Accra
February 6, 2008
There is an impressive number of buildings going up in and around Accra. Ghana now has around a very decent 6.2% real growth rate (2007 est.) The U.S. est. 2007 growth rate was 2.2%, Hong Kong’s was 8%. Unfortunately Ghana’s deficit was a whopping 7.8% of GDP in 2006.
I snapped pics of a number of buildings. Many of them are glossy and glassy. Let’s pray these buildings will be fully occupied and not symbols of waste.
National theater: from one angle
From another angle
Fiesta Royale Hotel - I didn’t stay there
Some hunk of gleam whose name or function I don’t know
Reflecting a lesser building beside it
Actually this building belongs to Ecobank - Canon
pays to put a banner on the roof. I wanted
to go to the top for a panoramic view of Accra,
but security wasn’t too happy about that idea.
I like the “step” design here. I was curious about the
open windows. I think that’s only temporary until
the building is completed. This one is still being
finished.
Behind high security bars and barbed wire, the massive
$60 million Presidential Palace goes up, hopefully to be ready
for the inauguration of the new president when elections
are held later in 2008. It is controversial because of its
high price in the face of so many pressing issues in the
Ghana, not the least of which is poverty. At the same time,
the present President’s residence, Osu castle, was used as a
slave trading center during the slave trade, and is therefore not thought at all
appropriate as a Presidential residence. Indeed, many
visiting heads of state to Ghana have refused to stay there
as guest of the President of Ghana.
And this, in my opinion, is the loveliest building in Accra, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, that
opened just in July 2007. Plant managers will need to work hard to keep his luminescent building in its
present pristine condition