This morning your faithful writer received a message from a prominent Ghanaian journalist about cheddar cheese.From scarcity to wealthA story about the origin of his wealth.
If you are Ghanaian, you must have heard of it at least once. cheddar Unless you’ve been living under a rock, by now. He is a flamboyant real estate mogul who has announced in recent days that he isman in mask” A mysterious figurehead who evokes a sensation. V for Vendetta.
On top of that unveiling He himself said that the mask means: ancestor, a sense of togetherness, and the importance of “putting the message above the messenger.”And just to be clear, he running For the president.
thinking about him gaiety and display of esoteric wealth, the source of his wealth quickly became a hot topic. Every corner of the airwaves, gossip blogs, tabloids, and social media was awash with opinions, arguments, and the occasional fistfight.
Therefore””scrapMr Cheddar said he made his first million pounds selling discarded metal junk on the streets of London from his Walthamstow flat at the age of 21. He had his two employees who carried the luggage and brought in the trade.
There’s more excitement in the otherwise monotonous election season. Too many of the same old faces have been forced into our Ghanaian spaces with the same plastic smiles for too long. Lightness and liveliness were clearly out of fashion. However, the message from the aforementioned prominent journalist also raised the question of whether Ghana is becoming a nation. unserious society. After all, this country IMF relief program After the most devastating economic crisis in a generation. Should we reduce the momentous task of choosing the next president to a pantomime?
My own view is that if there’s something unscrupulous about it, it’s not the cheddar that’s injecting it into our bloodstream. Your faithful writer spends all of her non-work time researching and writing about heavy content that no impartial person would call disingenuous. Maybe it’s trying too hard, being too serious, and being long-winded, but certainly not insincere? IMF, S.M.L., Agyapa, Kerni GVG, CDB loan, China Hassan, lithium, STX, relief,please select.
Rest assured, dear reader. In this author’s experience, in Ghana, there is not much difference between the so-called elite, serious people, and the common people. ordinary publicOn the other hand, when it comes to the willingness to sacrifice time and leisure to really know the “facts”, “policies” and “critical information” about the country’s predicament. With the exception of a small group of mavericks, the Ghanaian elite is used to superficial news, neon headlines, and gobs of gossip just like everyone else. You might say that this is really due to the terrible writing and boring style of writers like you, but you can point out the many successful rebuttals to the hard facts that have gotten a serious hearing in contemporary Ghana. mosquito?
When I try to create the Ghanaian version, foreign affairs, Kaijin, foreign policy, caravan, atlantic oceanor london book reviews, you’ll have to read it yourself. A crew consisting of you and a few dozen heretics. I should refrain from giving examples so as not to embarrass many prominent people, but Ghana is full of graveyards of all kinds of projects that have tried to test this truth.
In his 17 years of public policy work, the author has learned the hard way that there are a large number of Ghanaians who really value hard facts.truth value“Policy details” and “insights beyond the surface” that allow you to spend valuable time on policy, support policy production, and create a community willing to use them for real-world effect. ” are too few to form a critical mass. Either way, it can affect the culture of the conversation. That’s just an obvious fact. The presence of cheddar has no effect on this reality. Ideological tenacity is the only thing that makes people like this author persistent.
Cheddar’s political progress, if any, will be shaped by his ability to find ways to emotionally connect and mobilize people on the surface. organic social infrastructure Ethnic groups, religious communities, etc., or young, rapidly growing but not yet politically important groups with very limited interest in politics and only interested in hacking existing systems. This is to energize the voter base. Hacking, so to speak, using new tools such as: bet, cryptography, remote work, Japanand MLM. The latter voting group is not looking for a revolution, just the inspiration to “start a revolution.” They are no more tickled by facts and figures than any socially competent person. This is just the bitter truth.
The raw, stomach-churning reality that Ghana’s elites refuse to face is that the country is little information A society with no middle class at all play a role They’re doing it elsewhere too. They do not sacrifice their time, energy, leisure or intelligence. Civic activities. They may do so for business, tribe/chiefdom, religion, alumni groups, hobby groups, even sports, endurance clubs, adventure clubs, etc., but never for civic purposes. Anything related to public policy, environmental activism, ideological movements, etc. is simply not within the consciousness of the Ghanaian middle class. Yes, there are occasional sparks, but the fire is never ignited bright enough or long enough to attract enough people to build a sustained civil movement.
Some might say that these are simply products of a low-income environment, but that’s not quite accurate. India, parts of Latin America, and pre-Erdoğan Turkey are examples of “low-income” societies that experienced a blossoming and intense infiltration of civic consciousness long before they achieved middle-income economic status.
However, in Ghana today, civic issues do not receive enough scrutiny as facts are given too much weight. People quickly form an impression and move on. This is exactly what happened in the “Scrap to Riches” case.
To be sure, the question of Cheddar’s wealth is not a policy issue.He himself says so It doesn’t matter to anyone. “People who love clean politics”The command of riches without explanation” is being used more freely in the fight against political corruption. You could write a book about the cracks and nuances of this debate. However, given the level of attention that the scrap issue received, one would expect that there would have been, at least in the public sphere, a segment of serious people looking for hard facts, or as close to them as possible. . And that there would have been people willing to supply. Just like the energy expended by serious American commentators and researchers, unpack Trump’s business problems continue even after taking office.
When it comes to the specific issue of scrap, we all know that in the UK, for example, you can’t handle scrap without a license. This is a snapshot of the Scrappers Act 1964.
Because the scrap trade is a highly regulated industry, the government amended the law in 2013 to further tighten various provisions.
You cannot legally trade scrap metal in the UK without a license or permit. It’s been that way for quite some time. And license fees aren’t cheap. Fees are set by local authorities; guidance From the central government. Each local authority also maintains a register of b.ahth applicant and licensee. Preparatory work in developing the latest regulations included an economic assessment of the impact of compliance on UK scrap businesses. Compliance costs for each covered entity were found to exceed his £4 million.
In short, anyone can do it easily Really They were interested in finding out if Mr. Cheddar’s “scraps to riches” story was true, and if Ghana was to follow the path of investigation alluded to above, it would be necessary for Ghana to have a shady figure as its president. This is because I believe that we must prevent this from happening. If getting to the bottom of this case has garnered so much attention and is of such public interest, why hasn’t anyone investigated it yet? Rather than following the conversational style of Ghana’s public square where “everything is up for debate”, why isn’t there a commentary class where the truly serious middle class can get the “hard facts”?
Of course, in every society there is a fringe of conspiracies that never wash away from the mainstream facts. There is no dispute about that.But all serious society There is also a layer of Authoritative information. What about Ghana at this point? As far as the author is concerned, that’s the problem.
Some readers may feel deceived at this stage, as they began reading expecting this essay to be followed by an answer to the question of whether Cheddar made money from scrap. But such readers are not paying attention. The point of this short essay is to show that it can be presented in an authoritatively done, well-researched, perhaps 3000-word essay (with some reasoning and analysis that serious people can follow to their satisfaction). ). And the vast majority of people talking about this issue today will never read or engage with this material. In one word, it is “POINTLESS”. It doesn’t affect any level of public conversation, so another surface-level soundbite is never completely obscured. Someone can also try it.
Although this author took seriously the message sent by that esteemed journalist, his attitude towards this entire controversy does not get the point across on a much more important issue: the true state of citizenship in Ghana today. This means that you are overlooking.
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