The Internet is sometimes like a palm tree. Sometimes, it produces pure gems – like the nuts that give us palm soup; and cooking oil(s); leaves that produce thatch for homes and brooms for floors; and – best known of all – palm wine; and that powerful drink distilled from it through a combination of the juice with copper wire, Blue Omo, rusty nails and other things that may not be named: akpeteshie.
Amazingly, when the palm tree is felled and begins to rot, whilst lying on the ground, it still has a lot to contribute to man's delight -- delicious detritus. This takes the form of a genus of fungus known in the Twi language as nnomo. Naturally, I cannot provide an English name for this most tasty of mushrooms, because, of course, it does not grow in the country from which English came to us.
Now, I don't want to cry with longing, so all l shall say about it is this: if you ever get the opportunity to spend some time in the bush parts of Ghana, try and persuade your hosts to find nnomo (it is pretty rare, I warn you!) and prepare you a meal of nnomo fried with palm oil, in a stew of nkontommire (boiled cocoyam leaves).
Do insist that the stew should be accompanied by boiled thin plantains of the type known as apem. If possible – and nothing is impossible in a forest setting – either wild yam (known as ahabayere) or its sister, asobayere, or both, should accompany the apem and stew.
Insist also that the meal be served to you at either 11 am. or 3 pm. Only a forest dweller can explain to you why this should be so. You see, at between 10.30 and 11 am., the freshest palm wine, with a taste almost like the sweet nectar from a coconut, and yet as potent as a bottle of lager, would have been brought to town by the 'early-bird' palm wine tappers. This is exhausted by the connoisseurs of palm wine very fast indeed, and so, between 1pm and 2 pm, hardly any of it would be left. Those who know therefore wait for the arrival of “reinforcements” at around 3pm.
That is when the 'late-fresh' lot would have appeared. It is given the name “awiasa” (afternoon wine). If you have ever seen academics consuming “port” after a hearty dinner, you will understand why certain members of the alcohol family make good companions at certain times and not others. At between 4 and 5pm, for instance, the palm wine tapper might have decided that he needs to 'augment' the quantity of his fast-diminishing 3pm pot of wine with a little bit of 'nature's own unfermented wine' (water).
Another tactic used to ensure that supplies never quite run out, is to retain at the bottom of the pot, the 'impurities' – pieces of charcoal, body parts of wasps, bees, and butterflies, unformed cocoons, and dead leaves – and allow them to form part of the calabashfuls served to those who are either too 'green' in palm wine culture to notice, or are too far gone to worry about any impurities served to them. Excuses abound to explain matters if this sharp practice is detected. An ingenuous palm wine tapper is known to have suggested that it was deliberately added to increase the nourishment contained in the palm wine.
Eh? Yes – there would be a pinch of truth in that. You see, addiction to palm wine and nutritious eating do not always go together, money being in short supply in most villages. That
explains why indigent palm wine regulars tend to have discoloured skin and rather large tummies.
Disputations about such pseudo-scientific issues explain the loud voices that are often heard emanating from palm wine bars. But don't be fooled – for if truth be told, voices are raised more in laughter in those establishments than in anger, because a lot of teasing also goes on about the performance of wives and girl friends, money-lenders' antics and the unreliability of politicians.
Anyway, back to the Internet. I had been wondering about the new 'discipline' everyone in Ghana has been talking about, called “financial engineering”. It
has netted one of its practitioners, a certain Woyome, between C58 and C92 million (depending on whether one relies on Government or Opposition figures) with no sweat whatsoever!. I had been pondering this when my eye caught a contribution to a free-for-all Comments page called “Say It Loud”. The contributor, who charmingly calls himself 'Trotsky Jnr.' (he is probably seeking a new technique of revisionising economic history, no less!) claims:
“Some parents want information about institutions that offer studies in Financial Engineering. Please help. Are there any institutions in Ghana offering this course? The craze was [once] about football; it's now for financial engineering.”
This acknowledges that whereas football players who make it to European clubs may earn as much as £200,000 per week, they are not quite as wealthy as practitioners of “financial engineering', who can put a 'package' together, 'sell' it to a government or statutory body (parastatal), and wait.
When that Government is voted out, the 'financial engineer', who had made friends with members of the new administration when they were impecunious (in Opposition) takes the new Government to court, claiming that the old Government, by receiving his financial package and doing nothing about it, had improperly abrogated a 'contract' it had 'agreed upon' with the consortium he had put together in foreign lands.
Note that the financial engineer does not say the contract 'signed' with the old Government. No. He makes the nature of the contract deliberately vague, for in British commercial law – which Ghana still blindly follows – even a 'verbal' so-called 'understanding' or 'undertaking' can sometimes be accepted by the courts as a 'valid contract'! There are even lawyers who can extract a contract out of a person's intentions, I tell you.
Because everyone knows the new Government is hostile to the one which it has replaced, the 'financial engineer's case may be heard with sympathy by those responsible for accepting or rejecting financial claims against the Government. If they decide that they won't vigorously defend a claim against the Government, or even 'settle it out of court,' no-one can gainsay them, for is is within their professional discretion. The Law is primarily concerned with the interpretation of written words, is it not?
Anyway, before anyone could even have heard of the out-of-court settlement, the plaintiff might have been paid his money. All that can happen is that the Auditor-General can “query” the payment – but only after it has been made. And that may be some months after the payment has been gobbled up by the 'financial engineer' and those who interpreted the law to favour him..
It is such a neat way of making money that someone, taking his cue from “Trotsky Jnr”, has decided to set up an Institution to teach others the ''Science” behind it. If Mr ‘Trotsky Jnr’ is reading this, I want to assure him that this guy's Course will be as beneficial as an ‘Aladdin's Lamp’; i.e. if “rubbed” in the proper manner, it will fill numerous pork-barrels – nay, even shipping containers – with tonnes and tonnes of money. And very beautiful women will come looking for some of it, with pleasant sirenish cries of "Oh Charlie inside is bad! Please, woyo-me small!".
The course is entitled ‘FINANCIAL ENGINEERING MODULE 101’. It is so structured that the very act of applying to enter the course and being accepted for Enrolment will amount to a 'Credit Pass' in the Preliminary Induction System At The Prosaic Level. Tuition Fee: $15,000 US.
Next after this Level, comes The Theoretical Concept of Creative Accounting In Financial Engineering Mode: (a) Pyramidal Macro-Micro Ponzism; (b) The Madoff Algorithm; (c) The Stanford Paradox Or How 'The Gentleman's Game' (Cricket) Was Stumped By Dollar Notes Flown By Helicopter To Lords; (d) the Blay-Miezah Resurrection Syndrome-Mysteries-cum-419 a la Philadelphia and (f) Neo-Woyomiesque Apolitical Pork-barrel Palm-Greasing.
This Part of The Course shall be available free of Tuition Fees. However, an Enquiry Response Fee, a Suitability Assessment Fee; an Interview Fee; a Post-Interview Debriefing Charge and a Pre-Emolument Survival Fee ($7500 US each, shall be applicable.
SCHOLRASHIPS: The institution will have utilised Diplomatic Contacts to secure Promissory Notes from several overseas-based NGOs (e.g. the Ostereich Foundation, the Interface Caucus Gmbh; and the Sovereign Template Facility Incorporated etc.) which shall provide Scholarship assistance to Means-Tested ‘Indigent Students’. The Means Test will cost $5,000 US. A Scholarship Coaching Fee of $12,000 US shall be levied for the purpose of coaching eligible, Means-Tested Students to learn the ropes of acquiring NGO Stipends and/or Endowments.
An Indexed Service Charge of 15% Ad Valorem or $10,000 US, (whichever is greater) shall also be applicable. Applications are welcome.
Amazingly, when the palm tree is felled and begins to rot, whilst lying on the ground, it still has a lot to contribute to man's delight -- delicious detritus. This takes the form of a genus of fungus known in the Twi language as nnomo. Naturally, I cannot provide an English name for this most tasty of mushrooms, because, of course, it does not grow in the country from which English came to us.
Now, I don't want to cry with longing, so all l shall say about it is this: if you ever get the opportunity to spend some time in the bush parts of Ghana, try and persuade your hosts to find nnomo (it is pretty rare, I warn you!) and prepare you a meal of nnomo fried with palm oil, in a stew of nkontommire (boiled cocoyam leaves).
Do insist that the stew should be accompanied by boiled thin plantains of the type known as apem. If possible – and nothing is impossible in a forest setting – either wild yam (known as ahabayere) or its sister, asobayere, or both, should accompany the apem and stew.
Insist also that the meal be served to you at either 11 am. or 3 pm. Only a forest dweller can explain to you why this should be so. You see, at between 10.30 and 11 am., the freshest palm wine, with a taste almost like the sweet nectar from a coconut, and yet as potent as a bottle of lager, would have been brought to town by the 'early-bird' palm wine tappers. This is exhausted by the connoisseurs of palm wine very fast indeed, and so, between 1pm and 2 pm, hardly any of it would be left. Those who know therefore wait for the arrival of “reinforcements” at around 3pm.
That is when the 'late-fresh' lot would have appeared. It is given the name “awiasa” (afternoon wine). If you have ever seen academics consuming “port” after a hearty dinner, you will understand why certain members of the alcohol family make good companions at certain times and not others. At between 4 and 5pm, for instance, the palm wine tapper might have decided that he needs to 'augment' the quantity of his fast-diminishing 3pm pot of wine with a little bit of 'nature's own unfermented wine' (water).
Another tactic used to ensure that supplies never quite run out, is to retain at the bottom of the pot, the 'impurities' – pieces of charcoal, body parts of wasps, bees, and butterflies, unformed cocoons, and dead leaves – and allow them to form part of the calabashfuls served to those who are either too 'green' in palm wine culture to notice, or are too far gone to worry about any impurities served to them. Excuses abound to explain matters if this sharp practice is detected. An ingenuous palm wine tapper is known to have suggested that it was deliberately added to increase the nourishment contained in the palm wine.
Eh? Yes – there would be a pinch of truth in that. You see, addiction to palm wine and nutritious eating do not always go together, money being in short supply in most villages. That
explains why indigent palm wine regulars tend to have discoloured skin and rather large tummies.
Disputations about such pseudo-scientific issues explain the loud voices that are often heard emanating from palm wine bars. But don't be fooled – for if truth be told, voices are raised more in laughter in those establishments than in anger, because a lot of teasing also goes on about the performance of wives and girl friends, money-lenders' antics and the unreliability of politicians.
Anyway, back to the Internet. I had been wondering about the new 'discipline' everyone in Ghana has been talking about, called “financial engineering”. It
has netted one of its practitioners, a certain Woyome, between C58 and C92 million (depending on whether one relies on Government or Opposition figures) with no sweat whatsoever!. I had been pondering this when my eye caught a contribution to a free-for-all Comments page called “Say It Loud”. The contributor, who charmingly calls himself 'Trotsky Jnr.' (he is probably seeking a new technique of revisionising economic history, no less!) claims:
“Some parents want information about institutions that offer studies in Financial Engineering. Please help. Are there any institutions in Ghana offering this course? The craze was [once] about football; it's now for financial engineering.”
This acknowledges that whereas football players who make it to European clubs may earn as much as £200,000 per week, they are not quite as wealthy as practitioners of “financial engineering', who can put a 'package' together, 'sell' it to a government or statutory body (parastatal), and wait.
When that Government is voted out, the 'financial engineer', who had made friends with members of the new administration when they were impecunious (in Opposition) takes the new Government to court, claiming that the old Government, by receiving his financial package and doing nothing about it, had improperly abrogated a 'contract' it had 'agreed upon' with the consortium he had put together in foreign lands.
Note that the financial engineer does not say the contract 'signed' with the old Government. No. He makes the nature of the contract deliberately vague, for in British commercial law – which Ghana still blindly follows – even a 'verbal' so-called 'understanding' or 'undertaking' can sometimes be accepted by the courts as a 'valid contract'! There are even lawyers who can extract a contract out of a person's intentions, I tell you.
Because everyone knows the new Government is hostile to the one which it has replaced, the 'financial engineer's case may be heard with sympathy by those responsible for accepting or rejecting financial claims against the Government. If they decide that they won't vigorously defend a claim against the Government, or even 'settle it out of court,' no-one can gainsay them, for is is within their professional discretion. The Law is primarily concerned with the interpretation of written words, is it not?
Anyway, before anyone could even have heard of the out-of-court settlement, the plaintiff might have been paid his money. All that can happen is that the Auditor-General can “query” the payment – but only after it has been made. And that may be some months after the payment has been gobbled up by the 'financial engineer' and those who interpreted the law to favour him..
It is such a neat way of making money that someone, taking his cue from “Trotsky Jnr”, has decided to set up an Institution to teach others the ''Science” behind it. If Mr ‘Trotsky Jnr’ is reading this, I want to assure him that this guy's Course will be as beneficial as an ‘Aladdin's Lamp’; i.e. if “rubbed” in the proper manner, it will fill numerous pork-barrels – nay, even shipping containers – with tonnes and tonnes of money. And very beautiful women will come looking for some of it, with pleasant sirenish cries of "Oh Charlie inside is bad! Please, woyo-me small!".
The course is entitled ‘FINANCIAL ENGINEERING MODULE 101’. It is so structured that the very act of applying to enter the course and being accepted for Enrolment will amount to a 'Credit Pass' in the Preliminary Induction System At The Prosaic Level. Tuition Fee: $15,000 US.
Next after this Level, comes The Theoretical Concept of Creative Accounting In Financial Engineering Mode: (a) Pyramidal Macro-Micro Ponzism; (b) The Madoff Algorithm; (c) The Stanford Paradox Or How 'The Gentleman's Game' (Cricket) Was Stumped By Dollar Notes Flown By Helicopter To Lords; (d) the Blay-Miezah Resurrection Syndrome-Mysteries-cum-419 a la Philadelphia and (f) Neo-Woyomiesque Apolitical Pork-barrel Palm-Greasing.
This Part of The Course shall be available free of Tuition Fees. However, an Enquiry Response Fee, a Suitability Assessment Fee; an Interview Fee; a Post-Interview Debriefing Charge and a Pre-Emolument Survival Fee ($7500 US each, shall be applicable.
SCHOLRASHIPS: The institution will have utilised Diplomatic Contacts to secure Promissory Notes from several overseas-based NGOs (e.g. the Ostereich Foundation, the Interface Caucus Gmbh; and the Sovereign Template Facility Incorporated etc.) which shall provide Scholarship assistance to Means-Tested ‘Indigent Students’. The Means Test will cost $5,000 US. A Scholarship Coaching Fee of $12,000 US shall be levied for the purpose of coaching eligible, Means-Tested Students to learn the ropes of acquiring NGO Stipends and/or Endowments.
An Indexed Service Charge of 15% Ad Valorem or $10,000 US, (whichever is greater) shall also be applicable. Applications are welcome.
