KWEKU VIBES

A number of East African artistes are planning to boycott any plans for MTV Africa Music Awards to promote the awards in the region. They accuse Mamas of short changing the region’s artistes in this year’s event, and giving most nominations to South African and Nigerian artistes. “Uganda was worst hit because their nomination is a collabo with Amani, who is a Kenyan artiste,” said one of Kenya’s top musicians who requested anonymity. Among the artistes who were expected to be on the nomination list were Tanzania’s AY, Ommy Dimpoz and Lady Jaydee; Kenya’s P-Unit, STL, Elani, and Wyre; Uganda’s Chameleone and Navio. Most artistes intend not to participate in the Roads to Mamas events, which will be held in East Africa too.

Finding the perfect middleman in a business is like finding the right mate to spend the rest of your life with or the right house help especially when it is a live-in house help. It can take a lot of time and trust to understand your mate— a few test runs have to be made and sustaining the relationship takes honest commitment from both parties. This is the kind of person you have to be totally open with when it comes to your expectations because the more you hide what you feel or not being happy with the services the longer you prolong your hurt and eventual break up. I find this especially true when getting into a business venture while working with someone from different parts of the globe, not only can e-mailing be misunderstood, but so can talking on the phone. Tradition, cultural differences and accents can come into play. I notice in the US everything is laid on the table – it is either black or white. There is no time to keep playing someone around

Good practice demands that a leader appoints one or more deputies. A deputy is the “principal assistant of the top dog, and their role is not only to carry out the duties their boss delegates to them but to be “a bullet away” from taking over in the event of him or her no longer being available. All very logical and reasonable. But too often the relationship between a chief and their deputy is filled with tension. Their styles may not only be different but incompatible; one or the other may be too casual with sharing information, or even downright possessive of it; and most serious of all, the deputy may be in a very great hurry to succeed their senior. As I’ve been reflecting on the subject of being a deputy, I have realised that just about all of us has been one at some time in our careers. And it’s rare that it’s been the best of times. There are so many areas of possible differences: it can be over the vision and values of the organisation; over how the

The Metro Mass Transit (MMT) Company Limited is to take delivery of 230 new buses in June, Deputy Operations Manager of the Company for the Northern Sector, Mr Stephen Abukari has announced. This, he said, would significantly boost its intra-city services and enhance the public transport system. Mr Abukari broke the news to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, after he led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, at the Manhyia Palace. The MMT was there to congratulate the Asante King on the occasion of the 15th anniversary celebration of his enthronement. The Deputy Operations Manager said under the company’s strategic five-year corporate development plan, emphasis was being placed on quality customer services. He said there would be prompt redress of public complaints and regular training of the staff to build their capacity for efficient service delivery. Mr Abukari said the

Tired of calling to know where your field employees are? A young Kenyan techie has designed and developed a mobile application that keeps track of mobile staff and those located in remote sites. It is called Akida. Catherine Kiguru who runs an IT start up, Ukall, says the application allows users to report on their daily activities and receive important information using a mobile phone. The system allows users to check in using a username and password and to take a photo of themselves, which they submit. The application picks the GPS coordinates and a date and time log for attendance and facial verification in the company’s database. The employees then use the reporting feature throughout the day to report happenings or give feedback, allowing them to attach photos to reports. The application also enables them to receive important notifications from their employers through an alerts feature. “The first industry we targeted was the security sector, which

Agricultural sector contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell from 31.8 per cent in 2009 to 22 per cent in 2013. This has allowed the service sector to assume the first place followed by the industry sector. Mr. Clement Kofi Humado, Minister of Food and Agricultural, attributed the fall from first place in 2009 to third position in 2013, to the movement of the Ghanaian economy away from agriculture to industry and service sectors. Speaking at the Meet-The-Press series on Wednesday in Accra, the Minister said: “As the Ghanaian economy matures, just like other maturing economies, people, especially the youth, are no longer showing interest in farming, but want white collar jobs.” He said the fallen trend of the sector is not peculiar to only Ghana, and cited Botswana and China as countries whose agriculture sector contribution to GDP had also fallen due to similar factors. Mr. Humado said to address that phenome

An organization in Atlanta,Georgia  have founded a church called “The National Church of Bey” and they practice the religion Beyism (based on Beyoncé Knowles).They say they rather worship Beyonce than an invincible spirit(God) The church’s founder, Pauline John Andrews, recently stated,  “We are very disappointed in the failure of the public to recognize the existence of a divine Deity walking among them. Deity’s often walk the Earth in their flesh form. Beyoncé will transcend back to the spirit once her work here on Mother Earth has been completed.”As our congregation continues to swell, we ask that you consider what is more real; an invisible spirit on high, or a walking, talking, breathing Goddess who shows you her true form daily? Beyoncé’s spirit is entrancing. We know that she was sent to this place to spread love, peace, and joy … Open your mind to new possibilities and you will see, just as we did, that Bey is a true higher power. Surfbort!”We have published

Sachet water consumers in Kumasi are to brace themselves to pay more for the product after local producers raised the price of the commodity on Wednesday. Wednesday’s decision by the Sachet Water Producers Association in Kumasi raised the price of a bag of water from GHS1.80 to GHS 3. The association has therefore called on retailers to set the new price of a sachet of water at GHS 0.20 in order to enable them break even. In a Citi News interview, the Association’s Secretary, Antwi Agyei, blamed the decision to increase the price of the commodity on recent increases in key taxes and fuel prices. He said “a lot of things have accounted for” the decision. “Some of these include the cost of taxes, fuel cost, electricity and water tariffs, labour cost and cost of spare parts. Then again, whatever affects a transport owner also affects us because we produce and distribute at the same time.” Mr. Agyei added, “For about 6 weeks now, a chilled sachet [water] in Accra has been selling for 15

A desperate cry that is often heard on the bulletin boards is “How you do know when it is time to give up?” Usually the person asking is in a really painful and desperate place. It’s such an individual decision. There is no magic number of years trying, or IVF cycles, or losses. Each person has their own pain threshold, what might be bearable for some will be way too much for others. I recently heard of an interesting study where infertile women were offered as many free IVF cycles as they could bear (no pun intended, really) to conceive. Do you know what the average number of cycles underwent was before most people gave up? Three. Can you believe that? Three. After three cycles the average person said ‘enough. I can’t do this any more’. It was too painful for them to carry on. Now for some of us, well me, this is just unbelievable. Free cycles and you say ‘enough’? I pay for every thing out of pocket and I am busy with cycle #6 (not including FET’s!). Am I crazy? No. Are they

I hear a lot of people who have started using Twitter saying that they gave it a go but didn’t find much purpose for it. The problem in my opinion is that people often don’t know how to turn Twitter usage into value. When I started trading on the stock markets I was hungry for information and when you see how much information is available you literally manic, I know I did. There are 100,000 different books, there are websites such as Moneyweb and Fin24, and then there are millions of websites around the Internet. The problem is that it’s really difficult to know what’s what and who you can trust, especially when you can’t engage with the authors, etc. So I decided to turn to Twitter, I’d create a list and I’d add a maximum of 20 accounts to this list so I could really get to know the people in terms of knowing whether they’ve legitimate, honest and knowledgeable. 20 accounts doesn’t sound like a lot considering the sheer quantity of people on Twitter, but it actually is. It’s taken

There is a herbal tea for every ailment When it's cold out there and the wind is a-blowing, there is nothing like a good old cup of tea  to warm the cockles of the heart. But by adding milk or sugar we lose much of the health quality of warm drinks, which makes herbal tea  a great alternative  to keep us hydrated during winter. Plus, the healing properties of herbs is a  wisdom  that dates far back into our history, and still holds true today. Herbal teas can help address certain  minor  health issues, but of course in more severe cases other medications would probably be best.  Below  are some of the more widely available teas that can help aid our bodies. Green Tea This Chinese tea has many health benefits, some more controversial than others. As well as being said to  lower risk  of heart disease and certain types of cancer, green tea can help to boost the metabolic rate. Please note that this tea still contains caffeine, so use in  moderation . Its bitter taste takes s

Having read Marta Foresti article in  The Independent  on 20 April 2014, I was left a little confused and here is why. In the first instance Foresti’s title for the article HUMAN RIGHTS NEED NOT COME BEFORE DEVELOPMENT is a bold statement and one that needs justifying and having read her article I didn’t feel that I understood what she meant by that statement nor that she had sufficiently justified it. In addition, I couldn’t help but wonder whether we can separate human rights from development or rather have one without the other. Foresti says that although she believes in human rights, she is less convinced that these rights should be a basis for development policies. What therefore is the purpose of development policies, if it isn’t to improve people’s lives and as such ensure their basic human rights to a dignified life? To illustrate my point further, I would like to invite you to consider this statement by Dr. A. Fagan. Human rights are defined as moral guarantees for ever

  Lire en  Français " I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day "  wrote Vincent Van Gogh in a  letter to his brother Theo  . This beautiful sentence sums up perfectly the way I felt when I first stumbled upon these pictures .  The title for the picture above is " Dandelia #3 " ,  of The "Lilian's Appeal" photo collection, the latest by    Ivorian Photographer Paul Sika . Paul would certainly prefer to be called a  Photomaker  , photography being merely one step in his creative work . Paul calls his Art  "   Photomaking "- The one frame filmaking . I remember the day we met ... It was about a year ago at a Cultural/Tech event in Abidjan . Of course I had heard of this " Multimedia prodigy  * " from my country long before but none of the dozens of articles I had googled and red about him prepared me to face such a brilliant Artist and awesome Person . We have become friends ever sin

Founder and former member of the hiplife group VIP,  Friction , who left the group after their second album, has exclusively disclosed to Flex newspaper that it is logical that the group is trying to find new ways to develop themselves. “I am happy that the hiplife grandpa  Reggie  is now part of VIP, because he is an experienced and talented artiste. And he's a good friend of mine, he is like a brother to me from way back so personally, I think it is reasonable that he has joined my brothers in the group,” he said. Friction who is currently in Holland also said that every individual brings his own flavor into the group. This was what he said when he was asked whether he would accept Promzy should he express interest in joining him: “Why not? Everyone can do what he wants, once it's not hurting people or as long as it's not something bad once the music is good, that's all that counts to me. And I don't have beef with anyone, so all my doors are open.” Meanwhile, l

When it comes to beauty pageant, trust Ghanaians to win because our intelligent level is very high. 21 year old Ghanaian model  Julie Asamoah  has been crown the new Face of Africa Germany. The event which started with 180 models was cut down to 20 contestants which saw the Ghanaian young and brilliant model taking the first place. Julie’s manager, Francis Frimpong Manso also known as Nkosuohene in an interview with ZionFelix.com  about her artiste’s win expressed joy and thanked all Ghanaians based in Germany for the enormous support for the lady who was crowned the new Face Of Africa Germany on April 4 . In a separate report by Desmond John Beddy of topafric.com, Face of Africa Germany, which took place in Berlin, showcased the uniqueness of Africa to the world. The program that originally started with 180 African beauty queens came to an end with 20 girls making it to the finals. The pageant competition was designed to discover young ladies with talents in modeling of African desc

Kwabena Kwabena has told enewsgh.com what he feels is wrong with the current MUSIGA set up headed by fellow musician Bice Osei Kuffour (Obour). “There is no industry,” he says. “It is crazy when you are an artist and you talk like this and people take it from the music politics point of view. I don’t have any interest in going near any music politics because I have about 15 years of active music in me I still want to pursue. “But there are certain people who should make sure whatever we create yields benefits to us, and these are the people in the helm of affairs. The people managing the structures don’t even understand what they are doing. I don’t mean to criticize anyone but these guys are not doing great as long as far as governing the music industry is concerned.” Still on promotional rounds for his Daakye album, the talented singer says: “Ask any musician what they get from doing a hit record apart from being famous and being called a musician, so if you have a leader and he is