I’m at my spot drinking a chilled lucozade on another hot day in Accra. Some guys have taken my usual table and I have sat down on a table where the person has left a box of fags and a sachet water on the table. I hope the person doesn’t come back too soon else I’ll be forced to move on. By the pigeon english the guys next to me are speaking I am guessing they are Nigerian, lots of them in Ghana these days. But I digress.

Still haven’t got my ATM card, the upside is that I am not spending so much, the downside is I have to sit in a long queue to get a minimal amount of money out. Opening the account was easy, my cousin works at the head office so I didn’t have to wait in line and have a mindless conversation with a teller with no clue about customer service. The rest of my experience with this bank has just been frustrating. From having an argument with a guy over why it is none of his business that I have not gone to collect my check book, to the clever person who lost the excel sheet with our salaries on it meaning being paid a week later to getting to the end of the line and being told they are only taking in paying in transactions. You name it, its happened, and with no apologies either.

Today I went to the East Legon branch. They had installed a ticket machine a few months ago, I think it only worked for the first week, since then its been out of order. There was a big butch security guard at the seating area, tsss, he says, sit at the back by the last person. He shouts out NEXT when the person on the front seat should go to the teller and we move on one seat, it goes on until its my turn. What seemed like an hour later (but probably 15 minutes later) its my turn. I present my cheque. The person sitting next to me is paying in money. He has one fifty note and some other denominations. The teller puts the one 50 note in the counting machine. Good lord. I’m thinking, can this man not count to 1. Obviously not as he puts it through the machine again. This kind of says it all.

My guy puts a load of 5 notes through the machine. He doesn’t ask me what notes I want, but I’m too tired at this point to make a fuss. I take my money and go.

I really have to make an effort and get my card, and a new account, but don’t know if its an ecobank problem or a Ghana problem. Oh boy!