REWARDING HARD WORK?
I have been strolling under the canopy of beautiful almond trees lining the cattle ranch in a ‘forming’ community,kilometers away from the centre of the town,on a day farmers and fishers are being celebrated,nationwide.
In a throwback to my days of livestock rearing,I recollect how I would wake up as early as 04:00 am,clean the pigsty,pour for them,the feed I had prepared the day before and then get dressed for school.
First,the neigbours down the street,who had returned from overseas were unhappy about the activities of livestock-keeping in the
area,primarily because of the excesses they came with.Then,the thieves would invade the yard and make away with some of the
The goats and birds,would also go out in search for food,and return no more.As we sat in the yard one evening expecting the return of the animals,for caging,I noticed a loud noise from among the spear grasses that lined the path to the yard.A swift wind had blown the weeds from side to side,following which the goats and sheep hopped speedily into the pen.
Immediately,I knew there was trouble-they may have gone to destroy the neighbours’ crop plants again. A fully bearded,dark,scary-eyed man,of about 6 ft 7 burst into the compound,wielding a machete.He was angry,and you could tell from the way his eyeballs were rolling,with beads of sweat running down his face that he had chased the animals from his farm all the way.
The warning was stern;the next time he saw our livestock around his place,there was no way they were going to return alive,he threatened and walked his ‘dirty’ self away.
We later sold all the animals and obviously fetched some for food;that was the end of our small livestock project;we could not bear the day-to-day challenges that came our way,in the line of farming.
As I stand motionless for the better part of twenty minutes,the tooting of a commercial bus horn gets me back to myself.The nomadic herdsmen are busily getting ready for prayers-they are performing ablution.They did not go grazing with their cattle today.
I wondered how they are able to cope with external pressures in this area-they rightly confirm the harrassment they are subjected
to,everyday by people living here,especially when it rains.
They would be thrown away from here when the community begins to see development.However hard these guys work everyday,they are never going to rate among the top farmers in the region,but that is certainly not on their minds.How to get their business going,to feed,clothe and house their wives and children is all that matters,while serving to complement the protein
mix of the people,with beef!
I have been thinking aloud,whether or not hard work at any level in Ghana is rewarded at all,in the areas of sports,education,health,bus
And on the back of reports that emerged from the Eastern parts of the country regarding items farmers in that area were given as
rewards/incentives for their hard work over the period,I felt scandalised and even more confused.
Hard work in the context I am relating to,is pretty much self-explanatory,correct?
Once we have agreed it is a self-explanatory concept,let us attempt juxtaposing prizes,awards,sponsorships,inc
The following maybe unrelated,but are certainly worth the thought,just maybe.
-The farmer works extremely hard all year round;has been confronted with a plethora of challenges ; inconsistent rains,activities of grazing cattle/straying animals,insufficient fertilize
He sometimes experiences revenue and product losses as a result,-and banks refuse him loans and other facilities to expand.For some reason,he defies all of these,and emerges tops as the Best Coffee/Cocoa/Cashew/vegetable farmer in the country,and gets
rewarded with ; a double-decker knapsack sprayer
-Consequently,a young lady gets to audition for some beauty pageant (they call it ),and is asked to do the ‘azonto dance’,or sing a song and then is said to have qualified for the said pageant.
She stays in a housing complex together with nine or fourteen other girls,depending on the pageant type,performs some tasks for
thirteen weeks,is shown on national television for the better part of three months ; dance battle,food preparation,presentations about
traditional festivals,etc.Sometimes,maybe,
At the end,she is voted/adjudged to have won the
pageant,guess what she wins ; a brand new Hyundai Accent,cash prize of 5,000 cedis,a three-week holiday trip to South Africa,a six-month wardrobe sponsorship from GTP,suvenirs from big Telcos in this town.
-Also,consider the young ‘poor’ student who enters the university,struggles to get his expensive fees paid,and further struggles to feed,transport and clothe himself throughout his four-year stay in school.He barely affords to purchase course handouts and text books,and is sometimes helped out by friends financially to print course assignments.Throughout his four-year stay,he reads as many as 34 courses,and is allowed to write his semeter exams despite owing fees.
The number of sleepless nights he gets (not only tstudying,but also thinking about how to pay fees,how to repay borrowed monies,how to transport himself to and from school among others,is evident.
At the end of it all,intense four years in school, God graciously favours him and he’s awarded a prize for excellence ; for being the best student of the batch in the University,and what does he receive for these?- a samsung galaxy tab or some other brand of
same,sometimes ( cash prize of 1,000 cedis - if he is lucky ),a few books,a six month internship opportunity in a company somewhere.
-The most outstanding journalist puts his life on the line and exposes massive rot in high places in these parts,exposes issues about the less fortunate,the abused,the oppressed and brings about change in society,following his reportage.He barely gets enough rest,always on the move.He is threatened by actors in the center of scandals he exposes.While some attempt to buy his conscience in a bid to get him to abandon the investigations,he remains unshaken and sees it through and through.
He wins an award for all his efforts,and gets a citation and some travel opportunities here and there and a three-month or so internship opportunity at a media house outside of the jurisdiction.In 2014 for example,the most outstanding Journalist,Mabel Aku
Baneseh was ( given 5,000 cedis by the Asantehene,Otumfuor Osei Tutu II, himself ).
[NB : I could not find a website dedicated to the umbrella body of journalists in Ghana,hence could not get further info about Journalists’ awards in this town].
There are many other areas,this text cannot cover.I am still struggling to get my small head around the reasons why sponsors/corporate ghana,channel their resources in the directions they do.
I respect individual institutions’ (state/private) specific mission and visions as well as Coperate Social Responsibility Project areas,but can they do better,say spread the resources across sectors?They say they do some of these sponsorships and CSR projects,to cause social change,but is it a question of misplaced priorities,or a shift from rewarding genuine hard work to rewarding something else?
Maybe some of these companies can help us understand why they channel their resources the way they do,so we get a clearer understanding.
I have been strolling under the canopy of beautiful almond trees lining the cattle ranch in a ‘forming’ community,kilometers away from the centre of the town,on a day farmers and fishers are being celebrated,nationwide.
In a throwback to my days of livestock rearing,I recollect how I would wake up as early as 04:00 am,clean the pigsty,pour for them,the feed I had prepared the day before and then get dressed for school.
First,the neigbours down the street,who had returned from overseas were unhappy about the activities of livestock-keeping in the
area,primarily because of the excesses they came with.Then,the thieves would invade the yard and make away with some of the
animals-usually the piglets,kids and birds,before the break of dawn.Days later,a group of butchers and meat sellers would come and buy from us,the mature boars at prices dictated to us by them;cheap.
The goats and birds,would also go out in search for food,and return no more.As we sat in the yard one evening expecting the return of the animals,for caging,I noticed a loud noise from among the spear grasses that lined the path to the yard.A swift wind had blown the weeds from side to side,following which the goats and sheep hopped speedily into the pen.
Immediately,I knew there was trouble-they may have gone to destroy the neighbours’ crop plants again. A fully bearded,dark,scary-eyed man,of about 6 ft 7 burst into the compound,wielding a machete.He was angry,and you could tell from the way his eyeballs were rolling,with beads of sweat running down his face that he had chased the animals from his farm all the way.
The warning was stern;the next time he saw our livestock around his place,there was no way they were going to return alive,he threatened and walked his ‘dirty’ self away.
We later sold all the animals and obviously fetched some for food;that was the end of our small livestock project;we could not bear the day-to-day challenges that came our way,in the line of farming.
As I stand motionless for the better part of twenty minutes,the tooting of a commercial bus horn gets me back to myself.The nomadic herdsmen are busily getting ready for prayers-they are performing ablution.They did not go grazing with their cattle today.
I wondered how they are able to cope with external pressures in this area-they rightly confirm the harrassment they are subjected
to,everyday by people living here,especially when it rains.
They would be thrown away from here when the community begins to see development.However hard these guys work everyday,they are never going to rate among the top farmers in the region,but that is certainly not on their minds.How to get their business going,to feed,clothe and house their wives and children is all that matters,while serving to complement the protein
mix of the people,with beef!
I have been thinking aloud,whether or not hard work at any level in Ghana is rewarded at all,in the areas of sports,education,health,bus
And on the back of reports that emerged from the Eastern parts of the country regarding items farmers in that area were given as
rewards/incentives for their hard work over the period,I felt scandalised and even more confused.
Hard work in the context I am relating to,is pretty much self-explanatory,correct?
Once we have agreed it is a self-explanatory concept,let us attempt juxtaposing prizes,awards,sponsorships,inc
The following maybe unrelated,but are certainly worth the thought,just maybe.
-The farmer works extremely hard all year round;has been confronted with a plethora of challenges ; inconsistent rains,activities of grazing cattle/straying animals,insufficient fertilize
his community to bigger towns and cities where his produce could be sold, are terrible and unmotorable.
 |
| Some terrible road network in parts of rural farming communities in ghana |
He sometimes experiences revenue and product losses as a result,-and banks refuse him loans and other facilities to expand.For some reason,he defies all of these,and emerges tops as the Best Coffee/Cocoa/Cashew/vegetable farmer in the country,and gets
rewarded with ; a double-decker knapsack sprayer
 |
| Items reportedly given to farmers in parts of E/R for their hard work |
-Consequently,a young lady gets to audition for some beauty pageant (they call it ),and is asked to do the ‘azonto dance’,or sing a song and then is said to have qualified for the said pageant.
She stays in a housing complex together with nine or fourteen other girls,depending on the pageant type,performs some tasks for
thirteen weeks,is shown on national television for the better part of three months ; dance battle,food preparation,presentations about
traditional festivals,etc.Sometimes,maybe,
At the end,she is voted/adjudged to have won the
pageant,guess what she wins ; a brand new Hyundai Accent,cash prize of 5,000 cedis,a three-week holiday trip to South Africa,a six-month wardrobe sponsorship from GTP,suvenirs from big Telcos in this town.
 |
| Winner of a beauty pageant in ghana |
-Also,consider the young ‘poor’ student who enters the university,struggles to get his expensive fees paid,and further struggles to feed,transport and clothe himself throughout his four-year stay in school.He barely affords to purchase course handouts and text books,and is sometimes helped out by friends financially to print course assignments.Throughout his four-year stay,he reads as many as 34 courses,and is allowed to write his semeter exams despite owing fees.
The number of sleepless nights he gets (not only tstudying,but also thinking about how to pay fees,how to repay borrowed monies,how to transport himself to and from school among others,is evident.
At the end of it all,intense four years in school, God graciously favours him and he’s awarded a prize for excellence ; for being the best student of the batch in the University,and what does he receive for these?- a samsung galaxy tab or some other brand of
same,sometimes ( cash prize of 1,000 cedis - if he is lucky ),a few books,a six month internship opportunity in a company somewhere.
 |
| A student of the journalism school, after having been awarded a prize for academic excellence, poses for a photograph |
-The most outstanding journalist puts his life on the line and exposes massive rot in high places in these parts,exposes issues about the less fortunate,the abused,the oppressed and brings about change in society,following his reportage.He barely gets enough rest,always on the move.He is threatened by actors in the center of scandals he exposes.While some attempt to buy his conscience in a bid to get him to abandon the investigations,he remains unshaken and sees it through and through.
He wins an award for all his efforts,and gets a citation and some travel opportunities here and there and a three-month or so internship opportunity at a media house outside of the jurisdiction.In 2014 for example,the most outstanding Journalist,Mabel Aku
Baneseh was ( given 5,000 cedis by the Asantehene,Otumfuor Osei Tutu II, himself ).
 |
| Mabel Aku Baneseh, Journalist of the Year 2013, in a pose with her certificate and plaque after awards ceremony |
[NB : I could not find a website dedicated to the umbrella body of journalists in Ghana,hence could not get further info about Journalists’ awards in this town].
There are many other areas,this text cannot cover.I am still struggling to get my small head around the reasons why sponsors/corporate ghana,channel their resources in the directions they do.
I respect individual institutions’ (state/private) specific mission and visions as well as Coperate Social Responsibility Project areas,but can they do better,say spread the resources across sectors?They say they do some of these sponsorships and CSR projects,to cause social change,but is it a question of misplaced priorities,or a shift from rewarding genuine hard work to rewarding something else?
Maybe some of these companies can help us understand why they channel their resources the way they do,so we get a clearer understanding.
Worried citizen!
Kingsley Komla Adom
twitter:@kingsley_komla
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