Beautiful piece of writing. The introductory backdrop is especially captivating. However, the essay, overall, falls short in addressing corruption. Perhaps you have more to say in subsequent installments! Over all, I enjoyed ... read full comment
Beautiful piece of writing. The introductory backdrop is especially captivating. However, the essay, overall, falls short in addressing corruption. Perhaps you have more to say in subsequent installments! Over all, I enjoyed the piece. Thanks.
Leo R. Sam 9 years ago
What a humorous but extremely THOUGHT-PROVOKING article.
It is great to be able to laugh at oneself.
Cheer up. Internal beauty is better than external beauty.
lsam@interbaun.com
What a humorous but extremely THOUGHT-PROVOKING article.
It is great to be able to laugh at oneself.
Cheer up. Internal beauty is better than external beauty.
lsam@interbaun.com
BOY KOFI 9 years ago
Corruption has many faces,if you steal from anywhere,you are corrupt.If you lie to anybody,you are corrupt.If you cheat anybody,you are also corrupt.We can say there are 3 main categories,1.MORAL VALUE,ETHICS and RESPONSIBILT ... read full comment
Corruption has many faces,if you steal from anywhere,you are corrupt.If you lie to anybody,you are corrupt.If you cheat anybody,you are also corrupt.We can say there are 3 main categories,1.MORAL VALUE,ETHICS and RESPONSIBILTY.Religion teaches moral values to stay away from sins,Ethics teaches us discipline of how to carry on our duties.Responsibility gives us the conditions to act properly.Failure to master any of these 3 fundamental principles is tantamount to corruption.Even if you lie to your wife or your husband,you are corrupt,my friend.We are all corrupt and unless we tackle corruption with holistic approach it will lead us to nowhere.Thank you.
Kumasi Boy 9 years ago
You stopped stealing only when you were caught and humiliated. How many of our corrupt officials ever get caught and even when caught, how many suffer any consequences? As a matter of fact, they are very often the objects of ... read full comment
You stopped stealing only when you were caught and humiliated. How many of our corrupt officials ever get caught and even when caught, how many suffer any consequences? As a matter of fact, they are very often the objects of adulation for the fancy cars and houses they've acquired with their ill-gotten gains.
G. K. Berko 9 years ago
I cannot agree with you more; you are precisely correct! We have a culture of admiring sleazy folks, who pompously display their illicitly acquired Wealth.
Often, we impute a certain superior intellect or courage to these ... read full comment
I cannot agree with you more; you are precisely correct! We have a culture of admiring sleazy folks, who pompously display their illicitly acquired Wealth.
Often, we impute a certain superior intellect or courage to these crooks. People like those would brag about their filthy connections and devises with which they steal from the system. And we flock to them to share not their wealth, but the seeming limelight their wealth has brought to them. Many of us would then even become their unpaid servants and maids in the process.
We live in a Country where not the quality of our Skills and productive know-how primarily determine qualification for accessing Economic Opportunities but rather whom you know.
A certain clique of rotten Officials control who gets into many viable Businesses in Ghana, and they do not use any fair written legal methodologies to grant applicants' requests for participation.
All everyone in Public Office seems to be aiming at is how to make his first Million Dollars in the shortest possible time in that Office before changed. So, funds released for managing Projects under those Offices become easy targets for pilfering.
The Government has no honest interest in encouraging Local Productivity and Entrepreneurship because its Officials would then not be able to have a lot of foreign investors to manipulate for their 10% cuts.
Take, for instance, our Government's persistent search overseas for Builders to construct Houses in Ghana to supplement our living abodes while our own quality Builders are starving for Business. When the STX fiasco occurred, one would think the Government would concentrate on our Local Artisans to undertake the House Building Project. But no, it turned to Morrocco, of all places. Why?
Most of our hefty Business procurement deals go without competitive bidding. The Officials designate single source entities of their choice based on who would share the booty with them.
This is the Ghana we now live in. In a Country where the President's brother would borrow massively to buy a private Jet to show off as the first Citizen to do so, while right in his backyard children go to School under Baobab trees for lack of funds from the Government, one could imagine corruption as the more acceptable way to do business. Meanwhile, the Loan's repayment is delayed so long as to partly cause the Collapse of the Bank that lent the Loan, and the Bank, partly owned by the Government, is tossed around for a buyer to take it over completely and quash all its receivables. What a Country!
Yet, the GRA and its IRS do nothing to investigate how the various actors in this staged effort to sell the Bank behaved.
That seems to be what our 'Property-Owning Democracy' does to us. Everyone is free to cheat and steal without fear of being prosecuted when caught.
Hmmmm!!!
Long Live Ghana!!!
KBK 9 years ago
This completely unbelievable fable of the writer's childhood experience is linked to the pressing need of finding practical solutions to our present problem of general corruption by the thinnest of threads.
I hope the writ ... read full comment
This completely unbelievable fable of the writer's childhood experience is linked to the pressing need of finding practical solutions to our present problem of general corruption by the thinnest of threads.
I hope the writer will come again and give us suggestions to those practical solutions. Appeals to our conscience and moral platitudes are hardly what we need now.
Still a very unsatisfactory read!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago
Dear Brother SAS,
What an insightful and thoughtful story. I really enjoyed reading it.
I wish all those corrupt folks who continue to destroy societies get beat up really hard like was done to you as a child.
This p ... read full comment
Dear Brother SAS,
What an insightful and thoughtful story. I really enjoyed reading it.
I wish all those corrupt folks who continue to destroy societies get beat up really hard like was done to you as a child.
This piece is both humorous and educative. I laughed to the end.
What a piece!
KBK 9 years ago
In the first place, your comment has absolutely nothing to do with my comment and should have been placed on a starting thread.
But, Kwarteng, sometimes you are very critical to the point of being acerbic in some of your a ... read full comment
In the first place, your comment has absolutely nothing to do with my comment and should have been placed on a starting thread.
But, Kwarteng, sometimes you are very critical to the point of being acerbic in some of your articles - against some authors you don't like. I find it strange that you can be so full of praise for what is a very banal story of a childhood experience that almost everybody may have had in one way or the other. Gee, what is interesting or thoughtful about what SAS has served us here? It is not even enjoyable!
SAS writes well, at times. This is certainly not one of those times. So far, SAS has not told us how to ACTUALLY (PRACTICALLY) deal with corruption in our society.
But you, Kwarteng, like what you like and hate what you hate. No way in between that. You judge a story before you even read it! And when you have a friendly telefon conversation with a writer, you'll NEVER find anything wrong with whatever that person writes! En-tout-cas!!!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago
Dear Brother KBK,
I am sorry.
My comments were not meant for you. It was a mistake.
That said, I did enjoy the piece though, Brother KBK.
Perhaps there is something people see in ideas that I sometimes don't see ... read full comment
Dear Brother KBK,
I am sorry.
My comments were not meant for you. It was a mistake.
That said, I did enjoy the piece though, Brother KBK.
Perhaps there is something people see in ideas that I sometimes don't see.
Of course Dr. SAS's childhood story is "unique" in that I do not have a similar story to share with readers from my formative inventory.
Besides, I will not dare make comprehensive conclusions yet on Dr. SAS's two essays on corruption because he may yet post more essays in the future to cover the reservations you, others, and I have. He may have even written them already but has not sent them to the editor for publication.
Why do I say this? I have had readers draw conclusions based on reading the first two or three essays (of my articles) in a long series when the issues they raise with the parts they had read were already covered in some detail in later installments but which were yet published.
I am giving Dr. SAS the benefit of the doubt. Brother KBK, let us wait and see what Dr. SAS has in store for us in the future. I even tried re-sending my comments but it did not work for whatever reasons!
I do apologize for misdirecting my comments to you. I hope I am forgiven by you. Bear me no grudge, Brother KBK.
Have a good day.
KBK 9 years ago
No need to apologize for misdirecting your comment. That is not a big deal at all.
You see, we must be very critical but appreciative when it demands it. I've had occasion to commend SAS especially when I see people miscon ... read full comment
No need to apologize for misdirecting your comment. That is not a big deal at all.
You see, we must be very critical but appreciative when it demands it. I've had occasion to commend SAS especially when I see people misconstrue him. But I believe solid criticism is far better than hollow praises.(Personally, I am more interested in those who criticise what I write than those who just praise it).
If you feel that SAS has something better in store for us than what he has presented us so far, then you should wait for the real meat in his writing and not be so liberal and profuse with your praises when he has said nothing concrete - so far.
I understand that your childhood experiences may be different from SAS' since you are a Dadaba but what SAS has narrated here is familiar with the great majority of Ghanaians. I stole my parent's money. I was severely punished. I never did that again. Which Ghanaian hasn't had a similar experience before? There's nothing unique about it. Moreover, its link with the serious project of suggesting practical working solutions to our current culture of corruption is very tenuous.
Francis, you don't have to insult any writer here but you have to be more critical of what you read here than just pouring praises on any mundane stuff.
Where is all your critical sense I once read in your articles about Anthony Kwame Appiah? Huh!
francis kwarteng 9 years ago
Dear Brother KBK,
Points well taken.
Anyway I am not Dadaba like you (laugh). I am efieba!
Thanks for your commments anyway!
Dear Brother KBK,
Points well taken.
Anyway I am not Dadaba like you (laugh). I am efieba!
Thanks for your commments anyway!
Captein 9 years ago
You should have posted a photo of your forehead then. Otherwise it is just a long ananse folklore of deceit another form of corruption. Sometimes seeing is believing.
You should have posted a photo of your forehead then. Otherwise it is just a long ananse folklore of deceit another form of corruption. Sometimes seeing is believing.
T A Djan 9 years ago
As the writer states so beautifully towards the end of his article,
"he lived through life with dignity, integrity, honesty and sincerity……"This is how most people will remember you after you are dead and gone, if you w ... read full comment
As the writer states so beautifully towards the end of his article,
"he lived through life with dignity, integrity, honesty and sincerity……"This is how most people will remember you after you are dead and gone, if you work hard for your money without engaging in the corrupt practices now common in in our beloved country of Ghana.
Beautiful piece of writing. The introductory backdrop is especially captivating. However, the essay, overall, falls short in addressing corruption. Perhaps you have more to say in subsequent installments! Over all, I enjoyed ...
read full comment
What a humorous but extremely THOUGHT-PROVOKING article.
It is great to be able to laugh at oneself.
Cheer up. Internal beauty is better than external beauty.
lsam@interbaun.com
Corruption has many faces,if you steal from anywhere,you are corrupt.If you lie to anybody,you are corrupt.If you cheat anybody,you are also corrupt.We can say there are 3 main categories,1.MORAL VALUE,ETHICS and RESPONSIBILT ...
read full comment
You stopped stealing only when you were caught and humiliated. How many of our corrupt officials ever get caught and even when caught, how many suffer any consequences? As a matter of fact, they are very often the objects of ...
read full comment
I cannot agree with you more; you are precisely correct! We have a culture of admiring sleazy folks, who pompously display their illicitly acquired Wealth.
Often, we impute a certain superior intellect or courage to these ...
read full comment
This completely unbelievable fable of the writer's childhood experience is linked to the pressing need of finding practical solutions to our present problem of general corruption by the thinnest of threads.
I hope the writ ...
read full comment
Dear Brother SAS,
What an insightful and thoughtful story. I really enjoyed reading it.
I wish all those corrupt folks who continue to destroy societies get beat up really hard like was done to you as a child.
This p ...
read full comment
In the first place, your comment has absolutely nothing to do with my comment and should have been placed on a starting thread.
But, Kwarteng, sometimes you are very critical to the point of being acerbic in some of your a ...
read full comment
Dear Brother KBK,
I am sorry.
My comments were not meant for you. It was a mistake.
That said, I did enjoy the piece though, Brother KBK.
Perhaps there is something people see in ideas that I sometimes don't see ...
read full comment
No need to apologize for misdirecting your comment. That is not a big deal at all.
You see, we must be very critical but appreciative when it demands it. I've had occasion to commend SAS especially when I see people miscon ...
read full comment
Dear Brother KBK,
Points well taken.
Anyway I am not Dadaba like you (laugh). I am efieba!
Thanks for your commments anyway!
You should have posted a photo of your forehead then. Otherwise it is just a long ananse folklore of deceit another form of corruption. Sometimes seeing is believing.
As the writer states so beautifully towards the end of his article,
"he lived through life with dignity, integrity, honesty and sincerity……"This is how most people will remember you after you are dead and gone, if you w ...
read full comment