THE ASAA FRUIT in GHANA – ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF FAILED VISION

Ghana is losing opportunities to participate in the global economy and create jobs for our people due to poor leadership and management.

In a posting on the Ghana Leadership forum we read this from Osofo Rev. Albion Mends Jr., we read:

Hearne Christopher Jr.: Drop unveils a taste bud sensation right out of Wonderland

In another life, Fast Eddie Crane must have been a mad scientist — no, really… Earlier this year the bartender extraordinaire turned owner of the Drop in Martini Corner introduced Kansas Citians to edible cocktails that look a little like sushi and taste a little like dessert. If that sounds a bit out there, wait until you hear what he has up his sleeve this time out.

“As proud as I am of the new edible cocktails, we have a new cocktail we’re launching that I think blows edible cocktails away,” Crane says. “It’s called miracle fruit, and it’s a small West African berry that you chew. It has the supernatural ability to rewire your taste buds. So like a lemon tastes sweet — I swear — you can peel and eat a lemon and it tastes like the sweetest candy you ever had. Or like balsamic vinegar tastes like smoky molasses. You drink a Guinness and it tastes like a chocolate milkshake. It reminds me of some kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ stuff. You go through a taste looking glass.” Here’s the deal.

“It has nothing to do with how you feel, it only affects your taste buds,” Crane says. “Depending on how much you have, it lasts 30 minutes to an hour. Then you go back to normal.”

The magic berry is served up alongside a sour-beyond-belief drink called the Miracle Fruit Martini for $15.

“It’s so sour,” Crane says, “it makes your eyeballs wrinkle.”

That is if you fail to first consume the miracle fruit.

To that end, The Drop will offer a sampler plate of odd-tasting foods for MFM drinkers to sample.

“What I’m selling for $15 is not one cocktail,” Crane explains. “I’m selling a half-hour experience. You know, if your date has garlic breath you can make out all night.”

Posted: Albion Jr. Mends, Wednesday, November 26, 2008 4:13 AM

Subject: RE: asaba oooo (asaa)!!!! Attention!!!

**************** I posted a short comment and reproduce an edited version to share:

Yes, we have heard of the magic fruit, published elsewhere before, but is anybody taking capitalist advantage to grow it in commercial quantities?

Ghana and Africa has so much potential. This Asaa fruit can be chemically studied and chemicals synthesized, in Ghana at CSIR if men like Prof. Mike were given the funding and paid to work in Ghana at decent pay. If you take 100 Scientists and pay them $100,000 per year, in 2 years that expenditure is only [200,000 x 100] =$20 million and I can bet my last dollar Ghana will come out with at least a couple of Viagra™ -type of medicinal or Bio-Chemical products that can be marketed globally and earn Ghana over $10 Billion! Won’t that $20 million investment be better that a $50-60 million presidential mansion? In Ghana Ministers and executives will die before they allow another Ghanaian to earn $100,000, even if the person is earning $150,000 in America! (But they will easily pay an American white man that money! Stupid!). Well, let them sit and ruin the nation in their envy and ignorance!

The makers of kote-denden aduro, which they now call Viagra™, in America, is a native Science that has been known in Ghana for ages. The product, once synthesized and manufactured as capsules, has earned over $100 Billion since the product came out a few years ago! Folks, let us remember knowledge that is not marketed is only good for the shelves – useless! An Engineer or Scientist is only as good to society as the society and opportunities in which he lives!

Those in farming – do it! Don’t wait for the Chinese to come and exploit it. There are so many opportunities that Ghanaians sit and wait on! Of course venture capital is a problem as lenders are charging 39% and 49% interest and want collateral.

The American government gave $547 million as MCA grant to Ghana to help small farmers and entrepreneurs, and to date, in 2 years, the government has not disclosed to the public and listed openly for all to see, any disbursements. Recently the government announced 210,000 people are to be given $15 per month starting the month before the 2008 elections! Folks, let’s face it. The NPP could have made a major improvement in ordinary peoples’ lives if they disbursed the money, say $500 million of it in giving loans of say $10,000 average. (Some will get more and some don’t need the full amount, but on average). We can hire some MBAs and people with good solid small business management experience to manage such funds and help small businesses design Business Plans that will work for them. That money could provide venture capital loan, at say only 10% interest, to 50,000 Ghanaians! Every one of them would employ say about 5 workers, and that would have a major impact on the economy if 250,000 people in Ghana have decent jobs or sources of income!

The interest collected will be $50 million per year, which could them be used to help finance more people (or part used to build Presidential mansions! Our Presidents should EARN their pay first by working for it!). Some of the women selling plantain are able to survive with only a loan of $500! So give them a $1,000 and they are happy survivors! That would change peoples’ lives if the government executive and management were honest to help these poor people. Of course we should never forget to manage them – and that is why I call for the MBAs to get “their share” and a couple of ICT professionals, perhaps one or two Lawyers, can design a simple Database Management system, Contracts, Training programs, so people will not take the money and think it’s a Christmas gift.

This indictment is not for the NPP alone, but the NDC as well as the PNDC. Every government does their best, and we all know the NPP has done their part. However, perhaps their best may not be good enough considering the loans and grants they obtained! There are many Ghanaians and well wishers who wished the NPP good luck in 2000. However, I am sorry to state that evidence like these lost opportunities, inability to deliver even water through pipes when given $603 million to perhaps $1 Billion in grants and loans, seems to support a clear common sense conclusion that the NPP must be a very corrupt and mismanaged party and organization. There is no doubt the NDC was also corrupt since they also supervised the deterioration of Ghana for even a longer time and left us with $6.2 Billion in accumulated debts! When all is said and done, the people voted the NDC out, with hope in Kufuor and his NPP. It is this writer’s gut feeling that one day President Kufuor and his Ministers and executives will be called to answer, no matter what happens in Ghana!

Kwaku A. Danso, PhD

President, Ghana Leadership Union, Inc (NGO)

Livermore, CA. 94551, USA

http://groups.google.com/group/glu-ghana-leadership-forum