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stained scribes who can’t write down what you don’t say.
Then there are those who love the limelight. They bask in it the
way lizards soak up sun. In this group you will find politicians, top
bureaucrats, captains of industry and commerce, and flamboyant entre-
preneurs. To them, publicity is a natural resource to be used freely to
further one’s own career and deepen one’s pockets.
Publicity is not hard to get. It’s amazing what kind of crap can wind
up as news just because somebody called a press conference. But soon-
er or later bad news happens. The limelight lovers just take it in stride.
With their superior knowledge and performance skills, they will be able
to handle any situation and answer any dumb questions from reporters,
who in many cases haven’t two hot clues about what is really going on.
At least, that’s what big guys and bad guys are tempted to believe.
Kofi Hadjor was a chartered accountant who specialized in helping peo-
ple in show business. In his heyday he had about four hundred clients
and, in some way or other, he screwed them all. Kofi Hadjor should
have hung up the phone when I called to find out what was going on.
Getting What You Deserve
He should have slammed the door when I came calling with a camera
crew. And he should have kept his mouth shut. But he didn’t.
Kofi Hadjor, the son of a cab driver, came to Canada from Ghana
with just a few dollars in his pocket. He went to school all day and
washed dishes at night. Three degrees later, Kofi Hadjor was a char-
tered accountant. But he was never an ordinary CA. For one thing, he
took jazz dance classes. And once he had fallen in with the arty crowd,
he got the idea that he should specialize in clients from show business.
Dancers, producers, directors, makeup artists, cinematographers,
set designers — all came to him for a kind of total-package financial
service designed for people who were too busy to pay much attention
to their personal finances.
Hadjor created CATS (Creative Arts Tax Service). He marketed
his services by telling clients he could answer “Yes” to these leading
financial questions:
“Can I sit down with you guys four or five times a year to make sure
everything is on track?”
“I think I’m paying too much tax. Can you help me reduce my
tax bill?”
“Can you come up with a plan that will help me retire in ten years?”
Hadjor served his clients with a flourish that would have impressed
Cecil B. DeMille. He took a few friends and flew them to the North
Pole for his fortieth birthday. They sipped champagne in parkas during
that $40,000 trip.
He bought a huge, seventy-five hundred square-foot mansion, had
it lavishly renovated, and then filled it with what he called a half a mil-
lion dollars worth of art. The front yard, overgrown with vines and
enough wooden trellises to build another house, he called the Garden
of Eden. Over the front door hung a sign that read “Palacio de Cristo”
(House of Christ).
He called himself the father of his flock. He was the goose, laying
golden eggs for his clients. He bought a Lincoln Navigator and hired a
driver so he could visit them all to attend their parties, weddings, and
funerals. He wore long, flowing African robes and once gave a cere-
monial African scarf to grinning Ontario Lieutenant-Governor Hilary
Weston. The photo was in the Toronto Sun.
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Bring to a Boil
A fawning feature article in camagazine in March, 1995, called him
“The Dream Maker.” Writer Marie Wiese wrote: “Hadjor offers clients in
the Toronto arts community more than filed tax returns — he’s there for
deep soul-searching and hand holding. Servicing 400 creative types,
including musicians, designers and film producers, he not only aids them
in charting their financial course, but helps them fulfill their dreams.”
Hadjor liked the Dream Maker handle so much that he borrowed
it as a title for some supercharged propaganda he included with every
information package handed out to a new or prospective client. The
words were so Hadjor-like, he could have written them himself:
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