Political Governance • 31 Jan 2022 Ghana: A Nation of Tax Thieves? The recent debate over the proposed e-levy tax has put the spotlight very intensely on the subject of taxpaying attitudes in Ghana. Ghanaian politicians regularly chastise their fellow citizens for being entitled windbags who complain constantly about every minute failing of the government in providing services and amenities. Lamentably, in... read more
Political Governance • 24 Jan 2022 Why NPA Thinks Ghana Needs Some Air Pollution Ghana’s downstream petroleum regulator, the National Petroleum Authority, which is responsible for enforcing fuel quality standards on the market, issued the notice below last week but it is only now getting attention. It is a curious edict. It says in simple language that fuels refined in Ghana can have as... read more
Macroeconomic Governance • 24 Jan 2022 Why the Ungodly Haste to Pass e-Levy? Tomorrow, the 25th of January 2022, the Finance Minister intends to return to Parliament to bulldoze through the controversial e-Levy bill. Sentiment surveys show overwhelming dislike for e-Levy among Ghanaians. I have no doubt that scientific polling would corroborate the distaste of the general public. Of the 66 swing constituencies... read more
Political Economy • 15 Jan 2022 Is Ghana Broke? Well, “broke” is not a policy word, so it is hard to join the raging debate about the brokeness or otherwise of Ghana if one is more biased towards policy activism. I will say this though, when Multimedia, a major Ghanaian media outlet, invited me to deliver a ten minute... read more
Economic Development • 11 Jan 2022 A Policy Note on the Nestle Ideal Milk Saga Ghanaian social media activists were relieved after Ghana’s food safety regulator (the FDA) broke months of silence on consumer complaints about curdling canned evaporated milk made by Swiss food giant, Nestle. As discussed in my previous post, the FDA’s silence despite having been intimately involved in Nestle’s investigation into the milk... read more
Entrepreneurship Theory • 9 Jan 2022 Milking the Brand Yesterday, I saw this intriguing clipping of a press release-like ad by Nestle in Ghana about its mega-brand, Ideal Milk. The primary message in the ad can be distilled into three lines: Some liquid Ideal Milk cans on the market have coagulated contents (the fluid has become viscous/thick). The product... read more
