It’s past 10 from where I sit. I scheduled to make a post by 10am and now I have to rush through my mind to find something suitable for a blogpost so that I can escape writer’s block. I mean I have to force this writing thing or else I will get stuck. Do you even have an idea what it means for a writer to get up each morning with content for their readers? I bet you don’t but I’ll still have to cook something for you to read anyways. So here goes…

In this new series, I will be tackling various topics and news items that concerns the everyday Ghanaian. Living here and what it takes to pull oneself mentally and physically out of all the ‘wahala’ of being an everyday citizenship is something we take lightly and something which should be discussed, especially, by young people. With that made clear, let’s delve right into it.

Where I sit

I mostly feel comfortable writing in my bed but as courtesy will have it, doing anything formal from your bed could depict sluggishness. And I as I have learnt over the years, to be professional, always be ready for a video call. Of course, having a video call inside your bed is definitely unprofessional and that is why you need a desk. Anyway, I’m getting more ideas from my desk and that means the creative juices are getting pumped up. And when that happens, I’m definitely going to have to channel it into the right ventures which is writing.

E-levy

A lot has been happening in this ‘kentry’ of mine. Makes me wonder why my parents never bothered to offer me dual citizenship. Like by now, I’ll be somewhere out there been great and enjoying the privileges of having a foreign accent and an international passport. But no! I have to be stuck here and be listening to debates on whether or not our country needs to tax people on their mobile transactions.

E-levy as we will have it, has come to stay whether we like it or not and despite the push back. Some 1.5% of our hard earned monies are going to go to government coffers and only God knows they’ll definitely build us a sky scraper out of these taxes. Hallelujah!

Tourism

To think that government keeps talking about investing in the tourism sector is always great news. However, it’s always sad when all there is to showcase is the plush ultra-modern hotels, motels, and apartments that foreigners can go pitch their tent whenever they visit Ghana. Methinks we need to build world class tourism centers which are worth sight seeing and not just placing the hospitality sector in the domain of tourism.

What high end edifice can we build on our beaches that are worth attracting tourists? How can we make our forests more adventurous and worthy of visiting? What’s up with zoos in the country? Any awesome museums where all of Ghana’s history is being told in one breath? Like these are genuine questions on my mind and these are centers which can generate millions of revenue for the country. But we’re not ready for that conversation, are we?

Football

When it comes to sports in Ghana, the least said about it the better. Even with football which seems to be our best option at the moment, we seem to be struggling a lot in that area. By the way, congratulations to the national team, Black Stars, for qualifying to the World Cup. This has only been possible when a few corrections were made after the woeful AFCON tournament. So yes! Perhaps we will get there. Hopefully, we can look at sports as another way of generating revenue. Probably, we could consider tennis and long runs as key areas to invest in. Young talents could be moulded into the next Serena Williams or Usain Bolt from Ghana and we would not have much to lose.

Mr President

Our president is in the news again. This time, it was about his interview with the BBC’s Peter Okwoche. Amongst other things, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo touched on the controversial e-levy saying, “People never like taxes…”

Sighs! All I can say is that the E-levy needs to be rechecked because from where I sit, people are planning to evade paying it just as they do with any other tax they have ever evaded over the years. Will that make it criminal since the e-levy taxation has already been passed into a law? Well, we only live to see how it all goes down.

On that note, I’ll sign off here by saying, Black Sherif is keeping Ghanaian music alive. Go listen to his new track titled, Kwaku The Traveller which is already making waves across the continent. Big ups, young champ!

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Photo Credit: erkuahofficial