Lavish Ghana birthday party plans rankle with poor

ACCRA, Aug 4 (Reuters) Wealthy middle-aged Westerners may consider buying a fast new car for their 50th birthday but Ghana's plans to follow suit have annoyed some of its millions of poor.

The West African nation is planning a lavish year-long party for 2007 to mark 50 years since it became the first sub-Saharan African colony to achieve independence on March 6, 1957.

Black icons Nelson Mandela and Oprah Winfrey are expected to join a host of heads of state invited from around the world, and Ghana is buying a fleet of cars to ferry them around.

The projected price tag for the celebrations is -- by world standards at least -- a rather modest 20 million dollars.

But many in Ghana, where around 40 percent of people get by on less than 1 dollars a day, say the money could be better spent.

''We can't spend that money ... there should be no big celebrations,'' said roadside seamstress Theresa Addo, 31.

''Our electricity is not good, our water is not good, we need money for these things,'' she said.

Ghana became a symbol of hope in a new future for Africa, but few dispute that the dreams of founding President Kwame Nkrumah, whose pan-African vision helped inspire independence movements across the continent, are far from being realised.

''Fifty years on and the hopes and expectations of Africa have been dashed,'' said Charles Wereko-Brobby, chief executive of the ''Ghana at 50'' secretariat which is organising the celebrations.

''Africa needs to say to itself 'Stop the rot, let's try and make real that which we fought for','' he said. ''It is really an opportunity to reflect and chart a new course forward.'' Plans include renovating Independence Square in the capital Accra, creating Jubilee Recreation Parks and kindergartens across the country and a tree planting programme -- which could repair some of the damage logging has done to Ghana's tropical forests.

American talk show diva Winfrey hopes to broadcast from Ghana during the Jubilee, reflecting strong US links forged in part by the slave trade which saw hundreds of thousands of West Africans transported to the Americas.

Taxi driver Samuel Opoku, 34, is not convinced by the plans.

''I don't think it is necessary,'' he said. ''They have increased petrol prices -- getting three meals a day is not easy. You are going to spend that amount of money, for what? Independence Square is fine as it is.'' Wereko-Brobby defended the spending, saying guests of honour could not be made to travel in the dilapidated public minibuses known locally as ''tro tros''.

''Do we put heads of states in tro tros?,'' he said.

''I can not think of a single summit where they have put heads of state in bangers.'' REUTERS DKA PM0934