was brought up by my dear mother (God bless her!) - who like many Ghanaian women made enormous sacrifices to do so.

May I humbly suggest that you use your new online forum to encourage Ghanaian women in the Diaspora to have big dreams - and set up businesses wherever in the world they live?

Money talks - and the world indeed does often listen attentively to those that have it.

Above all, those lucky women who have it, or know where to source it relatively cheaply for projects, can create much-needed jobs for the teeming youth in our homeland Ghana.

As my widow's-mite-contribution to your forum, I'd be happy to place my personal network (free of charge; ditto pester-free) at their disposal - and also share ideas with them to enable them leverage the fair-trade sector for various niche markets, they might be interested in going into.

For example, some of the best dark chocolate in the world is manufactured by the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) at the port city of Tema.

Surely, there are enough brainy Ghanaian businesswomen in the UK, the EU, the US and Canada, who can convince supermarkets in the above named nations to have their own-brand chocolates manufactured by the CPC - and imported from Ghana as fair-trade chocolate by the likes of Tesco and Walmart?

Yet another example of a business opportunity for them: Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary has an intense personal rivalry with Easyjet founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

Well, as it happens, Sir Stelios is setting up a low-cost carrier in Africa known as Fastjet.

Is there no Ghanaian businesswoman savvy enough to convince Antrak Air's Alhaji Asuma Banda to join her in linking up with Ryanair to set up a rival pan-African carrier to compete with Fastjet - to offer safe and affordable point-to-point flights between major cities in what some describe as the international aviation world's last frontier, Africa?

Aside from lucrative intra-Africa low-cost flights, imagine the money to be made by such a joint-venture from affordable flights between Africa and the continents of Europe and North America by such a low-cost carrier, ladies.

Ghana needs an internet-based insurance company.

Why do Ghanaian businesswomen overseas not convince internet-based insurance companies wherever they live in the Diaspora, to come to Ghana, in a joint-venture with a financial services sector entity here, like the UT Group for example?

Finally, through your agency, I would be happy to introduce (free of charge!) any Ghanaian female entrepreneurs out there with big-ticket projects (such as: building a new bridge across the Volta River as a private public partnership (PPP) turnkey project; building a railway line from Accra to Paga) to a Dutch private equity financing facilitator I know, who will facilitate private equity financing for their dream-projects (from US$20 millions upwards, ie).

Incidentally, the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) has many Nkrumah-era factories available for sale that need tens of millions of US dollars to revamp them. Opportunity beckons. Power to Ghanaian feminists worldwide, say I!

Tel: 027 745 3109.

Email: peakofi.thompson@gmail.com