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Publicans at the airport
The publicans were the most detested people in ancient Israel during the time of Jesus, when the Roman Empire ruled the nation as an imperial occupying power. They were Jewish tax collectors employed indirectly by the Roman government and classified by their fellow Israelites as collaborators of the enemies of Israel.
Roman businessmen usually established companies through which they would acquire certain Jewish provinces for renewable periods of five years, and charge taxes on behalf of the imperial government. These entrepreneurs would then employ local Jewish men in their acquired territories to collect those taxes comprising duties on imports and exports, bridge tolls, poll tax, and levies on merchants who came to Israel to buy and sell.
The position was open to bids and the highest bidder, invariably a wealthy Jew, got his proposal accepted and won the right to do business in the territory concerned. Such collectors would be given a threshold of revenue expected from them. Whatever they got over and above the threshold was theirs. And so, they used all kinds of unethical methods to collect it for the government and themselves.
First, they would impose a fictitious assessment on property or income and inflate the rates at their discretion in order to rake in a higher percentage of tax and make maximum profit at the expense of the hardworking and helpless people. Moreover, these unscrupulous tax collectors harassed the people and charged them on the spot.
And it did not end there. Hours or even minutes after your unpleasant encounter, you were likely to meet another tax collector who would also demand tax. Sometimes, the publicans were accompanied by Roman soldiers and the oppressed people had no recourse to justice anywhere.
For their corrupt practices, these cruel tax collectors were regarded by their fellow Jews as, not just traitors working for their oppressors, but also, as extortioners and leeches that drained the lifeblood of the people by their exorbitant taxes.
Even more condemning of these hated people were the rabbis, that is, the religious leaders, who considered them unclean because of their contact with the Romans. They excommunicated them from the synagogues, forbade them from exchanging their money at the temple treasury, and prohibited them from testifying as witnesses in court. Thus, despite the substantial wealth they made, these publicans were derided and ostracised from their own communities. Yet, in defiance, they furrowed their brows and shrugged off the jeers and sneers. Now, Israel is a democratic country; they are not under the hegemony of any empire, and thankfully, the publicans are nowhere to be seen.
But, sadly, the publicans have resurfaced, not in Israel, but in Ghana. They are everywhere but in this article, those on the radar are the kind operating at the airport. They are encouraged by the powers that be for the share they would get. The operations of this new breed remind me of a certain woman somewhere in the Ashanti Region nicknamed, “Maame Ap3nkwa nya wuo,” which translates to, “The woman who got death while looking for life.”
It happened that the woman’s pastor proclaimed a fast for the congregation with the following instruction: “You may do it continually for seven days from six to six, or you can fast-track it by doing three days dry fasting,” which implied that you could not drink any water or eat for three days. The woman weighed the options and chose the latter. After just one day, she realised that she was gasping for breath. In anguish, she exclaimed: “Ei, me b3 p33 nkwa anaa s3 owuo,” meaning: “Did I come seeking life or death,” That is how she got her name.
The inception of COVID 19 brought in its wake the loss of precious lives. The National Security Coordinator, Mr. Joseph Kyeremeh, a family friend, known among my siblings as K-Joe, succumbed painfully to the virus. Another heavyweight who was not spared by the deadly virus was Dr. Jacob Plange-Rhule, FRCP, FWACP, FGCP (July 27, 1957 –April 10, 2020), a Ghanaian physician, academic, and Rector of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons from October 2015 until his death in 2020.He was the private doctor of my first son about three decades ago in Kumasi, and one of the finest gentlemen I ever came across. How can I forget the loss of Nanabanyin Pratt, my own former Managing Director at New Times Corporation who, perhaps, in admiration of my straight talk, called me “Wogyafo.” You have to find out what that means.
Given the frequency and scope of death resulting from COVID, it became imperative for the Government to adopt stringent measures to stem the tide. As part of the interventions, personal protective equipment were supplied to healthcare workers. The wearing of masks was enforced while the use of sanitisers was also recommended. Mass gatherings were banned, compelling churches to go online, and become financially unstable. Funerals suffered a drastic cut in donations adding to the sorrow inflicted by a COVID-related death.
Another intervention adopted in the heat of the pandemic, was the introduction of a regime of testing by the Government to determine the COVID status of arriving international travellers, and prevent a situation where a positive person would slip into the country and spread the virus. The Ghana Airports Company Limited, in collaboration with a group calling itself the Frontier Healthcare Services Limited, is in charge of the programme at the Kotoka International Airport. All these measures were taken because we were seeking life. But, like the Ashanti woman in the tale related above, we are gasping for breath.
From the way things are going, I see some similarity between Israel’s ancient experience at the hands of the tax collectors and the imperial government. In those days, the Roman government just waited for what it deemed its fair share. Whatever the publicans imposed on the people was none of their business. I smell the presence of the publicans at the airport and other places. Fortunately, we are not under the hegemony of any foreign power. “Y3n ara asaase ni.”“This is our own land.” Yet, unfortunately, the publicans are operating as typical of them, with all impunity and the Government, through its agent, has given them the latitude to impose an unjustifiable and unbearable testing fee on the people.
In many jurisdictions the world over, the fee has been drastically reduced due to mass vaccination everywhere and the reduction in the spread of the virus. So, for what justifiable reason should the testing cost $50 for Ghanaian and other ECOWAS citizens, and $150 for other nationals? The most painful and irritating aspect of the whole thing is that even people with proof of being vaccinated within the stipulated timeframe before arriving, are still compelled to undertake the test.
Yet, according to information on their own website, passengers must possess a COVID-19 negative PCR test from an accredited laboratory in the country of origin. The test should have been done not more than72 hours before the scheduled departure time from the country of origin. You take all this precaution, and they still insist on taking the test and charging you unjustifiably.
Annoyingly, they have the guts to tell travellers arriving from the US or UK, with all their stringent testing regimes that they have tested positive for COVID and must be quarantined at a hotel at their own expense, which is all part of the grand scheme to extort money from people.
Is the Government not just folding its arms and waiting for its “fair share” of the revenue from the “publicans?” Have they considered the pain it takes to make $50? That is more than GH¢300 which is somebody’s monthly pay in Ghana in this day and age. Miss Mercy Agyei-Ankomah, a former English language teacher at the Juaben Senior High School, now based in Vietnam, says she used to be paid GH¢1,500, Do you know how much that is in dollars? It is about $250. That means Frontier Healthcare Services charge a fifth of a teacher’s monthly salary for a few minutes they spend testing an arriving passenger.
For all you know, the Government just gets a token while the collectors pocket the biggest chunk of the money accruing from the testing. That is the way it worked in ancient Israel. There must be an immediate intervention to save passengers from this rip off by these latter-day publicans.
In January, the MP for North Tongu, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa described the fees as an extortion and cautioned that if the cheating was not stopped by February, Parliament would intervene. Please, Homourable, February ended a long time ago, and March has already crossed the half-way mark. We are anxiously waiting for your next move.
Meanwhile, another legislator, Mr. Davis Opoku Ansah, the MP for Mpraeso Constituency, has added his voice to calls for a drastic reduction of the fees, saying that even though we need to keep track of the virus and deal with it through interventions like testing, we must reduce the charges because they are harming trade and tourism.
Whoever the cap fits, let them wear it. Over to you, Joe Lartey!
Contact:
teepeejubilee@yahoo.co.uk
By Tony Prempeh
All over the world, it has been recognised that nations who have developed, paid attention to education and continue to do so. If we pay lip service to the development of our educational system, we might as well forget about our development in the foreseeable future.
In order for effective teaching and learning to happen, the teacher who is the centre of it all, must be well motivated. Every person working in an office, every parliamentarian, every minister or deputy minister, all the way up to the first gentleman of the land, owes his or her status to a teacher.
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, our leaders who are the decision makers, do not seem to care very much about the welfare of teachers. The leadership of the various teacher unions, also appear not to be doing their job as is expected of them, leaving the teacher who had worked for over a year without being paid, frustrated.
The lack of seriousness that is attached to teachers’ issues is very worrying. My parents were teachers so I am very passionate about teachers’ issues. Gone are the days that we used to say that teachers will get their reward in Heaven.
Now those in the teaching profession are mostly youthful and they have a different mindset from that of our parents. They do not want their reward in Heaven, they want it here on this very earth.
A teacher sees his colleague who he was academically better than in school, from the same background socially, becomes a Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), an Member of Parliament (MP) or a Government Appointee and overnight, this guy becomes wealthy and you say he the teacher, should wait for his reward in Heaven?
His going there is not guaranteed anyway, so if he or she does not make it to Heaven, then what? Promises of government after government to teachers, remain unfulfilled and so they become disillusioned and demotivated to ensure effective teaching and learning.
I read a story of a lady, who as a child was suffering from Dyslexia but her teacher gave her the needed attention to help her and this even led her teacher to run into problems with the school authorities, resulting in the loss of her job. This lady grew up and became a famous actress and won an Oscar.
She then gave the prize money attached to the award, which was three million dollars, to her teacher who put her career on the line to help her out of her dyslexia challenge as a child.
There are many such teachers in our educational system because teaching is a calling, like medicine, like nursing etc. and therefore teachers who are the first point of call before we can climb the ladder to become the engineers, the lawyers, accountants and the rest, deserve special attention.
What is even important is the crucial role they play in shaping the moral character of future leaders which is invaluable.
Let us all, especially our leaders, place a high premium on the teacher who is at the centre of our educational system and who can make or unmake our future as a nation. How do you ask a teacher to go to a place, far removed from his or her parents and for a year and above not pay any salary to him or her?
How is the teacher to survive? If the same thing was done to any of our leaders, especially the leaders of the various teacher unions, will they be happy? How do they expect the teachers to survive and also be motivated to deliver quality teaching? Funds must be found to immediately resolve their unpaid salaries do they can be in the right frame of mind to do their very precious job. The teaching profession, in my view, is number one, when ranking professions because as an advert displays “If you can read this, thank a teacher”. Let us give our teachers their due. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike. I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate.
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning
Merari Alomele’s
• A female student walking away from some male students
or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them, I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan.
It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
Proofread
Searching for the Holy Child
GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike.
I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man-thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them,
I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan. It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
This article was first published on Saturday, March 18, 1996
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