Political Governance • 31 Jan 2024 What is “State Enchantment”? CDD, a governance-focused think tank in Ghana, recently held a meeting at the University of Ghana Business School on corruption. It did so in partnership with the Ghana Integrity Initiative, IMANI (with which I’m affiliated), Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, ACEP (a frequent IMANI collaborator), GRASAG, and others. The meeting coincided with... read more
Entrepreneurship Theory • 18 Jan 2024 What Cheddar’s “Scraps to Riches” story says about Ghana This morning, your dutiful writer got a message from a notable Ghanaian journalist about Cheddar’s “scraps to riches” story about the origin of his wealth. If you are Ghanaian, you must have heard of Cheddar by now, unless you have been living under a rock. He is a flashy real... read more
Political Economy • 18 Jan 2024 Why is Ghana’s feel-good IMF story not vibing at home? Ghana’s Finance Ministry has been on a roll lately. Hardly a day goes by without them releasing another feel-good story about the country’s protracted debt restructuring effort or its three-year IMF program, now in its eighth month. The latest is this big Davos splash by Bloomberg: At home, people seem... read more
Innovation • 15 Jan 2024 The AI Winter is not coming – yet The IMF says 40% of jobs are exposed to ArtificiaI Intelligence (AI). CNN translates this as 40% of jobs will be disrupted by AI. Not the same thing. Not even all that close. When it comes to the other projected impacts, especially regarding inequality, the CNN summary does not deviate... read more
Critical Analysis • 12 Jan 2024 TB Joshua & the Trials of Religion On Tuesday, the 10th of January, 2024, I joined a panel at the Ghana premiere of a new documentary on the abuses perpetrated by the Nigerian “Prophet” TB Joshua. All three parts of the documentary are now available on YouTube. It is an important piece of journalism put together by... read more
International Political Economy • 11 Jan 2024 Will the ICJ stop the violence in Gaza? On 29th December, 2023, South Africa approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, Netherlands, for help in stopping Israel from continuing with its military activities in Gaza. The ICJ is quite literally the “World Court”, the principal judicial authority of the United Nations. The statute of the... read more
Political Governance • 3 Jan 2024 Ghana’s Billion-Dollar “Timber Merchant” Deal to Protect Taxes [This is a developing story. The author may expand this essay in due course.] Yesterday, the President of Ghana announced that he has engaged the local affiliate of KPMG, one of the “Big Four” global professional services firms, to conduct a two-week investigation into the “SML affair”. SML is the... read more
