Ghana in general is a well balanced society with a good education system and a large middle class. But there is a huge social problem affecting those at the bottom of the ladder, which there appears no will at all among the political class even to acknowledge, let alone tackle, and that is rent.
Ghana’s agricultural production has never collapsed, unlike Nigeria, and the traditional patterns of society in rural areas have not broken down. Modern services, in terms of edication, electrification and clean water, have penetrated rural communities better than in any other African country, though there are still areas of concern, particularly in the North. But the overall good picture means that there has therefore been less extreme urban drift, less shanty town existence, than in most of the developing world, and therefore less urban violence.
But despite all this there is a terrible problem with the rent culture of Accra. The poor all rent housing, rather than own. Demand exceeds supply and landlords invariably demand three, or at the very least two, years’ rent in advance. This is absolutely established as the way the market operates, and for the poor there is no way around it. Three years’ rent is typically over one year’s income, and in consequence the poor are sucked into a permanent life of debt. This applies to the majority of people living in the City. Quite literally, a day never passes in which at least one Ghanaian doesn’t ask me to lend them the money for their rent; yesterday there were four. I help where I can.
This situation was already calamitous but is going to get much worse, as land values are already starting to soar with the coming of the oil industry. I have good friends at the highest levels in all the Ghanaian political parties, but they all seem to have been so indoctrinated with IMF economics that they do not even consider rent controls. Unfortunately the performance of both the NPP and the NDC in building social housing has been very poor. I am forced to the opinion that the plight of the poor is not actually a pressing concern in the minds of the educated classes in Ghana in general.
The fierce party political divisions in Ghana need to be put aside, and an all-party solution on social housing and on rents has to be pursued with vigour, as a primary use for some of Ghana’s oil revenues.
“seem to think that they can pontificate about Africa’s problems, when our own country is literally hanging onto stability by its tippy fingertips”
.
and the USA is about to go belly up.
Anno, they don’t give a shit about Africa’s problems, all they care about is setting up AFRICOM e.g. in Libya as soon as possible.
If someone like Steophen calls me two dimensional for no reason Suhayl, I react. And Craig did specifically name Stephen as a troll.
Wrong thread! s/be the one on Hitchens.
Havel after having turned Czech Republic into a “drive-in whorehouse” has died too. Boy all these fuckwits are going to have a ball in the after life, the devils must be on overtime by the looks of it.
The state setting maximum rents or maximum security deposits isn’t insure the availability of affordable houses.
The way to achieve that is to build affordable houses.
You stated that people need to pay 3 years rent upfront. And 3 years rent is 1 years wage.
You didn’t state how many years rent is the price of a house?
That is the key issue here to insure affordable houses.
Houses need to be built that are affordable, for living in and also as a means of living off the rent.
Nuid
Africom. Is that a US safety precaution to be used when screwing over other continents by any chance?
M
a
r
y
2
d
i
m
e
n
s
i
o
n
s
i
s
a
l
o
t
b
e
t
t
e
r
t
h
a
n
1
.
That must have taken ages Anno. I would like three like everyone else!
.
Just saw this topical cartoon before everyone gets schmaltzy about Christmas which is now a festival for over consumption. I wonder how those who have no job and no prospect of finding one are feeling as they see all the 4x4s whizzing around with all the goodies on board. And those lonely and ill worried about the heating bill.
.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=122316667835747&set=a.118483521552395.15624.118058398261574&type=1&ref=nf
Anno – Your comment at 1053 would have validity if I had suggested that Ghana should model itself on the UK. But I did not. I posed a number of questions which might help in framing the debate. But that’s not really what the comments here are about, is it? Which is a pity as Craig does raise an important issue, which I have not seen discussed elsewhere.
Demand for property is often highly inelastic, particularly where there is economic and population growth, so that property pricing is often more a product of how much money banks are prepared to lend potential landlords than of anything else. In some countries (like Canada) mortgages are insured by the government so that there is no risk to the banks even if the buyers default. Add in the fact that governments are providing banks with practically free money and it is hardly surprising that pricing rises – despite the fact that real estate pricing in most countries is still too high. I don’t know if it’s the same in Ghana, but the solution in many cases, because property pricing is so inelastic, is to stop subsidising the banks since all that is achieved is property price inflation (and higher rents). Rent controls may be part of the answer, but I also think that governments should stop subsidising banks since all it is doing in this highly inelastic industry is pushing up property prices.
In a just society rent would buy equity.
@ Fedup
.
Certainly, that you have no idea about Czechoslovakia before Havel became its president. If you ever lived under iron curtain you would have appreciated Havel and him alike. It seems that you have been rather fortunate to be born somewhere where you had freedom of expression, at least.
@ Arsalan
.
For once I agree with you. Rent control is forced measure that will not work in long term and might not even work in short term. Looking back in history one might conclude that forced measures quite often fail to materialise into something good.
.
What is needed is for the state to enter into this competitive market on the side of its citizens and to finance affordable housing so that people could afford to buy house instead of paying over the sky rent with 2 years deposit. Some of the oil revenues could be directed to this and with more affordable house prices millions could be pulled out of the poverty. But this in its turn could increase urbanisation too so those considering urbanisation as a negative consequence might need to think about this.
Off topic but…
.
N Korean leader Kim Jong-il dies http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16239693
Kim Jong-il must have died days if not weeks ago. It must have caused a serious bricking of the underpants when he went because how will his successors justify their rule from now on? If they don’t make themselves unimpeachable rulers of a garrison state then they will lose the one and only purpose for the government’s existence which is the Songun, Army First, policy. This means that either North Korea must attack its neighbours or else it will collapse. This is just a prediction and I may well be talking out of my behind.
@Abe – good idea on a conference to push this idea. However I suspect Craig does more than enough for the Ghanaians already! It would be interesting to see how such a suggestion could be brought into the consciousness of the political elite in Ghana – in the UK, it is fully sown up, and – at the moment – quite impossible. Still, you never know – Occupy et al may jemmy open a little space for progressive politics in UK/US…
@gyges – as a renter, yes to equity. There should also be a graduated taxation on the number of properties a person owns. I have friends who have the extra flat from before a co-habitation, which has precipitated in their minds the idea of “getting one or two more” – and when I point out gently how anti-progressive that is, I am looked at as if I have two green heads. The idea that perfectly legal and popular middle-class schemes might have an impact on other people is roundly rejected, in the main. Frustrating.
Uzbek in the UK,
So fact that women en mass in Czech republic are selling their butt out of desperation to feed themselves and their families, because there are no jobs, and the whole place has gone to hell in a basket. It is OK though, because they have “freedom of expression”?
,
That crap don’t hold much water. when issues such as; health care was free, education was free, jobs were for life, and bread prices were frozen at 1932 price levels, people had homes, and they had public cheap and regular transport but hey you lived in the system and found your “freedom of expression” so important.
,
Havel was an evil quisling, and good riddance to him.
“I may well be talking out of my behind.”
,
It is so refreshing to see such a pious candor.
,
History is such a nice way of telling stories for the believers, whom will believe anything if they are kept being told the same repeat story over and again.
,
@ Passerby
.
To remind you that most of the so called ‘free’ things in Eastern Europe have been subsidised by the USSR’s gas and oil revenues. There is no such thing as absolute free. ‘Free education’, ‘free medical care’, ‘free housing’ were of somewhat lower standard. For this reason alone you will not find any Russian, or former Soviet Union or even Eastern European University of Research institution in any type of global ranking. They simply do not have sufficient academic staff and mostly corrupt. And this is partially because they provided ‘free’ education for many decades. As for ‘free medical care’- if you ever been admitted to a hospital in former USSR or in Eastern Europe you would have been surprised of the standards of those establishments. Not only hygiene was poor, but the level of medical care they provided. Thus life expectancy in former USSR and Eastern Europe are substantially lower than in the West.
.
Communism was destined to fail for many reasons to which Havel’s contribution was mostly passive. But unlike Lukashenko or Miloshevich he preferred to respect his people’s choice and not simply enrich himself with money and power and take his nation to worst possible future.
.
When USSR collapsed it has become apparent that planned economy that provided so many of these ‘free’ things has failed not at least because it was ruled from top to bottom. It has also become apparent that all these ‘free’ things were not actually free and came at a price for which buyer (USSR) was not able to pay any longer. Again I see no major role of Havel in this.
OFF-TOPIC — (Rendition and torture)
The irony:
.
Head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Abdel Hakim Belhadj is taking legal action against the UK Government and its security forces for their part in the illegal rendition and barbaric treatment of both himself and his pregnant wife in March 2004.
More: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2011_12_19_belhadj_action/
@ Passerby
.
And yes, freedom of expression is IMPORTANT. Its absence takes one’s human side sand replaces it with robotic functions. For most on this blog 1984 is just a novel. For me and those who lived in USSR it was reality. If you never experienced it, you will never understand what I mean.
^ @Uzbek – I agree that those of us who have not experienced totalitarianism should listen to those who have. But surely you could believe we *do* understand what losing our freedom of speech would feel like? There are small slices in that direction already, and whilst they are not comparable, it is enough to make us consider what that environment would be like.
Uzbek
I agree with you that councils should use their planning and cash to invest in housing and let it at affordable rents. This would help them to stop private landlords pushing up the cost of Housing Benefit and rents in general through shortages. Idiotic or badly advised Councils shunted millions into banks like Iceland’s to earn interest instead of using their financial clout to improve the housing sector, which is their job. Council leaders paid themselves vast salaries to manage public money both unwisely and also unjustly. The very right wing of politics is just as mad as the very left. We have been asked to trust right wing economic theory as if they were financial engineers, forgetting that the brilliant mechanical engineers who were designing steam engines 50 years ago, have long been made redundant. The writing is on the wall for redundancy for these clever financial engineers, when the inevitable crash comes.
Uzbek
“For this reason alone you will not find any Russian, or former Soviet Union or even Eastern European University of Research institution in any type of global ranking”.
Do not talk about something that you have no idea about. Soviet states or republics have produced an excellent list of scientists in many areas. This was due to free education and state sponsorship in science. I even remember american edition of Who is Who of couple of years ago which listed several modern Uzbek scientists as great contributors to science. Unfortunately there is no information so far about soviet Uzbek scientists on internet. For more information on soviet Russian scientists you can look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_Soviet_Union
http://www.jstor.org/stable/257800
The Nobel Prize Laureates
In literature:
Bunin -1933
Pasternak -1958
Sholohov -1965
Solgenicin -1970
Brodskiy -1987
In chemistry:
Semenov -1956
Prigigin -1977
In physics:
Cherenkov, Tamm, Frank -1958
Landau -1962
Basov, Prohorov -1964
Kapica -1978
Alferov -2000
In economics:
Kuznets -1971
Leontev -1973
Kantorovich -1975
I recently compared knowledge of russian and english kids of the same age and who were presumed to have excellent academic performance. The russian child had far greater knowledge in math, chemistry and physics. He just had slight problems in his English.
Uzbek,
So the education, health service, homes, were free, but of lower standards, which is far better scenario than the forty two million homeless in US, and we don’t do homeless count in UK. Every week any number of stretcher bearing an ill or dying patient are to be found in the street junctions, where the said patients have been dumped to die or to be transferred to a death camp, because they did not have the relevant medical insurances in US.
,
University rankings mean diddlysquat, these are yet another political tool, and have little or no relevance to actualities. However, as a former “resident” of any such system, homelessness, and young children living in the sewage system are all tolerable, because now there is “freedom of expression”, well sort of because the Kazakh oil workers are being fired upon for daring to ask for a living wage. Karimov is boiling his people to cleanse the evil out of them, and the prices have sky rocketed so people don’t buy food, and the shops are filled with goods for those whom have managed to con their way into the top of the pyramid, and are enjoying the proceeds. Although there is the “freedom of expression” for the rest of the hungry, homeless, and dying poor. What a wonderful trade off!
,
But hey I won’t understand, because I was not there! This is the most puerile and stupid line of argument that is often used as force majeure by the inept. Seeing as I ought to have been to the Mars to know what Mars is like, and needed a big thermometer to go and measure the Sun’s temperature, whilst having been atomised first to see first hand the atomic structure of the copper, to underrated about conductivity.
,
@ Jon,
.
My last comments was not addressed to all but to those who does not understand that sometimes those so called ‘free’ things cannot replace freedom particularly when those so called ‘free’ things come at the of the freedom. One need to look at the very root of the problem in order to understand that loos of so called ‘free’ things in Eastern Europe was because the absence of freedom in the first place. And this later led to economic stagnation that resulted to decline in social services. One who only blames western conspiracy in economic decline of Eastern Europe is wrong because one is blinded by his own vision that replaces reality.
.
I agree that everyone who value freedom could instantly feel its absence or even decline. For me personally there is nothing more important that freedom. Witnessing how corrupt governments bribed society with ‘free’ things and also later witnessing how all this enterprise failed taking with it foundations of those societies I can argue with solid grounds that only free society, based on freedom of expression, freedom of choice can build successful foundation.
.
One should not take me wrong, as I am not stating that current societies in the West are free. In fact those societies are corrupt at the top to somewhat the same level as soviet society was. Ruling elite is somewhat distant from the needs of majority of the population. Having access to power and common wealth ruling elite abuses its principle function of government. BUT even here one major difference is THAT while in USSR and Eastern Europe societies did not have real chance of electing government, western societies do have this chance (which of course is limited by corruption of power mechanisms).
Thank- you Craig, I was also browsing your blog on Dr. David Kelly and came across this link. A version I have not read before and a blog that seems to have gone to a lot of trouble explaining how and why Dr. Kelly’s body was moved ! very strange.
http://bushandblairbonesmeniwarcrimes.blogspot.com/2011/12/dr-david-kelly-conclusion-thursday-10th.html
http://bushandblairbonesmeniwarcrimes.blogspot.com/2011/12/david-kelly-today-high-court-hearing.html
David Kelly Hearing Today !
@ Anapa
.
Using Wikipedia as a source and using suggested methods of identifying quality of education by number of produced Nobel prize laureates one comes across such data:
USSR/Russia 27 laureates including those who were awarded the prize before USSR and after USSR and including Gorbachev’s Peace prize.
Vs
333 laureates from US alone adding to this 120 laureates from UK, 102 laureates from Germany, 58 from France, 20 from Canada etc.
.
Also I disagree with this suggested method of assessment of the quality of education but even it shows quite clearly disadvantages of USSR. And this including that sciences like Physics and Chemistry have been considered extremely important for the Soviet state in its arms race with the West.
.
And can you please be more specific as to provide either source or at least some more specific details of the research you mentioned where you compared knowledge of Russian vs English children?