A former Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby has called for the dissolution of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) if it can’t regulate fuel price hikes to protect consumers.
Dr. Wereko-Brobby in an interview on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, November 1, added that the NPA must control the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to follow the laws on deregulation.
“There is a jungle market going on in fuel pricing. Deregulation works because we have set up windows for which price changes will be announced. There are two windows for every month. The NPA as the regulator is supposed to ensure that it announces what is known as maximum retail prices, so no consumer gets cheated by the Oil Marketing Companies.”
“But NPA has reneged on its duty and given it to COPEC which ironically is supposed to be representing the interest of the consumer… COPEC is now the chief cheerleader for marketing companies who keep announcing prices willy-willy. That is not the way deregulation was set up to go, it just keeps piling the pressure on [consumers],” Dr Wereko-Brobby told host Umaru Sanda Amadu.
Dr. Wereko-Brobby who is also a chief policy analyst at the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options added that “yes Russia-Ukraine war is causing trouble, it has made oil prices go up, but the problem is that the government passes all the cost onto us consumers, so prices are adjusted to reflect the current global prices but the windfall profits nobody wants to talk about it and then somebody says I feel your pain, you cannot feel the pain of Ghanaians when you ride 60 strong SUVs to travel round the country.”
“NPA is the regulator, why do you call them regulators if you can’t do anything? Then dissolve them. Why do we call them regulators, they are to make sure that the interest of the consumer and the business are both protected, you can’t have it one way.”
Fuel prices shot up again on Tuesday, November 1, with diesel hitting GH¢23.49 per litre, while petrol jumped to GH¢17.99 per litre with Kerosene also selling at GH¢14.70.
The new prices took effect on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
The State has disclosed it will call 11 witnesses in its criminal case against Chinese galamsey Queen, Aisha Huang.
The first witness is billed to appear before the High Court next Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
The Attorney General brought fresh charges against the acclaimed illegal miner shortly after she was busted in Kumasi by National Security and arraigned in the Accra Circuit Court.
In a virtual arraignment two months ago, the Attorney General’s Department said it was charging Aisha Huang with undertaking a mining operation without a license, facilitating the participation of persons engaged in a mining operation, illegal employment of foreigners, and re-entering Ghana while under prohibition so to do.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Atakorah Obuobisa, told the Court on Wednesday that some of the witnesses have audiovisual materials which will be played in the course of their testimonies.
She said all documents the State intends to rely on have also been duly filed and served, and they are ready to proceed to trial.
Lawyer for Aisha Huang, Captain (Rtd.) Nkrabeah Effah Dartey told the court they had indeed received the “voluminous encyclopedic documents they [Prosecution] filed.”
The Court is thus adjourned to November 9, for trial to commence.
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, on Monday, October 31, 2022, resumed his regional working tour to the Western, Western North, Central, Volta, and Oti Regions.
The second leg of the working tour comes on the heels of similar successful ones undertaken early this year to other regions in the country.
The visit will largely afford the Minister the chance to interact with farmers, input dealers, directors amongst others.
His first port of call was the Western North Region where Dr. Afriyie Akoto allayed the fears of poultry farmers, stressing that the government was poised to combat the bird flu outbreaks.
According to him, the disease affected farmers in regions including Western, Western North, Central, Volta and Oti Regions.
He disclosed that a total of 280 farms have so far been affected by the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) with 997,743 birds destroyed.
He also stated that the government had paid some GHS15,630,913.33 as compensation to affected poultry farmers.
To control the disease, Dr. Afriyie Akoto said the government had approved an amount of GHS43,984,017.70 out of which twenty million Ghana cedis had already been released.
He further noted that approval has also been given to recruit one thousand one hundred (1,100) veterinary officers, stating that out of the 1,100, 550 have been recruited and posted.
He said the remaining 550 were yet to be recruited and posted within a period of two years.
In this vein, the Minister advised farmers against accepting birds or eggs from other farms onto their farms.
He also admonished the poultry farmers to ensure thorough washing with soap and water immediately after handling birds, urging them to confine their birds from other birds.
He called on the farmers to regularly wash poultry equipment and bury or burn dead birds and keep waste away from the farmhouse.
For his part, the Director of the Veterinary Services Directorate (VSD) at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Patrick Abakeh, cautioned that compensations for bird flu-infested farms will not be paid to farmers who fail to register with the VSD.
He, therefore, called on the farmers to register their farms with the VSD. This, he explained, will give the authorities the knowledge on the number of farmers and quantity of birds affected.
Additionally, he asked the farmers to acquire certification from the VSD to qualify them for compensation following the bird flu outbreaks.
From Western North, the Minister will continue his tour of the Western Region, Central, Oti and Volta.
To guarantee a seamless delivery of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) cash grant to beneficiary households in Ghana, the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection has organized workshops on the LEAP payment process and performance for key stakeholders in Volta and Eastern Regions.
The LEAP programme disburses cash grants to beneficiary households to reduce poverty by smoothening consumption and promoting human capital development.
The workshop ensured stakeholders at the national, regional, and district levels have an enhanced understanding of the Programmes Payment processes, objectives, guiding principles, and goals.
As part of the LEAP payment process, the LEAP Management Secretariat will employ zoning strategies to engage sub-national level structures tasked with implementing LEAP at various levels.
It is expected that stakeholders in the LEAP Payment process will understand payment targets, measure the performance of the payment delivery chain and obtain inputs to renew the payment contract.
Participants from the Greater Accra, Oti, Volta, Western, Central, and Eastern Regions were drawn from the Ministry of Finance, Controller and Accountant Generals Department, and the Department of Social Welfare.
The rests are representatives from Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GHIPSS) and Participating Financial Institutions (PFI).
The World Bank funded the stakeholders’ engagement workshop under the Ghana Productive Safety Net Project (GPSNP).
Ghanaian statesman and politician Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe has alleged that President Akufo-Addo refused to meet two top retired generals, General Brigadier Joseph Nunoo-Mensah and General Napoleon Ashley-Lassen, over a pressing security issue.
According to him, the generals, who have both served the nation as Chief of Defence Staff, wanted to inform the president of a potential security threat to Ghana, but Akufo-Addo did not give them an audience, which is a shame.
“Believe it or not, two retired generals… General Brigadier Nunoo-Mensah and General Ashley Lassen, have both been chief of staff before in this country. They watched carefully about a couple of months ago, and they realised security was at its lowest end.
“They wanted to see the president; the president refused to see them… This happened this year. They (the retired generals) have the experience, and they wanted to see you the president. Where on this planet will any president refuse to see such top people?
“If I’m telling lies, he should come out and say it. The generals know that things were going bad, and they wanted to whisper in his ears or tell him what to do so that there will be calm in this country,” he said.
Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe, a founding member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), previously alleged that, but for the intervention of the NPP MPs, Ghana was on the verge of experiencing a military coup.
According to him, the call for the dismissal of the finance minister wiped away the plot.
He advised the president to learn from this development as the actions of the NPP MPs are unprecedented.
“Those who made this intervention have saved the 4th republic. We were getting close to military intervention, but the MPs’ actions yesterday totally wiped it off, and I think the country should learn from that as well. Akufo-Addo, as I know, will definitely make attempts to change their minds; if they instead allow that, then they will be [the] most hated people in this country or on the political landscape,” he said in an interview with TV3’s Big Issue show.
The Founder of the Shining Grace Chapel International, Prophet Azuka, has said that if the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and former President John Dramani Mahama don’t sit up, they could easily lose the 2024 elections.
He explained that although he once saw that John Mahama and the NDC would win the 2024 election, it didn’t take long for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to reclaim power.
“Recently, I was lying down when I saw that, as I mentioned earlier in 2018, I said that Mahama should wait until 2024 because he will win; he was holding a white angel. However, about a month after, I saw that the NPP had reclaimed it,” he said.
Pushed further by Paula Amma Broni during an interview on GhanaWeb TV’s Talkertainment, the controversial Prophet Azuka stated that the ruling party, the NPP, will win the 2024 elections.
He, however, stressed that if the NDC sits back and does nothing, hoping that the economic hardship will be enough to endear them to voters, the NPP could win back the hearts of Ghanaians.
“I see that the NPP has won the election again, but the reason I am explaining it is because when I consider the current economic hardships we are in, I got surprised that it is the NPP that will win the elections again. That was when I understood the things of the spirit better.
“So, if the NDC sits back and claims that because times are hard, things will automatically work for them, they should know that things can get better in the two years left,” he said.
Workers at the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) have rejected a 22% increment in salary, management of the company has said.
In a statement, VALCO indicated that the staff described the increment as insufficient and staged a demonstration in the early hours of Monday, October 31, 2022, to register their displeasure.
This follows negotiations between management and the workers.
The over 300 workers through their union executives, proposed an initial 62 percent salary increment to the Management of VALCO, and subsequently reduced it to 55 percent.
Management however responded to this with a 22% increment offer with an assurance of further increment in the future as steps are being taken to retrofit the Alluminium Smelter plant which had been recording losses for years until 2021.
“Management of VALCO further indicated to the workers union executives that they will have to invite an independent arbiter in labour/industrial disputes settlement i.e the National Labour Commission (NLC), to take-up the matter after negotiations between Management and the workers ended up in a stalemate,” parts of the statement said.
The workers are therefore calling for better conditions of service and the immediate dismissal of some management members whom they describe as retirees.
They also want their salaries to be pegged to the dollar following the dollar appreciation in recent times.
The family of a man who was allegedly killed by some police personnel at Adomfe, in the Asante Akyem South Municipality of the Ashanti Region, have filed a GH¢10 million suit against the Inspector General of Police, COP Dr. George Akuffo Dampare; the Ghana Police Service, and the Attorney General.
The suit, according to a report by The Chronicle newspaper, is jointly filed with nine others.
Stating the details available to it, the newspaper said that the deceased man, 33-year-old Kofi Ampomah, was allegedly seized by nine police officers on October 15, 2022, just after he had closed from work.
Further details said that upon his seizure, the police officers allegedly assaulted him by using pepper spray on him, after which they butchered him with cutlasses or machetes.
The police are then said to have left the man unattended.
Maxwell Boamah, who is said to be a customary successor of the late Kofi Ampomah, is also reported to have said that the body of the deceased was handled like an animal by the officers from the Konongo Division of the Ghana Police Service.
“The police finally dumped the deceased at Konongo Odumasi Government Hospital and lied that he had been killed by armed robbers,” details of the writ said.
The report added that the family of the deceased is filing a suit for GH¢10 million as compensation that will be used for the education, maintenance, upkeep, and trauma suffered by the dependants of the deceased.
Why Kofi Ampomah was killed?
The Chronicle newspaper explained that Boamah, the relative of the deceased, said that Kofi was mistaken for a young man who had allegedly reported the defendants (the nine policemen) to the Bompata police for apparently releasing a woman.
The woman, it added, was allegedly selling local gin mixed with a substance suspected to be Indian hemp to the public.
“He averred that the police, on two different occasions, arrested and released the woman in question after extorting GH¢3,000 and GH¢4,000 respectively from her,” the report said.
Police officers named in the writ:
According to the writ, the following are the names of the officers alleged to have been involved in the death of Kofi Ampomah:
General Sergeant Suleman Seidu (Sully Seidu), G/CPL Seth Agbango (Seth Agbango), D/L/CPL Salifu Yakubu, G/SGT Samuel Awrjamb, G/SGT Opare Samuel (Opare Samuel Antwi), D/CPL James Astikson Mensah (James Mensah), G/CPL Nyame Hayford, G/CPL Emmanuel Divines Delasi (Delasi Divine), and G/L/CPL Samuel Kwame Gorman (Gorman Samuel).
Additionally, the writ has named the IGP, COP Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, and the AG, Godfred Dame, jointly in the case.
About the late Kofi Ampomah:
Details contained in the writ showed that the deceased was a Sprinter ‘trotro’ driver who plied his trade along the Adomfe to Kumasi Road.
The Minority in Parliament is asking the government to use part of the over GH¢8 billion revenue accrued from petroleum products to cushion petroleum consumers against the current price hikes.
The Minority says the government has received over GH¢8 billion from petroleum resources
in less than 3 months, as against its GH¢6 billion projection for the year.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, the Ranking Member on the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, John Jinapor urged the government to act in halting the escalation of fuel prices which he bemoans has seen over 300 percent increase in less than a year.
“In less than three months, the government has received over GH¢8 billion from our petroleum resources. So in three months, the government has received more than it projected for the whole year, so government is making supernormal profits. In fact, even the Price Stabilization and Recovery Levy which are supposed to subsidize fuel, government projected that in the first two quarters, it will receive GH¢269 million and as we speak, from the Ministry of Finance’s own record, the Government has received GH¢800 million. And so this notion that Government is not making any money is a fallacy”.
“Government is making so much money from our petroleum resources, I, therefore, call on President Akufo-Addo and the outgoing Minister of Finance that they should do something about this pricing increment. They should sit up and think outside the box and apply these supernormal profits to cushion the ordinary Ghanaians.”
Mr. Jinapor indicated that the economic crisis worsens by the day as he receives calls every day from some of his constituents seeking diverse assistance to enable them to stay afloat.
“I receive calls every day from members in the Constituency from people who cannot even afford one square meal a day, people who cannot even send their kids to school because of the exorbitant fuel prices which are having a cascading effect on food prices, and general cost of living.”
“We hold the view that Government can do something about the fuel price increment, Government must sit up, Government must do something and the Government must cushion the ordinary Ghanaians.”
Ghanaian sensational singer, Cina Soul has criticised songwriter Abiana for ordering a young man off stage during the auditioning for the TV3 Mentor XI show.
As a judge, Abiana shouted at the auditionee to walk out when he started singing KiDi’s ‘Mon Babe’.
According to a section of the public, Abiana was dismissive of the young man who wanted to showcase his talent and to secure a spot in the competition.
Speaking on Asaase 99.5 Radio’s Between Hours show with Naa Ashorkor, the ‘Ojorley’ hit maker said, “I have also been to an audition before, and it was the scariest thing I have done in my entire life.”
“I can imagine the nerves that the boy took to that audition and sincerely that was a little too harsh,” Cina Soul added.
“There is a way to correct people and there is also a nicer way to say something,” she said. “Yes, she [Abiana] was employed to be a judge that you can give a good or bad criticism, but there is always a nice way to say something to just criticise someone.”
Abiana later explained that there was pressure on the judges to see to the over 500 candidates auditioning for the reality show.
Some transport operators in the Kumasi Metropolis have today, Wednesday, 2 November 2022, increased transport fares.
This comes on the back of hikes in fuel again.
A recent 19 per cent hike in transport fares took effect on Saturday, 29 October 2022.
However, on Tuesday, 1 November 2022, fuel prices were increased again.
The transport operators in the Kumasi Metropolis therefore increased fares to reflect the new hike.
Currently, the transport fare from Kumasi to Techiman which used to be GHS40 has been increased to GHS45, while Kumasi to Berekum has been increased from GHS50 to GHS55.
Some of the station masters and drivers spoke to Class 91.3 FM’s Ashanti Regional Correspondent Elisha Adarkwah.
Bright Lamptey, Bereku-Sunyani station master said: “It’s not our fault, we got notified that they had increased fuel. When we went to see, it was true.
“This has affected our business. Now when we get to Berekum, you can spend four to five days before you get passengers back here.”
Meanwhile, some passengers have bemoaned the effect of the increase in transport fare on their pockets saying, “It has had a negative impact on my money and my life, the money we’re spending is too much.”
Another passenger said: “It’s too bad. Everybody is suffering in this country and I can say the president is aware and everybody is crying in this country so it’s too bad.”
The price of diesel has shot up to GHS23.49 per litre, according to the latest prices advertised by TotalEnergies at the pumps.
President Nana Akufo-Addo has welcomed concerns raised by religious leaders on the devastating state of river bodies and forest reserves as a result of illegal small-scale mining (galamsey), describing their support in the fight against the menace as apt.
In his interaction with religious leaders drawn from the Christian Council of Ghana, Ghana Pentecostal Council, Ghana Charismatic and Pentecostal Council, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the National Muslim Council, on Tuesday 1 November 2022, at the Jubilee House, President Akufo-Addo said the ongoing discourse on galamsey in the country during his term in office demonstrates that the entire nation is poised to eradicate illegal mining in the country.
The visit of the religious leaders was essentially a follow-up to a press release they issued on 17 October 2022, demanding a total ban on small-scale mining in the country in order to send a strong message to those involved in the menace.
President Akufo-Addo expressed his appreciation to the leaders for their interest in supporting government’s efforts aimed at dealing with the “galamsey” phenomenon.
The delegation of religious leaders was led by Rev Professor J.O.Y Mante, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana.
“We have visited some galamsey sites and we have seen some dangerous things that for us cannot even be expressed in textbooks,” Rev Mante said. “We see that the thing (galamsey) is getting worse. We are here if you like, as your spiritual leaders to find out if there is any problem that we don’t know. We would like to know.
The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, after the closed door meeting told the Jubilee House press corps that he was invited by the President to brief the leaders on their concerns and their call for small-scale mining to be banned in its entirety.
He indicated that after his briefing, the religious leaders expressed satisfaction with the government’s stance on their demands and pledged to support all ongoing efforts of government aimed at stopping illegal mining in the country.
The Akufo-Addo administration has said it has so far paid an amount of US$3.6 billion in the past seven years for the alleged ENI Sankofa gas pipeline deal signed by the Mahama administration.
The director of public affairs at the Ghana National Gas Company Limited (GNGC), Ernest Owusu Bempah who was briefing journalists in Accra on Tuesday 1 November 2022 said that the contract was the most expensive gas deal globally.
On a monthly basis, he said Ghana is paying US$46 million, making it US$552 million yearly.
He said the contract was also signed for over two decades.
The Akufo-Addo government had no choice but to continue with the contract when it came into office because of the terms and conditions, he said.
“This contract was signed for 20 to 25 years, monopoly for that period and the IMF questioned it,” he said.
“We wouldn’t be going to the IMF but for some of these reckless dubious contracts signed by the Mahama administration,” he said.
Bempah said that the contract is partly to blame for the current economic challenges facing the country. The government is unable to reduce cost of electricity for thermal generation, he added.
Background
Former president Mahama signed the agreement with ENI and Vitol Energy at the Peduase Lodge near Aburi in 2015.
This was, at the time, probably the biggest single largest foreign direct investment in West Africa and indeed Ghana since independence.
The project was situated in the Western Region.
The oil production from the offshore cape three points was estimated at 80,000 barrels per day.
Recently, the World Bank country director, Pierre Frank Laporte identified losses in the energy sector of the economy as one of the challenges that forced Ghana into a situation where it is now seeking support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The big issue has been on the fiscal side. Before the current crisis happened, we observed certain challenges on the budget side that really has been the area more hit by everything. Also, where actions are required now to deal with them.
“For instance, on the revenue side we have always been saying that this is an area where Ghana should do better. We are encouraged by the fact that this should be one of the areas for potential programme and support from the World Bank. The problem is fiscal, not just revenue.
“The problem is that there are also spillovers from other sectors. For instance, the energy sector. There is about one billion dollars going to the energy sector because of losses. The sector itself is not financially viable and to keep it going you have to subsidise.
“Actions are required. Of course, with COVID, the general business environment is been a bit more difficult,” he said.
Former Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Professor Emeritus Stephen Adei, has intimated that the government’s measures to get the country out of the current economic hardship are insufficient.
According to Prof Adei, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo failed to announce measures that would give hope and take the country out of the current economic situation.
In a TV3 interview monitored by GhanaWeb, the ex-NDPC chairman said that if he were the president, he would immediately review some of the government’s flagship policies, including the Free SHS policy, and cut down the size of the government drastically.
“There is something we call leadership communication… I think that the fact that the president has not reshuffled his government up to now is not good. It is not good for him, for the perception of the government being more of a state capture.
“Even if the minister of finance has to go, it should not be let the minister of finance go and let somebody replace him. There must be clear restructuring. If I were president, I would give Ghanaians a Christmas package. And that will be concluding the IMF one (negotiations) via change in my government, bringing down the numbers of ministers and everything.
“Mahama was talking about 60 or 65 (ministers); I think that Ghana can be ruled by 40 ministers, then you are showing that you are serious about the challenges,” he said.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, during his address on Sunday, admitted that times are hard economically and that his government is working assiduously to provide relief to the citizenry.
He stressed in an address on the economy that his administration was ready to work towards restoring and resetting the economy on the path of progress and stability.
These views were contained in his October 30, 2022, address to the nation on the state of the economy.
“For us, in Ghana, our reality is that our economy is in great difficulty. The budget drawn for the 2022 fiscal year has been thrown out of gear, disrupting our balance of payments and debt sustainability, and further exposing the structural weaknesses of our economy.
“We are in a crisis; I do not exaggerate when I say so. I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time,” he added.
“But, as we have shown in other circumstances, we shall turn this crisis into an opportunity to resolve not just the short-term, urgent problems but the long-term structural problems that have bedevilled our economy.
“I urge us all to see the decision to go to the International Monetary Fund in this light,” he stressed.
The Adentan Circuit Court has sentenced a corn miller to 11 years imprisonment for defiling an 11-year-old girl at Adenta.
Evans Kweku Agyei, 20, charged with defilement, who had no legal representation, pleaded guilty.
Agyei admitted having sex with the victim, a class five pupil, on four occasions and had been giving her money.
The court, presided over by Mrs. Sedinam Awo Balokah, convicted Agyei, who has a hearing impairment, on his own plea.
Prosecuting, Chief Superintendent of Police Patience Marion, said the complainant was personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service and Agyei resided at Adenta.
Prosecution said that on October 9, this year, at about 5:00 pm, the victim visited her friend (name withheld), who also resided within the same vicinity.
Chief Sup Marion said that on her way home, Agyei met the girl near an abandoned fitting shop, and he covered her mouth with a handkerchief.
The court said the victim felt dizzy, and Agyei carried her into a damaged Hyundai Hiace Commercial vehicle, parked at the fitting shop, and had sex with her.
Chief Sup Marion said when the victim gained consciousness, Agyei asked her not to tell anyone about what happened to her.
The court heard that the convict gave the victim GH¢50.00, but she (victim) rejected the money and reported her ordeal to her friend.
Chief Sup Marion said the mother of the victim’s friend heard about the case and informed the victim’s father.
He said the case was reported to the police leading to the arrest of Agyei, and a medical form was issued to the complainant to seek medical care for the victim.
Four people have been confirmed dead while 19 others received various degrees of injuries in an accident at Esuahyia on the Mankessim-Apam stretch of the Winneba-Cape Coast highway on Monday.
Two died on the spot while the other two died on arrival at the hospital.
A Mercedes Benz Sprinter vehicle with registration number GW 7181-22 from Mankessim direction towards Accra was said to have burst its tyres resulting in the accident.
The Central Regional Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, DOIII Abdul Wasiu Hudu explained to newsmen that the office received a call at 2:42 pm of an accident on the Mankessim-Apam stretch of the Cape Coast Accra highway.
He said, upon arrival at the scene of the accident, personnel from the service were informed that the injured had already been taken to the Mercy Women Roman Hospital.
According to him, the team saw the bodies of two persons suspected to be dead and informed the police about it.
He indicated that no victim was trapped in the vehicle.
DOIII Hudu further said that the personnel deployed to the scene observed the vehicle burst its rear tyres.
He, therefore, said, they suspect the accident may have been caused by the bursting of both rear tyres of the vehicle.
The police, he said, had taken over investigations into the cause of the accident.
While the authority conducts in-house studies that inform outlook, its Director of Communications, Mohammed Abdul Kudus, said it was wary of its influence on the market.
“We are careful in the speculation, predictions or wanting to make any assumptions. We want to work with the data as and when it is needed for the market or consuming public to know,” Mr. Kudus said to Citi News.
This week, the price of diesel has shot up to over GH¢23 per litre while petrol is selling at almost GH¢18 per litre.
On the recent increases and the variables that have informed them, Mr. Kudus said, “it is the Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Finance that can speak to that.”
He noted further that the authority largely acts on instructions given it by the government.
“Anytime you come to us and say do this, we will do that,” he said.
Mr. Kudus did assure that the authority will be “working to ensure there is going to be the product in the market all year round.”
“What we probably would be able to help with is the regularity of the product out there in the market. So we are trying as much as possible to guarantee the supply,” he said.
The Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly has said action has been taken on officers who have been accused of being involved in the sale of community land to private developers.
The Municipal Chief Executive for Asokore Mampong, Kennedy Kankam, said the accusations and petition on the matter were not new to the assembly.
“Even the petition that they sent to me, I have already dealt with it,” Mr. Kankam said.
“The officers whose names were mentioned in it, I have written a query to them to explain themselves… They have even given me the reply,” he said.
The MCE was speaking after some aggrieved landlords and residents of Buobai in the municipality petitioned the Assembly to investigate the activities of some developers who have erected structures on the land which was initially meant for a hospital.
Mr. Kankam said the landlords could continue to protest the matter if they wished.
“If the people are still not satisfied, the demonstration is their right. If anyone wants to do a demonstration, we cannot prevent anyone from doing it.”
The Chief Policy Analyst at the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby has lashed out at the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) for doing little or nothing in fighting for petroleum users in the wake of consistent rise in fuel prices.
Dr. Wereko-Brobby accusedof currently being the chief cheerleader for Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in announcing annoying increases in the prices of petroleum products.
An incensed Dr. Wereko -Brobby in an interview on Eyewitness News wondered why COPEC has refused to fight for the interest of consumers, who are bearing the brunt of price increases and taxes slapped on the products.
The former Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority (VRA) said COPEC is now singing National Petroleum Authority’s songs instead of fighting to ensure that fuel prices are brought down.
Consumers were slapped with fuel prices again on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, with petrol leapfrogging to GH¢17.99 per litre, Kerosene GH¢14.70, while diesel now sells at GH¢23.49 per litre at various pumps.
Speaking in an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News, the former VRA boss asserted, “NPA has reneged on its duty and given it to COPEC which ironically is supposed to be representing the interest of the consumer… COPEC is now the chief cheerleader for oil marketing companies who keep announcing prices willy-willy. That is not the way deregulation was set up to go, it just keeps piling the pressure on [consumers]”.
He blasted the Akufo-Addo-led government for always being seen jolly-joying in 60 strong SUVs to with his entourage around the country when hardships stare in the faces of Ghanaians.
He said the government’s sloganeering of feeling the pains of the ordinary Ghanaians cannot be accepted.
“…So prices are adjusted to reflect the current global prices but the windfall profits nobody wants to talk about it and then somebody says I feel your pain, you cannot feel the pain of Ghanaians when you ride 60 strong SUVs to travel round the country,” Mr Wereko-Brobby fumed.
The Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Limited, Mr Kenneth Thompson, has dramatically begged President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to take decisive actions and save the economy from total collapse.
Speaking on Face to Face on Citi TV, Mr Thompson went down on his knees and called on the President to put in place measures that will ensure that majority of Ghanaians are not plunged into poverty and further suffering.
“His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa, what I can see coming is not good, I can see poverty I can see job losses, I can see business closures, I can see prices of electricity going up, I can see it. I lived through the 70s and I saw it,” Mr Thompson said.
The 61-year-old businessman added, “I can’t do much about the problem now but you can and I am begging you, please take decisive actions because I believe that you are capable of doing something and let’s move this country forward.”
Prices of fuel, goods and services have rapidly soared in the last few months plunging several households into a living crisis.
In October, Ghana’s currency depreciated as much as 3.3%, before paring the loss to 11.2750/$ in the capital, Accra. That took its losses this year to more than 45%, the most among 148 currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
President Akufo-Addo on Sunday admitted to Ghana’s economic crisis, describing it as a ‘historic’ development. Addressing the nation on Sunday evening, the President conceded to the country’s ballooning debt stock, rising inflation, free fall of the local currency, and the depletion of macroeconomic variables.
According to him, the situation is due to many ‘malevolent forces’ which are currently working together. In his speech, he, however, reiterated the commitment of the government to dealing with the present economic decline.
“We are in a crisis, I do not exaggerate when I say so. I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time. But, as we have shown in other circumstances, we shall turn this crisis into an opportunity to resolve not just the short-term, urgent problems, but the long-term structural problems that have bedevilled our economy”, the President said.
Some religious leaders in the country have suggested to President Akufo-Addo to as a matter of urgency ban illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) in the country.
According to these religious leaders, the country’s water bodies and their accompanying reservoirs have all been depleted by the activities of illegal miners.
In a meeting with the President on November 1, 2022, at the Jubilee House, the religious leaders, who were alarmed by the operations of illegal miners, explained that banning all forms of mining will go a long way in restoring sanity in galamsey enclaves.
Speaking on behalf of the clergy, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Rt. Rev. Professor Joseph Obiri Mante lamented that differentiating between small-scale mining and galamsey has become a herculean task.
“Now we cannot tell whether those who are doing legal mining have turned out to be illegal, we don’t know which one is galamsey and so on and so forth, we are just wondering if it will be possible to place a ban on all small scale mining. Just to make a statement, we know we get money (from galamsey) but at what cost,” he said during the meeting.
Nefarious activities by illegal miners in the country have become a topical issue, with a section of Ghanaians calling on the President to regulate their activities.
Police in Tepa in the Ahafo Ano North district of the Ashanti region has arrested Tepa-Danyame New Patriotic Party(NPP) Polling station Chairman for murder.
Kwaku Seidu alias Kukrudu believed to be in his 50s shot his wife over a disputed family land he attempted to sell to settle his debt and provide money for the family upkeep a week ago.
Kwaku Siedu’s two wives, upon hearing their husband’s decision, reported him to the Danyame Zongo Chief Nana Mazua.
Provoked by the action taken by his wives, the NPP chairman pulled a short gun in front of the Zongo Chief in his Palace and shot one of his wives identified as Sister Adwoa dead right in front of his family members while settling the misunderstanding between them.
Frederick Nyamekye, assembly member for the Danyame electoral area said angry community members provoked by the NPP Chairman’s action, almost lynched him. He was, however, saved by the timely intervention of the police from the Tepa district command.
He is currently under arrest and admitted at the Tepa government hospital for treatment under police surveillance following the assault.
The lifeless body of the deceased mother of three is deposited at the hospital’s morgue for preservation.
Information Minister, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, has said that the president Akufo-Addo cannot single-handedly solve the challenges facing the country.
It is for this reason he believes all Ghanaians must get on board, performing their individual respective roles to ensure that together, the nation’s problems are resolved.
Speaking on Peace FM in an interview, the information minister sought to put the speech of the President to the nation on Sunday, October 30 in perspective.
Although he assured that pragmatic measures including the 12 major ones outlined by the President in his speech are being taken to ensure a turnaround in the economy, he noted that it’ll take a joint effort on the part of the President, government, stakeholders and the entire Ghanaian populace to achieve this.
“The problems we have, not only one person can solve them. If everybody leaves everything to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to handle, it will not work.
‘If everybody leaves things to government alone to handle, we all need to come on board.
… Whatever we do, if people sell and add a 100% profit to it, it won’t change much. We can’t use police to chase these traders. So we have to find a way to work together to bring some of these things under control,” he said.
According to Oppong-Nkrumah, there are arrangements for meetings between the president and some local producers, to ensure that local production is boosted and exports are reduced.
“The president will engage with local producers within the next week or two to bridge the bottlenecks that exist that are their products from getting on to the market,” he added.
To say ‘times are hard’ in Ghana now will only be stating the obvious, and for President Akufo-Addo to have confirmed the same only reaffirms the fact that the country is faced with very trying times.
From the crumbling Ghana cedi against foreign currencies like the United States dollar to the ever-rising prices of fuel, the soaring food prices and general standards of living, truly, the country is not in normal times.
In his words, President Akufo-Addo has assured Ghanaians that he will turn things around just as, he added, he has done before.
“For us in Ghana, our reality is that our economy is in great difficulty.
“We are in a crisis; I do not exaggerate when I say so. I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time,” excerpts of his address to the nation on Sunday, October 30, 2022, read.
But while the president sought to indicate that there has never been a time in history where so many forces have come together to affect the country, there actually has been such a time before.
In fact, in that ‘such a time,’ when Ghana experienced one of its toughest economic downturns, it has emerged that there are some spooky similarities between those two years: 1983 and 2022.
It has emerged that the same calendar used in 1983 is the same calendar that is currently being used in the year 2022. For more clarity, if you look at the calendar of 1983 and 2022, it is the same thing.
Even more interesting is the fact that 1983 in Ghana was a time of a great food drought, while in 2022, the country is experiencing harsh economic difficulties.
A mere case of coincidence? Well, let’s look at the striking similarities between these two years that history appears to be repeating.
About the 1983 drought in Ghana:
The following description of what happened in 1983 was written by Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng and first published on GhanaWeb on May 13, 2013.
The year 1983 perhaps was the harshest year in Ghana’s modern history.
The year 1983 did not start well. One of the harshest droughts was in progress. There had been little meaningful rain since 1981; that is, it has either rained little or the rain had come at the wrong place and time. The drought could not have come at the worst possible moment.
To understand the full import of what happened, a bit of history is in order. The most unsettled decade for this country has to be the 1970s, the years during which, for good or ill, the chickens of the Nkrumah overthrow in 1966 came home to roost.
Maybe the Progress Party government of Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia could have succeeded in its policy of rural development, but we have no way of knowing because it lasted only 27 months. In the meantime, it managed to sell off state assets in a manner that foreshadowed other economic controversies, some would say disasters, in the following decades.
In January 1972, Colonel Kutu Acheampong and his close friends staged a military coup and took over the country. They did not appear to have any development strategy, but they managed to infuse a sense of purpose and urgency around their slogan of “Operation Feed Yourself” and a mild form of pan-Africanism and Nkrumaist orientation, later to be described as “domestication” by the late Dan Lartey who was one of their civilian advisers.
In 1975, Acheampong’s closest comrades in their National Redemption Council government were demoted to a second tier of government in a palace coup staged by the most senior officers in all branches of the military. They formed the Supreme Military Council, still with Acheampong as head but without the esprit de corps he enjoyed with his demoted friends, who quietly left the centre stage of government.
The SMC had no policies except staying in power through some of the most disastrous economic crises we have ever known. This article is not the place to go into the details of those policies and their consequences, except to remind us that almost all sections of society rose up against the government.
Trapped and with nowhere to go, the SMC tried one last trick; this was the “Union Government” (UNIGOV), an ill-defined coalition of civilians, soldiers and police officers. A botched referendum was the last straw, and yet another palace coup overthrew Acheampong in 1978 and replaced him with General F.W.K. Akuffo, who was generally acknowledged to be a first-class military officer but untested as a political leader. He is the man who used military discipline and precision to lead Ghana’s switch from driving on the left to the right in 1974 without a single accident on the day of the change.
However, his attempts, first to continue the UNIGOV scam under a different guise and then absolve the military of blame, did not sit well with soldiers and civilians.
On June 4 1979, a fortnight before the first general elections in a decade, a group of young soldiers overthrew the Akuffo government as they successfully released a certain Air force officer from custody at the Special Branch headquarters where he had been held since leading a failed insurrection on May 15 that year.
That young air force officer, of course, was Flt Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, who needs no introduction in this discussion. On the last day of the year 1981, Rawlings, who had retired from the military, led another insurrection to overthrow the Limann-led Peoples National Party government, which had been in office since the Rawlings insurrectionist gave up power three months after their coup.
Flt Lt Rawlings announced at the beginning of his insurrectionary regime that it was a “revolution”, and the revolution’s first year saw the country economically destabilised partly by the revolutionaries’ own activities and by international pressure. Squeezed by international commercial lenders, Ghana’s credit dwindled and disappeared. Our credit was not a lot to start with; Nigeria had to bring in truckloads of gifts, including toilet rolls, to soften our difficulties during Christmas! Understandably, life got very difficult for most citizens of this country.
In the meantime, as the lack of raw materials shut local production of everything, we could make ourselves there was no money to import anything and yet warehouses had been emptied by revolutionaries pursuing social justice.
The revolutionaries had a point, even if it was excessively expressed. Ghana could not continue on the path, whichever it was, that had driven us that far. The nation needed restructuring, and whether a political revolution was the ideal way to perform this all-out change in those circumstances still needs to be debated in this country. There is a Japanese proverb that says, “although the sign reads, do not pluck these flowers from this garden, it is useless against the wind which does not read”. The drought did not read the revolutionary script and deepened as 1982 turned into 1983.
There had been little notice in the Ghanaian media that Nigeria had given a very strict and final ultimatum in 1982 to foreigners there to “regulate” their stay or be kicked out early in 1983. It is difficult not to conclude that Nigeria’s actions were in some way retaliation for Ghana’s own eviction of foreigners, mostly Nigerians, some fourteen years earlier.
More than one million Ghanaians had to pack bags and baggage and head home. They came into an empty country. Food was scarce and disappearing fast, and although our “returnees” came with some nicely painted bags known as “Ghana Must Go” and many stories of atrocities, none brought a morsel of food to add to the national stock.
Ghana at present:
The government of Ghana has routinely explained that recent economic headwinds are attributable largely to the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the banking sector clean-up.
The rippling effect has been an increase in the cost of living, high inflation rates and downgrades of the economy by rating agencies such as S&P and Fitch – a situation which has dealt a heavy blow to government’s ability to access the international capital market.
The Cedi has also been on a free fall compelling the Bank of Ghana to resort to hiking its monetary policy rate to deal with the situation.
The worsening economic situation compelled the government in July to initiate contact with International Monetary Fund for an economic support programme.
Ghana is targeting an amount of US$3 billion over three years from the Fund once an agreement on a programme is reached.
Government hopes to complete negotiations by the end of this year in order to receive the funds in the first quarter of 2023.
The first emergency call about trouble at Itaewon came in the early evening of 29 October.
“It’s so chilling right now,” the woman said, as she described a chaotic scene on the narrow streets of the Seoul nightlife district.
This was the first of 11 calls made to South Korea’s 112 emergency police hotline, begging police them to control the crowds before the fatal crush happened.
As calls for accountability mount, South Korean police have launched an investigation – with officers on Wednesday raiding the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, as well as police stations, fire stations and emergency call sites to look into whether officers taking the calls fulfilled their duty and took proper measures.
Police have also taken the unusual step of releasing transcripts of the calls.
From anxious warnings to screams of terror, the transcripts paint a horrifying picture of how the situation escalated.
The crowd builds up
In the first emergency call at 18:34 local time – hours before the crush happened – an Itaewon shopkeeper named Ms Park described people getting off at the Itaewon subway station coming up the narrow alley and mixing with people leaving the area, as well as others lining up to enter clubs.
“No one is controlling it right now. The police has to stand and control this. You should let people out first and then let people come in. People keep pouring in while they can’t get out,” she said.
In an interview with local radio station CBS on Wednesday, Ms Park said she made the call after she went for a walk with her daughter and husband and got separated from them by the huge crowds. They eventually regrouped and quickly rushed home.
This narrow alleyway was packed with people trying to make their way out in different directions
She described her terror at being caught up in crowds much bigger than what she was used to seeing in the area on a weekend, and her regret that the incident happened despite her early warning.
“On my way to home in the taxi, I thought if the situation would have been different if I waited there until the police came, by forming a [human barrier] with others, and letting young people know that the situation was dangerous. I regret it,” she said.
“Then the police might have taken stronger control like by blocking the roads or controlling the subway if they knew the situation that more people would come. But there was no police who could make such a decision, or take an action.”
Ms Park said that after her call she did not receive the customary text confirmation from the police informing her of their immediate actions – unusual for South Korean police, which prides itself on speedy and attentive follow-ups.
According to police records obtained by the Yonhap news agency, they mobilised officers for that call, but it is not known how many were sent down and what they did.
Falling and stumbling
The next few calls started coming in about two hours later, from 20:09 onwards.
By then, it was clear the situation had clearly deteriorated. The callers described seeing people stumbling after they were pushed, and getting injured.
“People are falling and things are getting out of control because the road here is blocked at the three-way intersection,” said the third caller.
At the end of the hour at 20:53, the fourth caller describes a harrowing situation near the Bronze nightclub.
The caller described the situation outside the Bronze nightclub (pictured)
“I feel like I am going to get crushed… many people are being crushed… it is chaos,” the caller says over a crackling phone line. They repeatedly beg the officer to “please help us”.
The officer assures the caller that they will send policemen to the scene. But police records showed they did not.
In fact, out of the 11 phone calls made to police, they only mobilised officers for four of them.
They did not dispatch anyone for any calls made from 21:07 onwards – the hour leading up to the crush.
Authorities said they had 137 officers on the ground at Itaewon that night. But they were clearly outmatched by the thousands that flocked to the area.
In one viral clip on social media, a lone police officer is seen in a massive crowd desperately shouting and trying to direct people away.
The final hour
On Saturday night, the calls kept streaming in steadily, getting briefer – and more urgent.
“I think there is going to be a real accident soon. Everything is insane,” said the sixth caller.
The eighth phone call at 21:10 was made in front of the Maman-e Kwangjang restaurant about 100 metres from Hamilton Hotel, and described people getting crushed there – illustrating how far the crowds extended to.
There was a lull of about 40 minutes. Then the final calls came in thick and fast, mostly from ground zero – the alley right by Hamilton Hotel.
The tenth caller appeared to be babbling in a panic.
“Yes, however, here, oh my, to come down the alley, I’m afraid, people are pushing and I think I am going to get crushed, please take control, yes,” they said.
In the last call at 22:11 – one of the briefest calls made – the caller dispensed with ceremony. Immediately after the police pick up, the person said urgently: “It feels like people can be stampeded here.”
The officer asked repeatedly where they were exactly, but was unable to get a clear answer. Then, this exchange occurred:
Officer: I am going to trace your location. Yes. Are you near Yongsan station, Itaewon station?
Caller: Ahhh (screaming), ahhh (screaming). The road behind Itaewon.
Officer: Yes. The police will be there.
The call ends abruptly. Four minutes later, the deadly crush began.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has strongly denied claims of collusion with illegal foreign exchange traders (forex) at the Central Business District in Accra to transfer funds offshore.
The Central Bank in a statement on Tuesday, November 1, described the allegations by the Director of Research at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Dr Kwabena Otoo as “reckless and unfortunate”.
“It has come to the attention of the Bank of Ghana that Dr Kwabena Nyarko Otoo of the Trades Union Congress passed an unfortunate remark about the Central Bank on Newsfile on Joy News TV/Joy FM on Saturday, 29th October 2022.
“Dr. Otoo, on the programme, said there is evidence or growing suspicion that Bank of Ghana is actively collaborating with some operatives at Cowlane in Accra to illegally transfer funds offshore. Bank of Ghana categorically denies the said allegations and also considers them extremely reckless. We would have expected that such strong allegations would have been supported by the requisite evidence, and not left at pure conjecture, mere suspicion or hearsay. This is especially so considering the quarters from which the allegations were made.”
The BoG further advised the general public to completely disregard these comments and be assured that the Central Bank, is focused on price stability, and doing all within its power to reduce the rising general level of prices.
The Minority in Parliament says government will announce a haircut on some investments within the next 14 days as part of its debt restructuring measures.
President Akufo-Addo in his economic recovery speech on Sunday, October 30, 2022, assured that government does not intend to slash the returns made on investments in its negotiations with the International Monetary Fund(IMF).
But addressing the media on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu insisted that there will be some form of cuts in investments in the coming days.
Mr. Iddrisu accused the president of creating the current economic mess the country currently finds itself in.
“As a Minority group, we believe the president failed to accept responsibility [during his address] that he is responsible for the sorry state of the Ghanaian economy, and he is responsible for the wrench economy which has consequences on livelihoods. Poverty has exacerbated, cost of living has gone high, cost of doing business has gone high, many businesses are folding up, and some industries are now re-routing their investments into neighbouring Ivory Coast and other countries because Ghana is no longer the investment haven as it should be.”
He also alleged that considering the happenings and conditions that come with seeking an IMF facility, haircuts on investments are inevitable.
“We are giving you only 14 days from today, and you will hear from them publicly efforts to restructure our unsustainable debt, and those efforts will necessarily include a sika mpɛ dede baba [mallam] for many persons who have investments and savings in some instruments.”
“Those of you who listen to [Kristalina] Georgieva of the IMF, you will recall a few months ago when the World Bank and the IMF, particularly led by its Managing Director, were again categorical that they didn’t see anything wrong with Government policy. We now state that there is everything wrong with Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government and his economic management team’s policy on borrowing. Borrowing is a policy. You decide to borrow and how much to borrow and where to direct the borrowing. So if you now borrow to the level of debt distress, to the level of unsustainable debt, to the level that you are now talking about ratio of 105% of GDP as your debt level and then he Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the president of the Republic added that he hopes that Ghana’s debt to GDP will improve to 55% by 2028, we ask the question, where will he be?”
Ghana’s Competitive African Rice Platform (CARP) has been launched officially in Accra to boost the country’s rice sector.
The platform seeks to offer a voice and space for national rice stakeholders in Ghana to scale their local impact on sustainability and competitiveness. Overall, the CARP seeks to reduce the overdependence on imported rice and strengthen public-private dialogue.
The platform is supported by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), AGRA (formerly Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), and the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (The platform seeks to offer a voice and space for national rice stakeholders in Ghana).
Under the initiative, small farmers across West Africa are being supported in boosting their rice harvests, improving product quality, and raising their incomes. Mr. Yaw Adu Poku, Board Chair for CARP Ghana, said: “We are honoured to have been selected to host the CARP, as Ghana’s first national rice chapter, and we see this as a great opportunity to collaborate with the government, international organizations, researchers and farmers to drive a transformation in Ghana’s rice sector.”
Following the launch in Accra on Tuesday, a secretariat to run the CARP will be set up to drive its operationalisation. A statement issued by Rebecca Weaver of AGRA explained that at a previous stakeholders meeting, the CARP’s governance structure was formalized, board members and executives appointed, and technical committees set up.
Based on field research and recommendations from public and private sector partners across ECOWAS member states, a regional “ECOWAS Rice Observatory” (ERO) had been previously created by the ECOWAS Commission and its partners. The ERO aims to coordinate rice sector-related programs, public/private investments, and policy recommendations for key decision-makers.
At the same time, national rice platforms, such as the CARP in Ghana, are being established across West Africa. The platform comprises primarily of private sector stakeholders across the value chain, as well as representation from research, government, and civil society, to coordinate country-specific investments and policies.
“Rice is a very important product for Ghana, accounting for nearly 15% of the country’s GDP. The CARP’s launch is, therefore, very timely as it will help different stakeholders to coordinate their investments in driving the transformation needed to boost the growth of the sub-sector for the benefit of local producers and the country at large,” said the Executive Secretary of ERO, Dr. Boladale Adebowale Abiola.
The minority caucus in parliament has said President Akufo-Addo failed to take responsibility for the economic mess during his national address to the state on Sunday, 30 October 2022.
Even though the president assured Ghanaians that there would be no haircuts on their investments, the minority caucus insists there would.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, 1 November 2022, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu said: “We are giving you only 14 days from today, and you will hear from them publicly, efforts to restructure our unsustainable debt, and those efforts will necessarily include a sika mpɛ dede baba [mallam] for many persons who have investments and savings in some instruments.”
“Those of you who listen to [Kristalina] Georgieva of the IMF, you will recall a few months ago when the World Bank and the IMF, particularly led by its Managing Director, were again categorical that they didn’t see anything wrong with Government policy. We now state that there is everything wrong with Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government and his economic management team’s policy on borrowing. Borrowing is a policy. You decide to borrow and how much to borrow and where to direct the borrowing. So, if you now borrow to the level of debt distress, to the level of unsustainable debt, to the level that you are now talking about ratio of 105% of GDP as your debt level and then he, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the president of the Republic, added that he hopes that Ghana’s debt-to-GDP will improve to 55% by 2028, we ask the question, where will he be?” M Iddrisu added.
He noted: “As a minority group, we believe the president failed to accept responsibility that he is responsible for the sorry state of the Ghanaian economy, and he is responsible for the wrench economy which has consequences on livelihoods”.
“Poverty has exacerbated, cost of living has gone high, cost of doing business has gone high, many businesses are folding up, and some industries are now re-routing their investments into neighbouring Ivory Coast and other countries because Ghana is no longer the investment haven as it should be.”
Read the president’s full speech below:
ADDRESS TO THE NATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC, NANA ADDO DANKWA AKUFO-ADDO, ON THE ECONOMY, ON SUNDAY, 30TH OCTOBER 2022.
Fellow Ghanaians, good evening.
Back in 2020, at the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, I started a regular conversation with you that came to be popularly known as Fellow Ghanaians.
It was a time of great fear of the unknown, and the entire world felt at risk. I came into your homes regularly to tell you what the experts were discovering about the virus, and what we should do.
Now that we have seen the worst of the COVID-19, I can tell you that there were moments during those times when I was distraught, there were moments when I was in despair about the apparent inadequacy of our health facilities, and there were moments when I wondered if the dire predictions made about dead bodies on our streets would truly happen.
But I knew that I owed it to all of us that, as your president, I had to hold my nerve, show leadership and take us out of the crisis. With your help and support, and the great mercies of the Almighty, we can say that we emerged from the ravages of the pandemic with one of the lowest mortality rates globally. In fact, Ghana’s handling of the pandemic won universal acclaim.
We could all see in real time the devastation that was being wreaked on economies during the pandemic, but I doubt that anyone imagined the extent of the damage. Our economy, here in Ghana, like many, many others around the globe, was thrown into turmoil.
When I said, at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we knew what to do to bring the economy back to life, but not how to bring people back to life, it was not said in jest. We had done it before, and we were on course to doing it again. Ghana’s economy grew by a remarkable 5.4% in 2021, signifying a strong recovery from the 0.5% growth recorded the previous year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, in the last quarter of 2021, our economy grew at seven percent (7%), only for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the first quarter of this year to aggravate the effects of COVID-19, and plunge the global economy into even greater turmoil from which it has not yet recovered.
The whole world has been taken aback by the speed with which inflation has eaten away people’s incomes. Economies, big and small, have experienced, over this year alone, the highest rise in cost of living over a generation; the highest rise in government borrowing in over fifty (50) years; the highest rise in inflation for forty (40) years; the steepest depreciation in their currencies to the US dollar over the last thirty (30) years; the fastest peak in interest rates for over twenty (20) years; and the greatest threat of unemployment in peace time; with over a hundred million people being pushed into extreme poverty.
Between the end of 2019 and now, inflation in Ghana has increased by five-fold, in Togo by sixteen-fold, by eleven-fold in Senegal, and by seven-fold in Cote d’Ivoire. In truth, however, the fact that there are petrol queues in France does not make it more tolerable that the trotro price from Kasoa to Circle has doubled in the past one year, nor does it make it any more tolerable that the price of cooking oil goes up every other week.
It is important to state that mentioning the increases in prices worldwide is not meant to belittle the scope of suffering here, but simply to help us put things into some perspective, and, hopefully, learn some useful lessons about how other people are coping.
Fellow Ghanaians, this is why I am back in your homes this evening to ask for your support, as we work together to get our economy back into good shape.
In April, after the Cabinet retreat of the first quarter, and recognising the deteriorating macro economy, my government announced a thirty percent (30%) cut in budgeted discretionary expenditures, and a thirty percent (30%) cut in salaries of the President, Vice President, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MMDCEs and political office holders, amongst other measures.
And, since July, when the Government took the difficult decision to go to the IMF to seek support, I have been speaking publicly at different fora on the subject of the economic difficulties we face, especially during my recent tours, so far, of nine (9) regions, and interacting directly with you, the Ghanaian people. It is also true that many of you have felt the need for me to come back to the Fellow Ghanaians format that brings us all together.
For us, in Ghana, our reality is that our economy is in great difficulty. The budget drawn for the 2022 fiscal year has been thrown out of gear, disrupting our balance of payments and debt sustainability, and further exposing the structural weaknesses of our economy.
We are in a crisis, I do not exaggerate when I say so. I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time. But, as we have shown in other circumstances, we shall turn this crisis into an opportunity to resolve not just the short-term, urgent problems, but the long-term structural problems that have bedeviled our economy.
I urge us all to see the decision to go to the International Monetary Fund in this light. We have gone to the Fund to repair, in the short term, our public finances, and restore our balance of payments, whilst we continue to work on the medium to long-term structural changes that are at the heart of our goal of constructing a resilient, robust Ghanaian economy, and building a Ghana Beyond Aid.
I am able to report to you, my fellow Ghanaians, that the negotiations to secure a strong IMF Programme, which will support the implementation of our Post COVID-19 Programme for Economic Growth and additional funding to support the 2023 Budget and development programme, are at advanced stages, and are going well.
We are determined to secure these arrangements quickly to bring back confidence and relief to Ghanaians. We are working towards reaching a deal with the IMF by the end of the year. This will give further credence to the measures the Government is taking to stabilise and grow the economy, as well as shore up our currency.
I know that the increasing cost of living is the number one concern for all of us. It is driven by fast-escalating fuel prices at the pumps, which is caused by high crude oil prices on the world market and our depreciated currency. I know that this is putting intolerable pressure on families and businesses. I know that people are being driven to make choices they should not have to make, and I know that it has led to the devaluation of capital of traders and painfully accumulated savings. Furthermore, Government is working to secure reliable and regular sources of affordable petroleum products for the Ghanaian market. It is expected that this arrangement, when successful, coupled with a stable currency will halt the escalation of fuel prices and bring relief to us all.
I hear from the market queens also that another factor fueling the high prices is the high margins that some traders are slapping on goods, for fear of future higher costs. I say to our traders, we are all in this together. Please let us be measured in the margins we seek. I have great respect and admiration for the ingenuity and hard work of our traders, especially those that take on the distribution of foodstuffs around the country, and I would hesitate to join in calling them names. I do make a heartfelt appeal that we all keep an eye out for the greater good, and not try to make the utmost profits out of the current difficulties.
In language that every market woman and, indeed, every trader in our country understands, let me say that the basic problem we face is that we are not making as much money as we need to spend, and what little money we do make is going to pay for the debts we have contracted to fund the development projects we must have. Not enough of us are paying our taxes, not enough of us are producing to generate the revenues that we need.
Nevertheless, my ambitions for Ghana remain high. All our children should be educated and trained with skills that will enable us be competitive in the world. We need to close rapidly the infrastructure gap, we need to build a world-class healthcare system, and we need to build confidence in ourselves to make ours the happy and prosperous place it deserves to be.
I believe we can and we will find the means to achieve these goals, even if the immediate measures we have to take are painful.
At the just-ended Cabinet Retreat at Peduase Lodge, my government agreed on the framework for the Post COVID-19 Programme for Economic Growth and the IMF support for its implementation, as well as the work being done by the Ministry of Finance in preparation for the 2023 budget. At the Cabinet Retreat, we took some firm decisions that should put us on the path that will take our nation out of the current economic difficulties. Let me try and give you an outline of the main decisions without getting into the technical language that baffles many of us.
To restore and sustain debt sustainability, we plan to reduce our total public debt to GDP ratio to some fifty-five percent (55%) in present value terms by 2028, with the servicing of our external debt pegged at not more than eighteen percent (18%) of our annual revenue also by 2028.
We are committed to improving the revenue collection effort, from the current tax-revenue to GDP ratio of thirteen (13%) to between eighteen and twenty percent (18-20%), to be competitive with our peers in the West Africa Region. The GRA is rolling out an extensive set of measures to support this enhanced revenue mobilisation. All of us must do our patriotic duty, and support the GRA in this exercise.
We are aiming to restore and sustain macroeconomic stability within the next three (3) to six (6) years, with a focus on ensuring debt sustainability to promote durable and inclusive growth while protecting the poor.
We have decided to review the reforms in the energy sector, capping of statutory funds, implementation of the exemptions Act and a new property rate regime. We have decided also to continue with the policy of thirty percent (30%) cut in the salaries of political office holders including the President, Vice President, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MMDCEs, and SOE appointees in 2023, just as we will continue with the thirty percent (30%) cut in discretionary expenditures of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
My fellow Ghanaians, the success of our efforts at diversifying the structure of the Ghanaian economy from an import-based one to a value-added exporting one is what will, in the long term, help strengthen our economy. We are making some progress with the 1D1F but our current situation requires that we take some more stringent measures to discourage the importation of goods that we can and do produce here.
To this end, we will review the standards required for imports into the country, prioritise the imports, as well as review the management of our foreign exchange reserves, in relation to imports of products such as rice, poultry, vegetable oil, tooth picks, pasta, fruit juice, bottled water and ceramic tiles, and others which, with intensified government support and that of the banking sector, can be manufactured and produced in sufficient quantities in Ghana. Government will, in May 2023, that is six (6) months from now, review the situation. We must, as a matter of urgent national security, reduce our dependence on imported goods, and enhance our self-reliance, as demanded by our overarching goal of creating a Ghana Beyond Aid.
Much as we believe in free trade, we must work to ensure that the majority of goods in our shops and market places are those we produce and grow here in Ghana. That is why we have to support our farmers and domestic industries, including those created under the 1-District-1-Factory initiative, to help reduce our dependence on imports, and allow us the opportunity to export more and more of our products, and guarantee a stable currency that will present a high level of predictability for citizens and the business community. Exports, not imports, must be our mantra! Accra, after all, hosts the headquarters of the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Fellow Ghanaians, as the French would say, l’argent n’aime pas le bruit, to wit, money does not like noise, sika mpɛ dede. Where there is chaos, where there is noise, where there is unrest, you will not find money. If you talk down your money, it will go down. If you allow some unidentifiable person to talk down your money, it will go down.
The recent turbulence on the financial markets was caused by low inflows of foreign exchange, and was made worse in the last two to three weeks, in particular, by the activities of speculators and the Black Market. An anonymous two-minute audio message on a WhatsApp platform predicting a so-called haircut on Government bonds sent all of us into banks and forex bureaus to dump our cedis, and, before we knew it, the cedi had depreciated further. All of us can play a part in helping to strengthen the cedi by having confidence in the currency, and avoiding speculation. Let us keep our cedi as the good store of value it is. To those who make it a habit of publishing falsehoods, which result in panic in the system, I say to them that the relevant state agencies will act against such persons.
Indeed, some steps have been taken to restore order in the forex markets and we are already beginning to see some calm returning. We will not relent until order is completely restored. The following actions have been taken thus far:
Enhanced supervisory action by the Bank of Ghana in the forex bureau markets and the black market to flush out illegal operators, as well as ensuring that those permitted to operate legally abide by the market rules. Already some forex bureaus have had their licenses revoked, and this exercise will continue until complete order is restored in the sector;
Fresh inflows of dollars are providing liquidity to the foreign exchange market, and addressing the pipeline demand;
the Bank of Ghana has given its full commitment to the commercial banks to provide liquidity to ensure the wheels of the economy continue to run in a stabilized manner, till the IMF Programme kicks in and the financing assurances expected from other partners also come in;
Government is working with the Bank of Ghana and the oil producing and mining companies to introduce a new legal and regulatory framework to ensure that all foreign exchange earned from operations in Ghana are, initially, paid to banks domiciled in Ghana to help boost the domestic foreign exchange market; and the Bank of Ghana will enhance its gold purchase programme.
I am confident that these immediate measures designed to change the structure of our balance of payment flows, sanitise the foreign exchange market to ensure that the banks and forex bureaus operate along international best practices, together with strengthened supervision, will go a long way to sanitize our foreign exchange market, and make it more resilient against external vulnerabilities going forward.
Over the course of this week, I have held several fruitful engagements with the Trades Union Congress and Organised Labour, the Ghana Employers’ Association, the Association of Ghana Industries, the Ghana Association of Banks, the Private Enterprise Federation, the Association of Forex Bureau Operators, the Association of Market Queens and Women, all of whom represent important stakeholders of the Ghanaian economy. They expressed their concerns and proposed solutions on how best to solve our problems. I have been encouraged by the enthusiasm of these interest groups to help Government address these challenges, and I intend to continue these engagements with other groups.
I also want to assure all Ghanaians that no individual or institutional investor, including pension funds, in Government treasury bills or instruments will lose their money, as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations. There will be no “haircuts”, so I urge all of you to ignore the false rumours, just as, in the banking sector clean-up, Government ensured that the 4.6 million depositors affected by the exercise did not lose their deposits.
Anuanom, menim sɛɛ asetenamu ayɛ din. Nanso, ma obiaa empa aba, monkͻso enya gyidie ɛwͻ mabam mu. Nhyehyɛ yɛ aa ɛtumi maa Free SHS ɛni 1-District-1-Factory ɛbaa mu nu; nhyehyɛ yɛ aa ɛboaa ma yetumi pam corona yariɛ no efri oman ni mu; saa ɛnso na maban ɛ toto niemayie saa mereyi ama ahotͻ aba oman nimu, efri sɛɛ mewͻ gydie sɛɛ ɛko no yɛ Awurade Nyankopͻn ni ko.
Anyɛmimɛi, mile akɛ nibii ewa, shi nyɛ ka shia gbeye. Nyɛ yaanͻ ni nyɛ naa hemͻ kɛ yeli akɛ gbɛjianͻto ni hani free SHS ba min, gbɛjia nͻto ni hani 1-District-1-Factory ba min, gbɛjianͻto ni hani wͻ nyɛ wͻ shwe Corona hela kɛshi wͻ man nɛ min; nakai nͻͻ ni mi amlalo ba to gbɛjianͻ koni hejͻlɛ aba maa min, ejaakɛ, miyɛ hemͻ kɛ yeli ak3, ta, Nyͻnmͻ ta lɛ ni.
My government has always been cognisant of the importance of implementing policies and social interventions to relieve Ghanaians of hardships. It is for this reason that over the first five (5) years in office government reduced electricity tariffs cumulatively by 10.9%, we provided free water and electricity as well as reduced tariffs for the entire population during a whole year of the COVID-19 pandemic; we increased the share of the District Assemblies Common Fund to persons with disabilities by 50%; we exempted Kayayei from market tolls; we expanded the LEAP by one hundred and fifty thousand (150,000) beneficiaries; we expanded School Feeding from 1.6 million children to 2.1 million children; we restored teacher and nursing training allowances; we absorbed the cost of BECE and WASSCE exam registrations for parents; no guarantor is now required to obtain student loans. The Ghanacard is sufficient; and we have implemented free TVET as well as free senior high school education.
It is obvious, fellow Ghanaians, that you have a government that cares. We are determined to restore stability to the economy, and provide relief. We are all in this together, and I am asking for your support to rescue Ghana from the throes of this economic crisis.
I have total confidence in our ability to work our way out of our current difficulties. We are not afraid of hard work. We will triumph, as we have triumphed many times before. Let us unite, and rally around our Republic, its institutions and its democratic values, and insist that, under God, we will emerge victorious from our current difficulties. For this too shall pass, as the Battle is the Lord’s.
I will be coming regularly to keep you updated about the measures your government is making to move our country forward, and tackle our economic challenges.
God bless us all and our homeland Ghana, and make her great and strong.
I thank you for your attention, and have a good evening.
Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Suame MP and Majority Leader, has explained portions of a statement he signed, in which President Akufo-Addo pleaded with some Majority MPs to allow Ken Ofori-Atta conclude Ghana’s negotiations with the IMF and present the 2023 budget. The appeal came after the majority MPs organised a press conference to demand the finance minister’s removal from office.
According to the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, the president when he met the Majority MPs did not categorically say he will dismiss Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, and Minister of State at the Finance Ministry, Charles Adu Boahen, after the IMF negotiations and 2023 Budget reading and appropriation.
He explained in a Joy News interview monitored by GhanaWeb that, “the President did not say that. To quote his words, he said ‘let’s finish with this, the IMF and the budget thereafter, we should hold on until after these’.”
Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu continued that the president’s statement could result in an ‘either or’ decision.
“It could be. I mean, either of them is subject to interpretations that ‘okay hold on after the events then we come back and discuss,’ or ‘hold on after the event I will act.’
“’I will act’ may not necessarily mean that ‘I will do that’. According to what the President told us, you hold on until…so it could be that ‘I’ll come back to consider it’ or ‘I’ll give in to your demands’.
“The plea was – hold on until after these events, the IMF discussions and the budget. In fact, I even added when there appeared to be some unclarity about what happens after the presentation of the budget, I said no if the budget is presented by a person, you’d require that same person to shepherd the appropriations.
“And that is how come for the avoidance of doubt I said let us include the appropriation so that there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that after the budget has been read then agitations will start again,” Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu noted.
About 95 NPP MPs demanded the immediate dismissal of the Finance Minister.
The MPs at a press conference stated that the continuous stay of Ken Ofori-Atta in office was delaying the IMF bailout the country is seeking due to the fact that the Minister has lost all credibility.
They demanded the President to either remove him or face a boycott of his business in Parliament.
The President, however, appealed to them for more time for the embattled Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to conclude negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before any talks of resignation.
Five lions have sparked a brief emergency at an Australian zoo after escaping from their enclosure.
The animals – one adult and four cubs – were spotted outside their exhibit at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo about 6:30 local time on Wednesday (22:30 GMT Tuesday).
The zoo was put in lockdown and one cub had to be tranquillised but all lions were secured within minutes, a spokesman said. No-one was injured.
An explanation for the escape has not been given.
But zoo executive director Simon Duffy called it a “significant incident” that would be investigated.
He told local media the lions had entered a small area “adjacent” to their exhibit – about 100m from where guests were staying at the zoo overnight. The main zoo was closed at the time.
“At no time did the lions exit that [adjacent] area or exit Taronga Zoo,” he said.
Mr Duffy added the small area was protected by a six-foot fence usually used to keep people at a safe distance, and the entire zoo was surrounded by a perimeter fence.
CCTV footage had shown that a keeper raised the alarm within 10 minutes of the escape, the zoo said.
Staff responded quickly to move all people on the site to safe locations, according to Mr Duffy. Four of the lions “calmly made their way back” to their enclosure.
The lion exhibit will remain closed until further inspections to make sure it is “100% safe”, Mr Duffy added.
Animal escapes at Australian zoos are rare.
In 2009, a lioness escaped its enclosure at Mogo Zoo, south of Sydney, and had to be shot dead because of the danger it posed to the public.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on course for victory in the country’s general election, exit polls say.
The projections give his right-wing bloc a slim majority of seats over his centre-left opponents led by current Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Such a result would mark a dramatic comeback for Mr Netanyahu, toppled last year after 12 straight years in power.
“We are close to a big victory,” he told jubilant supporters in Jerusalem.
The election was widely seen as a vote for or against Mr Netanyahu’s return.
The exit polls suggest Mr Netanyahu’s bloc will command 61 or 62 seats in the 120-seat knesset (parliament). Initial results are expected in the coming hours.
Mr Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife Sara, appeared at his Likud party’s election night venue at 03:00 (01:00 GMT) to thunderous applause.
“We have won a huge vote of confidence from the people of Israel,” he told his cheering supporters.
Since the exit polls were announced hours earlier when voting ended, the room had been a scene of celebration as people jumped up and down, waved flags and chanted Netanyahu’s nickname, Bibi. One man repeatedly blew a shofar, or ram’s horn, a ritual instrument used by some Jewish people at times of special significance.
At his party’s camp in Tel Aviv however, Prime Minister Lapid told his supporters that “nothing” was yet decided and his centre-left Yesh Atid party would wait for the final results.
Mr Netanyahu is forecast to replace Yair Lapid, who toppled him just over a year ago
Mr Netanyahu, 73, is one of Israel’s most controversial political figures, loathed by many on the centre and left but adored by Likud’s grassroots supporters.
He is a firm supporter of Israel’s settlement-building in the West Bank, occupied since the 1967 Middle East war. Settlements there are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict – a formula supported by most of the international community, including the Biden administration in the US.
Mr Netanyahu is also currently on trial for alleged bribery, fraud and breach of trust – charges he fiercely denies. His possible partners in a Likud-led coalition government have said they would reform the law, in a move which would bring a halt to his trial.
According to the exit polls, Likud stands to be the biggest party, with 30-31 seats, commanding a majority with the support of nationalist and religious parties.
Yesh Atid, which led the coalition which brought down Mr Netanyahu in elections last year, is forecast to win 22-24 seats.
Likud’s ultra-nationalist ally Religious Zionism appears to have won 14 seats, which would make it the third largest party. Its leaders have gained notoriety for using anti-Arab rhetoric and advocating the deportation of “disloyal” politicians or civilians.
“It will be better now,” said Religious Zionism supporter, Julian, at the party’s venue in Jerusalem.
“When [Religious Zionism politician Itamar Ben-Gvir] will be minister of public security, it will be even better – he’ll bring back security to the people of Israel. That’s very important.”
However, political scientist Gayil Talshir, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, warned that if the exit polls “reflect the real results, Israel is on its way to become Orban’s Hungary”, recently branded an “electoral autocracy” by the EU.
If the polls are confirmed, it will stave off the prospect of a sixth election in just four years after analysts predicted deadlock.
It would mark a remarkable turnaround for Mr Netanyahu, whose political future was widely written off after Mr Lapid formed an unlikely alliance of ideologically diverse parties to take power in June 2021, with the uniting aim of making it impossible for Mr Netanyahu to form a government.
At the time, Mr Netanyahu vowed to bring it down as quickly as possible and one year later the coalition government concluded it could not survive and collapsed after resignations meant it no longer had a majority.
The Essikado-Ketan Parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 polls, Dr Grace Ayensu-Danquah, has pulled out of her case against the New Patriotic Party’s Joe Ghartey, MP for the same constituency, who, she insists, was fraudulently declared the winner by the Electoral Commission.
Dr Ayensu-Danquah’s decision, according to her, is because of disappointment and frustration, especially as the case, which has dragged on for close to two years, with no end in sight, continues to drain her time and commitment towards rejuvenating the party at the constituency level.
Dr Ayensu-Danquah, who is an American-trained Burn Reconstructive Surgeon, has also debunked syndicated media reports suggesting she was fined for chickening out of the case.
According to her, Counsel for the plaintiffs demanded GHC500,000 but the Judge, Justice Richmond Osei Hwere, declined the request and instead handed them (the 1st and 2nd respondents, i.e. the Electoral Commission and Joe Ghartey) the initial GHC20,000 deposited to settle administrative fees.
The 2020 Essikado-Ketan NDC candidate in her petition to the Sekondi High Court, cited several infractions during the coalition of votes which changed the figures in favour of the incumbent MP, Joe Ghartey.
She avers that illegality resulted in the EC declaring results based on the second respondent, Joe Ghartey’s own pink sheets, which gave him — 26,701 valid votes compared to the NDC candidate — 24,527, while Ghana Union Movement’s (GUM), Frank Cobbinah Parliamentary candidate polled just 629.
The petitioner however insisted that her “own collated results from the figures declared after counting at polling stations were that the first respondent obtained 26,299 valid votes while the petitioner had 26,336 valid votes, making the petitioner the obvious winner, but the second respondent declared otherwise.”
But Dr Grace Ayensu, in her termination plea before Court raised a number of concerns.
That to date she and her lawyer, Daniel Ametepe, have complied fully with all orders of the High Court and have pursued the matter with the utmost zeal and diligence but the 1st Respondent has not yet complied with pre-trail orders of the Court by the failure to file his witness statement and pre-trial checklist.
That 20 months after she first filed the action, a lot of water has gone under the bridge and upon serious reflection and consultation, “I have decided to let go and rather help my party focus on the future reorganisation as Election 2024 is not too far away,” she explained.
She has since described twists on the development and the Court’s decision to fine her as mischievous and lacks appreciation of how the case travelled and her reason to move on.
“It is left with just about two years to the next elections but because of this case, not much in terms of development is happening in Essikado-Ketan, but just confusion,” her lawyer, Mr Daniel Ametepe, explained to journalists, after the hearing.
“We filed a witness statement for three witnesses to come before the court to narrate what happened on the 7th and 8th of December 2020 because we had a case,” he continued: “Joe Ghartey’s lawyer filed a motion for the case to be dismissed but he lost that case and still went ahead to file an appeal to that ruling.”
“Even the appeal that Joe Ghartey made his lawyer file, he is not pursuing it,” Mr Ametepe noted, indicating: “This is all to create uncertainty in the High Court.”
“So, the processes that we have taken to terminate the case [are] part of the rules of the court. That is why the judge granted our case of discontinuation,” he concluded.
Manasseh Azure Awuni has demanded the identity of a businessman who reportedly moved in to negotiate the intra-party demand for Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, to be removed from office.
Citing a steep economic decline, some 80 plus lawmakers from the ruling New Patriotic Party, NPP, demanded Ofori-Atta’s removal as a minister but stood down the demand after a meeting with the president on two conditions.
It has emerged, however, that a businessman had tried to influence the calls for the minister’s sacking.
It is the identity of the said businessman that the investigative journalist is demanding from the ‘breakaway’ NPP MPs who were led by Andy Appiah-Kubi, MP for Asante Akim North.
In two tweets posted on November 1, Manasseh demanded answers on the who, what and why of the ‘transaction.’ “Who is that corrupt businessman who bribed or attempted to bribe the NPP MPs to make a U-turn on Ken Ofori-Atta’s sacking?
“The 80+ NPP MPs must come clean on the back of Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu’s revelation. Who’s that businessman? What did he give them?
What Majority Leader said about unnamed businessman
Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, revealed in an interview with Joy News that a renowned businessman tried to influence the decision of the majority caucus of Parliament over their demands for Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta’s sack.
According to him, he was informed that the businessman came to Parliament to meet some members of the majority caucus on the matter to intervene for Ofori-Atta but was sent packing.
He, however, added that he could not confirm whether the businessman offered the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Members of Parliament (MPs) bribes.
“I [am] not privy to whatever inducement that people are offering… I [was] told on authority that some businessman came here and tried to do something. He is a wealthy businessman that I know.
“I was told that he came here and tried to mediate in his own way. What he thinks the problem is and tried (to mediate). That is all that I know.
“But he was repelled by the people. I am told he was informed not to involve himself. That is all that I know; I don’t know of another thing,” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said in the interview monitored by GhanaWeb.
Ahmed – not his real name – said people at the Manston processing centre were treated like “animals” with 130 people forced to share a single large tent.
Over 4,000 migrants have reportedly been held at the camp – meant to host just 1,600 – in recent days.
But Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has insisted numbers are coming down.
Ahmed – who left the centre on Monday after 24 days there – described being forced to sleep on the floor, and being prevented from going to the toilet, taking a shower or going outside for exercise.
He also said people were prevented from calling their families to let them know they had made the crossing to the UK safely.
“For the 24 days I’m in there, I can’t call to my family to say to them I’m dead, I’m living – they don’t know anything about me,” he said.
“All people in there, they have a family. They should know what is happening to us.”
Manston, a former military base in Kent, opened as a processing centre in February for the growing number of migrants reaching the UK in small boats. Migrants are meant to be held there for short periods of time while undergoing security and identity checks.
They are then supposed to be moved into the Home Office’s asylum accommodation system, which often means a hotel due to a shortage of available accommodation.
But Manston became even more crowded at the weekend when 700 migrants were sent there from another centre in Dover, which was firebombed.
Several hundred asylum seekers were relocated from the Manston centre on Tuesday, according to local Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale.
More will leave throughout the week he said, tweeting: “This must never be allowed to happen again.”
Mr Jenrick tweeted on Tuesday that the numbers of migrants held at the centre had “fallen substantially”.
“Unless we receive an unexpectedly high number of migrants in small boats in the coming days, numbers will fall significantly this week,” he said. “It’s imperative that the site returns a sustainable operating model and we are doing everything we can to ensure that happens swiftly.”
But the British Red Cross said “the serious problems at Manston are indicative of the wider issues facing the asylum system”.
A huge number of migrants have arrived in the UK this year. So far this year, there have been almost 40,000 arrivals in Kent – with nearly 1,000 crossing the Channel on Saturday alone.
Separately, the BBC received photos of unaccompanied children being forced to sleep on the floor at another unnamed Home Office facility in Kent.
The pictures show a sparsely decorated room, with just a few books and a box of Scrabble as entertainment to help pass the time in the facility.
Image caption, Migrants rest at an unnamed Home Office facility in Kent
Image caption, In pictures sent to the BBC, the walls in the facility are covered in writing
Writing in different languages is seen scrawled on the walls above a row of plastic chairs, fixed to the floor. The BBC understands the facility is used to process unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
The government has come under huge pressure to tackle the rise in small boat crossings and to speed up the processing of migrants already in the UK.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been accused by opposition parties of ignoring legal advice that said she had to source additional hotel accommodation to prevent overcrowding at the centre.
Ms Braverman rejected the accusations.
The home secretary was also accused of using inflammatory language, after saying southern England was facing an “invasion” of migrants during a heated House of Commons session.
The Refugee Council said her language was “appalling, wrong and dangerous”. Her immigration minister Mr Jenrick later said politicians must be careful with their language around migration issues.
And the prime minister’s official spokesman said Rishi Sunak told his cabinet at a meeting on Tuesday that the UK would “always be a compassionate, welcoming country”.
Meanwhile, counter-terror police have taken over the investigation into an attack the firebombing of an immigration processing centre in Dover in Kent on Sunday.
Detectives have said Andrew Leak, 66, from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, likely carried out the attack in “some form of hate-filled grievance” before killing himself.
An attempt by unknown people to crucify the Ghana National Gas Company Limited CEO Dr. Ben K. D. Asante has started to fall flat as the internal wrangling within the New Patriotic Party in the Western Region heightens.
Plot
The faceless group, according to sources familiar with this development contracted some New Patriotic Party (NPP) youth to lead a demonstration against Dr. Asante, accusing him of failing to give them jobs at the state agency.
The party members, some of whom were wielding placards nearly marred the celebration of the Kundum Festival at Atoabo on Sunday (October 30) as they attempted to express their grievances over internal matters within the Ellembelle Constituency, the source said.
What appeared more worrying, the source said was the grave disrespect these youth showed to Awulae Amihere Kpayinli II, the paramount chief of the Eastern Nzema Traditional Area, Hon Kennedy Agyapong, the Board Chairman of Ghana Gas, Hon Freddy Blay, Board Chairman of GNPC, Hon Catherine Afeku, MMDCEs, and at the climax of the most revered festival in Nzemaland.
Intervention
But it appears that the plot backfired as the intervention of the rank and file of the party at the time avoided what had been described as a very embarrassing situation. The conduct by the youth group has since been condemned.
“Although the incident was unfortunate, the few party members were trying to make a point concerning continuous discrimination against them based on internal party differences by some officers of Ghana National Gas Company Limited whose responsibility is to ensure access to job opportunities by qualified persons without any discrimination”, a statement released by the NPP in the Ellembelle Constituency read.
“We wish to assure the aggrieved persons that their issues have been discussed with the Board Chair and CEO of the Company and are being addressed accordingly. The Party in Ellembelle Constituency is therefore calling on aggrieved members to stop calling for the removal of the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana National Gas Company Limited with immediate effect since he cannot be blamed for rather the party officers within ellembele who are equally officers of the Ghana National Gas Company in the Western Region.”
Apology
“By this release, we are rendering an unqualified apology to the CEO of Ghana National Gas Company Limited, Dr. Ben Asante, who has contributed to the development of the Ellembele District since taking office in 2017 for the attempt by the aggrieved persons to drag his name into disrepute.
We also wish to use this medium to apologize to Awulae Amihere Kpanyinli III, the Paramount Chief of Eastern Nzema Traditional Area as well as the District Chief Executive for Ellembelle, Hon. Kwasi Bonzoh for disregarding his intervention to stop the unfortunate incident. It is our strongest conviction that the Party will overcome the challenges and even emerge stronger to capture the Ellembelle Constituency Parliamentary seat for the New Patriotic in the 2024 General Election”, the statement concluded.
It was the first time a group of MPs from the Majority Caucus have organised a press conference to demand the removal of one of their own – the finance minister and minister of state at the finance ministry – because they have become incompetent at the positions they occupied in government.
Since their ‘unprecedented’ press conference, the president Akufo-Addo, stepped in to plead on behalf of his ministers but the MPs decided not to back down on their request so, the president asked the MPs to allow Ofori-Atta to conclude the ongoing IMF negotiations and also present the 2023 budget statement to Parliament before they revisit the issue again.
It, however, emerged on Tuesday, November 1, a wealthy businessman after the president’s intervention also decided to meet the ‘anti-Ofori-Atta’ MPs and try to convince them to back down on their demand.
In his attempt, this influential unknown businessman is alleged to have made an attempt to present a brown envelope full of money to the over 90 MPs who organised the press conference to demand the dismissal of Ken Ofori-Atta and Charles Adu Boahen.
“I’m told on authority that some businessman came here and tried to do something. I was told that he came here and tried to mediate in his own way what he thinks the problem is…he was repelled by the people and told he was told not to involve himself. So he went away,” Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu told Joy News in an interview.
Giving the details of their meeting with this influential businessman, Andy Appiah-Kubi, MP, Asante Akim North, told Joy FM in an interview monitored by GhanaWeb that:
“I am part of the group that organised the press conference in respect of the claim that the Finance Minister should be relieved of his position and we have been meeting on this subject matter, there was an occasion that a man approached us and wanted to mediate on behalf of the finance minister.
“We assured him that we did not have anything against the Finance Minister per se except that the public confidence in him has waned, that we have been approached by our constituents and, therefore, we thought that it was time for him to go so we will rebuild public confidence in the ministry and the government.
“The man came and talked to us about it and wanted us to turn around and [re]consider the decision…we listened to him, and he said that while he has come here to talk to us; we have given him the opportunity to address us and therefore he wants to leave something behind for us. Indeed he got somebody to bring it and we said sorry, we cannot take anything. It is not for the reason of money that we are taking this decision, we are motivated by our conscience and therefore, it is not about materialism and that it is where it ended. We returned the money to him and he took it away.”
When asked if it was an attempt to bribe the MPs, Appiah-Kubi responded “we don’t consider it as a bribe because there was nothing that we were doing to his advantage as a person so, that will not constitute a bribe. It was something that he was doing to try and get us to accommodate probably; that cannot qualify as a bribe.”
“Bribe is when you have taken something to do the things that you will otherwise not do. But he has no personal interest in the matter so why will he pay a bribe? Maybe he was trying to offer something by way of his association with us so, I won’t call it a bribe, in any case, it was not given and nobody was a beneficiary of his gift or offer,” he added.
The leader of the ‘anti-Ofori-Atta’ MPs giving clarity on who this said businessman met indicated categorically that the wealthy businessman did not meet the entire Majority caucus but the group that came out on the day to organise the press conference to demand the removal of Ken Ofori-Atta and Charles Adu Boahen.
This businessman further noted to the aggrieved MPs that “it is not in the interest of the business community to see this confusion in governance and therefore for the sake of the business community, and their businesses, let us ensure that there is peace and tranquility in the political space. That is why he has come to talk to us.
“There was no need to investigate the group he represented neither was a need for us to investigate his personal commitment or interest in this matter; but I saw him as a statesman and somebody who has business interest in Ghana, who is interested in the tranquility that existed within the leadership of the country.”
Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said the government is ready to collaborate with the board and management of Rand Refinery to help Ghana obtain London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) certification.
Underscoring the importance of the LBMA certificate to the government’s plan to develop the mineral industry and make Ghana a key player in the refinery of mineral resources, Bawumia said attaining the certification will propel Ghana to participate and exploit fully the benefits in the mineral value chain.
He said that the gamut of experience and expertise of the certification make them strategic and beneficial partners to Ghana and that partnering them will help the country evade the blunders other countries committed on their journey to creating refinery hubs in their mining sector, “because you have a very long history in this area and also help us not to repeat mistakes of others.”
Bawumia made these remarks when the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel A. Jinapor led the delegation from Rand Refinery to call on him on Monday (31 October) in Accra.
The meeting was to deliberate on ways of actualising government’s agenda to make Ghana a hub for the processing and refining of mineral resources and in particular obtaining the LBMA certification for the country.
The chairman of Rand Refinery, Rams Ramashira disclosed that his outfit has held positive preliminary talks with the ministry and other key stakeholders.
He said the CEO of Rand Refinery is a member of the LBMA board and “we are very happy to be of assistance and share some experiences and strike some alliances and hope the meeting with key stakeholders will help develop something concrete for the two parties”.
Earlier on Monday, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources received the visiting Rand Refinery delegation at the ministry.
He indicated that his invitation to the Rand refinery is to have them hold discussions and share ideas on how to move forward with the partnership that exist between the parties.
He advocated for an intelligent and effective collaboration between the government and LBMA to ensure that the certification is issued.
He took the team through the itinerary for the visit and hoped that it will be a fruitful one as they get the opportunity to meet the Vice President who he said has been very passionate about leveraging the gold industry and the gold value chain in Ghana in support of the national economy.
“The idea is that this visit is productive and substantive and that it gives us the opportunity to delve into the concrete issues with concrete outcomes”, he said.
The sector minister thanked the team for their hospitality during his last visit to their Refinery in South Africa, indicating that the tour of their refinery was very enlightening and educative.
He hoped that at the end of all meetings and discussions the Ministry would be able to acquire sufficient mentorship from Rand Refinery.
“We should be able to find a workable platform to engage cause as I believe all of us acknowledge that your refinery turns to be the leader when it comes to the business of Gold Refinery in Africa and therefore whatever we seek to do, here in Ghana, our idea is to get sufficient mentorship from your outfit.”
The sector minister said as much as possible it is his desire that Rand Refinery will be able to establish a branch in Ghana perhaps through a partnership with an existing Refinery.
The CEO of Rand Refinery, Praveen Baijnath on his part said they are excited and very expectant about the opportunity to partner Ghana on the event of establishing a Refinery in the country.
He said their general objective on this trip is to meet all stakeholders involved in the gold value chain to better understand government expectations and to consider how best they can unlock their assets available to meet up on that level.
“Our general strategic objective is to collect much intelligence and data as possible to build a business case and see how we can develop it”.
Also with the Minister were the Deputy Minister in Charge Mines, George Mireku Duker, the CEO of Minerals Commission, Martin Ayisi, the Advisor on Mines to the Minister, Ben Aryee, the Managing Director of PMMC, Nana AKwasi Awuah and other officials from the Ministry.
The Evalue Ajomoro Gwira branch of the New Patriotic Party(NPP) is urging the rank and file of the party and the general public to disregard calls for the dismissal Dr. Ben Asante as Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Gas.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, the party said that it has been impressed with the works of Dr. Ben Asante and shuddered to understand the calls being made by some executives of the Ellembelle branch of the party.
Evalue Ajomoro Gwira NPP noted in its statement that the delivery of key developmental projects have been a feature of Dr Ben Asante’s reign as CEO of Ghana Gas.
According to the party, under Dr Ben Asante’s leadership, there have been employment and scholarship opportunities for indigenes of the Evalue Ajomoro Gwira constituency.
The party surmised that the claims being made against Dr Ben Asante are borne out of vile tribalism which must be rejected and condemned.
“Evalue Ajomoro Gwira Constituency has had her fair share of CSR projects, recruitments, scholarships, internships and national service opportunities under the leadership of Dr. Ben Asante with support from our former MP, Hon Catherine Abelema Afeku.
“Support for traditional authorities since 2017, especially in the conduct of quarterly traditional council meetings, and Kundum festival celebrations is worth mentioning.
“Ghana Gas is now a household name in our Constituency due to the visionary leadership of Dr Ben Asante in decentralizing opportunities for the three Nzema Districts in terms of jobs, CSR projects and recognition. This was not the case prior to 2017.
“It is very worrying for a true party person to call for the head of Dr Ben Asante just on the bases that he is not an Nzema,” parts of the statement read.
The party also scolded some disgruntled youth who staged a demonstration against the Ghana Gas boss during this year’s Kundum celebrations at Atuabo on Sunday, October 30, 2022.
The party says the decision by the youth to ignore counsel from eminent personalities at the durbar to press ahead with the protest is outright disrespectful and an affront to the values and norms of the party.
“What is more worrying is the grave disrespect these youth showed to Hon Kennedy Agyapong, the board Chairman of Ghana Gas, Hon Freddy Blay, board Chairman of GNPC, Hon Catherine Afeku, MMDCEs and Awulae Amihere Kpayinli II at the grand durbar of the climax of Atuabo Kundum festival at Atuabo on Sunday, 30th October, 2022.
“After several hours of the engaging party leadership of our neighbor Ellembelle Constituency, the youth still went ahead to demonstrate, which nearly marred the beauty of the festival. This is alien to Nzema NPP and must be condemned.”
The Minority in Parliament has deferred its petition to the House to put on hold the proposed Public Elections Instrument by the Electoral Commission until they have addressed every issue with stakeholders, including the National Identification Authority(NIA).
On the order paper for November 1, the minority was expected to submit a petition to parliament to halt the presentation of the proposed Public Elections (Registration of Voters) instrument (C.I) until the backlog of Ghana Cards, which the National Identification Authority has admitted is cleared.
However, during a press conference, the minority leader said they had to defer the C.I for further consultations with leadership.
“With the petition on the matter relating to the C.I and the Voter register and National Identification, I am deferring it for further consultations with leadership and your good self and not proceeding on it for today until after the consultations,” Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader told the media.
A few months back, the Electoral Commission announced the proposed Public Elections (Registration of Voters) Regulations 2021 Constitutional Instrument, which seeks to make the Ghana Card the only proof of nationality for its impending limited registration exercise.
They have been strongly opposed as they believe the exercise will disenfranchise Ghanaians as many are yet to acquire their Ghana Cards.
Information Minister, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah has disclosed that the government has commenced plans to secure cheaper petroleum products onto the Ghanaian market.
The Minister made this revelation while speaking to Evans Mensah on PM Express on Monday.
According to him, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and the Ministry of Energy will provide further details about the importation of fuel onto the Ghanaian market in the coming days.
He noted that the Energy Ministry had already begun talks with some major sources and sovereigns in the supply of petroleum products.
“In President Kufuor’s time, we did it with Nigeria, Sahara lifting for us and you could have supply credit lines and a fixed price that you could bank on and it is a very similar arrangement that has already commenced and I am expecting that in the coming weeks the NPA, the Energy Ministry will have the opportunity to provide the details,” he said on PM Express, Monday.
“I am saying that the work has already started, I will want them to come and put out those details…I am not going to preempt what the people responsible for the sector are going to do. We are scheduling for all of them to come and provide their detailed presentations and during those presentations, all of the questions can be put to them,” he told Evans Mensah.
The Minister’s statement comes a day after President Akufo-Addo announced that government is working to secure reliable and regular sources of affordable petroleum products for the Ghanaian market.
The deal, if successful is expected to put some stability to the escalation of the fuel prices in the country.
Currently, petrol and diesel prices are being sold at an average of ¢18 and ¢23 per litre, from the previous prices of ¢15 and ¢19 per litre respectively.
Already, some leading OMCs have adjusted the prices of petroleum products at their pumps.
Petroleum consumers have lamented the high prices of petroleum products on the market as it has affected businesses and plummeted the cost of living in the country.
Workers of the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) have accused the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Daniel Acheampong of running the company into ruins.
The workers who embarked on a protest on Monday, October 31, 2022, in demand for the removal of top management of the company, who they claim are retirees, have also accused the CEO of implementing policies that do not favour them.
The workers of VALCO bemoaned the current management at the helm of affairs of the company.
The workers claim, despite operating locally, most operations of the company are carried out outside the country in dollars and most managerial roles are occupied by retirees who do not have the interest of the company at heart.
This, the workers said, is making their living conditions difficult, coupled with the current economic situation that has bedevilled the country thus their decision to embark on the protest, to register their displeasure with the prevailing conditions of the company.
A statement issued by the workers, signed by the President of the local workers union Edgar Mensah said the current crop of managers has “added nothing new to the operations of VALCO.
“The song they continue to sing is “We are not making a profit. Dan Acheampong keeps on telling us that the only reason why we can also benefit satisfactorily from VALCO is when these two (2) conditions are met:- When we are able to get Strategic Partner(s) to invest their money in the business; When the government is able to give us the power to start our second line at a reduced price.”
The statement said despite the conditions raised that need to be met, “They (the pensioners) continue to live opulent lifestyles whereas we have been denied the opportunity to have a fair share.
“He [CEO] says because we owe GRIDCO and VRA so much, if they heard he has increased our salary, they would not be pleased.”
It noted that: “Most of the retired top management personnel have continued to occupy company houses since retiring, blocking access to others to also enjoy same. Additionally, we have two (2) retired department directors heading the Maintenance Department.
“The unthinkable explanation is that one of them heads Mechanical related issues and the other Electrical matters. Dan Acheampong and Festus Quaidoo, in particular, have shown no love and commitment to improving the lives of the non-management employees.”
It further noted that Management has changed the “Tier 3 System” and “placed a blackmail on it once we speak for its reversal; Salary and Promotions for several non-management staff have been delayed unfairly for several years, leading to agitations.
“Wage Opener has been unnecessarily delayed as a result of bad faith on the part of management; Management has chosen ‘shutdown’ over ‘increment of salary’ for non-management; Financial malfeasance everywhere without any investigations.”
The workers, therefore, want all retirees occupying various managerial positions to step down.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has petitioned Parliament to halt the laying of a proposed Constitutional Instrument (C.I.) which seeks to make the Ghana Card the sole identification document for compiling the new voters’ register.
Until the backlog of Ghana Cards has been cleared, the NDC wants the C.I. to be frozen in order not to deny “millions of citizens” the right to register and vote in the 2024 general elections.
More so, other evidence of citizenship such as the use of a Ghanaian passport and the guarantor system must be added to the Ghana Card for the registration exercise.
“Any further action on the proposed C.I. by or in Parliament should be frozen until consultations have been initiated and concluded with the major stakeholders, especially the political parties, including the NDC and civil society,” part of the petition cited by MyJoyOnline.com stated.
The petition will be presented by the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, when the House sits for business on Tuesday, November 1.
EC justifies use of Ghana Card
The Electoral Commission earlier in September defended its decision to use only the Ghana Card for the voter registration exercise, saying it is still the valid and surest way to rid the register of minors and foreigners.
According to the EC’s Director of Electoral Services, it is possible for eligible voters to get their Ghana Cards before the end of their registration on October 7, 2024.
Dr Serebour Quaicoe was confident that barring any unforeseen circumstances, every qualified voter can get their identity cards to be fully registered for the 2024 general elections within the next two years.
He believes no one would be disenfranchised because all Ghanaians have enough time to access the Ghana Card.
But the NDC believes this would rather be a tool to infringe on the rights of citizens.
“Since the proposed Public Elections (Registration of Voters0 Instrument (C.I.), as a subsidiary legislation, cannot override the substantive provision in the Constitution on the citizens’ right to register and to vote, and insistence on the Ghana Card as the only evidence of citizenship will deny millions of citizens the right to register and vote, other forms of evidence of citizenship such as the Ghana passport and the guarantor system must be added to the Ghana Card as evidence of citizenship in the proposed Constitutional Instrument (C.I.),” the petition added.
Information Minister Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah has warned Ghanaians of a possible war between China and Taiwan which he said has the possibility of having disastrous consequences on Ghana’s economy.
According to him, Ghanaians are not talking about the implication of this ensuing conflict but will say it is not affecting Ghana’s economy once it happens like some are doing for the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
“There is a 3rd problem coming, and if we fail to pay attention to it, it hits us, and people will deny it is one of the reasons for the challenges in the country.
“Do you know that China has extended the tenure of office for Xi Jinping by an extra five years? Read Xi Jipin’s inaugural speech. Somethings we fail to pay attention to these things. Xi Jinping said that he would not rule out taking over Taiwan.
“The issues between China and Taiwan are no different from the issues of Russia and Ukraine – where one country thinks the other country is part of his territory and attempt to use false to annex it. If China attacks Taiwan can you imagine the consequences, especially at this time that crude oil costs $94 per barrel and is set to rise again due to OPEC cutting supply,” he said in Twi.
Oppong Nkrumah, who made these remarks in an Asempa interview monitored by GhanaWeb, said that the media in other countries are seriously discussing the implication of the potential war, but the media in Ghana are silent about it.
“If indeed China attacks Taiwan, what will be the implications? So, if we are not seeing the implication of the Russia-Ukraine war on our economy, what are we saying about the implication of a potential war between China and Ukraine?
“If you turn in to other (foreign) media houses, they are discussing the implications of this issue, but we are not, and if it hits us, we will be saying it is not affecting our economy,” he reiterated.
The information minister made these remarks while answering a question on calls by some Ghanaians for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to apologise to Ghanaians about the current hardships in the country.
He indicated that the president admitted that the country is facing an economic crisis, and calls for him to apologise for it are immaterial.
Amid the calls for his resignation, Finance Minister’s predicament has courted him sympathisers in certain quarters of the business community.
Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has revealed that when some of the Majority MPs called for Mr. Ofor-Atta’s dismissal, one of Ghana’s wealthy businessmen approached them to plead on behalf of the Minister.
In an interview with JoyNews, the Majority leader explained that in the heat of the arguments in Parliament, the said businessman met some of the legislators and “tried to do something.”
He fell short of stating what exactly the move was nor the form it took.
“I’m told on authority that some businessman came here and tried to do something,” he told Evans Mensah.
According to Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, a businessman ‘tried to do something’ in his own way to mediate on the Finance Minister’s sack in Parliament last week.
The Suame MP insisted that it was meant to help persuade the members of the house against nudging the Minister out of office.
“I was told that he came here and tried to mediate in his own way what he thinks the problem is,” he said.
He further narrated that “he was repelled by the people and told he was told not to involve himself. So he went away.”
This revelation was made in a yet-to-be-aired interview on PM Express on JoyNews.
“If that is the case I want to talk to that man and know his motive. But people could also be indulging in speculation. So we want to hear him to see what it is… Did he come here?… did he come with any inducement? What was the motivation? Not having heard him, I don’t want to prejudge.”
According to Osei-Kyei-Mensah Bonsu, the man in question is a known figure in the business community who has his own way of dealing with both sides of the political divide.
The Finance Minister is the subject of criticism for what many say is a lost grip on the economy.
Ken Ofori-Atta is at the doors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) seeking a bailout to prevent a further slump.
Executive Director of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), Mensah Thompson, has insisted that Ghanaians who have invested in government bonds and other investment portfolios will lose some of their investment because of the ongoing economic crisis.
Mensah Thompson’s remarks come after President Akufo-Addo refuted suggestions that his government would buy off government bonds at rates lower than their expected returns – “haircut on Government bonds”.
Addressing the nation on measures being taken by the government to rescue the economy, Akufo-Addo said: “I also want to assure all Ghanaians that no individual or institutional investor, including pension funds, in government treasury bills or instruments will lose their money, as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations.
“There will be no “haircuts”, so I urge all of you to ignore the false rumours, just as, in the banking sector clean-up, government ensured that the 4.6 million depositors affected by the exercise did not lose their deposits.”
He cautioned, “those who make it a habit of publishing falsehoods, which result in panic in the system, I say to them that the relevant state agencies will act against such persons”.
But, Mensah Thompson, in an XYZ TV interview monitored by GhanaWeb, on Monday, October 31, said that Ghanaians should not believe the statement of the president.
He added that some banks have already started sending notifications to their customers about the “government bond haircuts”.
“Things are going to get worse… Officials of the IMF will be in Ghana in the next few weeks to do what we call the final assessment ahead of a debt restructuring. One of the things President Akufo-Addo and Ofori-Atta will be adding to the debt restructuring basket is pensions.
“Pension funds are also going to receive those haircuts. I am not saying that people should believe me, but will you believe the president who has continuously lied to you for the past five years? Are they not the same people who said we will not be going to the IMF?
“If such a person (Akufo-Addo) comes to tell you that your bonds, your securities and your pensions are not going to receive a haircut, you believe that person at your own risk. The point I’m making is that there is a huge financial sector crisis coming up,” he said in Twi.
“Yesterday, EcoBank sent notices to their customers; their EDC fund holders have started receiving haircuts. Bondholders of Stanbic Bank have started receiving haircuts, and other commercial banks are doing same. The haircuts have even started before the debt restructuring,” he added.
Ghana will assume the rotating monthly Presidency of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, 1st November 2022.
During the month of November 2022, Ghana shall preside over the meetings of the Council (adoptions, debates, and consultations) and, under its authority, shall represent the Security Council in its capacity as an organ of the United Nations.
The Security Council, which is composed of 15 Member States, is the organ of the United Nations authorised by the Charter with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
The responsibility of presiding over the Security Council comes at a time when international peace and security are threatened in several parts of the world.
The President of Ghana, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Hon. Shirley Ayorko Botwey are expected to be in New York during the period to participate in the meetings of the Security Council.
Key highlights of Ghana’s presidency are two signature events that will take place on 3rd and 10th November, as well as an exhibition of Ghanaian arts and a food tasting event.”
Executive Director of the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA), Mensah Thompson, has accused Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta of being the main cause of Ghana’s economic challenges.
According to Mensah Thompson, Ofori-Atta’s decision to collapse some banks in the country is one of the main reasons the economy is currently crushing.
The ASEPA boss, who made these remarks in an XYZ TV interview monitored by GhanaWeb, said that the finance minister’s unquenchable thirst for loans is another reason Ghanaians are currently suffering.
“The government is sponsoring these narratives that our problems are because of speculation and profiteering by Ghanaians, but this is false. The problems we are facing today have nothing to do with Ghanaians.
“Only one person is responsible for all the problems we are facing today, and he is Ofori-Atta. He is the bigger problem. If the president wants to shift the blame, he should put it on Ofori-Atta. Because Ofori-Atta single-handedly has destroyed Ghana’s economy in a way that will take the country at least 20 years to recover.
“One of Ofori-Atta’s decisions that caused the current problems is the collapse of banks. The consequences of collapsing some banks in 2018 are what we are seeing today… The second thing is corruption. Take the Auditor-Generals report and see how much Ofori-Atta got through his bank helping the government to acquire loans,” he said in Twi.
He added that the third decision Ofori-Atta took, which led to the collapse of the Ghanaian economy, was financial misreporting.
“Ofori-Atta has been presenting different sets of data to Ghana’s Parliament and IMF (International Monetary Fund). In 2018, the IMF exposed him for misreporting our budget deficit,” he said.
Explaining why he is a stronger contender in the race, although he is the youngest person vying for the soon-to-be-vacant position of the party, he said age is the least of things that should be used to determine his capabilities.
Speaking to GhanaWeb TV’s Nimatu Yakubu Atouyese on the Election Desk, Dr. Peter Otokunor stated that if it had to do simply with age, Methuselah would have been preferred over King Solomon in the Bible when it comes to the display of wisdom.
“Let me emphasize that the wisdom of Solomon has nothing to do with the age of Methuselah. You don’t need to be old before you become efficient. Is Ghana huger than France? The Facebook that you’re on, the internet that you’re on, the website that you are on, they were all generated by young people,” he said.
Dr. Peter Otokunor further stated that it is his firm belief that young people should be allowed to showcase what they are made of.
“I think that young people should be allowed to grow because look at President Akufo-Addo, he is almost 78 or something. You have seen the bizarre performance, the disgraceful performance he and Bawumia have offered to this country. So, age is just a number; it does not signify competence,” he added.
He also spoke about some issues that bother on internal NDC politics, as well as on a few national subjects.
The teacher union has warned of dire consequences should the newly appointed GES boss remain in office by 4 November.
Nkansah took over from Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, who was reassigned to the KNUST after serving as GES boss for nearly six years.
In a communique read to the press at its annual meeting on Sunday (30 October), GNAT described the latest appointment as unfortunate, stressing that the appointee is not an educationist.
The general secretary of GNAT Thomas Tanko Musah, who read the communique was also concerned about the contract extension for the deputy director general of the GES.
“The position of the director general of Ghana Education Service is the preserve of educationists and has since been occupied by educationists since its creation in the 1970s and remains as such even in military regimes.
“Council finds the replacement of Prof Opoku-Amankwa with Dr Eric Nkansah, a banker as unfortunate and untenable,” he said.
