This article is an interesting read that I can relate to, moreover, the author is from Ghana where I currently reside so I understand the challenges he's referring to. I however think that the issues raised are the same generalist ones being made about business/entrepreneurship in Africa that don't go deep enough to address the root causes of the challenges, the solutions successful people are implementing and some possible solutions that are yet to be explored.

Before I go any further I would like to state first that I'm speaking from the point of view of a Ghanaian entrepreneur and not an African entrepreneur because I am more familiar with the situation here at home and I would only be speculating about what transpires in other African nations.

Cost of equipment:

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It's true that the duty slapped on the importation of IT equipment makes you wonder what the rational is because I was under the impression that one taxed heavily the importation of luxury goods or items that are manufactured locally to protect indigenous industries. However the market is flooded with used computers/laptops from abroad that are cheap and can get the job done (albeit a bit slower that one would prefer). A core 2 duo desktop with a 15" lcd monitor and a UPS will set you back Ghc700 ($260).

But if the cost is still prohibitive then you have to come up with an alternative solution. For example, when I got my first freelance project, I couldn't immediately afford a pc so I leased one from an internet cafe and agreed to share the work and revenue with the owner.

Availability of learning material:

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I think IT is one of the few industries where so much leaning resources are available online for free and more so now with the advent of MOOC. If you don't have an internet connection at home or a usb modem then go the an internet cafe.

PayPal blacklisting:

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Now this is a very annoying and unfortunate situation! West Africa is made up of the following countries: Benin. Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa). Of all the listed countries PayPal isn't in 4, namely: Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Liberia (https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide). One of the reasons PayPal doesn't want to do business with us is because of credit card fraud which I think is a rather lazy excuse. If Skrill can make it work then really...

However iTunes, Skrill, iStockPhoto, Hetzner.de, Linode, AWS, Rackspace, Register.com, Gandi among others all accept visa cards from Ghana so you can get by without PayPal (although you can't register your copy of Sublime Text so you have to I've with the annoying reminders or switch to Komodo IDE).

Banks here don't issue Visa Credit cards willy nilly but you can more easily apply for an international Visa Debit card and if your bank doesn't offer one then change to another institution!

I'm going to end this comment here because it's getting too long and I'm running on a UPS (lol) but my main point is that yes, there are challenges but they are surmountable. You either solve them head on or work around them but there is always a solution. And besides entrepreneurship is all about the fun of solving challenges anyway so come over to Ghana and have some REAL Fun!