Features
Chopmoney wahala!
Chopmoney should be dished out with extreme care
In some homes, money is no problem. As Kwame Korkorti would put it, money is not a small boy! That is when money flows like the Rivers of Babylon and chopmoney is no problem at all.
Anyone who wants cash goes to Daddy’s drawer and collects a handful. It is an offence to account for any money you take, for the simple reason that to account for monies taken from Daddy’s drawer would be seen as undermining Daddy’s credibility as someone who is filthy rich. Standards must be maintained. Everyone must feel free to spend.
It is the responsibility of someone to always make sure that the drawer is filled to capacity. Such a person faces severe sanctions if Madam comes to pick up the day’s chop money and finds the drawer only half-full.
SABOTAGE
It would be regarded as sabotage of the highest order. The person is likely to be charged with the domestic version of treasonable felony. The punishment is that the person’s daily pocket money of ¢300,000 will be reduced by a quarter.
Madam goes to shop with a househelp who is perpetually excited. She sees new things everyday, eats new varieties of baked beans and cornflakes. In the process, she refuses to believe that heaven is anywhere else other than in Daddy’s home.
All men are not equal! As it were, every human society is one akin to an animal farm. Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouths; others die like church mice. Still others simply do not exist.
Whatever it is, both the poor and rich must eat everyday, so the issuance of chopmoney is common to every home. It is the mode of disbursement that differs.
Where money is a scarce commodity, the chopmoney must be dished out with extreme care. It must be balanced against rent, electricity and water bills, food and medicare. Where the balance is thrown out of gear, then the man must either become a magician and do wonders or turn a financial wizard and engage himself in mysteries.
Financial magic is a professional course most Sikaman husbands take in order to enable them qualify as responsible husbands. The only problem is that they are not issued with certificates after graduation. Most laughable is the fact that they never realise that they have enrolled to study Financial Magic and have passed out with flying colours.
Furthermore, in the days of Kutu Acheampong, Ghana started receiving world acclaim as a country, where every man is a magician who has studied in the college of how to make ends meet.
Those were the days when Ghanaians were asked to tighten their belts. But it was needless to ask them to tighten their belts, because they naturally had to, since their waistlines were nothing to write home about; and anyone who didn’t tighten his belt was bound to walk about naked. His pair of trousers would simply give way.
SECRET
In those ways, husbands were wary about the chopmoney they dished out. They were aware that wives had also gone to school to study how to over-estimate the daily chopmoney by discreetly inflating prices by a secret percentage on groceries and all consumables.
The wives were skilled-in over and under-invoicing, and the husbands had clear evidence of the newly acquired skills of their dear wives.
The wives were constantly buying new funeral cloths, changing hairstyles, purchasing fashionable footwear, surprisingly without accessing foreign loans. It was a mystery husbands who could not unravel unless they became aware that their wives’ domestic accounting skills had become legendary.
Somehow, the women were justified in engaging in domestic budgetary acrobatics and gymnastics to buy for themselves their needs because their husbands were not prepared to do that.
Moreover, they complained that their husbands smoked, drank akpeteshie and chased women with their meagre salaries. After all these, they came back home and snored like pigs. So why shouldn’t the women resort to ‘chobo’ to get a few things for themselves?
DEMAND
Today, men have started demanding that their wives should get ready to start dishing out chopmoney in the wake of a new Bill that is seeking to make man and woman equal before God and Man. Men will no longer be considered head of the home and cannot insist on sex when their wives are not in the mood.
In that case, it would be difficult to come to terms with the fact that he who pays the piper does not call the tune. In any event of equality, rights as well as responsibilities must be shared across board.
Women should be required to give 50 per cent of the chopmoney and retain the right to ‘no sex’ and the freedom to wear double shorts to bed instead of a simple nightgown.
I wonder what will become of the culture that has propelled African marriages to outlast their European counterparts. Our fathers and fore-fathers, mothers and their forebears stayed put in marriage, sustained through an ideal cultural setting.
Should this cultural setting become disturbed by man-made laws, the introduction of alien values and whims, marriage as an institution is bound to undergo a cataclysmic transformation.
The result will be widespread divorce, the proliferation of single mothers and a new breed of prostitutes, the abandonment of marital responsibilities, and the perpetration and perpetuation of marital and domestic license and anarchy. God bless Sikaman.
This article was first published
on February 22, 2003
Today, I focus on Apostle Edmund Appiah, the immediate past National Head of the Church of Pentecost (COP) in Finland, as I continue with my narration of personalities and their accomplishments as members of the Ghanaian Diaspora in Finland.
The growth of COP and its contributions to positive interactions among Ghanaian migrants and others in Finland cannot be recounted without mentioning the role played by Apostle Appiah.
Apostle Appiah arrived in Finland on 10 September 2013 and took up the position as the National Head of COP in Finland until November 2020 when he moved to the UK, where he became the Area Head of the Church of Pentecost in the London South area.
Recently, Apostle Appiah visited Finland for a wedding ceremony. It was very exciting to see him or hear about his presence in Helsinki after many years. The great joy expressed by many people was simply infectious and portrayed how much Apostle Appiah is loved just as his successor, Apostle Francis Owusu Kwaah.
Actually, when Apostle Appiah assumed office in Finland, he was also in charge of Denmark from 2013-2015. He became solely responsible for only Finland after 2015. It must be pointed out that Apostle Appiah has the enviable record of being the first resident pastor of the church in Finland.
The Church in Finland was established over 20 years ago, having started in September 2000 as a prayer group with a small number of devoted persons in Helsinki (see www.copfinland.fi).
Achievements as Head of COP Finland
There is no denying that under Apostle Edmund Appiah as the National Head of COP Finland, the church chalked significant progress, including re-organising the Vaasa branch of the church.
Also, branches were opened in Turku and Tampere, while a nursery assembly was started in Oulu and an innovative Online Church was established to cater especially for people scattered around Finland. The COP Finland continues to extol Apostle Appiah’s ministration and clarity on Jesus and heaven as the central focus.
A description of his ministration during the farewell service organised by the Church for Apostle Appiah said that his “unadulterated and lucid exposition on the doctrines and principles of the church deeply equipped both officers and members of the church”. This is an achievement of the Church, which has continued under Apostle Owusu Kwaah, who took over from Apostle Appiah.
The positives, the challenges, and the future of COP
Apostle Appiah expressed optimism and positivity about the Church and the future of COP in Finland.
He was highly impressed when he first arrived in Finland, despite that the church was still virtually in its infancy. “Many of the members of the church were students who worked part-time and were very busy, but they did their best and this is commendable; they indeed had the zeal”, Apostle Appiah said.
Finland’s official or state religion is Lutheranism and one is born into it. To Apostle Appiah, the emergence of other denominations such as COP has brought about diversity and multiple roles. According to the Apostle, “the COP cooperated with the Ghana Union Finland, the Asanteman and other associations, and through that many Ghanaians came to church. This was part of the missionary approach, which helped a lot”.
“We also invited many groups and personalities, including the [then] Honorary Consul [Ms Ulla Alanko, who is now retired]. It gave us leverage to curb the excesses or bad habits that people would fall into”, Apostle Appiah stated.
Concerning challenges, Apostle Appiah noted that initially there were impediments such as language barriers, while a lack of work opportunities was a major problem for members. He noted that the weather is quite severe in winter, but the members had to surmount all these challenges to ensure that they played their role well for the growth of the church.
On the future of the church, one hindrance could be how to reach out to more native Finns, but, to Apostle Appiah, the future looks good as “the kids born to Ghanaian migrants in Finland can speak the Finnish language fluently and can reach out to their peers and the society as a whole”.
Apostle Appiah’s current position
Apostle Appiah’s role in London South area where he is the Area Head of the Church of Pentecost is significant. The London South area has six districts and thousands of church members.
According to Apostle Appiah, about 85 per cent of the members in the London South community are of Ghanaian descent. This is a big number as compared to the figures in Finland. The Apostle expressed heartfelt gratitude to the many people whose support encouraged him when he worked in Finland. Thank you
With Dr Perpetual Crentsil
!
I experienced something on Monday, June 15, that really frustrated me. I had to go to the ministries but I could not get up early that day so I decided to pick a taxi and get to the Tuba Junction.
When I got there I realised that Traffic had built up from the Toll Booth towards Accra. After a while I got a Taxi and it was when we got to a certain spot on the road, that I realised why there was a traffic jam.
There is a short stretch of the road where each time it rains heavily, loose material run down the hill onto the road, blocking one side of the road. Vehicles from Kasoa to Accra are then forced to move into one of the lanes of those going towards Kasoa from Accra.
The two lane road from Accra to Kasoa becomes a single carriage way. That was the reason for the traffic jam from the toll booth onwards.
This has been a perineal problem and yet, no permanent solution has been found till date. The area falls under Ga South and even though, a new MCE has taken over, the technocrats are still there and so the problem is not new to them.
There is therefore no excuse for the inability of the Ga South Metropolitan Assembly to resolving the problem on that stretch of the road. Apart from the Ga South Metropolitan Assembly, another institution that must be held accountable is the Ghana Highways Authority.
The Highways Authority cannot say they are unaware of this issue. The fact that the problem falls within the area of responsibility of the Ga South Assembly, does not relieve the Ghana Highways Authority, of their responsibility of ensuring that our highways are maintained in a motorable state at all times.
A collaboration between the Ghana Highways Authority and The Ga South Municipal Assembly is required for a permanent resolution of the problem.
There was another traffic jam at a place called Atala about 250 metres to the traffic light at Old Barrier as a result of an issue similar to the one close to the toll booth, that I talked about earlier.
When we got to Weija junction, we encountered another traffic jam. The cause of this jam was a bad condition of road about 80 metres from the traffic light at Ga South Hospital heading towards Accra.
Due to the bad nature at that section of the road, vehicles are compelled to slow down resulting in a traffic jam stretching all the way to Weija Junction.
I started wondering if that short stretch of road cannot be sorted on one Sunday when traffic is usually light. When we got to the traffic light at Odorkor, there was another issue.
When the traffic light shows green, there is a slow down because there is a big pothole or should I say manhole in the outer lane, right at the traffic light. Vehicles in the outer lane are compelled to swerve into the second lane thereby causing a traffic to slow down and resulting in a traffic jam.
It is very important to take into account the effect of traffic jam on the national economy. If we are able to assess the value of the loss to the economy of the nation, I believe the issue of traffic jam will be prioritised.
Imagine persons working at various Government Organisations like Registrar General’s Department, Ghana Ports and Habours Authority, Ghana Revenue Authority, CEPS etc. and lives at Kasoa and whose job is to collect revenue for the state and is held up in traffic.
Just imagine the effect their lateness to work will have on the economy if you consider the delays in say clearing of goods at the port and as a result traders cannot sell their goods for government to generate the required taxes.
Let us deal with the traffic jams on our streets to promote economic growth. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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