Having lived in Ghana in mid 2000's this story does not surprise me. The team that I worked with went on to work for Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Another colleague built up the Internet in Africa, building 15 Internet Exchanges in different countries for under 200,000 dollars.

In 1974 the literacy rate in Ghana was the same as in Portugal. Things diverged. Portugal became a democracy, Ghana went through many years of dictatorship and misguided help from the west.

I remember once interviewing one person sent from the States to help the software company I was working with. His expertises was 'Network Streamlining', that turned out to be sorting out cables. If you take the expense of sending somebody from the states, versus sending from Ghana to the West for training versus the payback. We should be sending more people to the west for training rather than the other way round.