Welcome to what was once the Panafest - Ghana website. To satisfy your curiosity, I am the webmaster and I have removed the website from the internet for nonpayment of fees by the principal organisers of the event.  During the past three years, I have received numerous emails from visitors to the website, criticising me for out of date information and admonishing me to update this website. The initial diffuculties were mainly due to the organisers being so lazy that they wouldn't send me new information - no matter how many times I asked for it. Over the last year and a half, however, I simply refused to do any more work on the website until I got paid. The outstanding debts owed by the Panafest Foundation for the work done on this website total over $6,000 USD. Of this amount, more than $3,500 USD has been in arrears for OVER FIVE YEARS. Yes that's right ... I was not paid anything for FIVE YEARS.  When the 2007 edition of Panafest ended in August, I sent an email to the two directors of Panafest: Mr. Kojo Yankah (Chairman of the Panafest Foundation) and Mr. Kohain Halevi (the Executive Secretary of the Panafest Foundation). That email - and other emails - requested that I be paid in full for work done on the Panafest website. To date, (April 25, 2008) there has been NO response whatsoever from either party to my request for payment. That's OVER EIGHT months that neither of these people will even send me an email. Readers should take note that BOTH of these directors, Mr. Yankah and Mr. Halevi have PROMISED on several occasions to pay me at the end of (or during) the most recent Panafest. In fact, that promise has not been kept. In short, both Kojo Yankah and Kohain Halevi are LIARS. I have exercised a great deal of patience in waiting to be paid. And I could not help but notice that there always seemed to be funds for the organiser's trips abroad from Ghana to Trinidad, South Africa, Cuba and Brazil (supposedly necessary for the organisation of the event). One would think that it is far more important to pay for the official website, since it is the single most valuable marketing and puclicity tool for the Panafest event.

My reference to marketing was intentional since Mr. Yankah is also the owner of a marketing and public relations firm - as well as being the President of Ghana's Institute of Public Relations. Addressing a group last September during the launch of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) week, Mr. Yankah gave a speech titled: "Managing the Reputation of Ghana as an Emerging Market Economy". Mr. Yankah said "... a good reputation had become a major source of competitive advantage, without which countries even with good economic performance would be unable to attract investors. He said reputation was ultimately about how a government and businesses were perceived by stakeholders - including customers, investors, regulators, the media and the wider public. A Reputation, he said, was however not attained through lies and provision of distorted information to the public ..."

I was rather amused to read this in the Ghana press, since Mr. Yankah obviously cares very little about his own reputation. It is because of this that I decided to print the TRUTH here as to why the Panafest website has not been updated for some time. Incidentally, Mr. Yankah approached ME to build this website many years ago. I did not solicit the business from him.

After waiting for more than FIVE YEARS to be paid, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Yankah and Mr. Halevi have absolutely no intention to pay me EVER. Thus, it is with this certainty that I have replaced the Panafest website with this single page explanation.

Update: An arrangement was made in June, 2008 to finally pay me half of the $6,000 amount. I was sent an initial $1,000 and that was all. More was promised, but as usual, that was just more LIES. The dates for remittances came and went with no further payments received. More LIES from these Liars. In addition to this, one of the Board Members, Esi Sutherland-Addy, sent me an email telling me that I am "depraved". Depraved means "morally corrupt" and "perverted". To Ms Sutherland-Addy, I suggest that she address the morals of her Board of Directors instead of pointing the finger at me. In essence, the Panafest people contract you to do a job - then they DON'T PAY YOU for FIVE YEARS - and then when you demand to be paid, you are called DEPRAVED. I took this page down in June because I stupidly believed that this time the directors would keep their word and pay me. Of course, they didn't - they LIED AGAIN - so this page STAYS HERE until I receive the monies owed to me. If you are engaged to perform a contracted service for Panafest, you don't dare ask to be paid for it, or you will be called "depraved". How  DARE someone ask Panafest to actually be PAID for work they have done?

Since writing this page, I have heard from several other people and groups who have not been paid by Panafest. It seems I am not alone when it comes to Panafest organizers failing to pay artists and suppliers. if you are one of these victims, feel free to write to me by email and tell me the circumstances of your own situation.  burch@burchcom.com

Robert Burch - (former) Webmaster for the Panafest website