Thanks for the very timely article, Jacqueline!

I am a Canadian woman who is about to move to Ghana and start up a business using my own resources and with my Ghanaian husband participating in the business, and so these questions are of great interest to me. It is good to have the warning that your article contains. I shall be very scrupulous in keeping all my own receipts.

I was wondering whether you might elaborate on this bill in question (PNDC Law 111) for those of us who are a bit out of touch with the latest Ghanaian news. Any information about it would be gratefully received and thanks again.

Niela Peach

-- Niela Peach (nielapeach@hotmail.com), October 01, 2001

Answers

I see the need for women to protect themselves especially in Africa and I support any woman that takes the time to see to it that she covers all her possible legal loopholes. However, I am concerned about giving this advice of "save all receipts" to a largely illiterate female populous.

These women will still be deceived by another means even if receipts are saved. The mind of a man is a Byzantine factory of one hundred ego trips capable of the most ingenious ideas when he needs to protect his interests. Women generally fail to match this ingenuity and after most court battles still come out short.

I guess what I am trying to get to is that apart from teaching them to "save receipts" they need to know why to save receipts so that the same shrewdness can be applied to other areas of their lives. African women need a full-scale comprehensive education in order to challenge men at their own game.

-- Asa Kabazzi (akabazzi@bordersgroupinc.com), October 01, 2001.