The courage to wear out without rusting out

Ghana's economic ambitions have changed.

There's something so infuriating about waiting for a response from someone who's promised to deliver a service, complete a project, sort a problem, or provide an update, and then getting nothing.

Many professionals build their careers in one industry, often in one organisation, for decades. There is real value in that path. Deep expertise, long relationships and institutional memory are hard to replace, and I have great respect for leaders who have built them.

There is something fundamentally troubling about a society in which people can accumulate extraordinary wealth without anyone asking reasonable questions about how they acquired it. Even more disturbing is the apparent acceptance of unexplained riches as evidence of success, influence or political connections.

Ghana’s changing investment framework

Most people spend a lifetime trying to become wealthy. Few spend enough time preparing their wealth to survive them. We celebrate entrepreneurs who build thriving businesses, executives who reach the top of their professions and investors who accumulate property and financial assets. Yet creating wealth and preserving it are two different skills.

For years Ghana lived with a strange contradiction in which it was Africa's largest gold producer yet struggled to find the dollars needed to pay for fuel, medicine and machinery.

A budget succeeds when children learn in properly equipped classrooms, patients receive timely treatment, and farmers can move produce to market.