Ghana is back on track with investment opportunities - Veep woos foreign investors

Accra, June 6, GNA-Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia says Ghana's economic opportunities for private sector investors are back on track as the country is navigating its way out of the global economic meltdown. 

Dr Bawumia stated that the Government was relentlessly re-focusing on economic growth and working hard to regaining the trajectory Ghana was on and get back to pre-Covid growth numbers.

Vice President Bawumia made the remarks at the Third Ghana Investments and Opportunities Summit in London.

The summit, on the theme: "Post Covid Economic Recovery: Opportunities for the Investor" was being organised by the Ghana High Commission in UK, in collaboration with the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) 

Vice President Bawumia said: "we are living in extraordinary times. Over the past two years, inflation has surged. Its rise has been large, sudden, and global. In many parts of the world, it is now at levels unseen for generations".

He said financial systems had come under strain for the first time in recent decades, with high rate of inflation and financial stress emerging in tandem.

The Vice President noted that the world continued to face difficult moments caused by several factors, including climate change, disruptions in the supply chain of manufacturing goods due to the pandemic, among others.

 "These issues as projected by the World Bank are sinking some developed and developing countries into recession.  Just when the world was recovering from the ravages of Covid-19 pandemic, which came to shake the foundation of the world's economy, causing it to a standstill through its devastating effects, resulting in the fall of Global Gross Domestic Product by over 78%, war also broke out between Russia and Ukraine. 

"Its consequence has not only affected the two countries but also extended to other parts of the world, including Ghana," he explained.

Ghana, he said, had been hit by mainly three major external forces, saying; "The Covid-19 pandemic hit our capacity to access fundamental goods, and the response put a burden on public finances. 

"The war between Russia and Ukraine hit fertilizer and grain prices, among others, and increased the prices of commodities back home. And the US Federal Reserve’s move to hike interest rate severely hit our capacity to borrow and repay debt in the international market".

The investment summit seeks to woo foreign investors to take advantage of opportunities created in the various sectors of the Ghanaian economy in a road up to a total economic recovery. 

Vice President Bawumia said the Government was balancing sound fiscal management with strategic public investments that would unlock growth. 

"The private sector is the engine of growth, and we are only here to support you. Our government is acting as your facilitator. We will unlock bottlenecks and prioritise limited resources to strategic sectors and projects. We think this is an exciting time to be part of Ghana’s economic growth," he said.

"We are organizing this Investment and Opportunities Summit exactly in that context. First, we want to show that Ghana is back on track and that strong opportunities exist for profitable private investments in key sectors. "

"Ghana is home to one of West Africa’s most prominent and efficient ports, Tema, on the eastern serves as a feedstock to the landlocked ECOWAS countries. There is also the Takoradi port on the western coast, which serves logistics, oil and gas, and allied industries. Takoradi is undergoing a significant transformation and requires significant investment to help decongest Tema and establish a commercial case for more vessels berthing there," he added.

Dr Bawumia cited the Brownfield, Greenfield, and Public Private Partnerships as tangible and bankable projects championed by the private sector in Ghana and abroad.

GNA

Adidome-Sogakope Zonal Director of EPA calls for protection of the environment

By Stanley Awalime

Sogakope (V/R), June 7, GNA- Mr Maxwell Zu-Cudjoe, the Sogakope Area Head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has called on the public to contribute their quota to the protection of the environment since its sustainability needs a collective responsibility.

He said the environment had been exposed to a lot of challenges that bothered sustainability and if not addressed early could leave rippling effects on all occupants of Mother Earth.

Mr Zu-Cudjoe, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview mentioned the June 5, set aside by the United Nations as the World Environment Day, aimed to commemorate and highlight issues of the environment.

“Climate change, Waste management, Deforestation among others are issues of the environment that need urgent attention, he said.”

The Sogakope Area Director added that Plastic Waste Pollution and Global warming had been on the increase, and it had become necessary to inculcate the attitude of waste segregation among the youth.

“What someone might call waste might be a resource to someone else, just as it's being said that one man’s poison is another man’s meat,” he said.

He said the Sogakope Area Office had donated dustbins to selected schools around North, South and Central Tongu, Anloga, Akatsi-South and Keta Municipalities to inculcate the attitude of waste Segregation in pupils.

Mr Zu-Cudjoe called on all stakeholders to help mobilize resources to address issues endangering the environment since the protection of the Environment had become a collective responsibility.

This year’s world environment day has been on the theme “Beat Plastic Pollution.”

Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being.

The costs of plastic pollution including environmental clean-up, ecosystem degradation, shorter life expectancy and medical treatment exceeded US$100 Billion per year, according to research on growing global plastics crisis.

GNA

Industrialisation goes with reliable electricity- Deputy VRA CEO

By George-Ramsey Benamba

Accra, June 7, GNA- Mr Kenneth Mensah Arthur, Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Services at the Volta River Authority (VRA) has asserted that without reliable and affordable electricity, the potential industrial growth cannot be realized. 

“Ghana’s industries consume about 33 per cent of the electricity produced which is very significant’. 

Mr Arthur stated this during the seventh Ghana International Trade and Finance Conference (GITFiC) held at Senchi in the Eastern Region and attracted patrons from over 10 African countries and beyond.

The conference was on the theme: “Sovereign Economic Vulnerabilities; An Endorsement for a Single Trading Currency for Africa – with ECOWAS as a case study.

He said the VRA had over the years continued to increase its generation capacity while improving reliability of supply, to meet the growing electricity needs of the country. 

“VRA expects to obtain competitively priced financing from banks to enable VRA continue to develop new power plants at competitive prices to meet the growing electricity needs. 

“Reliable and affordable electricity also helps to promote regional trade because it helps to give a competitive advantage to counties that exhibit these qualities.

The conference which dwelt on building a single currency for the sub-region also made strides in the intra-African trade to reduce import bills for member countries.

On a single currency for the sub-Region, he said the VRA believed that the concept of a single currency was in sync with electricity generation and trading. 

“Electricity does not know any boundaries; all it needs is for the two systems to be connected and it flows. The electrons that form the electricity is the same in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo and any other country for that matter. The electrons behave like a single currency and so we do appreciate the push for a single currency to promote trading.

On VRA’s role in Promoting International Trade, he said since its inception, it had been promoting international trade through electricity exports and also natural gas supply Power Export. 

He said the VRA started exporting power to Cote d’Ivoire from 1984, to Togo/Benin from 1984 and to Burkina Faso from 2003 and now exported about 250 MW to neighbouring countries.

With respect to natural gas, he said VRA had been a foundation customer to the West African Gas Pipeline Project (WAGP) which led to the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Nigeria through Togo/Benin to Ghana and VRA’s role was a major boost for realization of the needed volumes of natural gas to make the WAGP project viable. 

“Today gas supply from Nigeria plays a critical role in power generation in Ghana”.

He said VRA was a pioneer member of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) seeking to promote cross border trading of electricity within West Africa and played a key role in WAPP, serving on various technical committees, and special task forces to help WAPP in its operations.  

“Realization of the full potential of WAPP will improve reliability of power supply within the sub-region, reduce the overall investment requirement for additional power plants of countries (because countries can import without building a new power plant) and also increase trading amongst the countries that are in a position to export power. 

Mr Arthur said the VRA had maintained High Standard in Power Operations in its hydro, thermal and Renewable Energy Operations and maintained high availability standards and adopted best practices, which was a key attraction to neighbouring countries for supply of power.  

He said the Energy Transition also presented some opportunities for the power sector and industries and the target of the government of Ghana was to achieve net-zero by 2070. 

“This, the government intends to achieve by implementing nuclear power generation, using natural gas and increasing the Renewable Energy in the generation Mix. We in VRA are partners with GoG in the development of the Nuclear Power Plant. These initiatives we believe also present opportunities to industries in the Renewable Energy space”. 

Mr Arthur said the VRA supplied over 50 per cent of the country’s electricity with 87 per cent penetration and hoped to achieve Universal access by 2030

On generation Mix for 2022, he said Hydro was 36.8 perr cent, Thermal: 62.9 per cent, Solar: 0.1 per cent and Imports amounted to 0.2 per cent.

GNA

Prosecute Transnational Organized Crimes and money laundering – Ndego

By Laudia Sawer 

Tema, June 1, GNA - Mr. Benjamin Ndego, a criminologist, has called for concurrent investigations and prosecution of Transnational Organized Crimes (TOC) with money laundering to enable relevant institutions to recover proceeds of such crimes. 

 

Mr. Ndego, who is also an Expert in Organized Crime and Money Laundering, said the current practice of institutions focusing only on predicated crimes before going to tackle money laundering would give the perpetrators enough time to divert the monies and cover them up. 

 

He made the call during the ongoing two-week Maritime Security and Transnational Organized Crime (MSTOC) programme organized by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) with support from the German Government. 

 

He said that the proceeds of all TOCs activities such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, and terrorism, among others, end up in money laundering. 

 

He said it was a vicious cycle in which the crime generated monies that needed to be laundered as a way to avoid detection, and those monies were then used to sponsor more crimes to generate higher proceeds. 

 

"Arresting people and jailing them without collecting the monies involved in the proceedings is just a waste of time and national resources, as they go and come back to enjoy the money they made from those crimes," he said. 

 

Mr. Ndego said the criminals wash their dirty monies by initially injecting the illegal cash into banks or security companies and sometimes transforming it into other assets, and they also remove the monies far from the location of acquisition to avoid detection. 

 

He said they lay the money through its conversion into monetary instruments such as bonds and also sell the initial assets acquired. 

 

The criminologist said the last part of the money laundering involved integrating it into real estate, buying properties, and buying loss-making enterprises, among others. 

 

Touching on the types of money laundering, he said some laundered the monies through third parties who were not involved in the committing of the crimes, whiles some do self-laundering as well as stands alone. 

 

He said some of the features of money laundering were having monies from a criminal origin, with the aim of obscuring the origin while making the funds appear legitimate, using front companies, strawmen, and philanthropic activities, and co-mingling the money as a cover. 

GNA 

Hypertension in pregnancy could lead to premature delivery

By Angela Ayimbire, GNA  

Tema, June 01, GNA – Hypertension in pregnancy, if not managed, could lead to complications including seizures, coma, premature delivery, and an increased chance of intrauterine growth restriction in the baby, Dr. Derrick Darko, a Medical Officer, has cautioned. 

 

Other consequences include detachment of the placenta, bleeding in pregnancy, and a higher probability of remaining hypertensive after delivery. 

 

Dr Darko, a medical officer at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH), noted that among maternal deaths that occurred during delivery, about 50 percent were attributed to hypertension.  

 

Speaking at a weekly health discussion programme called "Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility,  Dr. Darko said even though the causes of hypertension were yet to be established, some contributory factors included a high intake of salt and fatty foods, a hereditary condition, and a sedentary lifestyle. 

 

"Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility is Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy 

 

The Office developed the public health advocacy platform "Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility" to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting. 

 

He explained that there are four categories of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: chronic hypertension, gestational hypertension, preeclampsia-eclampsia, and chronic hypertension with superimposed preeclampsia. 

 

Dr. Darko said apart from recording high blood pressure readings, other signs to look out for were protein in the urine, which could be picked up through the various tests done during pregnancy. 

 

Others include severe frontal headaches that could not be reduced with the intake of painkillers, visual blurriness, flashes of light on the face, continuous nausea and vomiting, experiencing pain just beneath the breast or right side of the abdomen, and a sharp increase in weight with swellings of the hands and feet that look shiny. 

 

He explained that hypertension in pregnancy could be categorized in two ways: those who were already diagnosed as hypertensive before getting pregnant and those who developed it during pregnancy. 

 

He said those already diagnosed must seek pre-pregnancy counselling from their doctors before getting pregnant, adding that, with that their medications and dietary needs could be checked to avoid complications. 

 

He urged women to start antenatal care immediately after they recognized that they were pregnant to enable their blood pressure to be taken, recorded, and monitored to help in the early detection of any symptoms of hypertension and its related complications and to help save the lives of both mother and baby. 

GNA 

Bank Managers call on gov’t to flush out ‘black market’ operators

By Dennis Peprah

Sunyani, May 31, GNA – The heads of banking institutions in the Bono Region have called on the Government to be proactive enough and flush out money exchangers in the ‘black market’ for the Ghana cedi to regain its strength.

They observed that the illegal money exchange business was flourishing in Sunyani, the regional capital, and thereby putting undue pressure on the cedi, saying, because their exchange rates were high, they had high patronage from the public.

“I think the Government must do more to restrict the activities of the black marketers because their illegal businesses have a huge devastating toll on the banking business,” Mrs. Gloria Mensah Atakora, the Bono Regional Manager, GCB Bank PLC stated.

The Bank Managers made the call when they interacted with Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister in a meeting in Sunyani.

Mr Charles Eshun, the Bono Regional Manager of the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB), also advised the public to desist from exchanging foreign currencies in the black market to support government efforts to strengthen the Ghana cedi.

The Bank Managers also called on the National Identification Authority (NIA) to be expeditious in the issuance of the Ghana cards to the public, particularly Ghanaian residents abroad.

“Because they find it difficult to access the Ghana card, many Ghanaians who returned home from abroad are unable to open bank accounts and most of them also patronise the activities of the black marketers,” Mr Foster Frimpong, the Bono Regional Manager of the Zenith Bank stated.

They also appealed to the Regional Security Council to intervene and help increase Police presence at the Sunyani central business district (CBD) where most of the major banks were situated to enhance security in the enclave.

On her part, Madam Owusu-Banahene commended the managers for their frank discussions and assured that the Bono Regional Coordinating Council would also work hard in tackling some of the challenges impeding their operations in the region.

The Regional Minister called on the banks to open cash outlets in some of the major rural communities in the region to serve the rural population.

Madam Owusu-Banahene indicated that about 60 per cent of the regional population were farmers spread in the local communities, hence the need for the banks to extend their services to them too.

Meanwhile, activities of the illegal money exchangers are very common and rife, as several ‘black marketers,’ mostly nationals from Niger and Burkina Faso are dotted around corners of the CBD.

They transact their illegal businesses in the open as they approached visitors in the enclave for foreign currency exchange, with emphasis on the Euro and US dollar.

Good governance guarantees national stability - Former National Security Coordinator

By Dennis Peprah 

Sunyani, May 31, GNA - Mr Francis Poku, a former National Security Coordinator has said good governance and regime protection is a guarantee to national security and stability. 

"If we are able to ensure good governance, then we wouldn't have problems with threats of violent extremism and radicalism in the country," he stated. 

Mr Poku said the high unemployment rate and underdevelopment create dissatisfaction and thereby undermined national peace and stability. 

The former national security coordinator under the former President John Agyekum Kufuor's government was speaking at the Regional Dialogue session on trending conflict issues in Sunyani. 

The National Catholic Secretariat organised the day's session, attended by traditional leaders, representatives of religious bodies, security services, youth groups, policy implementers, trade associations and Senior High School students. 

It was on the theme: "Trending Conflicts in Ghana, Fertile Grounds for Violent Extremism: A Call for Action," and was in line with the Sahel Peace Initiative project being implemented by the Secretariat with funding from the Catholic Relief Services, a non-governmental organization. 

Citing Burkina Faso as an example, Mr Poku said about 60 per cent of that country had been taken over by rebels where people could not go on with their normal lives. 

"In fact, Ghana must ensure we don't run into that kind of situation where traditional chiefs had been slaughtered openly before their subjects," he stated. 

Insecurity, Mr Poku emphasized, remained a serious problem, hence the need for the nation to do more by tackling its security threats proactively to sustain national stability. 

Mr George Agbozo, a Senior Lecturer at the Catholic University of Ghana and an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Practitioner, expressed regret that the citizenry had certain misconceptions about governance, with some gradually losing faith in the judicial system. 

This, he added, had the potential to breed the culture of violence and extremism, if not tackled proactively. 

Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister mentioned chieftaincy conflicts, illegal mining, unemployment, and activities of nomadic Fulani herdsmen as some of the security challenges, which needed attention in the region. 

She commended the organisers for the dialogue and expressed the hope that it would strategised and help provide realistic interventions to tackle the threats of security, not only in the region, but the nation by extension.