Management Development and Productivity Institute (MDPI), Ghana

Pillars for making productivity a national movement

3. Strengthen and resource productivity institutions

MDPI was established precisely to champion productivity improvement in Ghana’s public and private sectors. Yet like many institutions of its kind across Africa, it has often operated with budgets and staffing levels inconsistent with its strategic mandate. This must change. Institutions like MDPI should be treated as strategic national assets equipped with modern training infrastructure, incentivised to deploy consultants into enterprises and public institutions, and empowered to set national standards for workforce productivity. Regional- and district-level productivity extension services, analogous to agricultural extension officers, could provide practical, hands-on support to SMEs and local governments across the country.

4. Incentivise productivity in the public sector

The public sector remains the single largest employer in Ghana and sets the tone for national work culture. If productivity is rewarded and celebrated in government, it will radiate outward. Ghana should revisit its performance management frameworks for the civil and public service, moving away from input-based assessments (attendance, processes followed) toward outcome-based evaluations (results delivered, service quality achieved). Linking promotions, bonuses, and recognitions explicitly to productivity outcomes will signal, powerfully, that the state is serious. Ghana’s productivity movement must not be left to the private sector alone.

5. Harness technology as a productivity multiplier

Digital technology is the great productivity equaliser of our age. Mobile money has already transformed financial productivity for millions of Ghanaians. The question is how to extend this digital dividend to agriculture, healthcare, education, logistics, and governance. Ghana’s digital transformation agenda, including Ghana Post GPS, the digitisation of government services, and the rollout of broadband infrastructure must be purposefully linked to productivity outcomes. Beyond infrastructure, Ghanaian enterprises need support to adopt enterprise resource planning systems, data analytics tools, and digital supply chain solutions that allow them to do more with less.

The role of leadership: Modelling the movement

National movements do not sustain themselves on policies and pillars alone. They need visible, credible leaders who embody their values in practice. Ghana’s productivity movement needs champions in the Presidency, in the boardrooms of our largest companies, in the media, in our universities, in our traditional leadership structures etc, who will speak about productivity not as a development cliché but as a personal and collective commitment.

Consider how Singapore’s transformation was driven as much by Lee Kuan Yew’s relentless personal discipline and public messaging around hard work, meritocracy, and efficiency as it was by any specific policy. Or how Rwanda’s monthly Umuganda community work days, where citizens, including the President, collectively clean, build, and improve their environment, have created a visible, embodied culture of collective industry. Ghana has its own rich tradition of communal labour and shared responsibility. We need to revive and modernise these values as the cultural architecture of our productivity movement.

SMEs: The engine room of Ghana’s productivity future

Small and medium enterprises account for the overwhelming majority of employment and output in Ghana’s economy. Any serious national productivity movement must place SMEs at its centre. Currently, most Ghanaian SMEs operate with limited access to management training, modern business tools, or productivity consulting support. The result is a large swathe of the economy running at a fraction of its potential efficiency.

A national productivity movement for SMEs would involve: accessible, subsidised business management training at district level; productivity clinics staffed by MDPI consultants and retired business executives; peer-learning networks where successful SME owners share improvement strategies; and financial incentives such as tax relief or grants for enterprises that can demonstrate measurable productivity improvements. Digital platforms can democratise access to these resources far beyond what physical infrastructure alone could achieve.

Conclusion: The movement starts now

Making productivity a national movement in Ghana is not a matter of waiting for the perfect policy, the right government, or a more favourable economic environment. It begins now — with each institution deciding to be more effective, each leader choosing to model the values they preach, each worker holding themselves to a higher standard of output and quality.

Ghana’s history shows that when our people mobilise around a shared goal, be it independence, democratic consolidation, or national disaster response, we are capable of extraordinary collective achievement. Productivity is the next frontier of that mobilisation. It is quieter than political revolution, less dramatic than peacekeeping, but ultimately more transformative than either.

The policy frameworks exist. The institutions are in place. The international partnerships through initiatives like the Africa Kaizen Initiative are ready to support us. What remains is the will to move from paper to practice, from aspiration to action, and from isolated efforts to a movement that every Ghanaian feels part of.

The time for Ghana’s productivity movement is not tomorrow. It is now.

By Ethel Ansah-Antwi

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THE Spanish fly liquid can be described as the female version of Viagra or its local counterpart, the popular AK 47 bitters. Spanish fly can induce sexual feeling in the most frigid of women, sending them on a wild romantic trip, so long and lasting, invariably intense and unforgettable.

The use of Spanish fly in Sikaman is not a recent phenomenon. In the early 1970s, foreign seamen brought the substance from the whiteman’s land to seduce girls who visited the cargo vessels that docked at the Tema port. The girls were fascinated by the foreign vessels and went aboard to sight-see.

They were invited into the cabins by the crew for coffee and biscuits, canned minerals and beer. Whatever some of the girls took was laced with a little something.

In twenty minutes time, they were transformed from innocent sight-seeing dames into hot sex-pots. They simply melted under the influence of the drug and begged for sex. Needless to say, they stripped themselves naked before they were asked to.

They were abused in all sorts of ways, offered a few gifts like watches and told to come back, next time, for more coffee and biscuits. When they came to their senses, they felt bruised and ravaged and could never fathom what made them behave the way they did.

The little something that was often introduced into each cup of coffee was the legendary SPANISH FLY. Sikaman port workers later got wind of the female Viagra stuff and solicited for some from foreign seamen. They brought the liquid into town and employed it in the seduction of girls who would normally not condescend to having sex no matter how persuasive you were.

SOLUTION

A friend once told me how he used Spanish fly on a girl he had been courting for ages without success. He said it was Spanish fly which solved the problem for him in a very definitive way, more than he could ever bargain for.

He said he obtained the liquid from a French sailor but had no intention of using it on any girl. But there was this girl next-door who always taunted him, teased him and refused his proposals for love. She was a provocatively shaped madonna who perpetually excited his libido.

According to him, he was taking his breakfast of tea and bread when the girl came to his home and said she was washing her clothes but was tired. She had come to relax a bit, but could do with a cup of tea with or without bread.

My friend said presence of mind made him realise that he could try the Spanish fly idea. If it worked, all the better. If it didn’t, there was nothing to lose. He obliged and went into his room to the girl the cup of tea, but not before he poured a small quantity of Spanish fly into cup.

The girl drank it and was satisfied. She wanted to leave to complete her washing but my friend asked her to relax a bit, hoping she would elicit a response to the drug. She refused and left. He was disillusioned. What a waste, he said to himself.

Upon second thoughts, he decided to stroll to the girl’s home next-door and when he got there he was awed by the sight. The girl washing alright, but he realised that she was not only washing, but also dancing in the process

She was twisting and wriggling her body while washing, a scene he had never encountered. He had never seen anyone washing and dancing at the same time.

The girl, upon seeing him, promptly left what she was doing and walked over and kissed him. He was surprised. Luckily or unluckily, she was alone the home, and without much ado he mounted her.

After satisfying himself, he wanted to go home but the girl was not done yet.  She grabbed him and forced him to go three more ’rounds’. After the fourth ‘rounder’ he said he was completely exhausted panted like a tired dog.

The girl wanted a fifth round and he had to run away after disentangling himself from her grip. If he hadn’t shown a clean pair of heels, he would have died on the job.

Recently, someone also told me he used Spanish fly on his girlfriend who had left him. He put it into her cola drink. After a while she started grabbing at his huge phallus, whereupon he told her not to misbehave. But she wouldn’t listen. She was bent on unzipping his trousers and drawing out his organ right there at the beer bar.

Bewildered, he started protesting vehemently. He virtually had to drag her to a hotel to work on her to save the situation.

So Spanish fly really is in town and I hear it is being sold in certain selected drug and chemical stores off the counter.

A little Palava research has revealed that the drug used to be made from the dried bodies of beetles which have aphrodisiac properties, hence the name Spanish Fly. The beetle is a fly. The substance is used medicinally and on pigs to make them go on heat so that they can mate enthusiastically and increase production.

Now the Federation of African Women Education (FAWE) has urged the authorities to investigate how a substance (Spanish Fly Liquid) found its way into the country.

They say the substance is being used to stimulate women and girls sexually without their consent to make them demand sex. They add that research has also revealed that the substance is used in tertiary institutions and is well known and widely used at the JSS and SSS levels. I don’t doubt it.

Well, the drug is actually in use and I guess rapists are using it subtly so they can’t be accused of rape. In other words, the substance induces the girls to ask the men to rape them, which seemingly cannot be interpreted as rape. At best it could be described as ‘chemical rape’.

I guess, the way out is public education on the issue. If the population at large is made adequately aware that Spanish fly is being used, women and girls would be careful about what they imbibe or accept to drink from men.

This article was first published on Saturday November 28, 1988

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