Have you voted for Erica Nego, Miss Universe Ghana yet?

If not there’s still time -please note -the ceremony takes place tomorrow so vote now at: http://www.missuniverse.com/members/profile/599525/year:2011
Or
http://www.missuniverse.com/members/contestants


...The show take place live -12th September 2011 at 9pm ET on NBC ... Good Luck Erica, Ghana Rising is behind you 100% …For more info visit: http://www.missuniverse.com/

David Adjaye is named as Designer of the Year by Design Miami/ 2011

The jury has spoken! Internationally renowned architect and designer David Adjaye will be celebrated at this year’s Design Miami/ as – you guessed it – the 2011 Designer of the Year. Adjaye joins an elite club whose past honorees include: Zaha Hadid, Marc Newson, Tokujin Yoshioka, the Campana Brothers, Maarten Baas and Konstantin Grcic.

“Winning Designer of the Year is huge for me,” says David Adjaye. “To win an award like this from the design community is really significant because so much of my work is about crossing platforms.” David will show us exactly what he means when he says “crossing platforms” with his Award commission which will be unveiled at Design Miami/ in December.

For this year’s show, David is working on an entirely new architectural statement that will redefine Design Miami’s approach to the temporary structure that houses the fair. He will unveil a site-specific pavilion that will transform both the physical environment and the visitor experience. “Genesis,” composed of hundreds of vertical wooden planks morphing into organic interior seating and opening up to the sky and surrounding environment, David’s triangular pavilion will serve as an entryway to the fair, a community gathering area and a space for respite during the lively week.

Genesis by David Adjaye

Come December, Design Miami/ Blog will be sitting in this pavilion with David getting all the rich details about its design.
http://designmiamiblog.com/


**All Text & images courtesy of http://www.designmiami.com/

A Must Read: Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World by Kwasi Kwateng

**Nope I haven’t read it yet, but hope to do so -soon. The following is one of the many reviews doing the rounds…



Ghosts of Empire by Kwasi Kwarteng: A review By George Walden
Dated:  02 Aug 2011

Kwasi Kwarteng, a Tory MP of Ghanaian descent educated at Eton, has come up with a book about empire that it is hard to imagine any of his colleagues writing. Generations of colonial rulers and officials from privileged backgrounds, he claims, wayward folk, often, were responsible for much of the disorder and chaos that afflicted the British Empire. Worse, he sees them as responsible for many of the problems former colonies suffer today.

The fact that colonial servants were usually public schoolboys selected largely by “character” did not mean that men of quality failed to find their way into their ranks. But so did many cranks, oddballs and romantics. Vast distances and slow communications meant that policy could rest in such people’s hands, sometimes with appalling results.
Too often, Kwarteng writes, the British “transplanted the status, petty snobberies and fine gradations of rank and privilege which prevailed in Britain itself”, a practice that could reinforce reactionary local hierarchies. Something to bear in mind as we lament the corruption and social backwardness of countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan.

A survey of key episodes in the history of empire illustrates his thesis. He allows that there was often a genuine idealis
about what the British saw as their civilising mission. Iraq was clearly better off under their administration than that of the Ottoman Turks. But he also believes that it was the establishment by the British of the Hashemite Kingdom under King Faisal in 1921, with no historical legitimacy, that led to the bloody 1958 uprising and eventually to Saddam Hussein.

It was we who manufactured the Anglo-Arab royals, with their well-cut suits and old-Harrovian accents, just as we had spawned the Arabist dreamers and eccentrics who played key roles in their rise to power. Lawrence of Arabia was passionate about Arab self-government, but not just yet; the Iraqis, meanwhile, must have a king.

Then there was Gertrude Bell, daughter of a steel magnate and a multi-talented woman. As Oriental Secretary to the British High Commissioner, she was emotionally as well as practically involved in the establishment of the ill-fated monarchy. She died shortly after, perhaps by her own hand, unmarried, with instructions that her dog, Tundra, should be cared for.

Another idiosyncratic Arabist was Harry St John Philby. A minister of internal affairs in Baghdad, he left the colonial service after scheming against the Hashemites in favour of the Ibn Saud dynasty. Eventually, he went native, became a Muslim, bought a 16-year-old bride in a slave market, and ended as a fascist. His son, Kim, spied for Stalin.

In Kashmir the colonial adventurer Francis Younghusband, another oddball, became Resident. Infatuated with Britain’s imperialist mission, and later a proponent of free love, he fantasised about a mistress giving birth to a “God-child”. None of which was of much help to the colony.

The British bequeathed democracy to India, but in Kashmir there was none of that.There the system of Indian princes (“The Raj, it seemed, was happiest when dealing with a 'feudal order’”) led to the rule of Hindu Maharajas over an overwhelmingly Muslim population. Mountbatten sought to persuade the fat and fatuous autocrat Sir Hari Singh to accede to Pakistan on independence, but it was too late.
In retrospect, who was to blame? “Short-sighted individuals,” is Kwarteng’s reply, “often described as men on the spot, who were responsible to no one.” Something else to reflect on as we contemplate the Indians and Pakistanis training nuclear weapons on one another.

Social background also played a role in the Biafran War. Colonel Ojukwu, leader of the secession, was a public school, Oxford man with a high estimation of his talents. The chic that attached to his British supporters, Kwarteng believes, was a modern manifestation of an old colonial problem: “The natural snobbishness of some commentators made them sympathetic to the Biafran cause, just as snobbishness had made the northern emirs [of Nigeria] attractive to an earlier generation of British imperial administrator.”

Kwarteng is equally outspoken about his fellow Tory Chris Patten, the last Hong Kong governor, whose appointment he sees as little more than a consolation prize when he lost his seat. Patten’s style, he writes, was very different from “the calm and considered manner” of the best of the Imperial Civil Service. “He had a glib turn of phrase but knew very little about China or diplomacy.”

In the run-up to the return of the colony to China, the governor managed to antagonise the mainland Chinese as well as the Hong Kong business community, to no lasting benefit, Kwarteng insists, to the Hong Kong Chinese or to democracy. Self-indulgence, he suggests, was the problem: “He had a photogenic family which would be the envy of any democratic politician, but in terms of a legacy it is difficult to see what he achieved.”

The empire’s tolerance of eccentrics, misfits and egotists proved a boon for biographers and novelists, though not for the colonies themselves, and the book provides a running historical commentary, often melancholy, on the problems they left behind. Hence the title.

Yet the style is neither tiresomely polemical nor drily academic. While lamenting the consequences of our preference for “character” over policy, Kwarteng has produced a highly readable book, not least because of its cast of wilful, perverse or semi-crazed figures who exercised power without responsibility in the build-up and downfall of empire. With his unusual background, the author knows whereof he speaks. The reaction of his political colleagues will be interesting...

Credit:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8670718/Ghosts-of-Empire-by-Kwasi-Kwarteng-review.html

**To purchase Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World by Kwasi Kwateng visit Amazon on:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ghosts-Empire-Britains-Legacies-Modern/dp/0747599416




More Info...
Dr Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (born 26 May 1975 in London is a British Conservative Party politician. After the retirement of Conservative MP David Wilshire, Kwarteng was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Spelthorne in Surrey in the 2010 general election, winning the seat with 22,261 votes and a majority of 10,019.

Kwarteng was born in London. His parents migrated to the UK from Ghana as students in the 1960s.

He attended Eton College as a King's Scholar, and then read classics and history at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a member of the winning University Challenge team in 1995, in the first series after the programme was revived by the BBC in 1994. He attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar and completed a PhD in Economic History at Cambridge University.

Prior to becoming an MP, Kwarteng worked as an analyst for hedge fund manager Crispin Odey. He has written a book, Ghosts of Empire, about the legacy of the British Empire, published by Bloomsbury in 2011.

Political careerHe was Conservative candidate for Brent East at the 2005 General Election, but was beaten into a distant third place by the incumbent Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather, who had won the seat in a 2003 by-election, and Labour challenger Yasmin Qureshi. Kwarteng was chairman of the Bow Group in 2005-6. In 2006, The Times suggested that he could become the first black Conservative cabinet minister. He was sixth on the Conservative list of candidates for the London Assembly in 2008.

After Conservative MP for Spelthorne David Wilshire became mired in controversy arising from the Parliamentary expenses scandal, and announced his retirement from Parliament at the 2010 general election, Kwarteng was selected as Conservative candidate for Spelthorne at an open primary in January 2010. He was described by a local paper as a "black Boris". He was elected with a majority of 10,019 but was heckled by Liberal Democrats with shouts of "he was a scumbag" during his acceptance speech while paying tribute to his predecessor, who used his expenses to pay £100,000 to an unregistered company. Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwasi_Kwarteng

Amber Rose and Trey Songz confirmed for Vodafone 020 Live Concert in Ghana on the 20th September 2011

I’m sure you’ve all heard the commotion, yep the ever gorgeous Amber Rose, Kanye West’s ex-gal pal is now confirmed as host of this years Vodafone 020 Live concert, taking place at the Dome in Accra International Conference Centre, on the 20th September 2011 -and yummy Trey Songz’s will also be there -on stage -on the night-t-t-t…. VIP, Stay j, R2bees, 4x4, RnM and Dbanj will all be performing on the night. For more info visit: https://www.facebook.com/vodafoneghana -where you can hear Amber Rose, Dbanj and Trey Songz’s messages to their Ghanaian fans.

Mr Tsatsu Tsikata is cleared...

Now that former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata has been cleared of all that jagger, jagger oil mess -I’m wondering, should I ask for sponsorship -what do you think folks??? The following a piece by J. Ato Kobbie with more info about that $5M oil business. Makes for very interesting reading.

*********************************

By: J. Ato Kobbie, Managing Editor

Dated: 4 August 2011

Title: Due Diligence Clears Tsikata in $5M MODEC-StratOil Deal

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector lending arm that raised red flags over a $5Million service contract between MODEC and Strategic Oil and Gas Resources Limited (StratOil), holding all potential investors in the company that owns FPSO Kwame Nkrumah MV 21, to ransom, has surreptitiously sneaked back considering moving forward with its plans to invest in the Jubilee project.


A hint of the stealthy return of the IFC was contained in a terse e-mail message The Business Analyst received from the World Bank affiliate on June 6th this year, after many months of inquiry on the status of a due diligence occasioned by the red flag raised drew blank.

The “IFC is currently considering financing the FPSO that serves the field because it is a critical component of the Jubilee field development,” stated Desmond Dodd, Head of Communications of the IFC for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Continuing, the IFC said it had “consistently indicated its strong interest in completing the financing and continues to work with the other parties on moving the project forward.”

That response was a marked departure from several others over the past year, when the IFC had insisted the due diligence was still ongoing. However, the IFC still refused to tell The Business Analyst what the findings of the due diligence it requested were.

The U.S. Department of Justice, to which MODEC provided details of the due diligence, also served notice last week Thursday that it was “not going forward with any inquiry relating to MODEC at this time,” a MODEC press release of last week Thursday, July 28, 2011 has revealed.

The release comes exactly one year after the IFC kicked a storm over the possibility of influence-peddling in the MODEC-StratOil service contract, which was signed by Tsatsu Tsikata, a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), on June 4, 2008.

It all began in July 2010, when MODEC, the company that won the contract from the Jubilee Partners to construct the floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, submitted lately some sub-contracts related to the contract to an IFC-led consortium of potential investors.

One of these sub-contracts happened to be the Service Contract between MODEC (Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company Limited) and StratOil, a company which has Tsatsu Tsikata, as part owner and Chief Executive.

The sight of Tsikata’s name excited the IFC. It allowed all the other sub-contracts to pass, singled out the MODEC-StratOil deal, and went to town on a hunt for possible underhand dealings in the award of that sub-contract.

Hold-Up & Hunt
MODEC announced on July 27, 2010 that as part of the lease financing for the Jubilee FPSO, under the Representations and Warranties provisions it had “disclosed to the other potential equity partners in Jubilee Ghana MV21 B.V., a special purpose company incorporated in the Netherlands and the lending banks all of the contracts that were executed for this project.”

MODEC said “at the request of one of the equity partners, MODEC is currently undertaking a due diligence of the service agreement with Strategic Oil and Gas Resources Limited” and had retained outside independent counsel for this purpose.

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), also a member of the World Bank Group, in a release dated July 29, 2010 stated that it had, together with MODEC and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Jubilee Ghana MV 21, “today mutually agreed to suspend MIGA’s political risk guarantee contract for the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel that will produce and process oil and gas from the Jubilee offshore oil field in Ghana.”

According to the release, “the parties agreed to this suspension in order to conduct due diligence into the conditions of a service contract between MODEC and Strategic Oil and Gas Resources (StratOil).”
“The parties note they agreed on a suspension because of the importance of the project in Ghana and their shared intention to have all issues resolved as soon as possible so that the project can be resumed,” MIGA concluded in the release titled, Joint Statement Re: Jubilee Ghana FPSO.

Conspiracies
Some of the Jubilee Partners got excited and an official of one of them (name withheld) leaked the internal processes to The New Crusading Guide, a local newspaper. The paper then went to town on the same day that MODEC made the first public announcement of the suspension, but with the misinformation that the suspension meant insurance cover on the physical FPSO Kwame Nkrumah MV 21, vessel had been withdrawn and therefore there was a threat to first oil.

As the conspiracy thickened, some of the Jubilee partners reportedly added their own questions, some of which included why GNPC officials had given audience to their MODEC counterparts, a question which was to embarrass them when they were asked which of them had not met the MODEC officials. In fact, it turned out that the CEO of one of them was a golf playmate of the MODEC boss at the time!

That was at a time when Kosmos Energy, one of the Jubilee Partners, was trying to sell its holdings in Ghana to another US compatriot, ExxonMobil, and a lobbyist hired by the former, K. Riva Levinson, had already cited the IFC as one of the agencies she had lobbied to bring pressure to bear on the Government of Ghana, to allow the deal to go through, notwithstanding the fact that GNPC and Ghana’s Minister of Energy, had cited the process as flawed.

A William Wallis analysis of the hold-up in the U.K. Financial Times (FT) of August 5, 2010 pointing to the conspiracy as seen by industry observers, stated:

“They have seized on the issue in an apparent attempt to isolate him (Tsikata) and divide the government as it negotiates a series of critical decisions on development of the oil industry.
“The timing of the disclosure is awkward, with the government under mounting pressure to resolve a separate dispute with Kosmos, the Texan company, over its attempt to sell its stake in the Jubilee field to ExxonMobil. Mr. Tsikata is known to oppose the ExxonMobil deal.”

The report quoted Aidan Heavey, CEO of Tullow Oil, Operator of the Jubilee Field, as saying ‘We went through a very straightforward and transparent process and Modec won the bidding by a mile,’ adding ‘This is not going to hold up the production of first oil.’ (see: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd8232a8-a0b7-11df-badd-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1NvDampx2).

Meanwhile, StratOil had insisted at the onset of the furore that the services it rendered to MODEC, contributed largely to the latter winning the contract for the construction of the $875Million FPSO Kwame Nkrumah MV21, with the least quotation but superior technology as well, and delivered within record time.

Tsikata, in a July 17, 2011 press release, following a series of questions posed to the Minister of Energy, Dr. Joe Oteng-Adjei in Parliament by a former Deputy Minister of Energy, Mr. K. T. Hammond, insisted that the contract, which he signed on June 4th, 2008 would stand up to every scrutiny!

He questioned the motives of Mr. Hammond, saying: “The brazen attempt even now by Hon. K. T. Hammond, misusing the high office of Parliament, to cast insinuations and poison the atmosphere against me and any company I am involved with are bound to fail, by the grace of God.”

He was jailed on June 18, 2008 two weeks before the Supreme Court was scheduled to rule on an appeal he had made to get the IFC to testify in his trial, with evidence he was to adduce as part of his defence. The IFC had refused to testify at the High Court, as a court witness, claiming it had immunity from Ghana’s judicial processes. The Appeal Court, quoting the immunity provisions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), upheld that decision back in 2006, after which the case went to the highest court of the land.

The Supreme Court, eventually ruled on the case on January 19th 2011, declaring that the IFC had no immunity, which meant Tsikata was denied the opportunity to exhaust his defence before he was jailed.

Fishing
On 23rd January this year, MODEC announced that a five-month due diligence carried out by an internationally-recognized law firm specializing in such matters, “found no evidence of any violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or any other applicable jurisdiction's anti-bribery laws’ in relation to the award of the service contract to StratOil.

However, within days after the investigations had given that clean bill of health to the process, the IFC went fishing further for possible evidence, by raising further questions but hit a dead end.

Conclusion
Even though some of the Jubilee Partners got excited at the onset of the due diligence with high expectations, The Business Analyst gathered from sources close to them that they all became worried as the process dragged on and appeared unending.

The full impact of the suspension of the potential equity partners’ entry dawned on them when loans they had advanced to MODEC towards the construction of the vessel appeared locked up because plans were that they would be re-imbursed from the expected investment from the IFC-led consortium.

Considering the furore that the suspension and the investigations generated, it is not clear yet why the IFC has not released the findings of the due diligence and whether it was satisfied or not.

The hunt for Tsikata has already delayed the plans for investing in the MODEC subsidiary, Jubilee Ghana MV 21, by a year and it is not clear yet how that will impact on the second phase of the Jubilee project, which is scheduled to commence in 2013.

Credit: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=215521

The Real Housewives of Accra……………please let it be for real..

"Real Housewives of Accra (RHOA) will arguably be the closest thing you'll get to a "real" housewife. COMING SOON !!!!"  The Real Housewives of Accra/facebook

I’ve just moved [by force] and my son and I are feeling our way around the new neighbourhood (an area I had vowed that I would never live in jadder, jadder, jadder) -thus I’ve been uber busy, finding a school for my little man etc -but I was stopped in my tracks (in a good way) on Facebook! As an avid fan of the whole Housewives franchise, I’m blown away by the prospects of a possible ‘The Real Housewives of Accra’ !!! I don’t know anything about it but I intend to find out more. Anyway you can read more about this exciting (possible) show via their fan page at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Real-Housewives-of-Accra/109030675804768

GHANA EXPORT PROMOTION COUNCIL

Looking for stats on Ghana’s burgeoning middleclass, I stumbled across Ghana Export Promotion Council at: http://www.gepcghana.com/news.php and I’m pretty impressed. After an unsuccessful time trying to get stats for a project I‘m working on, please note that I’ve tried Ghana High Commission, rang and emailed Ghana Tourist Board [I’ve yet to receive an email back] and the uber elusive The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) [I don’t know what they do, but they sure don’t return emails] -but Ghana Export Promotion Council -it appears seem to know what is truly happening with regards to Ghana & Business. I’ve just sent them an email and will keep you in the loop as to their response [or lack of].

The following is more info about

About GEPC

PROFILE OF GHANA EXPORT PROMOTION COUNCIL
The Ghana Export Promotion Council (GEPC) is the National Export Trade Support Institution that facilitates the development and promotion of Ghanaian exports.

GEPC was established by NLCD 369 in 1969 as an agency of the Ministry of Trade and Industry with the mandate to develop and promote Ghanaian exports. Our focus has primarily been to diversify Ghana’s export base from the traditional export products of Gold, Cocoa Beans, Timber Logs and Lumber and Electricity.

Currently there are over 400 different Non-Traditional Export products categorised as Agricultural, Processed/Semi Processed and Handicrafts. Export Trade in Services is a new and recent addition to the Ghanaian portfolio.

GEPC has a clientele base of over 3000 registered private sector exporting companies organised into 17 Product Associations. GEPC relates to her clients both on individual corporate basis and as groups/associations.

GEPC is positioned in the national export system as the coordinating pivot for the various public and private sector trade agencies involved in export trade development and facilitation. GEPC acts as an interface between these bodies and the over 3000 clientele.

GOAL

To ensure that export trade contributes to accelerated economic growth through strategically aggressive marketing of Made-in-Ghana products in the competitive global economy.


http://www.gepcghana.com/index.php