Red Card for FIFA

Patrick Bond blows a loud vuvuzela in FIFA’s ear. For what its worth, I agree with him. South Africa will probably lose money on the World Cup and why South African taxpayers should be on the hook for financing the stadiums and infrastructure for the games while the profits go to FIFA is beyond my comprehension.

PS: Go Black Stars! Make those Aussies wish they never came to South Africa!

The traffic in Dar is bad, but not special

The Mikocheni Report has a spot-on post on the terrible traffic in Dar es Salaam. The city is seriously out of control: massive population growth + no new roads = traffic nightmare. Where I disagree is that the traffic situation in Dar is idiosyncratic. The traffic in Dar reminds me a lot of traffic in Nairobi a decade ago, or in Accra and Cairo today. Rather than being special, Dar es Salaam today is an excellent example of growth without government.

Ghana 1, Serbia 0

The vuvuzelas were blaring away yesterday in Accra when Ghana beat Serbia 1-0 in their first World Cup match. The best part for me happened last Thursday, however. The host of a morning radio talk show was teaching his listeners Serbian phrases, speaking in Twi (the local language) and English. A typical sentence went something like “how to say ‘woho te-sain’ (how are you in Twi) in Serbian language: ‘kako si’.” It was great.

An interesting day

I spent most of today with the Okyenhene, the King of Ghana’s Akim tribe. The Okyenhene is probably the second most powerful king in Ghana (the Asante king is the most powerful). After taking part in a very formal public ceremony (which included bowing to the king in front of hundreds of people), I was invited to meet the king at the home of one of his sub-chiefs. I was a bit on edge as I had no idea how to act in front of a tribal king. Turns out he lived for in New Jersey for many years, his daughter goes to Georgetown, and his son works at ESPN. It felt a little weird to be joking around with him as the entire Royal Court was watching us, but he seemed to be having a good time.

Role of chiefs in Ghanaian politics

Sorry for going dark for a few days, but I haven’t had much free time. I am in Ghana looking into its draft decentralization policy. One of the big issues is whether chiefs ought to have a more formal role in local politics in Ghana through being able to appoint councilors to the district assembly. While chiefs have a lot of legitimacy in Ghana, my astute research assistant thinks its because they don’t have political power. She is slowly convincing me that the surest way to reduce the good image Ghanaians have of chiefs is to drag them into local politics. Off to Volta Region tomorrow and Central Region tomorrow to meet with some chiefs and get their opinion.