Weekday Missive (and a mini Rant)
I sit at my desk, late afternoon and catch up on my blogs, news and other fun things as I wait for my car which has been used to take the lads to Wassa to look at a job that we are quoting on.
A few fun things from Ghana Life.
- On good Friday there was a massive fire at the port, which managed to kill 15 people who were repairing a ship, as well as 700 meters of pipeline and 400 meters of conveyors. Been in the game, our A team has been dispatched to Accra to see if we can help out. It reminds me a bit about tow trucks and their vulture status, but as they say in the classics.. “business is business”
- Following on with the fire story, APPARENTLY according to local news, the fireman had to loan money for “petrol” to fight the fire and complained bitterly that they were “hungry” and needed food. This while 15 people were charred to crispy bits!!!
- The workers at the port went on strike and locked out the management of the company doing the welding that started the fire because “they did not want to pay the fire department to standby while they were welding”. This epitomizes the way some businesses operate in Ghana. Their safety is non existent and accidents of this nature is wont to happen.
- It seems to be banking reporting time and further to my last blog all the banks produced healthy profits for the reporting period. Once again it was on this mornings news that Government is looking into the vast difference between the bank rate (18.5%) and the lending rate of the major banks (28%-35%). I think it is something that is long overdue.
- The current president and past president continue to snipe at each other and the whole issue is becoming boring. Neither one a statesman it seems.
- Wahala Marches protesting the price increase in fuel continue with another march organized for tomorrow. All this happens in Accra so we do not get the benefit of seeing the protest action. They lads are complaining of a fuel price of GHC 6666 when the fuel price in SA has just reached GHC 7500 equivalent.
On a personal side, life continues at a hectic pace which is grand as the days are passing by really quickly and a lot of the times we reach knock off time without me realising that the day has passed me by. Only 18 days before I am down South again.
The thought police have complained once again about my internet access. The following sites are not business related according to them.
www.702.co za – where I get the news and business reports from
www.trident.co.za – a steel supplier
www.google,co,za – where I do my searches
www.iol.co.za – where I get my business reports from and national/international news
www.blogger.com - where this blog comes from.
Apparently on 01/03/2005, I spend 1 hour and 4 minutes on the web. This was “excessive”.
What they seem to forget is:
1. Given the fact that I am running a business up here, it follows that I should keep up to date with National and international news. As The Star does not deliver and is not available on the street corner, the only source of information I have is iol and news24 (seen that 702 is now blocked). If this is not business related then the thought policeman does not quite understand how a business is run.
2. We are 6000km away from home. My blog is a simple way for me to keep in contact with people far and wide. Although not strictly business, I also do not believe that my entire contact with the outside world gets restricted preventing me from posting (and reading) blogs.
3. We work from 7am to 6pm every day – Including Saturdays!! We tot up 250 hours a month on a regular basis and that excludes the country trips when we get back at 9pm or the times we work on a Sunday. To then consider that we are using a resource for some 4-5 hours a week as excessive time boggles my mind!!!!
This is something I hate about corporate companies……..
Now that I have suitably worked off my anger!
Let me get back to work!
A few fun things from Ghana Life.
- On good Friday there was a massive fire at the port, which managed to kill 15 people who were repairing a ship, as well as 700 meters of pipeline and 400 meters of conveyors. Been in the game, our A team has been dispatched to Accra to see if we can help out. It reminds me a bit about tow trucks and their vulture status, but as they say in the classics.. “business is business”
- Following on with the fire story, APPARENTLY according to local news, the fireman had to loan money for “petrol” to fight the fire and complained bitterly that they were “hungry” and needed food. This while 15 people were charred to crispy bits!!!
- The workers at the port went on strike and locked out the management of the company doing the welding that started the fire because “they did not want to pay the fire department to standby while they were welding”. This epitomizes the way some businesses operate in Ghana. Their safety is non existent and accidents of this nature is wont to happen.
- It seems to be banking reporting time and further to my last blog all the banks produced healthy profits for the reporting period. Once again it was on this mornings news that Government is looking into the vast difference between the bank rate (18.5%) and the lending rate of the major banks (28%-35%). I think it is something that is long overdue.
- The current president and past president continue to snipe at each other and the whole issue is becoming boring. Neither one a statesman it seems.
- Wahala Marches protesting the price increase in fuel continue with another march organized for tomorrow. All this happens in Accra so we do not get the benefit of seeing the protest action. They lads are complaining of a fuel price of GHC 6666 when the fuel price in SA has just reached GHC 7500 equivalent.
On a personal side, life continues at a hectic pace which is grand as the days are passing by really quickly and a lot of the times we reach knock off time without me realising that the day has passed me by. Only 18 days before I am down South again.
The thought police have complained once again about my internet access. The following sites are not business related according to them.
www.702.co za – where I get the news and business reports from
www.trident.co.za – a steel supplier
www.google,co,za – where I do my searches
www.iol.co.za – where I get my business reports from and national/international news
www.blogger.com - where this blog comes from.
Apparently on 01/03/2005, I spend 1 hour and 4 minutes on the web. This was “excessive”.
What they seem to forget is:
1. Given the fact that I am running a business up here, it follows that I should keep up to date with National and international news. As The Star does not deliver and is not available on the street corner, the only source of information I have is iol and news24 (seen that 702 is now blocked). If this is not business related then the thought policeman does not quite understand how a business is run.
2. We are 6000km away from home. My blog is a simple way for me to keep in contact with people far and wide. Although not strictly business, I also do not believe that my entire contact with the outside world gets restricted preventing me from posting (and reading) blogs.
3. We work from 7am to 6pm every day – Including Saturdays!! We tot up 250 hours a month on a regular basis and that excludes the country trips when we get back at 9pm or the times we work on a Sunday. To then consider that we are using a resource for some 4-5 hours a week as excessive time boggles my mind!!!!
This is something I hate about corporate companies……..
Now that I have suitably worked off my anger!
Let me get back to work!
1 Comments:
Not all big corporates are like this. Sun Microsystems not only endorsed blogging, but they have they're own blog site where employees can blog for free. Public domain and all.
Hopefully your company will catch up with the rest of the world as far as internet access goes. :)
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