Diaspora Betrayal: 7 Years in Dubai, House in Ruins : How to Protect Your Investments in Ghana

Hey global Ghanian citizens, Adrian here.

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Welcome to the Stand Up for Our Podcast.

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If it's your first time listening, this is the show where we showcase global Ghanian

excellence to the world.

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Now today's solo episode, we're gonna break down a story of a Ghanian brother who spent

seven years grinding away in Dubai and then sends money to build his dream house in Ghana

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only to find out it's a half built disaster.

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So we're gonna discuss in this episode how you can protect yourself from these types of

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disasters happening time and time again.

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How can you protect your wealth from being destroyed time and time again like this?

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We're going to talk about the strategies and the precautions that you need to take if

you're, for example, looking to embark on a real estate property or land project.

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I'm going to give you some advice here on the Son of Crow podcast based on experience and

based on the experts that I've worked alongside.

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Now this

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The Kuiper virus story isn't rare, it's a constant wake up call for the African diasporin

family to wake up.

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So this video was taken from ex user at with Alvin, we'll leave a link in the description

below, and essentially shows a man in traditional wear standing amongst crumbling blocks

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and exposed iron rods.

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Let's take a quick look at the video.

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It's a two minute video, I'm not gonna spend the whole episode listening to it, just a few

seconds to give you a flavour.

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and then I will leave a link in the description below for you guys to listen.

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For those of you who can't hear any playback from the video, I'll leave the link below so

you can watch the video in your own time.

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Here we go.

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All right, so I'm gonna leave it there, all right?

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So you guys can watch it in your own time.

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But essentially, he trusted family, he sent remittances faithfully, bought poor materials,

no progress, and zero accountability, you know, was the result of all of this, all right?

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Lots of comments flooded in in Twitter, such as, you know, diaspora blood is sweet, use

contracts next time, you know?

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You know, these are the types of things that we've had all time and time again.

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If you guys remember the episode that we did with Jason Agboda in season 7 where he talks

about breaking free from the 9 to 5, Jason warned exactly this, that trust alone does not

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build wealth, systems always do.

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Now every year billions flow in from the diaspora to Ghana for houses, businesses and

land.

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And too many end like this, their dreams always being deferred whilst their savings are

being depleted.

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Now this is something that needs to be solved from happening time and time again.

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So why does this keep happening?

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Now I don't think this is just about the victim.

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This is about a systems gap.

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Informal deals means no timelines, no budgets, no penalties.

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Builders vanish or cut corners.

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Family pressure twists arms.

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It's your own people where this

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type of thing keep happening.

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if you go back to our last episode, super apps in Africa, we saw platforms like Palm pay

solving payments, but let's remember construction runs on handshakes.

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And by that, mean, people are still not using contracts.

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What is the result?

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Unfinished homes, eroded trust, and the diaspora turning back.

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These types of calamities are pushing the diaspora away and putting them off from

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reinvest in the home country Ghana or maybe even African countries if you're listening and

you're not a Ghanaian.

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We need to stop these types of things happening so that we can encourage more of the Desma

to come back home and build countries like Ghana.

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And what happens with that?

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Ghana loses investment that we desperately need.

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So what are some of the solutions?

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How can we protect your money?

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How can you build your legacy and prevent these types of situations from happening time

and time again?

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So to my global gunning citizens out there, how do we fix this?

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So I think there's a few steps that this can be done.

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I think the first step is always to get legal advice where you can.

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uh I recommend the law officers of Kwame Igaati.

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They're a very good legal team.

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They're based around Northridge and they've been around for decades, literally.

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Always consult a lawyer when it comes to any type of property, land and real estate

transaction or project that you're about to embark on.

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especially if you're new to the country or you're new to all of this.

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You could even consider getting contracts uh from Ghana's Land Commission, which can help

to go a long way, but I highly recommend you consult a lawyer anyway.

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But anyway, I'll leave a link below in terms of how you can contact law officers of Kwame

Agati I'm sure they'll be happy to help.

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Step two is use technology.

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You want to take advantage of things like WhatsApp calls, Zoom calls, know, this

technology wasn't around 10, 20 years ago, perhaps.

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So you want to be taken advantage of this type of opportunity, this type of technology.

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You can even look at getting drones to do a fly by and check on the project.

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This really stops surprises, right?

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So you want to take advantage of technology.

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And then the thing you can even do is you can even go to the land commission.

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Ghana and you can even sign up for WhatsApp channel updates.

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That way you can even keep up with what they're doing.

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And also on top of that, you can also reach out to them on WhatsApp as well.

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So you can even use technology to communicate with the Ghana Land Commission as well.

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Step three, what I'll say is vetted pros.

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Okay.

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So you want to avoid family favors as this man did, which did not go well, but what you

would rather want to do is type into a network of vetted

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Experts that can support you in this area whatever stage of the project that you're in you

want to tap into this kind of network I would recommend speaking to people like Hanna

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Atiase and people speaking to people like Kweku Essien and of SESO Global, you know, these

are two Trusted real estate experts in the Ghanaian market and they would have a network

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that you can tap into Who should be able to help and they're really trusted in the market.

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So you want to check check them out?

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I've been speaking to both of them over the years and of course I've had them on the show

so I'll leave their episodes below in the description that you can check out.

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Alright?

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And I think step five that you want to look into is leveraging the Aspa remittance

application.

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So platforms like SendWave who we partner with, check the link in the description for

money off your first transfer.

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They can always ensure that there's a digital money trail for all of the transactions sent

to the recipient.

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so that this always is kept safe.

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In season five, we even touched upon the blockchain potential of securing digital

transactions, especially when it comes to property and real estate.

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So what you want to do is probably want to check out this episode that I did with Kwaku

Essien from SESO Global, where he dives into this a bit more deeply.

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So we'll leave a link in the description below.

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If you're watching on YouTube, or you're listening on the podcast play as well.

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So, where do we go from here?

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So, at the end of the day, really, it's not all doom and gloom.

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mean, if you look at previous episodes, such as the one I did with Cyril Kwadzo who's the

CEO and founder of Gold Coast Report, he shared how scaling the Gold Coast Report, which

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has gone as big as Podcast Network, how he did this on the basis of contracts and

accountability, and this helped turn his side hustle to empires.

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So...

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If you're looking to build an empire through property, land, or real estate, you need to

make sure there's systems in place that you can scale up effectively.

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Because if you don't have solid foundations in place, what's going to happen is that these

foundations that you're trying to lay are going to crumble and you're never going to be

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able to expand and grow whatever empire that you're trying to build if that is something

that you are trying to do.

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Now, smart systems always win.

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I think that is the moral of the story.

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The pain my gardening brother

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Dubai is feeling certainly is real, certainly is valid and certainly has been felt by so

many people out there.

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We all know someone, you know, who knows someone who's gone through something like this.

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If we haven't experienced this ourselves or people close to us haven't experienced this

ourselves, but your power is always going to be greater.

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Global economy citizens, make sure you protect your wealth, build of systems, not just

trust.

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So

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I want hear from you my global gardening citizens.

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Have you ever been cheated out of a land or property business deal in Ghana?

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Get in touch, let us know.

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Feel free to contact us or drop us a voice note by visiting our website,

thesoundofaccra.com or just find us on social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, um

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YouTube, just search for The Sound of a Accra You can even leave a comment on our brand

new community section on YouTube.

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So I'm Adrian Daniels.

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This is the Sound of Accra podcast.

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Thanks for listening.

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If you made it to the end of this episode, if you're watching on YouTube or listening to

Spotify, just leave the comments, trust so that I know you've listened to the whole entire

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episode.

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It really helps me in terms of my market research regarding the kind of content that you

guys want to hear.

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uh But other than that, I'll catch you in the next episode.

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Thank you for listening.

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Take care.