to take a chance and invest with GCG Investments (Canada) Ltd. investors
Reflecting and Taking Action: " We've built our Churches, now let us build our Factories."
Thank you Ken Ntiamoa. You have hit a nail on its head. We are with your on your call. We've Built Our Churches, Now Let's Build Our Factories.
We of the GCG Investments (Canada) Ltd. feel the time has come today, and we should not let this opportunity slip away from us to use our resources to build some of the factories that can help to raise the economic status of our Ghana and its peoples.
Here is a brief history of GCG Investments (Canada) Ltd. We have been part of the Business section of the Ghana Cyber Group. We were working at one time with a global perspective. We raised money and sent the money to our treasury in Detroit. In the autumn of 2001, the four of us; Patrick Akenteng, Kofi Barimah, Sammy Bonsu, and Yaw Okraku, decided to decided to register this company and open bank accounts and to appeal to the people in the Ghanaian Diaspora to invest with us in a collective effort to build some factories in Ghana. We set this account up in Toronto because the four of us tended to meet in Toronto. It was a better management set-up, we thought. We believe that the many thousands of us, with small yearly investments per year can realize great projects. It is important to stress that this effort is investment, and we plan and hope for returns on our investments.
Our first action was to try to use all means at our disposal to explain our objective to as many of to as many Ghanaians as possible. In November 2001, the President of Ghana, Mr. J. A. Kufuor, was scheduled to visit Toronto as part of his visit to Canada. We, the organizers of GCG Investments (Canada) Ltd, asked the people in charge of President Kufuor's itinerary in Toronto to allow us to meet with the President and explain our objectives, and then to allow us present our program to all the people who would be assembled at the "Town Hall meeting" in Toronto. The organizers of the meeting refused to grant our request. It turned out that President Kufuor, in his address to the "Town Hall Meeting", asked Ghanaians to invest their knowledge and their wealth in Ghana. This is what we are attempting to channel. We thought the excitement of the President in Toronto and our presentation would spark a fire of patriotic activity, some of it in the form of participation in our project.
We believe that a great opportunity to ask Ghanaians to participate in a possible economic program that would help our people was missed.
We were disappointed but not daunted by the action of those who planned the visit of President Kufuor's "Town Hall Meeting" in Toronto. We decided that we would carry on with our project and try to reach as many people in the Ghanaian Diaspora. We believed that once our message reached the ears of our people, they would join us in our project. We figured that we should go where our people congregate. We decided to ask the leaders of Ghanaian churches in the Toronto area to allow us to present our message to their congregations. We encountered varying levels of co-operation, the whole range from total co-operation to no co-operation.
The only church leaders who allowed us to address their congregation were the Roman Catholics of St Andrews of Kipling Street, Kofi Barima's Church (Bethel International Prayer Ministry), the Apostle Revelation Church on Islington Avenue and the Ghana Presbyterian Church.
We hoped and expected that all the religious people would see in our mission a chance to "be our brother's and sister's keepers", that they would make our goal their very own, and even make it part of their weekly announcements at their gatherings. We expected a tidal wave of participation that would start from the Toronto area and sweep everywhere Ghanaians in the Diaspora are. We did our work with no pay. The response to our appeal was a measly one. The following list and the amounts that are written against the names are all that we received to date. When one removes the name of the four organizers, the response is poor.
Here is a list of the contributors on record:
Michael Oduro CDN$100
Opoku Appiah CDN$100
Kofi Asamoah USD$100 (Cdn$134.23)
Nana Yaw Ankomah Mensah USD$300 (Cdn$ 402.68)
Bennet Nyame CDN$1,500
Kofi Barimah CDN $600
Yaw Okraku CDN 4,000.24
Yaw Okraku CDN$715.99
Dr. Francis Sam USD$150 (Cdn 201.34)
Sammy Bonsu CDN$500
Patrick Akenteng CDN$100
This autumn of 2003 we came to the conclusion that we have not received enough money to start any projects with. After deducting the cost of Registering our company and another documented expense, we wrote two letters, which we have given to the investors and returned a pro-rated percentage of the investments to their owners. There is only one person who has not received his investment. This is because we have not been able to reach him, using the information that he gave to us two years ago. These actions are part of the transparency of operations that we believe is very important in handling monies that belong to the public. We have also written letters that we hope the churches will allow us to read before their congregations. They are letter of thanks, our declaration of what has happened, our intent to go into hibernation, until such time that there will be more of our people in the Diaspora, who are ready to act on what we see as needed, and natural, and obvious.
Out of the blue, on December 4,2003, Patrick Akenteng pointed out to me Ken Ntianoa's article, We've Built Our Churches, Now Let us Build Our Churches. Suddenly we felt that we may not need any hibernation. We feel that must renew our appeal and get on with our goal. We have changed our expectations; we are making it possible for all our people to participate in our project. We are making it egalitarian in the amount that participants can invest in this program. It is set at exactly $100 per person per year. Participation is entirely voluntary, as it always has been. Which one of us cannot spare a $100 to take a chance for progress?
There is legitimate concern that investors will be swindled out of our investments. I have had personal experience of this fact, many times. We do believe that the future of the world is bright, although the road to that future has twists and turns. We must be optimistic.
To lessen the possibility of a swindle, we intend to publish the names of investors in all media available to us at the end of each year, and the total of monies that would have been collected that year and how that money has been spent. No exceptions. If at the end of that year, what we do is satisfactory for the investors, then investors may choose to invest again another $100 for the next year. We intend that the process will repeat itself year after year.
WE have a record of our transparency and accountability.
WE ask all our people in the Diaspora to take a chance for one time for one year with their $100.
WE believe you will be proud of what we can achieve.
We've Built Our Churches, Now Let Us Build Our Factories. Some churches in Ghana have opened Universities. Where are the pencils, pens, ink, paper, computers and other hardware that universities need to function to be found? Are they going to be from the products of our factories in Ghana? We hope that the answer is that they will come from factories in Ghana including ours. Factories will give jobs to some of our people. The purchasing power of people with incomes can set up an economic multiplier effect in Ghana.
Having made our case in all media available to us, we want our project to be grasped by all our people. We want our readers to call on us to come to them and set in motion our program in their groupings and congregations. WE have found it extremely difficult, to keep asking for us to be allowed to come into gatherings to present our objectives and program. We wish to be invited by all the groupings to meet with our people in the Diaspora. We wish that those who did not co-operate with us reconsider and invite us to set our program in motion wherever they are.
To our religious countrymen and women, we believe that we are all the children of God. We must also embrace the fact that on this earth God's work, spiritual and physical, will be done by the hearts and minds and hands of God's children. Are we ready to live according to our faiths?
It is never too late to do what is right!
P. S:
Dear Reader: For whom do you think the bell tolls in this matter? Do not send or look for whom the bell tolls. This bell is tolling for you and every reader. Think this mattert over and take action today!
Any person who wishes to participate in our project can continue to activate whatever project he/she already is involved in. The investment with our project is to get all the tiny drops of water(investment) that we think can be part of a big ocean(investment). Therefore we ask each reader not to to wait to see if there is any response from another person, we ask that the reader make the move to act and be a participant. Each reader can send their participation to us by mail at 96 Glen Shields Avenue, Concord. Ontario.Canada. L4K 1T6
Dr. Yaw Okraku
Dental Surgeon
w 96 Glen Shields Avenue w Concord, Ontario w L4K 1T6 w
w Tel: (905) 669-5837 w Fax: (905) 669-5110 w e-mail: okrakudentaloffice@rogers.com w
