![\"\"](\"https:\/\/writersghana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/IMG-20180730-WA0011-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Isaac Ato MENSAH
\nAccra- 31 July, 2018.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Branding Ghana remains a controversial subject.<\/p>\n
As a young lecturer back in 2011, I used to hold very active debates with my advertising students on the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for Ghana.<\/p>\n
I disagreed with all their high hopes and believed our strongest point was to brand ourselves on peaceful elections.<\/p>\n
‘Cocoa, Kente, festivals, gold, Mole National Park,’ were some of the responses shouted from the back of the class as I highlighted my presentation on the board to show that no matter how close the result, we all accepted it and cheered the winners.<\/p>\n
‘Hospitality’ always got a no no from me as I pointed out election violence and the police hot spots and flash points.<\/p>\n
‘The statistics work in our favour,’ I used to say. ‘Remember prospective tourists know this is West Africa with so many unlicensed weapons across our porous borders.’<\/p>\n
I still think that the world knows us for holding peaceful elections so we should just harp on that to have a foot in the door.<\/p>\n
Whilst on 8 October 2016, graphic.com.gh reported that the Brand Ghana Office was established by President Atta-Mills in 2009; myjoyonline.com published on 25 June 2018 that the Ghana Tourism Authority boss says the \u2018Office doesn’t exist\u2019 and at the same time he\u2019s quoted saying it has been replaced with \u2018a committee of minds\u2019!<\/p>\n
During President Kufuor’s administration, some thought football was a good bet so we rode on the back of our famous football stars to brand Ghana.<\/p>\n
Expensive ads were run on CNN.<\/p>\n
‘A sixty-second ad on CNN is about 400 thousand dollars,’ a friend of mine always yelled when the debate came up.’ It’s too expensive.’<\/p>\n
Now our football is gone with all the brouhaha over the Ghana Football Association and the suspension of our football league.<\/p>\n
On November 16, 2016, citifmonline reported that Ghana had renewed its tourism advertising campaign deal with Cable News Network (CNN).<\/p>\n
The then acting head of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) Gideon Aryeequaye was quoted thus: \u2018Nine years ago, we started something with CNN, it\u2019s capital intensive, you need to look for the money to get it done but you also agree that once it is done, it projects you because Cable News Network is across the world and everybody knows it\u2019s a very wide platform and for you to run a 60-second ad on it is a plus to you.’<\/p>\n
Errm…umh… should I explain that?<\/p>\n
We want to appear on CNN because to appear on CNN alone takes you several notches higher in image and brand identity.<\/p>\n
In other words, we are saying CNN is a good brand so we want to associate with them, no matter our actual concrete reality!<\/p>\n
Keeping up with the Mensahs, uh?<\/p>\n
The brand image of the Brand Ghana office itself has suffered as a result of the usual way we handle things in Ghana – including our specialty, removing staff without due process and other cynical and reckless acts.<\/p>\n
However, a statement on brandghana.gov.gh with the caption Who We Are is a very apt description of what is at stake.<\/p>\n
‘The people of Ghana are Brand Ghana,’ the website of the Brand Ghana Office says.<\/p>\n
‘All of us! It is the people, their education, their abilities and aspirations that ultimately deliver what a country is and deliver the potential for tourism, business, cultural, social and political exchange.’<\/p>\n
There it is!<\/p>\n
Needless to say, we want to attract tourists because we want to attract some of the monies tourists spend.<\/p>\n
As a tourist, guest or visitor what is the first thing you do when you enter a hotel, home or guest house?<\/p>\n
‘May I use your washroom\/bathroom,’ is a close answer, I suppose.<\/p>\n
The data on our toilet and water situation is not at all a good sell and I won’t attempt to smother you with statistics.<\/p>\n
However do indulge me with just two quotes.<\/p>\n
\u2018Out of the 35 institutional faecal treatment plants in the country, only four are currently operational,’ according to Professor Rose Entsua-Mensah, deputy director-general of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), speaking at an ecological conference in Accra on 5th July, 2018. ‘Only one per cent of the sewage generated in Ghana is treated,\u2019 she added.<\/p>\n
The CSIR has already published that ‘Our water is infested with algae.’<\/p>\n
There are water closets in only 15.4% of all housing facilities in Ghana according to the 2010 Ghana Population and Housing Census.<\/p>\n
Since we’re talking about branding, the stats of 19.0 per cent for pit latrines is most irrelevant.<\/p>\n
Even if we insist on counting it, how do the remaining households manage themselves?<\/p>\n
Below is a photograph of the toilet at the Osu library.<\/p>\n
The Osu library, about 500 meters from the Christiansborg Castle and the Independence Square was built by the Gold Coast Library Board.<\/p>\n
The library has been renovated and is now running 9 to 5 as a fully functional children’s library.<\/p>\n
But the toilet is not functional.<\/p>\n
So what will the children do just in case? Please don’t tell me there’s a nearby public toilet.
\nAnd ooh, there’s one more startling observation under the sun, ‘In Ghana toilet does not mean washing of hands or running water.’<\/p>\n
Honestly, sometimes, I get a cultural jolt when a foreigner says, ‘Excuse me, I want to use the toilet.’<\/p>\n
Let us get our basics at home right before embarking on expensive junkets and doling out money to PR agencies for six figure time slots.<\/p>\n
Fix our sanitation immediately; commonsense dictates this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo; Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited, 30 July, 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"