OK, time for the next instalment. With time fast running out as we approach the 14th September opening, it's all hands to the pump. There are a hundred-and-one things we need to do if the school is to be opened in time, but before I go into that, we will start with a look at the main event – the Memorandum. As I left it last time, we had agreed in principle with the minister for education for a partnership between EDP and the state based on the principle of free secondary education at the school. Of course things were never going to be straight forward, and we have had to do an awful lot of chasing to get the thing formalised, but on the 11th June I sat down with Hon. Alex-Tettey Enyo and signed the vital document. With just a touch of irony, in the words of Chuck Palahniuk, “we now have corporate sponsorship”.
The point is that fees, however small they seem, are beyond the financial reach of the very poor and so without access to education poverty simply reproduces itself. So, the fact that we have government support [teachers and books] for a non-fee paying senior school is something that I am very, very excited about. In terms of long-term success and [current buzzword] sustainability of the project this is a massive boost.
The next thing to mention is the progress of getting the all important container from the UK shipped out here. The contents of which include computers, books, bicycles a juicer and a host of other things crucial for the project’s success. In order to get the pre-tax clearance for the shipment we needed to register as an NGO which, in Ghana, is no easy task. Right, explaining this one may get complicated [not to mention emotionally tortuous for myself in reliving the whole experience]. Developing country bureaucracies are often incredibly overworked, with external demands and internal pressures, understaffed and poorly resourced. As a result both private investment and international aid get slowed down [and sadly often just give up]. This little story should do well in highlighting this fact. I visited the Registrar Generals to collect an NGO registration form [incidentally, the lady dishing out the forms asked me if this was a for-profit or not-for-profit NGO which both saddened and appalled me]. I took the completed form back a few days later only to be told that as a UK organisation we would have to register as a company who were applying to open a school. As a result we registered Awutu-Winton as a private company which required copies of certificates showing EDP was a registered UK charity. By the following week, thinking all was in order, I headed back. This time I was told that we would need a Ghanaian auditor who would agree to check accounts each year, and pay $1000. Both were obviously unreasonable and had not been mentioned before. Now, these forms [and there were many, many forms] all needed to be typed, not written. As a result the pavements outside the registry are awash with people hunched over typewriters who will type up your proposals. It is here I spent two weeks, getting applications typed, then checked in various departments, then retyped, then checked again. Queues, queues, queues. It's a good job I lived for a while in China, were the sheer number of people means that you queue just to get a bar of soap, but even so my patience was running out by the beginning of the third week. And so, on the Tuesday, it got too much for me and I snapped. 'Just tell me what you want me to do, just once, and I'll do it' [the language may have been a little fruitier than that in reality]. The woman behind the counter looked aghast, and stared over my shoulder. I look around and a large man in a blue uniform, with an even larger machine gun, is walking up to grab me by the arm. Things weren't looking good. I contemplated briefly whether I was actually being taken away to be shot and decided that, if the alternative was another week of queues then it was probably for the best. So, I acquiesced and let him lead the march out of the building, through some security doors, up two flights of stairs and through a thick brown wooden panelled door. “Hello Mr James” said the Attorney General from behind her enormous desk, “what seems to be the problem”. It didn't even click as to how she knew my name and I told her exactly what I wanted to do and how difficult it was being made for me. A quick apology was made [for which, retrospectively of course I know was completely unnecessary, not to mention morally refutable, but was however music to my ears at the time] and she said how she had learned from the Education Department of the plans with EDP and the school in Awutu. She called her assistant, Richard, over and he was instructed to help with everything. By Friday, I had the company registration certificate and was on my way to the department of social welfare with a skip in my step.
Mrs Owari put me in touch with a guy in social welfare called Simon Nangwar who in turn introduced me to a Mr Agble. Initially I was told that the school was to be inspected, but as this would have been the third time it would have been I managed to convince him that it wasn't necessary. By waving around the signed letter from the Minister, as well as the original inspection report form the Education Service in Cape-Coats and expressing how keen we all were to get the container over he agreed to wave another inspection. I was to come back the next day with various copies of certificates and information about the directors, the school’s history, funding and a constitution. With all this in hand Mr Agble set out, a few days later, to register the school itself as an NGO. A few weeks after that, with daily harassment, we were given our certificate. The school was now registered as a private company and as an NGO, both in the UK and in Ghana. Well, at least we have all the bases covered. Next we had to write a letter to the ministry for social welfare and employment to apply for tax exemption for the container coming through the port. And that is where we currently leave things. Not that the saga is over. Perhaps even just beginning. Our whole folder is now waiting on a desk somewhere, awaiting the arrival of the Bill of Lading [the 'passport' of the container, issued by the port in the UK]. The ship sailed yesterday, and will take 3 weeks to arrive. Once the Bill has turned up, myself and Agble will take everything to the Ministry of Finance to get it signed off before it gets passed on to the Revenue Secretary who will give us another signed letter which we take to the VAT and Customs office who will give us the final tax exemption certificate. Once we have that we get a clearing agent [which Agble says he can sort out very easily] and we are ready to collect the container. Simple!
Alongside this, there has been plenty else going on. We have just taken charge of the 70 desks ready for the students to sit their first lessons. I have met with and written formal requests to the Director of Education in Cape-Coast for teachers and to the Head of Procurement and Logistics in Accra for text books. Both have promised to help, but I expect a similar story of queues, type-writers and machine guns may yet come between us and the realisation of those promises. Building at the site has started once more. We originally put a halt to construction when we found out the school was not registered and then were hampered by rains. With the annual downpours just about finished [it may not rain again for another ten months] the foundations for the second phase [to be opened Sept 2011] has begun again. It is important that we push this long as fast as possible, lest the students this year will have a school that more resembles a building site. We have also cleared the road, planted some trees and placed turf [with sporadic mango trees] around the back of the school to form a little lawn for the students to sit on. A couple of weeks ago we organised a meeting with the local heads of junior schools from the area to discuss student enrolment. About 30 turned up, and have been given application forms as well as a run down on the way the school will run [free, non-boarding, text books provided]. The students are waiting for their exam results, which should be out end of July, before they can apply but the general consensus is that the target of 70 students will easily be reached which is very encouraging news.
So that is about where we are up to at Awutu-Winton. We still have a great deal to do, and little time left to do it, but in quite a chaotic manner it all seems to be coming together nicely and I am confident that with a little luck we will make the September deadline. Just! In fact, if this was a mid-morning home makeover TV show [of the sort I was so fond of as a student] then I think the new students could well be strolling up the road just with the paint drying and the finishing touches being put in place as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is spotted scarpering over the back wall and out of sight.
And there we have it. Well, almost. I can’t possibly finish this off without mentioning the first ever football World Cup to be held in Africa. It has been such a pleasure to have been out in Ghana and see first-hand just how much this tournament has meant to the people of the entire continent. And what with Ghana flying the flag for the rest of Africa in the latter stages there has been plenty to cheer about. The Black Stars reached the quarter finals [only the third African team ever to do so] and played brilliantly, before cruelly missing a last minute penalty that would have seen them become the first African team into the semis. The whole continent was shouting for Ghana that night, the papers had dubbed the team the African Stars, and the United States of Africa. Despite their eventual loss to Uruguay, people danced long into the night to celebrate the team’s achievements. The next morning I was chatting to my next door neighbour about the game. “It is god’s will he said”, through a sigh and a dejected look at the floor. His wife was more convinced as to the reason for the result. “This boy” she said “who took the penalty. Everybody loves him too much, they have filled his head up,” before peering round at her husband “he has sugar on the brain”. I'm not entirely sure exactly who she was talking about.
James Riggs Awutu, July 2010.
