I’ve received a number of requests from friends and readers who followed my blogs (https://nanaboakyeyiadom.wordpress.com/) while I was on the YALI programme in the US; that I should blog about my experiences in the UK too. I’ll try to keep up, but before I attempt it, let me start from how I eventually ended up here in Wales.

The trigger

I’m not exactly sure what we were talking about in my office but one of my colleagues commented, “But Boakye, as for you don’t complain, your life is perfect… Do you have any problem in this life?” The person retorted and was supported by the others in the conversation.

Another quickly started listing the perceived successes in my work, family and my life in general; “You are a director in this office, you fly around to different parts of the world regularly and doing well with your iJourno Africa project”. Charley don’t even bring yourself”, he jokingly threatened.

Those comments rather struck me differently and I recoiled to think about it a little bit more. Indeed I have shared some success stories in my career and projects I have championed outside my regular job. In 2014 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I picked up the first place award in the African Story Challenge competition for African journalists. There were over 200 journalists across the continent that competed and I came up tops.

Later, that story – ‘Phone Farming’, earned me the Best Online Story award for 2013 at the Ghana Journalists Awards. The prize for that award was for me to choose any international media organization on the planet to work with for a month – it wasn’t a difficult decision – The BBC. So I was in London for a month, all expense paid.

In 2015, I started iJourno Africa, a pan-African data journalism training not-for-profit organization to teach student journalists for free. It’s currently in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa is ‘warming up’.

In 2016, I got selected for President Barack Obama’s leadership initiative for young Africans called the Mandela Washington Fellowship, under the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). As part of the programme, I was camped at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and subsequently met Mr. Obama in Washington with the other cohorts.

This year, I’ve been selected for the prestigious UK government-sponsored Chevening Scholarship for my master’s degree in the UK and I am studying at Cardiff University.

So ‘Charley’ I won’t fault my colleagues, real and virtual friends who follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram who also see this as a perfect life. Fair!

How about the failures I didn’t post on Facebook, etc?

True, the above-listed sound really good especially on a CV. But I believe strongly it’s the favour of God upon my life, what I usually hashtag #UnmeritedFavour. You may or may not fully understand it, but that’s another discussion. Apart from my wife, very few people know about the several “We are sorry” emails I have received after applying for scores of international training programmes or fellowships or scholarships when I was looking for support to further my education.

At the 2nd of the two send of parties my colleagues and management of Citi FM organized for me before I left, our MD, Samuel Attah-Mensah, popularly known as Sammens, told my colleagues of how to the best of his knowledge, I had attempted and failed on three occasions to secure scholarships with Chevening and Tullow Oil over the last years. “I know Boakye did the first and second world war and failed. We thank God on his third attempt, he finally got it,” he said.

Yes, he only knew about the three main ones. And in fact, on this occasion, he wrote one of the two important and powerful referrals to back my Chevening application.

I chased various scholarships for my master’s degree for five years. Yes, five! I applied to numerous scholarship programmes; about 15 different times over the period. I wrote a countless number of essays usually between 500 – 2,000 words for each of these scholarships without success. Each application usually demands a minimum of three essays; so do the math on how many words and essays I wrote in all these essays over five years.

Tullow scholarship – When the Tullow Oil scholarship started I tried to secure that scholarship as well, sometime in 2014. That was my first attempt and I made it to the semi-final stage. By this time, I was almost always on the Cardiff University website. Watching videos about my course and the school. Looking at the beautiful greenery, flowers, ancient buildings and testimonials from past students saying amazing things about the school. I would go to bed still thinking about them and dream that I was on campus, only for reality to hit in the morning lol. But at this point, I was almost certain that I was going to be in Cardiff soon. There was no way I won’t pass this interview.

When the final list came out a few weeks later, I was eliminated.

I was crushed!

Nothing made sense to me. I was angry, disappointed, deeply hurt to the extent that tears even failed me.

But I had to get over it. I prayed and said to God to take over and that I won’t ask Him any questions about how he allowed this to happen to me. He should just take control.

I got over it and made a second attempt the following year. Guess what? I wasn’t even shortlisted for an interview. The same scholarship programme I went all the way to the semi-final. It didn’t make sense to me but again, “I let go and let God”. I tried my hands on other ones; Commonwealth Scholarship, World Bank Scholarship, Mastercard scholarship for Africans, Japanese, South Africa, China and many others that didn’t even look credible. I think I was getting desperate at this point. All those returned with “We are sorry you were not selected because, this year, the number of applications… Blah blah blah.”

Charley ‘Man Taya’! (Man is tired!)

YALI

But I decided to do other things, if (In my mind), God didn’t want me to pursue my master’s degree anytime soon. So I applied for Barack Obama’s initiative called the Mandala Washington Fellowship, under the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). Let me also disclose to you that getting onto the YALI programme last year wasn’t on my first attempt. Yup! I had tried in 2014. Again, an email came, patronized me and finally delivered the uppercut. “You were not selected for the interview stage!” Again, I re-grouped and applied in 2015, the results came out in 2016 and BINGO!

Chevening Scholarship

My family and friends are really excited about my selection for the Chevening Scholarship. But guess what? This is not the first time I’ve applied for this scholarship, I tried it first in 2012 but I couldn’t even make the cut for an interview session. You can imagine all the rhetorical questions I asked myself. Again, “I let go and let God”. I applied again in 2016, the results came out this year and BINGO!

The trick though

I am an optimist, but there were many times I nearly gave up. There were many times I said to myself that perhaps I was not meant to pursue a masters degree abroad so I should just look for the funds and study right here in Ghana, even though I had told myself several times that I’d pursue my second degree in a good university outside because of certain advantages I believe it comes with – (Doesn’t mean schooling in Ghana is bad). But when the frustrations set in, you’re most likely to doubt yourself, God and blame everything else and anybody around you, including the witches in your house.

How did I finally get results?

Truth is, the reason somehow I managed to claw back and finally got the opportunities in YALI and Chevening is that I kept doing the things I needed to do at Citi FM and took on leadership roles I was offered and tried to execute them as best as I could.

Outside Citi FM, I tried to learn new things, take on new challenges – and that’s how iJourno Africa was born. And I can confidently say the new challenges I took on and the new things I learned during the “fallow period,” finally got me what I wanted, and of course the #UnmeritedFavour.

When I got the opportunity for interviews on YALI and Chevening, I put in so much effort; I researched, spoke to past beneficiaries and even did mock interviews with some of them. Before I went for the YALI interview, I did a mock interview with Ethel Cofie (Founder of Women in Tech Africa) and Tonyi Senayah (Horseman Shoes). Before I went for my Chevening interview, I also had mock interviews with Sammy Bartels (A former Chevener who now works with Vodafone) and my boss Bernard Avle (Host of the Citi Breakfast Show). I just did not want to take chances and in the end, it paid off.

Consider these while in distress
1.Maybe it’s not time yet.
2.But keep your eye on the ball.
3.And while at it, do other things to improve yourself. Don’t mark time.
4.Keep believing God will do it eventually.

Don’t give up. Keep pushing. And finally, when you get what you want, write a blog like this. Who knows, it might encourage someone in a similar situation.

I’ll share my experiences in the first month in Cardiff soon.

I’m out…

–

By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom

The post Nana Boakye-Yiadom writes: Rejections and disappointments I never shared appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The technology, called Soak, changes colour if perspiration is high in salt, suggesting dehydration.

Previous research by the European Hydration Institute and Loughborough University found that dehydrated drivers were as error-prone as those who had drunk alcohol.

There are currently no plans to bring Soak into production.

The sweat-sensitive coating, which was developed with Dutch design company Droog, is also applied to the steering wheel and changes it and the front seats from blue to yellow to signal dehydration.

Prof Peter Wells, an expert in business and sustainability from Cardiff University Business School, said that measuring additional factors which impede drivers’ abilities made as much sense as monitoring factors which affect the vehicle itself.

“This is part of the overall idea that it’s not just about monitoring the car but also the driver,” he said.

“This particular application is obviously on the edge of usefulness but it shows a willingness to think more generally about these things and find a way forward.

“I’m not sure that way of showing you are dehydrated is going to appeal to many people – but I like the concept.”

Prof Wells added that other potentially measurable factors which affect drivers could include their emotional state – perhaps by monitoring adrenaline or hormone levels.

“We are going to get more and more of this kind of thing. Many factors affect our ability to drive,” he said.

–

Source: BBC

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According to him it is obvious government was going to miss the budget target. ‘’Government’s mid-year review of the budget was expected;…Two months into the budget [2014 budget] life we knew that those targets were not realistic; government wasn’t going to achieve those targets. Is as though one could say that they were dead on arrival,’’ he noted.

He explained that the government’s inflation target of 9.5 percent amongst others could not be achieved, ‘’by the middle of the year because  the variants had exceeded the lower band’’.

Speaking on the Citi FM’s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issues, Mr. Bokpin said the mid-year review of the budget was expected.

He cautioned the Finance Ministry and government to set realistic targets and projections. ‘’It doesn’t send a good signal to the corporate and foreign investors that government will set a target and by the middle of the year the variants have exceeded the lower band of that target,’’ he added.

Finance Minsiter, Seth Terkper on Wednesday presented a review of the 2014 budget to Parliament where he also outlined a new supplementary budget to the house for approval.

But Mr. Bokpin said even the supplementary budget presented was one-sided, ‘’it is one-sided, it’s basically expenditure,’’ he opined.

‘’The Supplementary budget, the review and all of that is expected, but they are not actuals; we must have clear strategy to translate this budget into actuals, otherwise next year we will still be here and even the revise target we may miss it,’’ he said.

The Finance Minister asked parliament to approve a GH¢3,196,855,671 supplementary budget estimate in conformity with Article 179(8) of the Constitution for the rest of the year.

Government has reviewed its overall real GDP growth (including oil) target from 8% to 7.1%.

The non-oil real GDP growth has been revised from 7.4 percent to 6.6 percent.

As part of the review of a number of macro-economic targets, inflation rate target for the year has been reviewed to 13.0±2 percent from 9.5 ±2 percent.

The overall budget deficit target has been revised from 8.5 percent of GDP to 8.8 percent and Gross International Reserves of not less than 3 months of import cover of goods and services.

By: Evans Effah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to Mr. Cudjoe,” the fact that we have to change the fundamentals of making projections, going for loans, knowing the profitability and viability of the project is an attestation of the fact that we have never been ready to do serious business with the economy.”

The CDB agreed to provide Ghana with a loan of $3 billion for a package of infrastructural projects.

The loan was signed by CDB and Ghana on December 16, 2011.

The Minister of Finance, Mr. Seth Terkper in his  presentation on the 2014 mid year review budget last Wednesday, however, announced the decision to halve the $3 billion loan to $1.5 billion

The announcement has generated public outrage as some believe the decision could  halt some of the infrastructural projects government intended to embark on with the full loan.

Speaking on Citi FM’s News Analysis Programme, The Big Issue, Mr. Cudjoe condemned government’s decision to sign onto the loan in the first place, describing it as “chicken change.”

Mr. Cudjoe believes Ghana’s “retrogressive” and “discordant” forex rules partly compelled government to halve the loan.

“Unfortunately we are in a serious bind. It was clear that if we had discordant and retrogressive forex rules, government’s projections from day one was going to be affected”

“Government had forgotten that all the projections that were being made were timeous and were related to the time value of money and so if you were already having an economy that was not so productive, you don’t kill it further by having these forex rules,” Mr. Cudjoe opined.

By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah

The post Gov’t not prepared to transform economy – Franklin Cudjoe appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

However, there appears to have been a vacuum created by the absence from Ghana of all three of the nation’s most powerful men.

President John Dramani Mahama is presently in Nigeria, where he has been holding talks with President Goodluck Jonathan over the raging Boko Haram terror campaign in Africa’s most populous state.

His Vice, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, is also in the United States’ City of Houston, Texas, where he has been attending an International summit of oil and gas experts.

Citi News sources say the Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho, is also presently in Korea on an official visit.

Checks show that in the absence of the three men, the power of state ought to have been provisionally handed over to the Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, who [constitutionally] is the fourth in the line of succession to the Presidency – in the absence of the President, the Vice President and the Speaker of Parliament.

Checks, however, show that although the Chief Justice is in Ghana, she has NOT been sworn in as caretaker President, pending the return of the three men.

Speaking on the issue, Minority leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the law doesn’t permit for anybody to act in the absence of the three.

‘’if the three [the President, the Vice President and the Speaker of Parliament] of them are absent, there cannot be any other acting president; that is the language of the constitution,’’ he said.

According to the Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame constituency, the absence of the three top persons in the country is a serious matter.

He said the constitution does not provide for anyone else to act in the absence of the President, Vice President and the Speaker and  also disputed claims that the Chief Justice should be sworn in as presidency in the absence of the trio.

‘’No; the constitution doesn’t make any such [provision]; in the pecking order of personalities of importance the constitution talks about the president as the first gentleman of the state and then in that descending order you have the Vice president, the Speaker of Parliament and the Chief Justice in that descending order,’’ he noted.

He said; ‘’with respect to who assumes the presidency in acting capacity, the constitution stops at the Speaker of Parliament and does not go further to the Chief Justice.’’

‘’There is no provision in the constitution that allows for [the Chief Justice] to act in the absence of the President, the Vice President and the Speaker of Parliament,’’ he reiterated.

He however said the constitution rather has a statute that provides for the Chief of Defense Staff to take control in a war situation when the three personalities are absent.

But a former first deputy speaker of parliament, Freddie Blay held a different view from the Minority Leader.

He said the first vice speaker of parliament can act as president in the absence of the President, Vice President and Speaker of Parliament.

By: Evans Effah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Presidency of Ghana left vacant appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Posting on his Facebook wall Monday, Mr Cudjoe, described Shatta Wale as a “great music strategist” who had “been sidelined by the Ghanaian media for 11 years.”

The policy analyst and public commentator described claims that Shatta Wale did not deserve to win the award as “unsophisticated” and without merit.

According to him, Shatta Wale had worked hard in Jamaica for five years, “learning the ways of great dance hall musicians”.

Mr Cudjoe said the self-acclaimed “Dancehall King” had not only rebranded himself, but had also started a movement – Shatta Movement – which had attracted many converts in Ghana .

“Pompous Marketing executives and religious hypocrites should take time to study how Shatta Wale made it,” the Imani boss said, noting: “The UK Guardian newspaper has marked Shatta Wale for global impact soon and in his own land hypocrites are bringing him down as usual.

“Let’s promote this guy,” he added.

Though there have been some sentiments on social media to the effect that Shatta Wale’s ‘Artiste of the Year’ feat was undeserved, there is general consensus among music lovers that the dancehall star deserved the award for a successful 2013 in which he released hit songs such as ‘Enter the net’, ‘Dancehall King’ and ‘Like My Thing’.

It didn’t come as a surprise to many, therefore, when ‘Dancehall King’ won ‘Song of the Year’ at the awards. He also picked the ‘Dancehall/Reggae Song of the Year’ award, taking his total haul on the night to three.

Controversy was, however, generated when Shatta Wale did not show up to pick up the awards.

Enthusiastic fans, who had attended the event to celebrate with the talented artiste, were upset that he did not attend.

But he Monday explained that he stayed away from the show in protest at the unfair treatment of Ghanaian artistes by the organisers, Charter House.

He said Ghanaian artistes had not been given the respect and recognition that they deserved.

According to him, Charter House refused to pay the Gh₵70,000 he demanded as fee for performing at the show, but would have been willing to spend thousands of dollars on artistes from other countries.

Source: Graphic Online

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This is despite earlier media reports that it used $3 million in undertaking the survey.

Policy think tank IMANI Ghana has accused the NCA of bloating the budget used for the preparation of the survey.

The GHC 3 .5 million survey sort to determine the perception of mobile phone users with regards to the services they receive from their telecom service providers.

According to the NCA, the survey was commissioned in September 2012 and the survey report finalized in September 2013 after data collation, analysis and verification.

Speaking to Citi Business News, the President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe said the purported survey could have been conducted with a budget less than $30,000.

An April 6, 2014 Facebook post on his page said: “The National Communications Authority (NCA) is reported to have spent US $3m on a Cellular Mobile Consumer Satisfaction Survey it claims it conducted between 2012 and September 2013. HOW MUCH DID YOU SPEND ON YOUR DISSERTATION? I put it to the NCAA that IMANI and first degree holders could have spent $30,000 to undertake the exercise.”

He explained saying, “that is the figure reported from my sources within the telecoms’ industry it’s a very interesting scenario we haven’t heard the full facts of the NCA but I will use 10,000 dollars using their methods …Please the country is in turmoil and the last thing we need is for scams to be cooked.”

Citi Business News checks on the internet about the background of the company contracted by the NCA to conduct the research, Policy Focus was fruitless, as there was no information about the presence of the company, at least in Ghana.

According to the Citi Business News sources, a board member of the national communications authority was given the contract and supervised the preparation of the report.

IMANI Ghana is demanding full disclosure from the NCA to clear all doubts.

By: Rabiu Alhassan/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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For my post-degree national service, I worked with the Upper regional development corporation, one of a number set up by the Acheampong regime to facilitate regional development. These corporations were into everything, and for the one I worked it their projects included bakeries, cattle ranches, rest houses and running of ‘consumable’ and hardware stores. Apart from the Central regional one which morphed into CEDECOM, none of these corporations still exists and their impact on development in the regions doubtful.

In between these agencies and SADA, the 3 regions of northern Ghana have seen NORRIP, UWADEP and others. Sadly, from what we are hearing about SADA’s travails, not much has been learnt from these previous programmes. A nation that refuses to learn the lessons from its past is condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past and to watch its development stagnate. Some of the key lessons which should have informed the design and implementation include:

1) Strategic role of the entity: For such programmes to succeed, they need to be pitched at the level of facilitating the actions of relevant actors, private sector and public. Some of SADA’s actions have been at the level of direct implementation of projects a la the development corporations;

2) Relationship with agencies: Do not attempt to duplicate the efforts of state agencies or compete with them for funding; you will antagonise them and not have access to their resources and capacities. Why should SADA be planting trees when there is a Forestry Commission? Or go into butterscotch production or guinea fowls when MoFA exists? The list is endless.

3) Stakeholder Ownership: The then Northern Regional Minister, Bede Ziedeng, lamented in December 2013 about the ‘lukewarm attitude of stakeholders’ to SADA reflected in their ‘unwillingness to attend meetings’. When the stakeholders don’t ritalin have a sense of ownership of the agency and what it seeks to achieve, effectiveness is compromised and sustainability becomes an issue. The three Regional Ministers in northern Ghana were in the news last week making statements that conveyed the impression that they did not see SADA as responding to their needs and priorities. The northern regional minister said it was ‘all about water, for agriculture and for consumption’ and the upper-east minister wanted SADA to facilitate the implementation of the region’s strategic plan….

4) Ghettoization of the programme: Most of the discussions of SADA have presented it as an intervention to ‘bridge the north-south divide’. I think that is a wrong premise to start from. It does not locate the programme within the wider context of longterm national development strategy and thereby misses the necessary linkages with other national strategies and agencies. For example, the agro-ecological zone that SADA encompasses provides opportunities for Ghana to gain a competitive advantage in the horticultural export business to Europe; it also can provide the impetus or be a catalyst for agro-based industrialisation. These are key entry points for national development and SADA should have been seen and supported as such.

5) Rent-seeking behaviour of the political class: It is a truism that the political class will exploit every opportunity to make money at the expense of the state, for themselves and for their parties. It doesn’t matter the ethnicity of the management or Board or whatever. I don’t know why we expected SADA to be different. MIDA, which was insulated from political control, and thereby access to its resources, showed what can be achieved with proper systems and competent staff in place.

6) Development processes don’t follow election cycles: Sustainable and effective development processes require an investment of time and resources to build systems, think through strategies and build relationships/linkages. Any attempt to rush the process results in disaster. SADA started sprinting even before learning how to sit, not to talk of crawling or taking the first wobbly steps. With only a Board and a CEO in place, it proceeded to roll out initiatives that required the presence of the full complement of management.

SADA and similar programmes focusing on specific regions/agro-ecological zones are a good idea. We just need to think smart and think strategic.

By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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