AN INVESTOR’S WOES IN ACCRA, GHANA

The sun has gone down, the sky is now dark. Quiet is becoming the moment of the day with nice wind blowing moving the branches of the trees around the beautiful mansion this investor was staying for two weeks on his investment exploration in Accra.

It was his first day of doing the contacts and filing his applications at various departments and ministries to follow procedures to get the necessary permission or license to do business in Ghana as he wanted.

It was hectic anyway but he managed to calm down and follow the system especially the long delays, long and winding queues, sorry we are on break and oh, sorry the officer did not come to work today so please call next week to find out excuses and what have you.

One would have expected that after this painful exercise, he would have retired to his residence have some shower and rest peacefully planning for another day's assignment with hope of achieving success this time round.

But no that was when his frustrations started to get worse dashing all hope of making any improvement on his investment opportunity in Ghana.

Just after he has opened the tap and water sprinkling on his body and run the sponge with bathing soap on his body making heavy foam, the electricity went off. “Oh what a hell” he shouted.

Not long after he has shouted the water also stopped flowing leaving this investor more frustrated in the bathroom only for him to call his host for help who only helped by providing some sort of light through his mobile phone.

But what was so annoying was the pouring of water from tens of sachet mineral water bags to provide an amount of water for him to wash down before going to bed in the total darkness.

This investor did not just get on airplane and flew to Ghana to do business. He attended one of the town hall meetings the president had with his subjects in one of his trips and the investor was happy to receive the appeal to go to Ghana and do business.

Therefore placing much weight on the president's appeal this investor, tried not to let the difficulties he was facing pin him down but rather fight to finish his aim of setting up business in Ghana before returning to his foreign based country.

So the next morning luckily the tap was flowing and the lights were on so he asked whether it was a magic. He did not hesitate to take his bath and prepared to follow up on his assignment as he has left off the previous day.

Can you believe that for past four hours this man was caught in a heavy traffic which started his day of frustration? With trucks full of persons dressed in NDC T' shirts singing party songs and waving party flags file past his car which stood at one spot all these hours.

At one point he got down to find out from one of the guys what was happening only for him to learn that the president John Evans Atta Mills, was passing by to pick his nomination forms and therefore the road blocks was mounted for his security.

“Geez”, the president going for his nomination forms and roads should be blocked for his security? My Gosh, he threw his hands into the air to express his fury. But he remained calm for that episode to come to an end.

Not until that episode has come to an end and traffic moving he got to the various offices and realized that business was not as usual. Everything was at a stand still with the simple explanation that the president was in town to file his nomination papers therefore all business was staled.

This investor left the scene without any word but with the final word in his head of canceling any plan to do business in Ghana and therefore cut shot of his days in the country and returned to his foreign base.

Several months after he has returned to his foreign country, checks at the health insurance office indicated that his application was gathering dust on the shelves with no assurance of getting licensed to do business in Ghana.

So he asked, “What was the sense in appealing to me an investor to go to that country to explore whiles even the president knows that his men at the various offices are incompetent to work the procedures out for me to succeed in setting up business to create jobs, pay my taxes and what have you?”

Talk to would be investors and you will be pissed off as they express the frustrations they go through in registering their companies to do business in Ghana especially the local investors.

The president has been appealing to investors both in Ghana and abroad to come and invest in the country. Meanwhile a pile of application forms are gathering dust at various institutions waiting for issuance of licenses so where are we going?

Anyone doubting this should go on undercover to investigate and will see a backlog of application forms which are changing their original colours because of gathering dust.

As a result of this, these investors are not hiring graduates who are unemployed adding more trouble to the joblessness in the country.

Mr. President, please get your butt up and visit these offices and asked them why or else or your appeal will not win the heart of investors.

Take it or leave it.