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Getting the Ghanaian Diaspora more involved
Experts have noted that the rise of various Diasporas and their economic exploits has been a huge advantage regarding financial resources and skills or knowledge for development in many countries.
It is becoming increasingly common for countries to attract their Diaspora members for investment and development efforts.
The migration-remittances-development nexus has evolved members of the Diaspora into transnational agents whose activities involve the circulatory flows of remittances or people and their ideas.
Even ‘fixed capital’ stocks such as land, houses and business property are bought and maintained with transnational money.
Diaspora expertise
There are many members of the Ghanaian Diaspora in the advanced countries who have acquired huge expertise, knowledge and resources (academically, economically, technically or technologically, etc.) and would like to get back home to establish something productive.
Some are engaged in the freighting business to transport goods in containers to Africa, while others own small companies and other businesses particularly in the services sector, and they can even use that to finance other businesses at home.
Many can also offer consultancy services for the growth of our dear nation.
Threat
Yet, there are situations where members of the Ghanaian Diaspora who try to come back home to invest or help in building our dear country could be seen as a threat to those at home in terms of taking their jobs and other opportunities.
This may be understandable in a way, but generally members of the Ghanaian Diaspora should not be seen as a threat.
Rather, the Ghanaian Diaspora should be considered people inherent with human and social capital, in ideas and knowledge acquired in their country of settlement.
Frustration
I think such a scenario of them as a threat leaves many members of the Ghanaian Diaspora frustrated.
Many Ghanaian migrants are active in development projects and in politics back home. Others are involved in civil society organisations by African Diasporas and they build, for example, a library, a well, or public toilet with a sign showing that it was built and donated by the migrants.
Most of the migrants would want to derive mere joy from their efforts and contributions. So, to be regarded in other light is quite frustrating.
Diaspora bonds
Another way to attract members of the Diaspora to contribute is through Diaspora bonds, which are issued by governments to their Diaspora populations. Experts see Diaspora bonds to offer a particularly large untapped opportunity for African countries to attract additional development finance.
Some members of the Ghanaian Diaspora are even proposing a Ghanaian Diaspora Bond as a way to raise funds. It has been suggested that since the amount of remittances from the Ghanaian Diaspora fetches over six billion US dollars every year, setting up a Diaspora Bond will encourage many members of the Diaspora to invest in it.
Actually, some countries have gone into a Diaspora Bond mechanism and are known to have been quite successful.
Maybe, the idea of a Ghanaian Diaspora Bond should seriously be considered, if not already done.
Mutual respect
Finally, nobody can deny the fact that citizens at home and the Ghanaian Diaspora need each other to help build our dear country.
Of course, there could be situations where Ghanaians at home may feel that members of the Diaspora look down on them.
The Ghanaian Diaspora needs to respect those residing at home and vice versa.
As I wrote some time ago, if members of the Diaspora are more proactive and impart back to others in Ghana the knowledge, experiences and the good things seen whilst living in the advanced countries, the better it will be for our country.
Thank you!
- The writer is a Ghanaian lecturer at
the University of Helsinki in Finland
By Perpetual Crentsil
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
