By Doreen Hammond
The big things in life are fascinating. As children we had big plans and dreams, plans to buy aeroplanes once we saw one in the sky and mansions as we drove past plush mansions in the company of our parents.
Our love for big and expensive things as we grow is not necessarily a bad idea if only these expensive things could be acquired through genuine sweat and toil.
However, it so happens that most of the time, these things are achieved on the back of theft and fraud.
These days, newspaper pages are full of pictures and announcements of wanted people who are accused of defrauding their employers and others. Publications of stories of people we have admired from afar only because of the big things they own, but who are later convicted for drug trafficking are also in the library.
The accountant is aiming at a two-storey house while the accounts clerk wants to put up a three-storey version of the same house. The chief executive is thinking of getting a 6-cylinder vehicle while the general manager is frantically scheming to buy a V8.
Since most of us do not earn enough to support such grandiose acquisitions, we end up dipping our hands into coffers which do not belong to us.
The result invariably is normally constantly looking over the shoulders, dismissal from work, long prison sentences, and sometimes people becoming fugitives of the law.
In the case of some up-and-coming entrepreneurs, this could spell the doom of their otherwise flourishing businesses as they invest capital in the posh cars and mansions to the detriment of their businesses. We seem to have thrown away one of the basic teachings at home: Cut your coat according to your cloth.
Acquiring nice and big things in life is not a crime, but going to lengths to acquire them, sometimes through foul or dubious means, is the issue here.
I have come across friends clutching three of the most expensive phones in vogue, while their rents have remained outstanding for months. Others drive some of the flashiest cars in town while their children’s school fees remain unpaid. Misplaced priorities?
While in the UK recently, my perception about cars changed completely. For instance it took me three days in London to spot a Range Rover Sport. Throughout my two-week stay, I never saw a Hummer or any of those American fuel guzzlers that adorn our streets here in Ghana.
Most of the cars in London, and I’m told, other parts of Europe, are the small cars designed to move people from one place to another. Therefore cars like the Nissan March, Peugeot 106, the Renault Clio, the Morris Minor and such other small vehicles dominate their roads, while we drive the Toyota Sequoia V8, the Infiniti V8, the Nissan Armada, the Escalade and the Hummers. It appears the in thing now is the bigger the car, the richer and more respected the owner.
Is it not ironic that a country which is just wriggling its way out of HIPC and must still carry bowl in hand to our benefactors who we feel more comfortable calling development partners, should show so much affluence and crass pomposity in the midst of our squalor and poverty?
I mean schools under trees, Sodom and Gomorrah, lack of potable drinking water, no toilets in homes, dirty markets, limited access to health facilities, and frequent appeals by mothers in the media for money to enable children undergo surgery in order to live; an indication of a poor social welfare system.
Have we sat down to reflect for once, the dire consequences on us if our donor friends (the real word, not development partners) decide to also invest their wealth in such vain and mundane ventures and forget about us?
This brings to the fore the issue of our choice of cars. What should inform the average Ghanaian in his attempt to choose a car from the market? Must it be a used or new car and what are the factors to consider? (Note that we are looking at the average Ghanaian and not the self- actualised tycoon or big-time businessmen and women whose choice is more or less a statement to announce to society that they have arrived at the top.)
The emphasis is on the average worker who just needs a means of transport to move from one place to another just because of an unreliable public rail and bus transport system.
I asked Mr Francis J. Amegayibor, General Manager (sales) of Silver Star Auto Limited for advice on choosing a car.
“You are better off with a new car”, he thinks.
He buttresses his point with the fact that new cars have the benefit of a warranty, are less problematic and maintenance cost is lower.
Mr Amegayibor says it is necessary to consider maintenance cost and the budget available in making that decision.
He says although used cars can be bought at cheaper prices, they are more accident prone and are more likely to break down.
To him, prestige and social status does not influence his choice of a car, his main concern is durability.
Mr Kwesi Blankson, an exporter of used Korean cars at Achimota does not support the idea of buying a new car in Ghana.
He is of the view it does not make economic sense to invest heavily in a new car because of the nature of our roads which would not make it last. For him, buying a used car and changing it after every five years is a better deal.
Mr Leslie Sackeyfio is a chartered insurer and the owner of a pre-owned Toyota |Corolla which he bought because “I wanted to use a Toyota and the budget could buy a home-used one”.
He said most of the new cars being sold on the market have smaller engines and are not as comfortable as the home-used Toyota.
In making the decision, Mr Sackeyfio had certain specifications in mind. He made sure the car had a fitted audio system to save him the trouble of the system being removed by thieves and also removing the face each time he parks and leaves the car unattended. He prefers an automatic transmission because he has been told that it protects the engine.
Another factor Mr Sackeyfio considered in making his decision is the availability of spare parts. He believes that most of the cars on the market now, even though new, cannot be used extensively over a long time and that the state of the roads on which one drives daily should inform our choice of vehicle.
Above all, he thinks that the cost of maintenance/servicing in spite of extensive use should be compatible with salary and maintenance allowance. Getting a new car is Mr Sackeyfio’s wish but he emphasises “not just any new car”.
It seems that buying a car is akin to choosing a wife and individual choices would continue to vary.
It is true that we earn our own income and can, therefore, decide to spend it anyhow we fancy. But, we should also consider that we live in a society where most people can hardly put food on the table. How about creating the right balance between satisfying our ego and comfort and contributing to the welfare of society?
Like putting a bowl of food on that hungry woman’s table, or giving a token to that little boy who needs just a few cedis to remain in school.
The next time you fall in love with a Hummer or any of those cars whose price can conveniently buy a three-bedroom house, ask yourself: Do I really need this car? Can I fuel and maintain this vehicle? Who am I out to impress? For what shall it profit a man if he sits high up in the sky and looks down at his brother starving to death?
• Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
A case of two chickens
By Doreen Hammond
In the freezer of a supermarket are stocked two different kinds of chicken. One is well packaged, with the name of the country and farm of origin, among other important information required by the consumer, boldly written on it. It is well labelled with expiry date, weight, nutritional values and an indication that it is a broiler.
Next to it is the other chicken, just in a polythene bag that is tied at the end, with no information on it. In order to know about it I had to ask the sales girl, who replied, “It is local”.
My additional enquiries about expiry date, nutritional values and weight yielded the response, “It was brought in only three days ago”. But from which farm, she did not know. For prices, the well-packaged imported chicken was GH¢10.00 while the locally manufactured one with no information went for GH¢15.00.
On the shelves of the supermarket were different kinds of products from different countries. That was expected because ours is a country which encourages free trade and manufactures little.
There were different kinds of bottled drinks. Among them was one with colourful pictures of something that looked like fruits, with a label that had the printing so tiny it would take a witch to read.
It had a Ghana Standards Board mark though and expiry date marked with a ball point pen, two mobile phone numbers, also scribbled with pen but no manufacturer’s address. The bottle had a cover but once you held it up, the drink started spilling.
This scenario generally replicates itself in almost anything one can think of — from textiles to shoes to plastic items to food products. Yet as Ghanaians, we are supposed to patronise made-in-Ghana products.
Our attempt to encourage the wearing of made-in-Ghana clothes, known as batik and tie and dye, suffered a setback. Although it caught on so well and was so much patronised, it seemed we were all wearing uniforms because of the lack of variety. This coupled with the fabric being named after CK Mann’s popular song Adwoa Yankee has since caused some loss in patronage.
Somehow, most of our local seamstresses and tailors who sew at affordable prices don’t seem to get it right; you may have darts above the breast, kissing pockets behind your trousers, sleeves so long past the arm and lapels as large as elephant ears.
The sad thing is, the customer has to go to and fro the tailor’s shop because collection time is never adhered to. Many a customer has been sent home by such seamstresses and tailors in tears with clothing which made them look like masqueraders and wondering whose measurements were used for them — Money down the drain, no customer satisfaction, no redress.
Give a Ghanaian carpenter an order for furniture, even a similar one you have seen at his shop, and see what happens. Either he makes something different for you or he takes part of the money to buy materials for the job and starts playing hide and seek with you. First, he will say he has not been well and then you don’t see him at the shop for a while but picks your call and then he moves on to not picking calls from you at all. Until you do something drastic, that may be the end of that furniture you ordered and your money.
Talking about standards; do we have standards at all? If we did, why would a tourist see an elephant carving, place an order for two of the same thing only to go for his order and one looks more like a deer than the elephant he ordered? The lackadaisical attitude of our artisans to work makes it very difficult to deal with them and trust them.
In spite of our attempts as a country to encourage the use of locally made goods/products, there have been a number of challenges. Our challenges have been with packaging, pricing, maintaining a standard quality and therefore confidence in the product, and our attitude to work. Apart from some who may (in some cases erroneously) think that everything imported or foreign is better than the locally made, others who would prefer locally made goods are frustrated by these problems.
Studies have shown that packaging plays a very important role in moving consumers to buy a product. It even advertises the product. Well-packaged items give the potential consumer a sense of quality. Poorly packaged items suggest the quality of the product itself may be suspect. How can you, for instance, convince yourself that the ground red pepper (cayenne) that you have bought from the market only tied in a polythene bag has not been mixed with the seed of avocado just to maximise profit?
The importance of packaging is well understood by a few companies like Blue Skies, Neat fufu, Darko Farms and Nkulenu, but the general situation doesn’t look good. Buy a pack of a certain Ghanaian-made biscuit and find yourself struggling for minutes trying to open the wrap in order to get a bite.
You take the foreign one, spot the clearly marked “where to open”, spot the red thread and save yourself the trouble; secure yet easy to open.
Buy a pack of plantain chips and risk being pricked by staple pins! That is the ingenious way the manufacturer has chosen to seal the pack.
Pricing also plays a major role in influencing patronage of locally made products as far as the competition is concerned. The consumer may be so in love with locally made goods but would your purse allow you to stand by a well-packaged chicken at GH¢10 and still pick the locally made one for GH¢15.00 just because you are a Ghanaian and you want your compatriot to make some money?
Why should we be complaining that Ghanaians are buying imported chicken and not the locally produced ones? Who would not prefer a well-packed, fresh juicy moderate chicken to an imported one? But is that what we see in our shops?
The local industries have been genuinely complaining for years about lack of access to credit, high interest rates, lack of Government subsidies and unfair competition from heavily subsidised imports. These are genuine complaints which require prompt redress for the promotion of local industries and therefore our economy.
But what are the industries also doing for themselves? What are they doing to change the little things like their attitude to work and the inherent waste within most of our production chain, which is not a matter of Government policy? How serious have they been with delivering on time and gaining the trust of customers? Why would they manufacture something locally and give it a foreign label or just pack an imported product in a pack and put their label on it? Is it the issue of not believing in what they produce?
What is insulting to the Ghanaian consumer is that in most cases products for export are treated differently to meet international standards while those for local consumption are treated with contempt.
When it comes to advertising to create awareness and sustain interest in products, there is aggressive advertising of foreign imports while most of our local manufacturers just pray and fast over their products and expect that they will be bought.
Just tune in to any of our Television stations and witness the aggressive advertising on imported rice and even Indomie, while most people have no idea where to buy local rice, even if one decided to do so for nationalism sake, in spite of the stones/pellets in it and all.
We may love Made-in-Ghana goods to bits and may be very patriotic but how far are we, as consumers and customers, ready to go with that love in the face of the poor quality of most of our locally made products and the availability of cheaper, higher quality alternatives?
Can’t the same authorities who keep appealing to us to patronise our home-made goods, in a similar measure impress on our local manufacturers the need to show a modicum of respect to us by manufacturing to some basic quality and standards? After all, our elders say : when you advise the cat you must advise the stinking fish also.
The Americans love their Ford just as much as the Japanese love their Toyota because at the end of the day they get quality for their money.
The bottom line is: It is good to patronise locally made goods on condition that they can compete with foreign ones in terms of quality, price and packaging. For at the end of the day, it all boils down to getting value for ones money and that is where patriotism should end.
We may argue that “small, small we will get there”, but what efforts are we making to get there? And is fifty something years not enough to get to any destination, even if we were crawling? In any case our competitors will not stop and wait for us!
Spending hard-earned money on any commodity whose only value is that it was manufactured by an indigene while it lacks quality and aesthetic value would be taking patriotism a bit too far and taflatse, crossing over to the land of no reason.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
In the freezer of a supermarket are stocked two different kinds of chicken. One is well packaged, with the name of the country and farm of origin, among other important information required by the consumer, boldly written on it. It is well labelled with expiry date, weight, nutritional values and an indication that it is a broiler.
Next to it is the other chicken, just in a polythene bag that is tied at the end, with no information on it. In order to know about it I had to ask the sales girl, who replied, “It is local”.
My additional enquiries about expiry date, nutritional values and weight yielded the response, “It was brought in only three days ago”. But from which farm, she did not know. For prices, the well-packaged imported chicken was GH¢10.00 while the locally manufactured one with no information went for GH¢15.00.
On the shelves of the supermarket were different kinds of products from different countries. That was expected because ours is a country which encourages free trade and manufactures little.
There were different kinds of bottled drinks. Among them was one with colourful pictures of something that looked like fruits, with a label that had the printing so tiny it would take a witch to read.
It had a Ghana Standards Board mark though and expiry date marked with a ball point pen, two mobile phone numbers, also scribbled with pen but no manufacturer’s address. The bottle had a cover but once you held it up, the drink started spilling.
This scenario generally replicates itself in almost anything one can think of — from textiles to shoes to plastic items to food products. Yet as Ghanaians, we are supposed to patronise made-in-Ghana products.
Our attempt to encourage the wearing of made-in-Ghana clothes, known as batik and tie and dye, suffered a setback. Although it caught on so well and was so much patronised, it seemed we were all wearing uniforms because of the lack of variety. This coupled with the fabric being named after CK Mann’s popular song Adwoa Yankee has since caused some loss in patronage.
Somehow, most of our local seamstresses and tailors who sew at affordable prices don’t seem to get it right; you may have darts above the breast, kissing pockets behind your trousers, sleeves so long past the arm and lapels as large as elephant ears.
The sad thing is, the customer has to go to and fro the tailor’s shop because collection time is never adhered to. Many a customer has been sent home by such seamstresses and tailors in tears with clothing which made them look like masqueraders and wondering whose measurements were used for them — Money down the drain, no customer satisfaction, no redress.
Give a Ghanaian carpenter an order for furniture, even a similar one you have seen at his shop, and see what happens. Either he makes something different for you or he takes part of the money to buy materials for the job and starts playing hide and seek with you. First, he will say he has not been well and then you don’t see him at the shop for a while but picks your call and then he moves on to not picking calls from you at all. Until you do something drastic, that may be the end of that furniture you ordered and your money.
Talking about standards; do we have standards at all? If we did, why would a tourist see an elephant carving, place an order for two of the same thing only to go for his order and one looks more like a deer than the elephant he ordered? The lackadaisical attitude of our artisans to work makes it very difficult to deal with them and trust them.
In spite of our attempts as a country to encourage the use of locally made goods/products, there have been a number of challenges. Our challenges have been with packaging, pricing, maintaining a standard quality and therefore confidence in the product, and our attitude to work. Apart from some who may (in some cases erroneously) think that everything imported or foreign is better than the locally made, others who would prefer locally made goods are frustrated by these problems.
Studies have shown that packaging plays a very important role in moving consumers to buy a product. It even advertises the product. Well-packaged items give the potential consumer a sense of quality. Poorly packaged items suggest the quality of the product itself may be suspect. How can you, for instance, convince yourself that the ground red pepper (cayenne) that you have bought from the market only tied in a polythene bag has not been mixed with the seed of avocado just to maximise profit?
The importance of packaging is well understood by a few companies like Blue Skies, Neat fufu, Darko Farms and Nkulenu, but the general situation doesn’t look good. Buy a pack of a certain Ghanaian-made biscuit and find yourself struggling for minutes trying to open the wrap in order to get a bite.
You take the foreign one, spot the clearly marked “where to open”, spot the red thread and save yourself the trouble; secure yet easy to open.
Buy a pack of plantain chips and risk being pricked by staple pins! That is the ingenious way the manufacturer has chosen to seal the pack.
Pricing also plays a major role in influencing patronage of locally made products as far as the competition is concerned. The consumer may be so in love with locally made goods but would your purse allow you to stand by a well-packaged chicken at GH¢10 and still pick the locally made one for GH¢15.00 just because you are a Ghanaian and you want your compatriot to make some money?
Why should we be complaining that Ghanaians are buying imported chicken and not the locally produced ones? Who would not prefer a well-packed, fresh juicy moderate chicken to an imported one? But is that what we see in our shops?
The local industries have been genuinely complaining for years about lack of access to credit, high interest rates, lack of Government subsidies and unfair competition from heavily subsidised imports. These are genuine complaints which require prompt redress for the promotion of local industries and therefore our economy.
But what are the industries also doing for themselves? What are they doing to change the little things like their attitude to work and the inherent waste within most of our production chain, which is not a matter of Government policy? How serious have they been with delivering on time and gaining the trust of customers? Why would they manufacture something locally and give it a foreign label or just pack an imported product in a pack and put their label on it? Is it the issue of not believing in what they produce?
What is insulting to the Ghanaian consumer is that in most cases products for export are treated differently to meet international standards while those for local consumption are treated with contempt.
When it comes to advertising to create awareness and sustain interest in products, there is aggressive advertising of foreign imports while most of our local manufacturers just pray and fast over their products and expect that they will be bought.
Just tune in to any of our Television stations and witness the aggressive advertising on imported rice and even Indomie, while most people have no idea where to buy local rice, even if one decided to do so for nationalism sake, in spite of the stones/pellets in it and all.
We may love Made-in-Ghana goods to bits and may be very patriotic but how far are we, as consumers and customers, ready to go with that love in the face of the poor quality of most of our locally made products and the availability of cheaper, higher quality alternatives?
Can’t the same authorities who keep appealing to us to patronise our home-made goods, in a similar measure impress on our local manufacturers the need to show a modicum of respect to us by manufacturing to some basic quality and standards? After all, our elders say : when you advise the cat you must advise the stinking fish also.
The Americans love their Ford just as much as the Japanese love their Toyota because at the end of the day they get quality for their money.
The bottom line is: It is good to patronise locally made goods on condition that they can compete with foreign ones in terms of quality, price and packaging. For at the end of the day, it all boils down to getting value for ones money and that is where patriotism should end.
We may argue that “small, small we will get there”, but what efforts are we making to get there? And is fifty something years not enough to get to any destination, even if we were crawling? In any case our competitors will not stop and wait for us!
Spending hard-earned money on any commodity whose only value is that it was manufactured by an indigene while it lacks quality and aesthetic value would be taking patriotism a bit too far and taflatse, crossing over to the land of no reason.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
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