Author name: Dr Maxwell Ampong

“Honourable Members! [Prof. Mike Oquaye pauses for emphasising effect] … it is, my, singular honour… to inform, on the presence… of, the Speaker, of the House of Representatives… of the United States Congress… Honourable… Nancy, Patricia, Pelosi!” The camera turns to an attentive, African bead necklace-wearing Pelosi, who wasn’t expecting the glorifying roar that ensued from our Honourable Members in the Chamber… “yeeeeeah-yeah!” Her reaction was very nice and warm. She seemed genuinely surprised, very flattered, and has at all times during this trip looked like she was having a really great time. She also definitely has made some new friends in our land, in particular our Speaker, Rt. Hon. Prof. Mike Oquaye. I am sure both Speakers have had a lot to speak about. The Pelosi-led delegation was very impressive. A very distinguished US Congressional delegation to Ghana brought to our motherland, amongst others, 13 members of the US Congressional Black Caucus, with the likes of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, House Representative Barbara Lee, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass and the famous US political icon, John Lewis. It was to commemorate the 400 years since the arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia. The delegation and local counterparts were scheduled to discuss “regional security, sustainable and inclusive development and the challenges of tomorrow, including the climate crisis”. It’s all the other discussions that should really intrigue you. Here’s why. Nancy Pelosi is into making history. The United States House Speaker is the first woman to ever lead a major congressional party. She is also the first female speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Her earliest political stint was her role as Chair of the Northern California Democratic Party in 1977. She was born in 1940. She has since been on the good side of history many times over, continuously aggregating her legacy as an astute political juggernaut with sound judgement. For instance, she voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in 1991. She again voted against authorisation for use of military force in Iraq in 2001. She was the first woman to ever be elected House minority whip. Back in 2002, elected by her fellow democrats, she became the highest-ranking woman in congressional history with that role. When the Democrats won majority in the House in 2006 and Pelosi became Speaker of the House when the new Congress began, it made her the first woman to be as high in the line of succession to the US Presidency (second behind the Vice President). On 7th February 2018, Nancy Pelosi set the record for the longest speech anyone has ever given on the House floor when she spoke for over eight continuous hours to oppose the budget deal to lift spending caps and avoid a government shutdown, because Pelosi did not like that the plan did not address immigration issues. In January this year, US President Donald Trump declared his annual State of the Union address “cancelled” after Nancy Pelosi said that, while parts of the government remained shut down, she will bar the President from delivering his speech in the US House chamber. Nancy Pelosi is a force to reckon with. This visit will serve Ghana well. When US Presidents visited Ghana, it worked wonders for international diplomacy and multi-national relations between the two nations. Because a President stays in office for not more than 8 years, the influence of that personal relationship between Ghana and the US President, the singular man, is diluted after he leaves office. Here comes a woman who has been in the US political scene for over four decades. And she did not come alone. This delegation is full of powerful Congressmen and Congresswomen who yield significant influence in the US political scene. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is only 37years old and is almost always on the news in one way or the other now. She is part of 4 young Congresswoman nicknamed by the US political media as “The Squad”. She is currently driving conversation, she most probably will for many decades to come, and now Ghana is a friend she has spent time with. We are no longer penpals to these beautiful people. I believe the delegation had a wonderful, insightful time here and what they have experienced together will stay with them as their political careers continues to impressively unfold. Last week, through this visit, Ghana has certainly made some good powerful allies that will serve us very well as they reiterate the culture of our people and the strength of our national resolve to champion regional development. So the non-scheduled discussions had with them should have been exciting, for I know not what they are. But I do know that if matters have been raised to this warm, refreshing delegation, led by the one and only Nancy Pelosi, we will have friends at the table on the other side of the pond. 2019 is the Year of Return! Our President has declared 2019 as the “Year of Return” for Africans in the diaspora. It seems to be working brilliantly, seeing that a delegation of this calibre has made the historic journey to connect with the motherland. Tens of thousands of Americans are expected to pour into the country for commemoration celebrations. Our President phrases it a “birthright journey home for the global African family”. Pelosi praised President Nana Akufo Addo and called it a “wonderful” gesture. As more and more Foreigners are endeavouring to trace their ancestry, a year-long open invitation like this one is bound to attract a lot of tourists during the holiday period. The rise of African culture in the West has contributed to a lot of black men and women seeking some form of a link their very own Wakanda, and they want a story to match also. Ghana IS the Gateway to Africa! Ghana being the country of choice for black foreigners wanting to come “home” to Africa is pretty straightforward, really. Our independence in 1957 made Ghana the

The Acting Director of Public Affairs of Parliament, Ms. Kate Addo, announced last week Monday that plans to build a new 450-seat chamber for Parliament has been suspended. The 3-year construction was scheduled to commence by end of year. It is impossible to ignore the ensuing effects that the #DropThatChamber movement will have on all matters in the public AND private sector. My point revolves around the effects that recent happenings will have on others that look similar in the future. One word: Precedent (noun) Meaning (Cambridge): an action, situation, or decision that has already happened and can be used as a reason why a similar action or decision should be performed or made. Example: Some politicians fear that agreeing to the concession would set a dangerous precedent. That example sentence is actually ALSO from the Cambridge Dictionary. Check, I am not making that up. In this piece, I argue neither for the merit of the #DropThatChamber movement, nor do I dispute its validity. I try to be uncontroversial when it comes to matters like this because in politics, which is so not my forte, a debate for one side is usually span as an argument against the other, regardless of the line of reasoning. Let us stick to the facts. This remains an opinion piece. The Power of The People, in the Social Media Era Lawyer and civil rights activist, Pauli Murray, once said “One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement”. That was the typewriter era. This this the era of Siri and Alexa. I bet she never imagined what 3 billion active social media users plugged into a World Wide Web can do in the 21st century. In this day and age, everyone has a voice. You can be the face of that voice or hide behind the avatar of some unnamed account to push an agenda. History has some lessons for us when it comes to social media backlash and how it is handled. It is arguably the most effective tool in the world. My other concern with the situation is how I did not clearly hear of how backroom dialogue and negotiating consensus with the opposition lead to the decision to drop the chamber. A lack of that might set the stage for how “action” of any kind is the way to get what you want from the government, as evidenced from the many videos on social media that threatened “action” on the government if they proceed with the chamber construction. The Camel’s nose The camel’s nose is a metaphor for any scenario where the permitting of a small, seemingly harmless act will open to door to other bigger, clearly undesirable actions. It is derived from a story where a camel sticks his nose into a man’s room, and the man thinks nothing of it for afterall it is only the nose. Later the camel pushes his head through. Before long the camel has its whole body in the man’s house and refuses to leave. The #DropThatChamber movement has a message that resonates well upon first listen. The movement is against the use of US$200M to build a bigger chamber for parliament when our developing nation has far more pressing matters on its agenda. The message is good. The activism is strong and on-going. Which is why I am not necessarily against the dropping of the chamber construction. I just do not want some proverbial camel to use this movement as its nose to come and worry Ghana. We like our peace. The government caving to #DropThatChamber might cause future opponents of any government’s action or policy, from any political party, NDC or NPP, to think “if the government caved once before in such and such a manner, they can cave again”. Also, when an ambitious government like our current one that has a lot of high-profile, capital intensive projects in its sights, including a very large National Cathedral that will surely be very costly as well as many daring development projects, where will it draw the line after another #DropThat movement? That brings me to The Principle of the Wedge. The Principle of the Wedge  In 1908, an English classical scholar named F. M. Cornford authored a short pamphlet called Microcosmographia Academica. In it, he briefly explained the Principle of the Wedge. “The Principle of the Wedge is that you should not act justly now for fear of raising expectations that you may act still more justly in the future — expectations which you are afraid you will not have the courage to satisfy. A little reflection will make it evident that the Wedge argument implies the admission that the persons who use it cannot prove that the action is not just. If they could, that would be the sole and sufficient reason for not doing it, and this argument would be superfluous.” Superfluous is the author’s too-known way of naming a present reaction or action as unnecessary when you know you cannot repeat things that same way in similar circumstances. He says raising the expectations of people by saying yes to them now, leading them to believe that you will say yes in future to a similar request, is not prudent in politics and it sets a bad precedent. The author is the one making that point, and yes, his writing is on politics, university politics. He called it “A Guide for The Young Academic Politician”. He also elaborates on The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent. The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent  The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent is that you should not now do an admittedly right action for fear you, or your successors, should not have the courage to do right in some future case, which, ex hypothesi, is essentially different, but superficially resembles the present one. Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. Every public action, which is not the usual that we have come to know, either is wrong or right. If it is wrong, then it should not have happened and should be condemned. If

My slow-clap recognition of the current dominance of Mobile Money has been quite clear, especially MTN Mobile Money. I mean, there is an exact point in time where an MTN showrunner thought “ok, we’ve conquered telecommunications, now let’s get into money transfers”. A man briefly wonders about these things, because there is an answer out there, as to the exact when. The exact why though I am fairly sure of; BECAUSE THEY CAN. When a brand gets so big, and so good at being so big, it can successfully cross business sectors utilising the right strategy. Such moves aren’t new. What happens when a waste management company like Zoomlion lingers into banking? Wait. Jospong did that, with OmniBank, now OmniBSIC. I can cite other examples, like the disrupting emergence of the largely successful Royal Drinks and Awake Mineral Water by Kasapreko, a formerly solely alcoholic beverage-producing company. These new ventures had already existing and tough competition. Success therefore depends on STRATEGY. It is generally concluded that Coca Cola, a company not known to make mistakes, at all, eventually failed at maintaining the bold entry of its Dasani Mineral Water into the bottled water market as a result of bad strategy. Strategy is therefore everything when it comes to big moves like what Facebook is attempting. Facebook launches Libra. On 18th June, 2019, Facebook, the American social media conglomerate, launched Libra, a cryptocurrency. It’s still a pretty bold step to venture into virtual currency for a company that got the world addicted to virtual likes. Fun fact The name Libra is also the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac. The sign of Libra is illustrated by the scales; it represents justice. Libra is an old Roman unit of weight. And though Libra is spelt as “libre” in French, it translates to “free”. The Libra Association. In Geneva, Switzerland, Facebook co-founded the Libra Association. The Libra Association is a group of powerful companies from different business sectors that will serve as the de-facto monetary authority of the Libra currency. It was founded with 28 members, aiming at 100 members as time goes by. Each member contributes $10 million to the project. Facebook still wants to “maintain a leadership role through 2019″. It’s only logical that it does. Yet, after 2019, Facebook will not have a clear leadership role. The Libra Association awards an equal vote to each member. So eventually, Facebook will have as much a say as any other founding member. Facebook’s membership of the Association is through Calibra, a subsidiary of Facebook. The Libra Association will also manage technical aspects of the currency and work with regulators to make sure they are abiding by and complying with existing laws and policies. They plan on adopting real-life techniques and safeguards that will make sure the value of Libra remains stable. Who are The Libra Association? I did mention “right strategy.” Facebook’s strategy for the rollout of Libra seems to be centred around a system of harmonious integrations from very powerful inlets into our lives right from the go. This seems more obvious when you analyse the breakdown of The Libra Association’s founding 28 members. Here’s the exact list of companies grouped by their business sectors: Payments: PayPal, Visa Inc., Mastercard, Stripe, PayU. Telecommunications: Vodafone, Iliad SA. Technology & Marketplaces: Uber, Spotify, eBay, Lyft, Calibra, Booking Holdings, MercadoPago, Farfetch. Venture capital: Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, Union Square Ventures, Breakthrough Initiatives. Blockchain: Coinbase, Xapo, Anchorage, Bison Trails. Nonprofit & Multilateral Organizations, and Academic Institutions: Women’s World Banking, Mercy Corps, Kiva, Creative Destruction Lab. These companies add up to 28. With a roster like that, it’s easy to see how Libra will catch on pretty fast. Why have a Cryptocurrency. With the proper rollout and implementation strategy, why not. The case for Libra was made back in 2009 when the social media company launched Facebook Credits, a virtual currency. At that time, Facebook Credits was designed to take on a life of its own and turn into a micropayment system that is open to any Facebook application. It was often used in games, but other applications utilised the currency as well. It was even sold in physical store outlets like Walmart, Target and Best Buy. Facebook Credits was retired after 4 years in 2013. These waters are therefore not new territory for Facebook, though they are adopting a much bigger, more inclusive method of approach. The Libra Association says the purpose of Libra is to “empower billions of people”, pointing out that there are 1.7 billion people in the world without traditional bank accounts who could use the currency, Libra. The Case for Libra in Ghana. The World Bank’s Economic Update Report on Ghana has stated that the main driver of financial inclusion in our country is not traditional banks, but rather Mobile Money. It estimates than within 5 years, more people would be accessing financial services using Mobile Money and other FinTechs. The report put particular emphasis on the government’s role in the integration of Mobile Money and modern financial technology in broadening the access of formal financial services to Ghanaians, using collection and payment of utility bills. The report stated, “Current approaches remain piece-meal, and clear direction from government is needed to further push existing projects in these areas. To do so, financial and technical support to the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and utilities is required to update their internal accounting systems. This would allow full integration via open application programme interfaces (APIs) into institutions such as GhIPSS, allowing for individuals to use their bank account or mobile wallets to pay for government services or utility bills.” The introduction of Libra into the mix is very timely and presents many opportunities for local innovation, considering the popularity and increasing use of Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Uber and others like it. These apps will be the first to integrate Libra in its normal use. Where’s Africa in the Libra Association. During the launch of this report, the World Bank Country Director, Dr. Henry Kerali,