On my way to the airport to check in for my overnight flight to Frankfurt, then Munich, then Izmir. Accra airport is dreadful in the evenings so I like to check in early and get rid of my bags, come back home to relax, and then saunter up just before boarding. When I started this [...]

Ivory Coast, like its neighbour Ghana, has recently discovered significant volumes of deepwater oil which is just coming in to commercial exploitation. That does much to explain the unusually hight degree of Western interest in its electoral standoff, and particularly the strenuous French support for President-elect Alassane Ouattara, who is close to French oil interests. [...]

Outgrower produced pineapples ready for juicing Pineapple crowns are replanted. After castration each plant will produce five or six viable suckers which are given to smallholders as initial seed The factory farm will produce its first commercial pineapple crop in March 2011 A small sample of organic peppers from one outgrower being assessed for quality. [...]

Taking advantage of an internet cafe in Hoehoe quickly to post this picture. Three days on farms and I still look like a Persil advert. There goes my street cred. Hope to do a post on the work this evening. My driver Peter who tool the photo just suggested there’s more money in the wellington [...]

Stopped for lunch at an agricultural research institute on my way to the east of the Volta Lake. Very excited because I am visiting a large project to produce Fair Trade mango and pineapple juice for export to the UK. I have been advising on it (free) for three years now and for the first [...]

This sounds pretentious to me too, but its 12.54 am here and I have just got home after a working day that started at 7.20am – and yes, just meetings all day and then dinner and drinks with business contacts can indeed be work, even if it is enjoyable. Have to set off in six [...]

Just arrived back at the house in Ghana after a tiring day travelling. Good news is Ghana Telecom/Vodafone seem to be delivering a much better internet connection than we’ve had before, so hopefully blogging tomorrow.

I am very sorry that former Presidential Chief of Staff Kwadwo Mpiani is on trial in Ghana. It is undeniably true that corruption spiralled in the last couple of years of President Kuffour’s second term, and particularly after the untimely death of Finance Minister Baah-Wiredu. I have a hypothesis, based on wide international experience, that [...]

This is the Zakhem power station site at Kpone. The particularly distincitive feature is the lack of any power station. I am grateful to CitiFM in Accra. Having been misled into publishing photos of a completely different power station, they have had the grace to apologise and publish a corrected story. http://www.citifmonline.com/site/news/news/view/3556/1 Unfortunately their original [...]

The Ghanaian partner of Zakhem is the extraordinarily wealthy Paul Afoko. There is a fascinating expose of some of Afoko’s activities with Zakhem in Ghana here. The sad thing is the way that money provided for development aid, and wrapped up in that language, is used to line the pockets of the ultra wealthy: The [...]

Sorry about the unintentional ambiguity in my last post. As of three weeks ago, when I was last on the Zakhem site, they had not even begun to dig the foundation trenches, and the turbines were not on site. There was no assembled pipework. So I am convinced that the photo published by CitiFM could [...]

I have agreed with CitiFM to suspend that post while we look in to what may be a mistake in good faith about the photos of the site Craig

The debate in Ghana over my article on corruption has become very fierce. Zakhem International are threatening legal action. The Minister of Energy and Moses Asaga have said things which are broadly supportive of me. http://news.myjoyonline.com/business/201002/42231.asp http://blogs.myjoyonline.com/sms/2010/02/17/energy-minister-speaks-on-murrays-claims-of-uk-corruption-in-ghana/ I outlined today that I had been raising the Zakhem contract with both NPP and NDC governments at [...]

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT ARE THE BIGGEST HYPOCRITES British High Commissioner Nick Westcott is not afraid to step in to controversy. Having boldly told us that Vodafone did nothing wrong in their acquisition of Ghana Telecom, he now lectures Ghana that incoming governments must respect contracts entered into by the outgoing government. Of course, that is [...]

Cadbury’s were using Fair Trade Cocoa for generations before the phrase was invented. Cocoa in Ghana is a smallholding crop, with individual farmers having a hectare or two of mixed crops, including cocoa. It is not a plantation crop as it is in Brazil or Ivory Coast. That is why Ghanaian cocoa is of higher [...]

Ghana’s discovery of major oilfields is set to transform the country. But there has been little public debate on the fundamental effects that this will have, or even on upcoming short term government decisions that will have a major impact. So I contribute a few thoughts to encourage debate with my Ghanaian friends. So far, [...]

I am not rejoicing at the return of Old Etonian Simon Mann from jail in Equatorial Guinea. His failed coup attempt was just one of a series of ventures in which a group of upper class public school English former officers worked with former apartheid era forces to try to seize control of mineral resources [...]

In the course of this election campaign, Nana Akuffo Addo was repeatedly accused of arrogance by opponents and commentators alike. His lack of populist body language has cost him dear, but being lucky enough to know the man personally, he is a charming, considerate, witty and good humoured man who serves you in his home [...]

It appears that John Atta Mills has been elected President of Ghana. Although the result will not be declared until tomorrow, it now appears in practice impossible for Nana Akuffo Addo to close the gap. There remain a number of concerns about the count which puzzle and worry me. In particular the swing ti Mills [...]

I am becoming very concerned about the electoral process in Ghana. With 207 results declared, John Ata Mills has a lead of 200,000 votes, but in the first round Nana Akuffo Addo had a majority of 170,000 in the constituencies yet to declare – and has been substantially increasing his lead in his strongholds in [...]