I have been busy but this matter is important A crowded desk has put me behind on Ghana’s news and current affairs. Since I write mainly about policy, and policy matters are always voluminous, backlogs build up dramatically. Meanwhile, persuading those who ought to be most interested in policy –...

Ghana’s Cocoa Reckoning March 2026 In 1906 a Basel missionary named Josef Mohr sat in the Gold Coast and wrote a report dripping with omens. Cocoa was a blessing, he allowed. But watching greed bloom alongside the pods, forests felled, and children pledged as collateral, he could only sigh. His...

1. A Chiefly Banker moves in to corner GoldBod financing deal The Chairman of LVSafrica is a traditional chief, Chair of state-owned enterprises, and the decades-long former CEO of a major multinational bank in Africa. While many of us were shouting ourselves hoarse about GoldBod’s losses and whether GoldBod could...

Gas, Ghosts, and the Art of Surviving-to-Win in a Katanomic Market On 12 March 2026, the President of Ghana stood on the edge of a South Korean shipyard and commissioned a gas Nigerian vessel. Pan-Africanism notwithstanding, this is not a regular occurrence, I assure you. The HD Hyundai Heavy Industries...

Gas, Ghosts, and the Art of Surviving-long-enough-to-win in a Katanomic Market On 12 March 2026, the President of Ghana stood on the edge of a South Korean shipyard and commissioned a Nigerian vessel. Pan-Africanism notwithstanding, this is not a regular occurrence, I assure you. The HD Hyundai Heavy Industries yard...

Introduction: China edges out the West Just a little over a year ago, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) concluded from its survey of the field that China is ahead of the United States in 90% (57 out of 64) critical technologies which are defining the future of economic power...

No one can quarrel with “value addition”. It is a sweet phrase for those of us from African countries, like Ghana, that seem to have missed the industrialisation boat. But as I recently explained, the term is rather nuanced since every raw material base, to which “value” may be added,...

2. Opportunities missed due to a constipation of imagination. 3. In the Mediaeval world, Ghana was part of the West African belt supplying 60% of the world’s gold. When gold was the source of global wealth. 4. By the Renaissance, Ghana’s share was in the 10% range, still mighty. 5....

[Reflecting on the recent tumult of Trump’s visit to Davos, I have concluded that global activism is in a state of deep malaise. Trumpism has exposed its over-reliance on discourse management. As discourses splinter at the seams, salvation lies in a new mode of conversation in which we are comfortable,...

The Commissioned masterpiece Quite a few people have sent me a report seemingly commissioned by the GoldBod and written by three economists, some with very strong ties to government institutions in the finance and economic sectors. One author, for instance, has a longtime association with the Monetary Policy Committee of...