Ghana Days 17-19

Friday I went again to parliament with Awudu – I think I’ll be doing this Tue-Fri for the next 2 weeks. It was more interesting this time, because things actually got talked about. There was an Urgent Question on the agenda that took up a significant amount of time. Because the administration has blamed the oil hike partially on the fact that the Tema Oil Refinery is not recovering the full cost of operation, the Energy Minister was called in to answer the question of how much under-recovery there is daily at the TOR. He did a very poor job. He gave a total figure for last year that seemed to be the total debt in the energy sector, but it was unclear. One of the components was TOR, but it was not broken down, and I think it might just be how much the facility owes in general. Also, the total figure he gave was something like $347 million of debt, but the components he submitted only totaled $337 million. When pressed about it he said he hadn’t mentioned the $12 million somewhere else, but this obviously doesn’t result in $347 million, so just generally he did a terrible job at life that day. The minority gave a press conference afterwards complaining. I’m pretty sure nobody was happy.

Beyond this, a few contracts were briefly discussed, but the motions to approve them were all put off until the following week. There was a report tabled that might be interesting – the human rights and justice type report for Ghana—but it’s from the 2004 period. And I thought the US bureaucracy was behind on things. This is pretty bad.

The weekend hasn’t been terribly noteworthy. I went out with the other Americans on Saturday and we went to overpriced touristy places (got “macaroni and cheese” at John’s hotel, ice cream downtown, and I got fries at the Irish pub we went to in the evening). I don’t think that’s going to happen much more often, my compatriots have pretty expensive tastes for my budget.

Today (Sunday) I’m just hanging out. I’ve got some downloaded television to watch and some books to read, so that’s pretty much my day. Not too exciting, but I’m ok with it.

To look forward to in the future: in two weeks I should be starting with the Daily Graphic, which is the biggest paper and state-run. I would give you the website to check it out, but in fact the largest paper in Ghana has no website (at least none that is running). I might figure out why while I’m there, but it doesn’t sound like there’s a good reason anyone knows. Also, starting next Saturday I’ll be tutoring English and French once a week at the orphanage Elizabeth and Maddie work at. I was supposed to start this weekend, but as you can read that did not happen (I don’t think Prince actually set it up when he said he did).

A word on my cohabitants – Maddie is leaving a week from Wednesday, but it seems Elizabeth is enjoying her stay (and putting off real life), so she’s going to be staying an extra month. That means she’s leaving in August with Matt, so she’ll be around for my whole stay. I’m also getting a roommate named Sabrina on July 1, who apparently knows Elizabeth from school, but had not told her she was going to be coming. I’ve been told she’s a nice girl though, so I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Before that it’s also possible that Katey, from Georgetown, will be staying with us until she finds another place (she gets in on Thursday). So basically our building is Grand Central Station for US citizens for a while.