Day: October 14, 2023

Mr. Daniel Reynolds, Founder, Amen Institute, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has called for immediate actions to address water and food safety considering recent environmental challenges. Mr. Reynolds said immediate action was necessary due to the recent threats to water and food safety, including illegal mining operations (galamsey) and other water pollution activities. He said this on the sidelines of the 43rd Observance of World Food Day celebration and float at the forecourt of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The 43rd edition of World Food Day is under the theme, ‘Water is life; water is food; leave no one behind’. Mr Reynolds called for collaborative efforts aimed at tackling those existential threats to promote food and water safety. He said his outfit was keenly interested in activities and efforts aimed at eradicating hunger in Ghana, hence the collaboration with relevant agencies and organisations to mark the 43rd edition of World Food Day. In support of that, the Amen Institute would donate some food crops from its farm to the Osu Children Home as part of the activities earmarked to commemorate World Food Day. ‘We want to eradicate hunger in Ghana. We thought it was very thoughtful that we often engage an institution like the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the United Nations to collaborate with them so that we donate the food to them to present it to the Osu Children Home,” he said. According to the World Bank, two billion people across the globe have no access to safe water. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 387 million people have no access to basic drinking water services. Mr Abbey Mensah, also a representative from Amen Institute, called for all-year round advocacy to create awareness about the importance of water and the need to protect it from pollution. He said the partnership between Amen Institute and agencies such as the United Nations, World Food Programme, and Ministry of Agriculture to commemorate this year’s edition was due to the agencies’ interest in improving food security in the country. Mr Gilbert Xorlanyo Ampeh, Deputy Director in Charge of Finance and Administration, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, advised the public to avoid illegal activities that destroyed the country’s water bodies for the health and safety of all.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, the Chairman of the Board, Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), has called for more autonomy for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), based on the Chinese model, to enable them to improve in performance. ‘One reality that accounts for the positive strides made by Chinese state enterprises is the level of autonomy these institutions, operating in the centralised political economy of China, a communist country, enjoy,’ he said. I’m bold to say that unless our state-owned companies and special entities are given reasonable latitudes with reduced ministerial fencing, they cannot fully deliver on their mandate.’ Mr Blay-Amihere said this at the Second Edition of the Public Enterprises League Table (PELT) Awards ceremony in Accra. The PELT Awards Scheme, instituted by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), seeks to promote competition and excellence among the various state-owned corporations and specialised entities. He touched on the experience acquired by chief executive officers, board chairs and members, who participated in a study tour to some state enterprises in China, organised by SIGA, and inspired by their success stories. He said with most of them established in the early 1990s, those state enterprises had become profit making entities, offering thousands of jobs to many parts of Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Combining advanced research, technology and digitalisation, those entities had shown that state enterprises could give success stories. ‘Like the Chinese have successfully done we have to review the boundaries of relations between the Government through sector ministries and our state entities,’ Mr Blay-Amihere said. ‘I believe we can learn from the supervisory and regulatory roles of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), SIGA’s counterpart in China and other similar bodies’. He urged SIGA to organise a special workshop for discussions on the findings of the China tour for Ghana’s SOEs to benefit, and commended Mr Edward Boateng, the Director-General, for the good job done. If there was one award scheme that the nation should promote and support, it was PELT, since having the various state enterprises excel and succeed would have a positive impact on the national economy, he said.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Professor Damasus Tuurosong, the President of Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS), has called on the Ministry of Education to abolish the 30 per cent priority placement policy for public schools. He described the policy as discriminating, and a yardstick to deny private second cycle schools the opportunity to admit best performing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates. He made the call at the 29th General Conference of the Association, at Bibiani in the Western North Region, held on the theme: ‘Quality, Equity and Access, the Right of the Private school child.’ Prof. Tuurosong stressed that the policy was not favourable for private schools, saying, it was gradually having dire consequences on enrolments in such schools in the country. He underscored the relevance of private schools in the development of Ghana’s education sector in terms of providing education in communities where there was no access to quality education. Touching on employment, he said the various private educational institutions had contributed significantly to the reduction of unemployment rate in the country by hiring young graduates and other qualified personnel to teach in the schools. According to Prof Tuurosong, private schools played crucial role in educating the Ghanaian child and, therefore, deserved same support the government offered public schools to help sustain their operations. Nana Kwadwo Somiah ll, the Chief of Sefwi Ntakamu, who chaired the event, emphasized the need for the government to provide support to the various private schools to help empower them to continue to provide quality education in the country. The two-day annual general conference of the Association, sort to assess members’ performance during the year under review and strategize for the next year. It was attended by heads of private schools across the 16 regions.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The government is grievously concerned about the economic hardship facing Ghanaians, and remains steadfast to make living conditions better for all, soon. That was the assurance giving by Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Information Minister, on the back of recent improvement in Ghana’s macroeconomy, and Staff-Level Agreement for a second tranche of US$600 million. The agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is for the implementation of a US$3 billion loan-support programme to restore macroeconomic stability, debt sustainability and lay the foundation for stronger and more inclusive growth. ‘Times are hard and the crisis we find ourselves is difficult, but development takes a little while. If you plant corn, you won’t see it mature the next day. So, we’ll soon see an easing in the system,’ Mr Nkrumah said. He said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the side-lines of the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Group (WBG) Annual Meetings in Marrakech on Friday, October 13, 2023. ‘Cost of living has been the most difficult thing for all of us, but inflation as an indicator will suggest to you that it’s beginning to trend downwards, though still high,’ he explained. ‘The government is doing all it can to ensure that food inflation, in particular, can come down faster. The Agric Ministry is ensuring that, not only are we producing more, but the value chain that brings it to the market is contained,’ he said. Mr Oppong Nkrumah also said that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) was continuing with the tightening policies to ensure that non-food inflation reduced significantly. ‘We’re working to bring the cost of living down, and improving fiscal situation, where we can have enough revenue to fund all the demands that all of us are making on government, as the financing side supported by the IMF programme,’ he said. He also said the government would continue to make sacrifices, just as all Ghanaians were doing, by continually examining expenditure to see what more could be cut down. On when the current improvement in the macroeconomy would reflect in the lives of Ghanaians, the Minister could not give any time, but was confident it would be ‘soon.’ ‘We, for example, had projected that growth will be about 1.5 per cent, and we rolled out some of these measures with the expectation that it will do a bit better, but today, we’re doing about 3.3 per cent,’ he noted. To support growth sustainably, the President had asked for a growth and jobs creation plan, which Cabinet would meet next week to firm it up, and sign off for implementation, the Minister hinted. ‘Our expectation is that it will quicken the rate of growth; this is because when growth is happening, you find out that jobs are opening up in town, and when people are getting jobs, and when people are getting jobs, then they’re getting good income,’ he said. There have been a series of demonstrations by Ghanaians about economic hardship in the country, its associated high cost of living and inadequate jobs, with the recent being a three-day continued protest, ending September 23, 2023. Some Ghanaians had resorted to walking long distances and riding of bicycles as a daily routine to cope with the economic hardship, while others parked their private vehicles to join commercial ones (trotro) to and from work, GNA reported. Some also reduced the number of times they had to eat to cope with the hardship, a situation that the government attributed to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war and other structural challenges. Meanwhile, the implementation of government’s Post-COVID-19 Programme of Economic Growth (PC-PEG), supported by the IMF US$3bn loan has seen some improvement in the macroeconomy. Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has averaged 3.2 per cent for the last two quarters of 2023, a 0.2 per centage higher than the same period in 2022. Headline inflation had dropped to 38.1per cent in September from 40.1 per cent in August. The Cedi has been more stable this year, depreciating year-to-date cumulatively by 23.5 per cent compared to the same period in 2022.

Source: Ghana News Agency