For the sixth time in a row, the government has missed its treasury bills target, recording an undersubscription of about 6.91% in the latest auction.
The Bank of Ghana’s recent data indicates a continued lack of investor interest in treasury bills.
The auction attracted GH¢4.6 billion in bids, falling short of the GH¢4.9 billion target.
Of the bids received, GH¢3.6 billion were allocated to the 91-day bill, representing 78.26% of the total, and these were all accepted. Additionally, bids totaling GH¢733.59 million for the 182-day bill and GH¢284.92 million for the 364-day bill were also fully accepted.
Interest rates on the money market remain steady, ranging from 24% to 27%.
Analysts suggest that the shortfall is due to the government’s high auction targets and tight liquidity conditions, which have been worsened by recent cash reserve ratio requirements.
The government has communicated to the International Monetary Fund that its immediate goal is to issue enough treasury bills to cover the budget deficit. In the short term, the focus will be on securing adequate domestic financing, with structural market improvements planned for the medium term.
Turkish security authorities have recovered $1 billion in counterfeit money and detained six people engaged in the operation.
Among the detainees were one Ghanaian national and three Swedish citizens, as confirmed by the governor’s office of Turkey on Friday, June 9, 2023.
The office declared that the counterfeit money haul stands as the largest ever recorded in the nation’s history.
The efforts of the Gendarmerie forces led them to track down the suspects, eventually discovering their whereabouts in a storage facility situated in Istanbul’s Kagithane district.
During the operation, a significant collection of counterfeit money amounting to $1,00,000,000.00 intended to be transported to African nations, was apprehended.
Following the raid, law enforcement officials proceeded to search the suspects’ residences, resulting in the confiscation of cash and jewelry believed to be connected to the illegal activities.
The report also mentioned that the Swedish and Ghanaian consulates were promptly notified of the arrests and the ongoing investigation.
The founding president of the Association of Ghana Industries, Prince Kofi Kludjeson say Ghana can leverage on an estimated US$6 billion revenue in the galamsey sector which was revealed in Professor Frimpong-Boateng report.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng’s investigation on galamsey revealing the roughly billion in assets that Ghana can use.
Mr Kludjeson, who is one of the pioneers of Ghana’s telecom industry and one of the main brains behind the creation of the Ghana Stock Exchange, told Korku Lumor on the Class Morning Show on Monday, 8 May 2023, that: “If you take Ghana today, the biggest headache we are having today is looking for US$3 billion dollars and you’ll never get it until you have a button on an equity”.
The founder of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunication noted: “If you look at Frimpong-Boateng’s report, if I were the government and all those who are fighting him, [they] should look closer at the report, [and] will see the answers there”.
“The answer is that so-called galamsey or illegal mining has about US$6 billion floating out there, ‘go and pick it’. That was in the report. ‘And I’m telling them, as a doctor, or as a surgeon, I’ve seen these lapses, so, let’s focus and go and solve the problem so that the gold that is not owned by AshantiGold and all that, we are Ghanaian-owned, not bounded by equity, let’s go and find a way to optimise it and transform it into money’”.
“These are my understandings as a businessman. That is the positive thing that the Frimpong-Boateng report has put out there”, Mr Kludjeson said.
The 37-page leaked report on galamsey authored by Prof Frimpong-Boateng, who once chaired the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining while he was the minister of environment, science, technology and innovation, named some top government officials, including people at the presidency, for supporting and engaging in galamsey.
In the report, the world-renowned heart surgeon said: “Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the president’s commitment to protect the environment”.
“I can state without any equivocation that many party officials from the national to the unit committee level had their friends, PAs, agents, relatives, financiers or relatives engaged in illegal mining”, parts of Prof Frimpong-Boateng’s report read.
Reacting to the allegations in a statement, the office of the president indicated that the report was not an official document delivered submitted to the presidency.
It described it as a catalogue of personal grievances by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, intended to respond to some issues he faced as Chairperson of the IMCIM.
The statement explained that the document was handed to the chief of staff at the office of the president on 19 March 2021, at an informal meeting, where Prof Frimpong-Boateng complained about public attacks and criticisms made about his tenure as chairperson of the IMCIM.
“This was after Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s tenure as Minister had not been renewed by the president of the Republic in his second term. The document did not have a transmittal or cover letter nor, indeed, an addressee, such as to suggest that it was submitted to the chief of staff for action. It is noteworthy that the IMCIM was a creature of cabinet, and any formal report on its activities would, normally, be submitted to cabinet through the cabinet secretary, or directly to the president of the Republic as chairperson of cabinet. Till date, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng has done neither,” the statement said.
It added that while Prof. Frimpong-Boateng makes serious allegations against some government appointees, as having been involved in, supporting or interfering with the fight against illegal mining, not a single piece of evidence was adduced or presented to enable the claims to be properly investigated.
The office of the president described the allegations contained in the document as hearsay.
According to the statement, since Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s meeting with the chief of staff in March 2021, he has taken no step nor acted in furtherance of the matters contained in his report.
The statement assured the public that the president’s commitment to fighting illegal mining is unassailable, and the office of the president welcomes any information on illegal mining activities which provides a credible basis for investigations to be conducted by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service.
German lender Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) plans to pump at least 200 billion euros ($216.8 billion) into so-called sustainable financing and investments by 2025, its first formal targets for doing so.
The money will include loans provided by the bank, bonds placed on behalf of its clients and assets managed by its private bank. It does not include assets managed by its fund arm, DWS, it said in a statement late on Tuesday.
The move is the latest by a leading global lender to showcase commitment to sustainable investing, as pressure builds on banks to support the globally agreed transition to a low-carbon and more environmentally friendly economy.
Countries in Europe and elsewhere have also been looking at ensuring that sustainable investment is at the heart of economic recovery plans after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deutsche Bank said it would base its definition of sustainable activities on a planned European Union framework, known as the sustainable finance taxonomy or use its own “transparent criteriaâ€.
The bank said it would report annually on its progress and disclose more details on its definition of sustainable finance by the end of the second quarter of this year.
“We are driven by a very strong conviction to help shape the global change to a sustainable, climate-neutral and social economy,†said Chief Executive Christian Sewing, calling the 200 billion euro target “ambitious†relative to those of its rivals.
“However, we are starting from a good base because, as a globally active financing house, we can serve the growing demand of our clients for sustainable investment products by ourselves.â€
