Of Awards And Honours • Which Way Now?

If you ask me, the highest honours I have ever come to was in May 2000 when JOY Online ran the Mother of the Millennium promotion.

My eldest son who resides in the US had seen the promotion online and so he decided to nominate me for the award without telling me.

Why did he nominate me? Because he was convinced that I met all the expectations. My nomination must have been approved and given assent by the Joy Online Mother of the Millennium promotion panel.
 
My award was delivered to me in my home on Mothers' Day that year. A red Joy FM branded vehicle drove into my yard and two young men stepped out.

Those days you would not castigate your househelps for opening your gate to a stranger; Accra was relatively safe.
 
After the young men had satisfied themselves that I was the nominee they were looking for, they both shook my hands and congratulated me.
 
Then to my surprise, they brought out a huge card, a beautiful rolled up citation, a wrapped piece of African print, a couple of wines and a bouquet of flowers. They read the citation and I shed a tear of joy.

The citation was explicit. Joy Online was honouring me as a Mother of the Millennium for not just fulfilling my natural duties as a mother but rather for something I had done and which was over and above my God-given role — something very stretching for a mother to add on. Where am I drifting to?

I am an avid believer in rewarding people when they go that extra mile over and above their normal course of duty.
 
The reward need not be something cast in gold. I have high admiration for those who share this belief and demonstrate it too.

Having worked for a multi-national company, I have come to appreciate that annual raise of employees should be based purely on merit and what extra contribution the employee made to business success for that year in question.

With my employers, one's annual work plan becomes a done deal only after you have agreed with your superior, three or four clear actionable, realistic, measurable and achievable targets over and above your normal work schedule for which you earn a monthly salary.

Your targets which you should be ready to sign by the end of February, latest, is your attestation to significant and measurable contribution to the fortunes of the business, be it in terms of growth, profitability, quality, image, etc.

Any extra lump sum payment coming to you at the end of each reviewed period and which is normally referred to as variable pay would be a measure of your contribution by way of achieving the targets you attested to for the year under review.
 
 That is your kind of honours or is it award? The writing is always clear at the start of the year that if you inject mediocrity and business as usual kind of attitude in your work you will reap same at the end of the year.

As a nation, we should accept it that recognising and rewarding excellence above middling input should be a way of life. We should make our citizens proud and ready to die a little for Ghana.
 
It is for this reason that I will at any time give a variable pay award to whoever instituted the annual National Awards which seek to honour those of our country folk who have made admonitory contributions to the development of Ghana incorporated.

The awards, however, should have a feel of prestige. They should be something that every shareholder of Ghana Incorporated would want to aspire for.
 
 They should always be dished out with a measuring spoon. They should not be wholesale otherwise they lose their salt. Opening it up too wide or too little can spoil the look, feel and taste.

The National Awards should always be selective and fitting. By the way, has anybody realised that people pay to get some types of awards?
 
 That is another trick of some promoters to get money off institutions and individuals. I call it donate to my cause and get a title award. It has all been made so cheap that awards really have lost their impact.

So, very soon, we will be marking another memorable occasion as we line up distinguished ladies and gentlemen to receive the 2008 State Honours.
 
Since the big man's chief scribe dropped a hint about some nominations for the awards, the media once again have not spared us our ears.
 
Eh, these crop of people, you dare not be okro with them at all. Just choose your words or do not tell them anything, period.

There has always been the talk about who is deserving of National Awards and who is not. But really, what is the measurement and who sets the targets?
 
Who determines who has achieved stretching targets and who has not?  If today we were to line up all the honourees of state awards, past and to-be, can we say that they all would have contributed something over and above what they were supposed to be doing? What benefits, if any, has Ghana reaped from their contributions?

PriceWaterhouse Coopers actually got it right but not after beating some of us to it. Earlier this year they announced Ghana's most celebrated CEOs and companies.
 
They beat some of us to it because what they did is pretty similar to something that the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) Ghana did some few years back and plans are on the drawing board to have it revived.

To borrow the favourite cliché from our politicians, 'plans are far advanced' for IPR, Ghana to reinstate the laudable initiative to honour institutions and individuals who are doing good and bringing innovation into their way of thinking and action for a better Ghana.

By the way, whenever you hear the politicians talking about ''plans being far advanced' just stop them and ask which of the advanced stages — stage one, two or 2000?

Yes, PriceWaterhouse Coopers is my Institution of the Year for the simple reason that they did not only recognise striking performance but what they have done is to raise the bar for our leaders and institutions to aspire to exemplary heights because watchful eyes are following them.
 

Next time perhaps PriceWaterhouse can focus on the Public Service to see if the reforms did any good; I mean the Public Sector Reforms. The business as usual mentality in crucial corridors needs to be curtailed with the aim to eradicate by the year twenty ..... what?

Has anybody noticed that in the 1990s, the eradication of all ills and woes were to be by the year 2010, 2015 or 2020? Water for all by the year 2010, electricity for all by the year 2015, health for all by the year 2020, food for all, work for all and money for all by the year ...?
 
 This is year 2008 and our water is being rationed, that is if you are lucky to have some running through your tap. Oh, our politicians will kill us with vain promises.

So, to mark our dear nation's 47 years of republican status, our President will once again be presenting variable pay medals to some of our compatriots for achieving extraordinary feats.
 
For those who were merely nominated but will never see the promised land, someone somewhere has seen your light so continue to shine until it reaches the Castle, no, Flagstaff House from 2009.

For now, your contribution is classified as achieved target. We salute all whose targets have hit the spot and would, therefore, be receiving state awards, come the date — is it still July?
 
 If they were working for my former employers they would be laughing all the way to their banks for indeed to get the highest recognition and honour, you must have hit the elasticity of the performance indicators — stretching targets.

We doff our hats for all national performers, awardees or honourees. What is the correct word by the way? Let the English PhDs educate us.

Ayekoo to all those who will be picking up the medals. Let the extra contribution you added to your performance for which you will be called to receive a state medal and a presidential handshake keep burning for mother Ghana.

If you are waiting for your turn it is time to review your targets and make them even more stretching for next year.
 
 Oh yes, next year would be exciting. I just cannot wait to see which presidential handshake it would be and from which seat of Government. Will it be Peduase, Flagstaff House, or Christianborg Castle? Let's stay tuned.

We're on Awards and Honours super highway.