Business24 Newspaper 14th January, 2022

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FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

BUSINESS24.COM.GH

Friday January 14, 2022

A bad year for markets?

NO. B24 / 292 | News for Business Leaders

The price increases that matter for the poor

See page 8

See page 17

Registrar-General delists 2,788 firms from companies register

By Benson Afful affulbenson@gmail.com

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he Registrar General’s Department has delisted 2,788 companies from the country’s companies register for defaulting to file their annual returns with the department.

The affected companies failed to comply with the directive issued by the department to file their annual returns or risk being delisted from the register.

The department said the names of these companies which were earlier published on the department’s website and in the national dailies were part of the first batch of over 100,000 Cont’d on page 2

Ghana removed from EU list of high risk third world countries – Akufo-Addo News desk report

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resident Akufo-Addo has disclosed that Ghana has been removed from the grey list of high-risk third countries in money laundering activities.

The President made the disclosure when he addressed a joint press conference, at Jubilee House with the visiting President of the Republic of Hungary, János Áder, who is on a State visit to Ghana.

Cont’d on page 3

The department says penalty for late filing of annual returns will be increased from GH¢450.00 to GH¢500.00 after June 30th, 2022

Gov’t backtracks on benchmark value reversal

By Patrick Paintsil p_paintsil@hotmail.com

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Emirates resumes passenger operations to Accra

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tate tax collector, Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), has pulled the brakes indefinitely on its decision to reverse the implementation of the benchmark value system at the country’s seaports.

mirates will resume its passenger services between Accra and Dubai from today 13 January, 2022, with the first flight taking off this morning at 0740hrs DXB time. Emirates

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Cont’d on page 2 Cont’d on page 2

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Editorial / News

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Editorial

Let’s have healthy deliberations on benchmark policy

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overnment’s blanket implementation of the benchmark value policy, which saw significant reduction in duty cost on some imports to the country, has been met with mixed reactions from sections of the shipping community.

The implementation of this plausible policy however became the bone of contention between the nation’s top trade associations, the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and the Ghana Union of Trader Associations (GUTA).

The former argued that it wasn’t feasible to have the policy, which sought to cushion industrialists—who import raw

materials for local production— to be extended to general importers who carted finished and cheaply priced goods to sell on the local market, but the latter was having none of that.

In the heat of their disagreement, government announced its decision to reverse the policy, meaning importers who bring in the listed goods that attracted the significant drop in duties were to pay the full cost of clearing their consignments from the ports.

We cannot take away the fact that local industries will still import raw materials for production and the cost

of securing those inputs will affect how competitively the end product will be priced to compete on local or external markets.

As we seek to build a robust industrial base for the single continental market, this is the wrong time for the government to roll back some of the interventions that could go to better the lot of local industry.

Heading into the stakeholder engagements, we encourage the parties to build healthy consensus on the extension or withdrawal of the policy, which was to offer some respite to the already burdened shipper.

Registrar-General delists 2,788 firms from companies register Continued from cover

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defaulting or dormant companies the department had earmarked to struck off the Companies Register as part of its clean-up exercise.

The affected companies include Companies Limited by Share, 1,374; Companies Limited

by Guarantee (Churches, Fun Clubs, Associations, Union, Schools etc.), 978; External Companies, 41 and Others (Voluntarily owned Companies for delisting), 395.

“This exercise was carried out in accordance with Section 289 of the Companies Act 2019

(Act 992) which connotes that a Company can be stricken off the Companies Register for failing to file its Annual Returns on time or failing to notify the Registrar of Companies of a change in the Company’s Registered Office and Principal Place of Business,” the department said.

It however urged all defaulting and dormant companies whether in operation or not, whose names do not appear on the first batch of deleted companies to file their annual returns by June 30th 2022 to avoid being removed from the register in phase two of the delisting exercise which begins in earnest in February 2022.

“Furthermore, companies and businesses which are yet to carry out updates of their records with the department dubbed ‘re-registration’ have from 5th January to 31st December 2022 to update their records with the department. These over 500,000 companies’ entities and business names include those registered between 1960 and 2011,” it added.

It added that penalty for late filing of annual returns will be increased from GH¢450.00 to GH¢500.00 after June 30th, 2022.

Fees for filing annual returns and beneficial ownership information remain GH¢50.00 and GH¢60.00 respectively.

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News

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Gov’t backtracks on benchmark value reversal Continued from cover The new twist to the melee surrounding the reversal since it was last announced earlier this month is to allow for extensive stakeholder deliberations in the interest of all parties whose activities or trade would be affected by the policy reversal or otherwise.

“Following the outcome of a meeting held on Wednesday, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority has been directed to suspend the implementation of the government’s policy directive on the removal of reductions of values of imports on selected items until further notice to enable further engagements will all relevant stakeholders,” said the GRA in its statement.

In April 2019, government announced a drastic reduction in the benchmark values that are used to calculate duties all imports.

The values of all imported was reduced by 50percent whilst that of vehicles was downed by 30percent, in an incentivizing gesture to boost the competitiveness of Ghana’s ports through reduced smuggling and enhanced revenue.

However, its implementation has become the bone of contention between the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and the Ghana Union of Trader Associations (GUTA)—the two key beneficiaries of the policy.

The former argued that it wasn’t feasible to have the policy, which sought to cushion industrialists—who import raw materials for local production—to be extended to general importers who flood the domestic market with finished and cheaply priced goods to sell on the local market.

AGI’s stance has been backed by a trade expert and Country Director of CUTS International Accra, Appiah Kusi-Adomako, who has argued the need for

government to protect local industries.

“If you pin importation against domestic production, I will choose domestic production.

This is the way that would build the country. No country has ever developed with unlimited access to imported goods at lower tariffs.

When you do that, you kill your industries and there would be no appetite for people to invest in the manufacturing sector,” he said on

GPHA’s Eye on Port programme.

Meanwhile, heading into the extensive deliberations, GUTA has assured that it will engage in objective discussions without taking any entrenched position.

“We won’t take any entrenched position at the meeting. We would have to be objective and patriotic,” president of the association Dr. Joseph Obeng said on the same programme.

Ghana removed from EU list of high risk third world countries – Akufo-Addo Continued from cover “We are delighted that, on 7th January 2022, we received a notification from the European Commission, through the intermediary of the Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union, Mairead McGuinness, that Ghana, after the pursuit of some rigorous reforms, has now, formally, been removed from the grey list of high-risk third countries in money laundering activities,” he announced.

It will be recalled that, in 2016, Ghana was subjected to a Second Round of Mutual Evaluation by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in West Africa (GIABA).

Though the round of mutual evaluation showed some progress over an earlier one in 2009, there were still significant gaps that needed to be addressed which led to Ghana being placed under observation by the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG).

Consequently, European Union added Ghana to its list of high-

risk third countries with strategic deficiencies in their Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/ CFT) regime, in October 2020, as a direct result of Ghana being on the FATF list.

Over the last three years, an Inter-Ministerial Committee led by the Ministry of Finance had been hard at work coordinating key reforms to cure strategic AML/CFT deficiencies.

Ghana-Hungary Relations Welcoming President János Áder to Ghana, President AkufoAddo described the visit as a landmark one, “as it is the first time since the fall of communism

that a President from Hungary is paying a State Visit to Ghana. We are honoured by your presence, Mr. President.”

According to President AkufoAddo, “President Áder and I first had the opportunity of meeting on the sidelines of the R20 Austria World Summit, held in Vienna in May 2019, where we both pledged our commitment to exploring further areas of interest for the mutual benefit of our two countries. This visit reinforces our commitment to engage each other further to this end.”

The bilateral discussions between the two leaders and their delegations centered on

the expansion of relations in the sectors of trade, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, ICT, financial services, water management and environmental protection, with an agreement put in place for the commencement of meetings under the auspices of a Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC), which will serve as the platform for accelerating mutually beneficial co-operation between Ghana and Hungary.

The President revealed that, soon, a number of key agreements will be signed between Ghana and Hungary, including the continuation of the Educational Exchange Programme, the mutual visa exemption for holders of diplomatic and service passports between the Republic of Ghana and Hungary, the Memorandum of Understanding on Sports Cooperation between the Ministry of Human Capacities of Hungary and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ghana, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Hungary on Co-operation in the field of water management in Kumasi, and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in the field of environmental protection and nature conservation.

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FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

President cuts sod for Gh¢32m STEM academy

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resident Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has cut the sod for the construction of the Accra STEM Academy, a school, dedicated, principally, to the teaching and learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

The academy, which will be constructed within the next (24 months, will be completed from kindergarten to high school, with an expected population of some two thousand (2,000) students.

It will have a number of stateof-the-art facilities, including a four-storey classroom block, science laboratories, a sickbay, administrative area, staff common room, library, washrooms, canteen, and a one thousand, five hundred (1,500) capacity multipurpose hall.

According to President AkufoAddo, the Accra STEM Academy, being constructed at a cost of thirty-two million cedis (GH¢32 million), will equip learners from kindergarten to senior high school with 21 st century skills in problem solving, creativity, communication, collaboration, data literacy, digital literacy, and computer science.

“In addition, the Accra STEM Academy will be a place where learners in junior high school will be provided with the options of learning basic engineering, manufacturing, and global studies

to help them make informed decisions on their preferred programmes of choice at senior high school level,” he said.

Delivering a speech at the event, the President explained that Government attaches importance to the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at all levels of the nation’s educational system, in recognition of the centrality of STEM capability in the employment of science and technology towards Ghana’s nation’s development.

“Indeed, our world is essentially driven by technology.

Energy, industry, agriculture, medicine and health, clean air and water, transportation, sanitation, the use, management and conservation of natural resources – the successful exploitation of all these sectors depends, ultimately, on the application of science and technology. So, it is obvious that,

to be a part of this modern world, science and technology must be present at every stage of the development process,” he added.

Despite being one of the leading countries in guaranteeing access to quality education on the continent, President Akufo-Addo noted that Ghana’s education sector still requires some significant transformation to compete with the best in the world.

For example, he explained that Ghana must increase her Gross Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (GTER) from the current 18.84% to 40% by 2030, adding that “in accordance with Government’s Education Strategic Plan (ESP), targeted at increasing our science to humanities ratio from the current one of forty to sixty (40:60) to the desired sixty to forty (60:40) in favour of science, Government is repositioning our education system, anchored on

STEM Education”.

As part of Government’s commitment to the advancement of STEM education in the country, President Akufo-Addo stated that his administration has commenced the development of twenty (20) STEM Centres and ten (10) model STEM Senior High schools across the country, which are at various stages of completion.

“Some of these schools will be operationalized this year.

These institutions and centres will be fitted with state-of-the art equipment and laboratories to facilitate teaching and learning in all areas of study, including artificial intelligence and robotics,” he added.

Describing the Accra STEM Academy as a Ghana project, the President was confident that Ghana’s young people are going to acquire skills that would put them at par with their peers anywhere in the world.

“I expect parents and students to take advantage of this facility’s opportunities, and enroll in this STEM Academy. Government is committed to accelerating STEM education in Ghana, to train students with cutting-edge 21st century skills. God-willing, within the next twenty-four (24) months, we will all be back here to witness the commissioning of the Accra STEM Academy,” he added.

Ghana, Saudi Arabia to deepen ties

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hana and Saudi Arabia have resolved to deepen trade and investment ties between them.

The two countries firmed up their long-standing bilateral relations in Accra yesterday when Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration,

Ms. Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, received a “special letter” from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal Bin Farban Al Saud.

The letter was delivered by the Charge d'Affaires of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Accra, Mr. Saeed Al Baker.

Trade, investment Ms. Botchwey said considering the strong relations that existed between the two countries, there was the need for them to explore opportunities in the areas of trade and investment.

She said when Ghana participated in the ‘Saudi Expo’,

it would offer the country an opportunity to court Saudi investors.

"It is something we have worked on for a very long time and we are hoping that we can make a lot of progress on it," she added.

The Saudi Food Expo 2022, the biggest food, beverage and hospitality fair on Saudi Arabia's business calendar, is slated for the capital city of the Kingdom, Riyadh, from February 20 to 23, 2022.

According to the minister, Saudi Arabia was a very important friend of Ghana, and that Ghana had recognised the invitation to participate in the expo.

For his part, Mr. Al Baker expressed gratitude to Ms. Botchwey for the warm hospitality.

He described the Saudi Food Expo 2022 as the biggest food, beverage and hospitality fair on the Saudi business calendar.

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News

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Inflation hits 12.6percent in December last year

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ata from the Ghana Statistical Service shows that the year 2021 ended with a national inflation rate of 12.6percent.

Compared to the 12.2% recorded in November 2021, this new figure represents a 0.4% rise in the inflation rate.

Month-on-month inflation between November and December 2021 was 1.2% This is the 7th consecutive time the inflation rate has seen an increase, and it becomes the highest recorded since the Ghana Statistical Service rebased the Consumer Price Index in August 2019.

The new inflation figure of 12.6% also exceeds the Finance Ministry’s forecast of 8+/-2% for the year under review.

According to the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the jump can be attributed to higher costs of housing, water, electricity and gas, as well as an overall increase in the contribution of non-food inflation to national inflation.

Food inflation slowed to 12.8% from 13.1% in November, while non-food price growth

accelerated to 12.5% from 11.6%.

Food inflation’s contribution to total inflation decreased from 47.7% in November to 45.2% in December, and this can be attributed to the rush to purchase goods in November ahead of Christmas to escape the price hikes in the festive season.

However, non-food year-onyear inflation, which was what pushed the overall inflation figure up, on average, went up again in December compared to

November (from 11.6% to 12.5%).

Two out of the 12 non-food divisions had the 12-month rolling average to be higher than the year-on-year inflation for December 2021.

Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and other fuels recorded the highest inflation in December 2021 (20.7%) while higher cost in transportation followed suit with a 17.6% increase.

On a regional level, the Upper West region, shockingly, recorded

the highest year-on-year inflation to see an 18.6% increase in the price of goods and services.

Although the Eastern Region recorded the lowest year-on-year inflation (7.4%), it recorded the highest inflation rate of 4.8%.

Meanwhile, the inflation for imported goods was 10.4% (higher than the 9.8% recorded for November) while the inflation for locally produced items was 13.3% (up from the 13.0% recorded in November 2021).

SSNIT ups monthly pensions by 10 percent

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he Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has increased monthly pension for beneficiaries by 10 per cent.

The increment in the SSNIT monthly pension, called indexation, takes effect from January 2022.

This means that a pensioner who took a minimum of GH300.00 as pension a month last year would now take GHC332.48 a month.

Indexation, according to SSNIT, is a technique used to adjust pensions in order to maintain the purchasing power of pensioners.

Announcing the new increment in pension benefits, the Director-General General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, said the increment was done in consultation with the National Pensions Regulatory Authority.

He explained that the new increment which was pegged in line with the projected inflation of 2022 of 9.6 per cent, was to improve the purchasing power and living conditions of pensioners.

Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said the increment was being implemented in a manner to help pensioners who received low

pension to get more than 10 per cent increment.

"All pensioners on the SSNIT pension payroll as of December 31, 2021 will have their monthly pension increased by a Fixed Rate of 9.68 per cent plus a redistributed Flat amount of GHc3.44," he explained.

He said redistribution was a mechanism applied to the indexation rate to cushion members on low pensions in

conformity with the solidarity principle of social security.

"The effective increase in pensions would therefore range from 9.639 per cent for the highest earning pension to 10.83 per cent for the lowest pension earner," he said.

He said more than 67 per cent of the current 225,000 pensioners would enjoy more than 10 per cent increase in pension and the remaining who earn higher

pension enjoyed a little below 10 per cent.

Dr Ofori-Tenkorang pledged that the management of SSNIT would continue to invest pension funds well to generate better returns for pensioners.

He said management would continue to be transparent in administering pensions and also pay pensions promptly.

He said SSNIT currently paid GHc300 million as pension a month.

Dr Ofori-Tenkorang disclosed that SSNIT paid a total of GHc3.65 billion as pensions last year.

The Chief Actuary of SSNIT, Mr Joseph Poku, said SSNIT, among others, took into consideration the long-term sustainability of the scheme and liquidity in fixing the indexation rate.

He said the new increment would cost SSNIT GHc308 million from last year's cost of GHc243 million.

Mr Poku said the increment in pension was in line with Section 80 of the Act governing SSNIT. He said the section mandated SSNIT to annually review pension payment in line with wage inflation rates of active contributors.

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Market Analysis

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

A bad year for markets?

Jim O’Neill

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ast month, I identified what I saw as the big issues of 2022, noting that I could not recall a time when there were so many sources of uncertainty, both known and unknown. The main issue was inflation, and now that we are a few weeks into 2022, financial markets appear to be worrying about the same developments that concerned me. In fact, the problems we face are becoming more straightforward – depressingly so.

To understand today’s financial-market behavior, we can turn to the “five-day rule,” a heuristic I first encountered during my time in finance, when eager analysts would grab hold of anything they thought might help them understand the complicated world of markets.

The rule holds that if major US stock-market indices rise during the first five trading days of the new calendar year, markets will perform handsomely for the year overall. According to an old stock-market almanac, this had been the case 85% of the time since the 1950s. Moreover, in cases when markets were down over the first five trading days, the market went on to have a netnegative year 50% of the time.

Given that markets were down

over the first five days of this month, should we worry about 2022? Or can we take comfort in the fact that, historically, stock markets have tended to rise most years? Given that US markets had a strong year in 2021 – after many previous years of growth had already left market valuations rather high – my instinct is to follow the five-day rule, even though there is no theoretical or intellectual reason why it need apply.

That said, it remains to be seen whether markets are more concerned about inflation or about policymakers’ efforts to control it (or about something else entirely). A survey of relative sectoral performance shows that cyclical stocks have been outperforming previously high-flying tech stocks, which is consistent with recent evidence suggesting that the Omicron variant is less virulent than its predecessors. If so, many countries could soon start thinking of COVID-19 as an endemic rather than a pandemic threat.

But in that case, economic policymakers would need to consider whether many of their emergency monetary and fiscal policies are still necessary (a prospect I raised last month). For quite some time, central banks were keeping policy rates low

– significantly negative in real terms – even when the underlying economies were growing at rates above their potential. But now they finally seem to be rethinking their positions, owing to the persistence of inflation.

In this regard, one interesting feature of financial-market pricing so far this year is that both market-based measures and ongoing longer-term surveys indicate that inflation expectations have remained stable. The sharp rise in market interest rates has led to only a modest rise in real interest rates, which are still far below the levels that would be considered normal in historical terms.

One possibility, then, is that markets have woken up to the mounting evidence that both monetary and fiscal policy will be tightened in 2022 (relative to 2021), regardless of whether inflation continues to rise. To be fully consistent, one would expect a period of weakening equity markets to coincide with flattening yield curves (when short-term bond yields are similar to or higher than longerterm ones). There have been some signs of this in the bond markets; but, for now, it remains an interesting trend to watch.

Do these issues and the five-day rule mean that we are guaranteed to see a down year for equities

in 2022? It is too early to say, because much will depend on whether stocks continue to fall further, if at all, and whether the United States and other major economies can sustain their performance. In addition to new evidence of ongoing inflation and policymakers’ stated intentions, the key metrics that I will be watching are high-frequency indicators such as South Korean monthly trade data, purchasing managers’ indices, and other predictive business surveys.

Equally important, and underlying it all, will be evidence of productivity performance, which, ultimately, is the key to sustaining persistently strong equity markets. After years of weakness, could productivity growth finally be accelerating, creating the conditions for a new “roaring twenties”? If so, the economic recovery could continue without the kind of inflationary pressures we have seen in the past year. But if not, we may find ourselves dwelling on these same issues again in January 2023.

Author: Jim O’Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a former UK treasury minister, is a member of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development.

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News

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

ADB Bank to make agribusiness core priority this year

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he Board Chairman of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) Limited, Daasebre Akuamoah Agyapong II, has reiterated the commitment of the bank to support the agribusiness sector to meaningfully contribute to the growth of the economy.

He said the decision forms part of the bank’s intention to focus more on its core mandate of agricultural financing to ensure food security and provide the needed jobs for the youth.

“We will continue to provide financial support to companies and industries, especially in the agribusiness sector to ensure food security and better economic growth,” he said.

The Board Chairman made these remarks when he led the management of the bank to the Ghana Oil Palm Development Company (GOPDC) in Kwae-Kade in the Eastern Region.

It was to enable the delegation to familiarise itself with the operations of the company.

Daasebre Agyapong said ADB would this year continue with its strategy of disbursing more loans to companies and individuals within the agribusiness value chain to further consolidate the positive contribution of

the agricultural sector to the economy.

The ADB Managing Director, Dr John Kofi Mensah, commended the company for its outgrower scheme which had helped in creating thousands of jobs for people within the catchment area of the company.

“I wish to commend the company for its outgrower scheme which has positively helped in creating jobs for the good people of Kwae-Kade and its environs,” he said.

Dr Mensah assured the company of the support of the

bank in expanding its operations to create more jobs and also more products to meet both local demand and for export.

The Managing Director of GOPDC, Mr Gangadhar Shetty, commended ADB for its continuous support to the agricultural sector over the years.

“We have enjoyed financial support from ADB over the years and this has positively impacted our growth as a company,” he said.

According to the Managing Director, GOPDC is working to meet the demands of the

local market to help reduce the importation of palm oil into the Ghanaian market.

Mr Shetty assured the board and management of the bank that all financial support given to the company would be used for the intended purposes to positively impact on the Ghanaian economy.

“We hope to increase our production capacity in the coming years to meet the demands of the local market and help the government in its fight against inflation,” he said.

GOPDC, which formerly belonged to the state, is now a member of the Siat Group of Belgium, specialised in the cultivation of oil palm, extraction of crude palm oil and palm kernel oil and produces refined special oils for use by the food industry.

The company has about 21,000 hectares of oil palm plantations of which, about 13,000 have been developed for about 6,000 outgrowers.

In total, there are over 1,860,000 oil palm trees spread over a radius of 30 km, creating a direct or indirect income for above 50,000 people.

The company is currently the producers of the Kings brand of vegetable oil on the Ghanaian market.

GES announces reopening date for basic schools

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irector General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, says all public basic schools in the country will re-open on Tuesday, January 18, 2022.

He said the schools were supposed to have been reopened on Tuesday, January 11, 2022, but had to be rescheduled to January 18, 2022.

He said the additional week is to compensate teachers and

pupils for delaying their vacation over a week last year due to the National Standardised Test (NST), which was written on December 17, 2021.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said the GES is working on the academic

calendar and the reopening date of freshers and continuing students for Senior High Schools.

He added that the Ministerial Committee on Schools Calendar formed by the Ministry of Education had submitted its white paper to the Minister of Education.

The school calendar committee is chaired by Mr John Ntim Fordjour, a Deputy Minister of Education, and has representatives from National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), GES, and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Service.

The school calendar will contain dates for all public school activities, including reopening, vacations and examinations from 2022 to 2024.

It is expected to be a comprehensive calendar that will address challenges regarding dates and timelines of school activities and bring respite to parents and students.

GNA

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News

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Prof Abor speaks on the need for innovations in the education sector

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rofessor Joshua Yindenaba Abor, a professor and former Dean of The University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), in his speech at the diamond jubilee commemoration of the Tema Senior High School (TEMASCHO), spoke on the need for innovations in our educational sector.

The theme of the event was “Setting the pace for an enhanced educational experience in the 21st Century”.

In his speech, he encouraged both students and staff to play their individual and collective roles in fostering innovations in the educational sector. On the part of students, he urged them to prioritise their ICT lessons as it will be a requirement in their tertiary education as well as in the working world.

With education becoming more self-directed, he called on them to begin to own their personal learning. As a result of the current demand for graduates with a good blend of both hard and soft skills, he advised students to take advantage of leadership roles as it will enhance their character formation and growth as leaders.

On the part of the staff, he

challenged them to go beyond the status quo and provide students with mentorship in a more structured manner.

He admonished the school administration to provide a

conducive environment that will enable character formation as well as smooth teaching and learning for all.

Professor Joshua Abor is a financial economist and qualified

accountant with many years of expertise in development finance and economic research. He is also a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.

New Africa Payment System to Save $5 Billion in Fees, Lift Trade

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frica’s new cross-border payment system is expected to save the continent billions of dollars in annual transaction costs and bolster shipments in the world’s largest free-trade zone, according

to Mahamudu Bawumia, the vice president of Ghana.

The so-called Pan-African Payment and Settlement System will facilitate intra-regional trade and payments by enabling the real-time transfer of funds from

one African country to another, he said.

Traders have, until now, had to settle payments via U.S. and European banks and the new system is expected to save the continent about $5 billion

in offshore clearance and transaction costs, according to its developer, the African ExportImport Bank.

“This is an African solution to an African problem and it’s the most practical and most important achievement in payment-system integration on the African continent since independence from colonial rule,” Bawumia said. It’s the closest the continent has come to the benefits of a common currency, he said.

It’s also one of the key building blocks for the African Continental Free Trade Area, he said. The continent-wide trade zone that’s set to be fully operational in 2030 could be the world’s biggest free trade zone by area, with a potential market of 1.2 billion people and a combined gross domestic product of $2.5 trillion.

The system was launched in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, on Thursday after having been piloted in the West African Monetary Zone, which includes Nigeria, the continent’s biggest economy.

Bloomberg

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Comment/Analysis

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Cities and the climate-data gap

By Robert Muggah, Carlo Ratti

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ith cities facing disastrous climate stresses and shocks in the coming years, one would think they would be rushing to implement mitigation and adaptation strategies. Yet most urban residents are only dimly aware of the risks, because their cities’ mayors, managers, and councils are not collecting or analyzing the right kinds of information.

With more governments adopting strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, cities everywhere need to get better at collecting and interpreting climate data. More than 11,000 cities have already signed up to a global covenant to tackle climate change and manage the transition to clean energy, and many aim to achieve net-zero emissions before their national counterparts do. Yet virtually all of them still lack the basic tools for measuring progress.

Closing this gap has become urgent, because climate change is already disrupting cities around the world. Cities on almost every continent are being ravaged by heat waves, fires, typhoons, and hurricanes. Coastal cities are being battered by severe flooding connected to sea-level rise.

And some megacities and their sprawling peripheries are being reconsidered altogether, as in the case of Indonesia’s $34 billion plan to move its capital from Jakarta to Borneo by 2024.

Worse, while many subnational governments are setting ambitious new green targets, over 40% of cities (home to some 400 million people) still have no meaningful climate-preparedness strategy. And this share is even lower in Africa and Asia – where an estimated 90% of all future urbanization in the next three decades is expected to occur.

We know that climate-

preparedness plans are closely correlated with investment in climate action including naturebased solutions and systematic resilience. But strategies alone are not enough. We also need to scale up data-driven monitoring platforms. Powered by satellites and sensors, these systems can track temperatures inside and outside buildings, alert city dwellers to air-quality issues, and provide high-resolution information on concentrations of specific GHGs (carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide) and particulate matter.

Technology companies are the first movers in this market. For example, Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer aggregates data on building and transportationrelated emissions, air quality, and solar potential for municipal officials. And projects such as Climate Watch, Project AirView, Project Sunroof, and the Surface Particulate Matter Network are providing city analysts with historical data, tracking car pollution and methane leaks, and even helping individual users determine the solar-power potential of their homes.

But it is worth remembering that many private-sector climatedata initiatives were built on the back of large-scale, publicly supported programs. The most well-known source of climate data is NASA, which uses satellite data and chemical-dispersion and meteorological models to track emissions and predict the movement of pollutants.

Similarly, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association tracks wildfires and smog (among many other things), and issues data-based forecasts through its National Center for Environmental Prediction.

And in Europe, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service generates five-day forecasts based on its tracking of aerosols, atmospheric pollutants, GHGs,

and UV-index readings.

Google Earth became a staple resource by organizing and making good use of more than four decades’ worth of historical imagery and data drawn primarily from public sources. Given that the private sector has been capitalizing on these data for years, cities no longer have any excuse for not doing the same.

One easily accessible source of city-level data is the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Air Quality Forecasting and Information System, which tracks everything from dust storms to fire and smoke pollution.

Another is the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Environment Platform, which provides high-resolution forecasts.

Some pioneering cities have already started to work with smaller data vendors such as PlumeLabs, which crowdsources air-quality data through locally distributed sensors. But while access to data is essential, so, too, are the methods to make it useful. As matters stand, datasets tend to be fragmented across platforms, and even when urban leaders agree that the climate emergency warrants their attention, extracting insight from the details remains a daunting challenge. Cities are generating a chorus of climate data, but have yet to teach it to sing in tune.

Building a harmonious climate-data ecosystem will require an accessible platform to consolidate disparate metrics.

Data also need to be streamlined and standardized to improve the monitoring of inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impact. Better data management will improve decision-making and empower ordinary citizens, potentially fostering collaboration and even positive-sum competition among cities. Public, private, and philanthropic partnerships can have a catalytic effect, as

was the case when cities such as Amsterdam, Bristol, Chicago, and Los Angeles joined forces with SecDev Group to create an interactive dashboard tracking city vulnerability.

There are, however, some risks to consolidating and standardizing climate data for cities. When global technology vendors flood the market, they can curb local innovation in data collection and analysis. Moreover, by focusing too much on a small set of metrics for every city, we run the risk of Goodhart’s Law: once a measure becomes a target, people start to game it. Consider targets designed to reduce vehicular emissions that result in the production of cars designed to pass emissions tests, rather than cars with lower emissions.

Similarly, when climate data are more centralized, there could be greater incentives for political and corporate interests to skew them in their favor through lobbying and other means. And policymakers will need to ensure that any potentially sensitive or individualized data are kept private and protected, and that datasets and the algorithms they feed avoid reproducing structural biases and discrimination.

Most of these hazards can be identified early and avoided through experimentation, with cities pursuing unique strategies and promising new metrics. But unless cities scale up their monitoring and datacollection systems, they will have little chance of delivering on their climate targets. Better analysis can help drive increased awareness about climate risks, optimize responses, and ensure mitigation and adaptation strategies are more equitable.

We cannot manage the climate crisis until we measure it, and we cannot measure it until we can collect and analyze the right information.

12

Interview

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

UGBS alumna wins The Col. Vida Otoo (Rtd) Military Nightingale Award

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t Col Patience Akuvi Dzigbordi Awumee, an alumna of the Department of Public Administration and Health Services Management of the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), has received the Col. Vida Otoo (Rtd) Military Nightingale Award on Friday, 17th December 2021, at the Kempinski Hotel.

This is a special category award of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) National Awards.

Lt Col Awumee is a resultsoriented nurse/midwife and military officer, with 26 years working experience and a Deputy Director of Nursing Services (DDNS).

She has achieved great milestones, including an outstanding performance recognition at the United Nations Mission in Liberia, as a team leader for military observers for the only remaining Team Site in Liberia in 2017.

She and her colleague military observers, contributed towards the successful 2017 Presidential and Parliamentary Electons in

the Liberia.

While at the Ghana Military Academy (GMA) as a First Aid Instructor (May 2010 – January 2014), she also led a team to design the alumni logo and cloth for the GMA and set up the first Infirmary at GMA. She also worked with others to train hundreds of frontline

workers during the Covid-19 pandemic at the 37 Military Hospital. Lt Col Awumee was also led a team to set up the 37 Military Hospital Dialysis Unit in 2018, under the direction of her Commander.

She can further be credited for leading a team to design the 37 Military Nightingales Association

cloth, the symbolic Florence Nightingale uniform and the Lamp for the ‘Rallying Round the Lamp’, all being concepts by Col Vida Otoo (Rtd).

Due to her continuous pursuit for knowledge, Lt Col Patience Akuvi Dzigbordi Awumee is currently pursuing a PhD in Health Policy Management.

Emirates resumes passenger operations to Accra Continued from cover will operate daily flights between Accra and Dubai and onwards to over 120 global destinations on the airline’s network.

Emirate’s flight EK788 departs from Accra at 18:50hrs, arriving in Dubai at 06:20hrs the next day.

EK787 departs Dubai at 07:40hrs, arriving in Accra at 12:05hrs. All flights can be booked on emirates. com, with OTAs and via travel agents.

Reinstatement of operations to and from Accra was due to the remarkable leadership and initiative of the Ghanaian government, which led efforts and worked closely with

other government, health and regulatory stakeholders in both Ghana and the UAE to implement and enforce rigorous health and safety protocols for travellers.

All passengers with Dubai as their final destination must present a negative COVID-19 PCR test certificate with a QR code for a test conducted at an approved PCR testing laboratory within 48 hours of departure. Approved laboratories are: LEDing, Frontier, Airport Clinic, MDSLancet and Akai House Clinic.

Validity must be calculated from the time the sample was collected.

Passengers must also present a negative COVID-19 Rapid or Real Time PCR test certificate with a

QR code for a test conducted at the departure airport within 6 hours of departure. Approved laboratories for rapid testing are LEDing and Frontier, which are both a walking distance from Terminal 3. Emirates will only take the original stamped and signed hard copy of COVID-19 PCR & Rapid PCR test certificate with a QR code from approved laboratories to be accepted for travel, and all documents must be presented upon check-in. All PCR Tests will be validated through the Trusted Travel/PanaBios Platform.

Upon arrival in Dubai, passengers will undergo an additional Covid-19 PCR test and remain in self quarantine until the results of the test are received.

Children under the age of 12 are exempted.

Passengers travelling from Ghana (ACC) and transiting in Dubai are only required to follow the rules and requirements of their final destination.

Since it safely resumed tourism activity in July 2020, Dubai remains one of the world's most popular holiday destinations,

especially during the winter season. The city is open for international business and leisure visitors. From sun-soaked beaches and heritage activities to world class hospitality and leisure facilities, Dubai offers a variety of world-class experiences. It was one of the world's first cities to obtain Safe Travels stamp from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) – which endorses Dubai's comprehensive and effective measures to ensure guest health and safety.

Dubai is currently hosting the world for Expo 2020, until March 2022. Through the theme of Connecting Minds, Creating the Future, Expo 2020 Dubai aims to inspire people by showcasing the best examples of collaboration, innovation and cooperation from around the world. Its programme is packed with experiences to suit all ages and interests, including a rich line-up of themed weeks, entertainment, and edutainment.

Art and culture fans as well as food and technology enthusiasts can explore exhibits, workshops, performances, live shows and more.

13

News

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Bawumia urges African central banks to connect payments switches to PAPSS

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ice President Mahamudu Bawumia Thursday launched the commercial operations of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) with a charge on African central bank governors to connect their national payment switches to PAPSS. PAPSS is a cross-border financial market infrastructure, instantly connecting payment transactions across Africa.

Its implementation is expected to save Africa five billion dollars in transaction costs annually.

It is designed to enable leadingedge technology African banks, payment service providers and other financial market infrastructure to make instant and secure payments between African countries.

The system was designed and facilitated by the Africa ExportImport Bank (Afreximbank), the African Union Commission and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat as well as Africa Central Banks.

It allows for instant payments by both originators and recipients to transfer and receive cash in their local currencies anywhere in Africa.

Vice President Bawumia, delivering the keynote address at the launch of PAPSS in Accra on the theme: "Connecting Payments, Accelerating Africa's Trade," said the successful implementation of PAPSS would enhance intra-African trade and ensure an efficient and transparent payment system.

It would simplify the historical complexities and costs of making payments across Africa's borders and provide operational efficiencies that open up vast economic opportunities for

African economies.

The event attracted high profile personalities including the former President of Niger and AfCFTA Champion, President Mahamadou Issoufou, Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria and Chairman of the Intra-African Trade Fair Advisory Council, and Mr Wamkele Mene, the Secretary-General of AfCFTA. Others were Mr Mike Ogbalu, the Chief Executive Officer of PAPSS, Professor Benedict Oramah, the President of Afreximbank, representatives of the President of African Union and heads of state, CEOs of banks and governors of African central banks, and captains of industry.

Vice President Bawumia said PAPSS was expected to benefit all stakeholders from governments, banks and payment providers to the end customers, corporates, small enterprises and individuals.

The speed, simplicity and security of the PAPSS process would greatly improve the capabilities of the participating countries, increasing access to new African markets with less costly foreign exchange complications.

The Vice President said 55 African countries had 42 currencies and four exchange rate systems, characterised by lack of currency convertibility and ill-liquidity, which often discouraged intra-African trade.

The African Union's annual trade report for 2020 indicates an average of 13 per cent intraAfrica import and 20 per cent intra-Africa export over the past seven years.

Vice President Bawumia expressed the belief that with the rolling out of PAPSS, governments and African central banks would

witness less pressure on foreign exchange liquidity and greater transparency of cross-border transactions.

They would also experience an increase in potential to generate revenue as well as ease in customers' burden and enhanced trade facilitation.

"As you are all aware, the underlying motive behind our integration scheme is the expectation that, through collaborative efforts, participating countries in the integration programmes would generate maximum socio-economic benefits for their citizens in the sub-region,” he said.

"Regional integration, undoubtedly, is an efficient tool for overcoming the constraints imposed by the nature and size of individual national markets."

He observed that if the production of goods and services were carried out in an enlarged regional economic space, there was a greater chance of achieving substantial economic benefits.

Over the years, there had been tremendous emphasis by the Africa central banks to develop domestic payments systems such as Real-Time Gross Settlement, Automated Clearing House, Securities Settlement System, Automated Check Processing System and a National Switch.

However, he said, there was less focus on cross-border or intra-African payments.

Notwithstanding their significance, the intra-African payments faced various challenges, including cost, access, speed and transparency.

"On a related note, we have also witnessed the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economies across the globe and

more especially on the African economies,” Vice President Bawumia said.

"The pandemic continues to reverse some of the economic gains we have achieved and also brought to the fore sustainability of some of these interventions.”

"Trade has also been impacted through disruption to supply chains of imports and exports of goods and services. The good news, however, is that we have seen increased consumer preference for digital payments, which we have to sustain for intra-African trade."

Dr Bawumia said the AfCFTA had been given the mandate of promoting intra-regional trade and boosting industrialisation drive and productivity.

The fulfilment of which required the support of all African central banks as supervisors of the payment systems to ensure seamless transfer of funds across the continent.

"It is in this regard that I applaud the AfCFTA and Afreximbank for initiating the pan-African payment and settlement (PAPSS),” he said.

"And I am sure you will agree with me that with the launch of the PAPSS, the building blocks of the AfCFTA are progressively falling into place."

During the 12th Extraordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union on July 7, 2019, in Niamey, Niger the African Union adopted PAPSS as one of its operating instruments of the AfCFTA to boost intra-African trade, stimulate industrialisation and promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth in Africa.

GNA

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FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

15

Agribusiness

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

A forest of possibilities …Empowering communities to restore and conserve forests for people and planet

By UNDP Ghana

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This forest restoration initiative has given us access to food all year round. When cocoa is out of season, we rely on our plantain and vegetable harvest, Grace Botwe, a cocoa farmer from Akwaduro, in the Asunafo North Municipal in the Ahafo Region of Ghana narrated.

Grace has been farming for more than 30 years and she is one of the over 200 farmers working on a forest restoration initiative to restore degraded areas in the Ayum Forest Reserve. Like many forests, the Ayum Forest Reserve

in the Asunafo North Municipal Assembly was gradually losing its value and beautiful vegetation because of the multiplying human activities like bush burning, deforestation and illegal activities.

To scale up efforts to restore degraded forest reserves like the Ayum Forest Reserve and contribute to Ghana's climate action efforts, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with Cocobod, Forestry Commission, and Mondelēz International’s cocoa sustainability programme: Cocoa Life (through funding and

technical support) are working with farmers to restore degraded forests.

For the farmers, the initiative to revamp their forest reserve is very fulfilling as they are contributing to the change they want to see and making gains out of it.

“Being part of this initiative brings me so much fulfilment.

I am happy to be part of the community members contributing to the restoration of our once degraded forest”, Naomi Nkansah, a 34-year-old farmer and beneficiary of the forest restoration project stated.

The Forest Restoration initiative is being implemented using the Modified Tungya System (MTS) where farmers are given access to degraded forest reserve land for the planting of economic trees.

They are allowed to integrate the tree planting with selected food crops until tree canopy closure.

The MTS has become a legally binding land lease arrangement in which farmers are considered co-owners of the plantations with the Forestry Commission and are entitled to the MTS plots till the tree become mature. Apart from its environmental benefits, the MTS also serves as an additional income generation activity for the participating farmers.

The forest restoration project is a scaled-up of activities under

the third intervention area of the Cocoa Life Programme. The programme is to incentivize cocoa farmers to adopt environmentally sustainable production practices and to promote resilient and thriving communities with additional livelihoods options.

The project presents vast opportunities due to the market and economic value of the harvested crops.

“I come all the way from Kumasi to purchase my plantain, which I sell at both Takoradi or sometimes in Kumasi market. We usually make profits and because it is straight from the farms, the plantains and cocoyams we buy from here are always fresh”, Dora Ansah, a market woman revealed.

Mr. Owusu Apau, the Society Manager of the Cocoa Cooperative Farmers’ Society at the Akwaduro commended the formation of farmer groups as part of activities of the initiative to promote farmer organization and coordination.

Re-greening the planet will take many forms. It will involve restoring degraded forests through reforestation and enhancing tree cover in agricultural landscapes. In the end, no effort is too small to help the world achieve the climate action agenda for people and the planet.

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African Business

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

AfDB’s SEFA to provide $1m in support of Botswana’s energy transition

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he Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), managed by the African Development Bank, has approved a $1 million grant to facilitate Botswana’s transition to clean energy . The technical assistance project supports the Government of Botswana in closing critical gaps in policy, regulatory and legal frameworks, which were identified at the Africa Energy Market Place (AEMP 2019). These include the introduction of least-cost planning, reduction of adverse environmental impacts and support for increased private sector participation in renewable energy (RE) generation investments.

Some of the notable outputs from the project include a national Grid Code, Electricity Cost of Service Study (CoSS) and licensing framework to regulate power sector activities. The outputs from the project will contribute

towards the implementation of Botswana’s first Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), thus facilitating investments in new solar PV and wind generation capacity, amounting to at least 100MW and 50MW, respectively, by 2030. Through its support for

the further development of the renewable energy generation sector in Botswana, the project also contributes to the Mega Solar initiative, launched in 2021 in collaboration with Namibia and development partners, with the aim of building renewable energy

capacity in the two countries, to enable electricity exports to the rest of the region.

Conceptualised under SEFA’s Green Baseload component, the project "will contribute to the development of essential building blocks to support Botswana’s energy transition ", said Dr. Daniel Schroth, Acting Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the African Development Bank. ‘’It has been a long journey to access this AfDB grant facility,” observed Duncan Morotsi, Chief Operating Officer at the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA), “The approval is a great step forward in the regulator’s quest to facilitate independent power producers (IPPs), renewable energy sources and cost reflective tariffs in Botswana. It was worthwhile pursuing this technical assistance from the AfDB’’.

Mozambique: $47.09m grant from African Development Fund for special agro-industrial processing zone

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he Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved a $47.09 million grant for the first phase of Mozambique’s PembaLichinga Integrated Development Corridor, a Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone.

The grant, from the African Development Fund, will help improve agricultural productivity and agribusiness development in the Niassa province by advancing institutional capacity, skills, and entrepreneurship to spur agricultural value chain growth.

The project will pilot improved policy and development coordination between the Niassa province and national

departments, especially with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones are integrated development initiatives designed to concentrate agro-processing activities within areas of high agricultural potential to boost productivity, integrate production, processing, and marketing of selected commodities. These zones will enable agricultural producers, processors, aggregators, and distributors to operate in the same vicinity to reduce transaction costs and share

business development services for increased productivity and competitiveness. Coupled with bringing adequate infrastructure (energy, water, roads, ICT, etc.) to rural areas of high agricultural potential, SAPZs will attract investments from private agroindustrialists/entrepreneurs to contribute to the economic and social development of rural areas.

The initiative is in line with the Mozambique National Development Strategy 2015-2035, which seeks to improve the living conditions of the population through structural transformation of the economy and expansion and diversification of the production base. It is consistent with the concerted efforts of the international community to support Mozambique to promote inclusive economic growth and peacebuilding in the north.

The project also aligns with the African Development Bank's Country Strategy Paper 2018-2022 for Mozambique, with a focus on the northern provinces, and the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy for agriculture transformation.

Commenting on the Board's approval, Mozambique’s Minister of Industry and Trade, Carlos Mesquita, described the project as a “game-changer” that would

transform the economy, promote social inclusion and foster peace by tackling important industry enabling factors such as infrastructure for development.

African Development Bank Country Manager for Mozambique, Cesar Augusto Mba Abogo, highlighted the importance of the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones as a shared facility to enable agricultural producers, processors, aggregators and distributors to operate in the same neighborhood to reduce transaction costs, share business development services and increase productivity and competitiveness. “SAPZs can promote the participation of small producers in value chains and value addition, thus offering an inclusive development model,” he stated.

The project will build on a long list of Bank interventions in northern Mozambique to provide infrastructure and unlock the agricultural potential of the host corridor. The most recent of these Bank-supported projects are the N13 Cuamba-Muíta and the N14 Montepuez-Ruaca roads linking the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa.

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Feature

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

The price increases that matter for the poor

By Jayati Ghosh

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he question of how best to control inflation is back on the economic policy agenda, and opinion is divided about how to address it. The mainstream view emphasizes the need for tighter monetary policies and regards higher interest rates and reduced liquidity provision as justified, even if they dampen the fragile economic recovery now underway in many countries.

Others argue that today’s inflation is transitory, reflecting temporary supply bottlenecks and labormarket shifts, and will soon correct itself.

In rich countries, policymakers still rely mainly on macroeconomic tools to tackle inflation. But one set of price increases is different from the others: food-price inflation. Not only does this phenomenon have a much greater direct impact on people’s lives, especially in developing economies; it also reflects more complex causes, and addressing it effectively requires a completely different set of strategies. Unfortunately, governments are not discussing them sufficiently.

This neglect is deeply troubling. At the end of 2021, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index was at its highest level in a decade and close to its previous peak of June 2011, when many were warning of a global food crisis. Moreover, last year’s increase was sudden: from 2015 to 2020, food prices had been relatively low and stable, but soared by an average of 28% in 2021.

Much of this surge was driven by cereals, with maize and wheat

prices increasing by 44% and 31%, respectively. But prices of other food items also shot up: prices for vegetable oil hit a record high during the year, sugar was up by 38%, and price increases for meat and dairy products, though lower, were still in the double digits.

Food-price inflation currently exceeds the increase in the overall price index, and is even more alarming given the significant decline in workers’ wage incomes during the COVID-19 pandemic – especially in low- and middleincome countries. This lethal combination of more expensive food and lower incomes is fueling catastrophic increases in hunger and malnutrition.

There are many possible reasons for the spike in food prices. Some are systemic. Supplychain problems – especially regarding transportation – have been a major factor driving price increases for a wide range of commodities. Thus, grain prices rose rapidly in 2021, despite record global output of nearly 2.8 billion tons.

Energy prices also are important in determining the cost of producing and transporting food. The large increase in oil prices in 2021 obviously affected the food prices faced by consumers.

In addition, more frequent extreme weather events make crop output more volatile and reduce yields. Some have argued that prices of agricultural commodities as disparate as Brazilian coffee, Belgian potatoes, and Canadian yellow peas (now widely used by the food industry to produce plant-based meat substitutes) rose sharply last year after weather events induced by climate change undermined

output.

In March 2021, the FAO warned that increasingly frequent climate-related disasters were affecting agricultural supplies.

Droughts are the single greatest threat, accounting for more than one-third of crop and livestock losses in low- and lower-middleincome countries. But floods, storms, pests, diseases, and wildfires have also become more intense and widespread, as was evident last year.

We can expect much more climate-related pressure on food production in the coming years, with developing regions in Asia and Africa likely to be hit hardest.

The threats to food production from climate risk underscore the need for greater international cooperation to tackle global warming and its consequences.

Sadly, such collaboration seems unlikely.

But some of the other factors contributing to food price increases are the direct result of policy and regulatory changes.

These include the significant increase in stockpiling by governments and consumers, driven by fears that new waves of the COVID-19 pandemic will put further pressure on food supplies. The expectation of future food price increases then becomes self-fulfilling, owing to higher current demand.

Last November, the FAO estimated that the global food import bill in 2021 would be the highest ever, at more than $1.75 trillion, a 14% increase from 2020 and 12% higher than the FAO’s forecast just a few months earlier. This is bad news for lower-income economies, which may have more pressing food import requirements than other

countries but could be squeezed out of global markets because of increased demand.

The other important factor is financial speculation in food markets, which has recently experienced a revival. Food commodities became an asset class after financial deregulation in the United States in the early 2000s, and there is significant evidence that this played a major role in the destabilizing foodprice volatility of 2007-09. In recent years, these commodities had become less attractive to investors, but that changed during the pandemic.

Despite high volatility, long positions in major food commodity markets were significant and positive for most of 2021, suggesting that financial investors were expecting prices to increase. The volume of such investments grew substantially last year, enabled by persistent regulatory loopholes and the availability of cheap credit to financial institutions.

Unlike some of the more systemic forces affecting food supply and prices in the medium term, policymakers could easily address the issues of stockpiling and speculation. But that requires governments to accept that these are problems, and to muster the will to address them. Until they do, food-price inflation will continue to hit the world’s poor the hardest.

Author: Jayati Ghosh, Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates, is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation.

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Feature

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

An entrepreneur and a swindler

By William H. Janeway

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he conviction of Elizabeth Holmes for fraud perpetrated as founder and CEO of Theranos has triggered intense debate about what the episode means for the innovation economy.

Did Holmes, aggressively implementing Silicon Valley’s “fake it until you make it” credo, simply run out of runway? Is the venture capitalist and Theranos investor Tim Draper right to worry that her conviction will reduce the “willingness to bet on” the type of entrepreneurs who “made Silicon Valley the innovation engine of the world”?

Or is the situation more complicated? In fact, Holmes’s trial and conviction illuminate two trends at the heart of the American political and financial economy. The first is the broad retreat from prosecuting financial manipulators as criminals, a development evident since the incarceration of Enron and WorldCom senior executives following the collapse of the 1998-2000 dot-com bubble.

Consider the difference between the aftermath of the 1980s savings and loan debacle and what followed the 2008 global financial crisis. In the former case, notes ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger, “the Department of Justice prosecuted over a thousand people, including top executives of many of the largest failed banks.” In the latter instance, by contrast, “only one top banker went to jail.”

Eisinger’s 2017 book, The Chickenshit Club, documents a profound shift in attitudes within the DOJ – and especially within the Office of the US District Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which has jurisdiction over Wall Street – during the first decade of this century. He traces this development to the 2002

liquidation of Arthur Andersen, a “Big Five” accounting firm, following its conviction for obstruction of justice relating to its work for Enron. Instead of seeking to hold individual executives criminally liable for enormous financial losses, the authorities repeatedly settled the charges in exchange for fines ultimately paid by shareholders, not executives.

The second broad trend has been the enormous flood of “nontraditional capital” (from family offices, mutual funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and individual billionaires) into venture capitalbacked start-ups over the past six years. In 2021, annual capital directly committed to VC funds finally exceeded the $100 billion raised in 2000, but more than that amount was invested by nonVCs into VC-backed start-ups, reaching a record combined total of $330 billion, almost double the amount for 2020.

Fueled by this explosion, latestage valuations have soared alongside public equity markets, which are driven largely by the Big Tech firms that these startups aspire to emulate. Equally important, investors necessarily accept illiquidity – the legal inability to sell their shares – when committing capital to private ventures. And in many cases – like that of Theranos – they have accepted terms granting founders near-absolute control, no matter how much capital is raised.

Chief among the forces driving this bubble is the unprecedentedly loose monetary-policy regime that has prevailed since 2008.

The US Federal Reserve and other major central banks have reduced risk-free interest rates to (and in some cases beyond) the “zero lower bound” and mobilized a range of unconventional instruments – under the heading

of “quantitative easing” (QE) – to flood financial markets with cash.

Walter Bagehot, the nineteenthcentury editor of The Economist, summarized the predictable outcome of these policies 150 years ago: “The history of the trade cycle had taught me that a period of a low rate of return on investments inexorably leads toward irresponsible investment. … People won’t take 2% and cannot bear a loss of income.

Instead, they invest their careful savings in something impossible – a canal to Kamchatka, a railway to Watchet, a plan for animating the Dead Sea.” A machine that can perform 200 blood tests from a single pinprick is worthy of Bagehot’s list.

Now that the era of QE appears to be at an end, the most likely long-term consequence will be a shift in the balance of power from entrepreneurs back toward financiers. This will be a sharp break from what we saw in 2020, when over 40% of tech initial public offerings used a dual-class stock structure to entrench founder control. PreIPO investors in these cases can neither sell their own stock nor fire the CEO. Like Rupert Murdoch and Betsy DeVos when they bought into Theranos, they are pigeons, not partners.

Some 40 years ago, I formulated a double hedge against the radical uncertainty that attends investments in startups operating at or beyond the technological frontier: “Cash and Control.” Investors need enough cash to buy the time necessary to understand an adverse surprise, and enough control to do something about it (which usually starts with firing the CEO).

The nontraditional investors who have piled into late-stage VC-backed firms have plenty of cash, but they usually lack the

necessary control. The Uber and WeWork sagas show that until the rules change, even leading professional VCs may have to sue to overcome the “entrepreneur-friendly” terms that they accepted. Many other start-up business models are already losing credibility. For example, as The Information reported earlier this month, “instant delivery start-ups” are trying out a new tactic to reduce their exorbitant cash-burn rates: “slower delivery.”

The Theranos story serves as a reminder that raising capital for a venture akin to “animating the Dead Sea” can happen only because investors – especially nontraditional ones – have become desperate in their search for positive real returns. Holmes seems to have been blessed by the Cult of the Entrepreneur, which enables founders to play prospective investors off against each other in pursuit of the friendliest deal. How else could a tech neophyte raise start-up money for such a venture from the likes of Larry Ellison, Don Lucas, and Draper on terms that gave her 100% control?

Holmes’s conviction may augur another broad shift. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine often jokes that “everything is securities fraud,” because any decline in a public company’s stock is likely to trigger a lawsuit by a losing investor. But some entrepreneurial acts really are securities fraud. For those with no interest in participating in transient speculative bubbles inflated by central banks, Holmes’s conviction offers some comfort in an era of big lies.

Those who worry that proper enforcement of the law will result in a loss of innovative dynamism would do well to recall that the entire digital revolution emerged in that context.

Project syndicate

19

Feature

FRIDAY JANUARY 14, 2022

Social enterprise: The quiet solution to Ghana’s unemployment situation

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ocial enterprise has become a growing concept in the global world. Institutions have championed the importance of social enterprise/social entrepreneurship within a public policy context globally, nationally, regionally and locally.

The aim of this brief article is to discuss the importance of social enterprise as a key problem solver in dealing with the key economic and social economic problems in society within the context of Ghana.

The authors of this article are currently undertaking a funded Innovation for African Universities Programme project with the British Council; the key focus of the research is to see how social enterprise can be better integrated into economic development in Ghana from a higher education policy perspective.

Social enterprise is a term that sparks great debate when an all-embracing definition is attempted. This is, in part, due to its multifaceted nature, cultural and social variances, and the complexities of the numerous social, economic and psychological influences upon the notion of social enterprise.

The authors of this article view social enterprise as an altruistic, social and economic movement that drives an innovative response to a pressing societal challenge that may be local, regional, national or global, and there is a clear impetus to develop social enterprise globally, generated by COVID-19.

This has been fuelled by the view of the World Health Organisation (WHO) (2020), which emphasises the crucial role that social enterprise and social entrepreneurs will play in the current global health crisis, asserting that in order for society to build a new normal,

social enterprise and social entrepreneurs must step up to the challenge presented.

Social enterprise cannot be separated from the political, social and economic systems of sovereign states. Social enterprise within Ghana is no exception to this.

Socio-economic inequalities disproportionately impact the life chances of Ghanaian young people.

With an average national unemployment rate of five per cent, unemployment among the youth (aged 15-35) is much higher at 12 per cent, with an additional 28 per cent categorised as discouraged workers.

Unemployment is simply not an option for most people, particularly the youth who turn to the informal sector to earn an income. One in three young people in Ghana are selfemployed in vulnerable jobs.

It is estimated that 230,000 Ghanaians seek to enter the labour market annually; the formal economy is able to offer jobs to about two per cent, and, consequently, 225,000 are left without employment (Dadzie, Fumey and Namara, 2020).

Of those employed, about 50 per cent are underemployed or underutilised as they lack entrepreneurial skills.

Furthermore, the current infrastructure is prohibitive to start-up and small- to mediumscale enterprises. This has an adverse effect upon socioeconomic development, exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.

With the consequent/related global economic recession, an innovative approach is needed to equip the labour force with appropriate employability skills.

The COVID-19 pandemic requires communities to be responsive and strive towards

developing sustainable solutions.

Universities have a role to play in this process: firstly, by embedding enterprise initiatives within curricula and developing social entrepreneurial skills, and secondly, to support social enterprises by providing a pool of expertise for social entrepreneurs to draw upon.

The World Bank (Dadzie, Fumey and Namara, 2020) identifies agribusiness, entrepreneurship, apprenticeships, construction, tourism and sports as key sectors that can offer increased employment opportunities for the Ghanaian youth.

Ghanaian universities have failed to establish societal skill development in these areas, specifically failing to provide career guidance and counseling, work-based learning, entrepreneurship, coaching, and mentoring to equip young people with the skills needed for work and the skills associated with the global skill framework.

Ghana’s population is 30.8 million according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC). Since the first postindependence census in 1960, the population has increased nearly fivefold.

From 24.7 million in 2010, the population has grown by 6.1 million, representing an annual intercensal growth rate of 2.1 per cent. 73.5 per cent of Ghana’s population are below 35, with 38.2 per cent between 15–35 years old (Ghana Statistical Service, 2021).

This figure further emphasises the country's unemployment rate and the growing need to equip the youth with employability skills.

Social enterprise will provide economic, political, social and environmental solutions for the country.

Social enterprise solutions Seeking work remains a

core criterion for defining unemployment. The effect of unemployment transcends individual-level effects and yields adverse consequences for both a society with a high unemployment rate and the country’s economic trajectory.

Again, youth unemployment is becoming an apparent feature of the economies of many developing countries. The youth unemployment situation in Ghana is said to be growing at an alarming rate.

In Ghana, the unemployment rate is about 4.6 per cent and is primarily dominated by females compared to their male counterparts (GSS, 2021).

Employment growth Employment growth in Ghana appears to lag behind its economic growth over the years, and social entrepreneurship is one of the surest ways to solve the unemployment bane of the youth while at the same time championing the government’s post-pandemic recovery.

Social enterprise leads to job creation, improves government revenue through taxes, improves the capacity of local industries, and stimulates the economy's growth.

It can have a positive impact on the economy, primarily as the government seeks to increase investment for entrepreneurship in the 2022 budget statement.

Social entrepreneurship will be at the forefront of the country's quest to promote the building blocks for an inclusive and sustainable post-COVID-19 recovery.

The article was written by Josiah Nii Adu Quaye, Michael Snowden, Ernest Christian Winful, Jamie Halsall, Denis Hyams-Ssekasi & Frank Frimpong Opuni

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South-South Cooperation: FAO signs key agreement with Chinese government

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he agreement marks the official launch of Phase III of the FAO-China SouthSouth Cooperation Programme after China’s announcement of an additional $50 million in funding The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has signed an agreement with the Chinese Government officially launching Phase III of the FAO-China South-South Cooperation (SSC) Programme.

The General Agreement was signed by the Director-General of FAO, QU Dongyu and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China,TANG Renjian.

It followed the announcement

by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September 2020 of an additional $50 million in funding for the Programme.

President Xi made the pledge during a video address to the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly.

The agreement underlines “China’s effort to prioritize the development of agriculture and rural areas through the ongoing rural revitalization strategy” and FAO’s mandate in food security and nutrition, agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, “including providing technical assistance to its Members in the field of sustainable development and resilient livelihoods.”

“This is an important

agreement, both in terms of synergy between China’s experience and FAO’s priorities and also for China’s continuous contribution to promoting South-South and Triangular Cooperation, to transform agrifood systems and to achieve Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment and a Better Life for all, leaving no-one behind,” FAO DirectorGeneral QU Dongyu said.

The overarching goal of Phase III of the FAO-China SSC Programme is to support developing countries in achieving sustainable agrifood systems transformation and to contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG1 and SDG2.

Phase III of the FAO-China SSC Programme covers six key thematic areas: agricultural production and productivity; value chains and trade; tropical agriculture and dryland farming; resilience building; emergency response, and global governance and traditional agricultural areas.

Special focus will also be given to food loss and waste, innovation and digital agriculture, among others.

Substantial results In 2009, the FAO-China SSC Programme was established

with an initial contribution of $30 million for Phase I, allowing exchanges of knowledge and experience between China and other countries of the global South. In 2015, China contributed an additional USD 50 million for Phase II of the Programme.

The FAO-China SSC Programme has achieved substantial results to date. Under this flagship South-South and Triangular Cooperation Programme, a total of 25 national, regional, interregional and global projects have been implemented to support agricultural development and food security in line with countries’ priorities and needs.

The Programme has reached more than 100,000 direct beneficiaries and several hundred thousand indirect beneficiaries at grassroots level in rural areas.

Chinese experts fielded in host countries have transferred practical and adaptable technologies by providing demand-driven demonstrations

and trainings in collaboration with local counterparts.

In addition to the field projects, more than 50 global capacity development events and activities have been organized with the participation of thousands of government officials, technical experts, small-scale farmers and other stakeholders from over 100 FAO’s member states.

FAO's role in South-South and Triangular Cooperation The successful introduction of new technologies through SSTC in many countries has contributed to increased food security, especially through the improvement of agricultural productivity, diversification of food crops, small animal and fish production, and rural incomes.

Over the past two decades, a total of $435 million has been invested in SSTC projects and activities.

Africa joins race to acquire Pfizer's COVID-19 Paxlovid pills

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fizer Inc (PFE.N) on Tuesday said its antiviral COVID-19 pill showed near 90% efficacy in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients, and recent lab data suggests the drug retains its effectiveness against the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The U.S. drugmaker last month said the oral medicine was around 89% effective in preventing hospitalizations or deaths when compared to placebo, based on interim results in around 1,200 people. Data from its final analysis Published by Business24 Ltd. Nii Asoyii Street, Mempeasem East Legon-Accra, Ghana.

of the trial disclosed on Tuesday includes an additional 1,000 people.

Nobody in the trial who received the Pfizer treatment died, compared with 12 deaths among placebo recipients.

The Pfizer pills are taken with the older antiviral ritonavir every 12 hours for five days beginning shortly after onset of symptoms. If authorized, the treatment will be sold as Paxlovid.

"It's a stunning outcome," Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said in an interview.

Tel: 030 296 5297 | 030 296 5315 Editor: Benson Afful editor@business24.com.gh +233 545 516 133

"We're talking about a staggering number of lives saved and hospitalizations prevented. And of course, if you deploy this quickly after infection, we are likely to reduce transmission dramatically," Dolsten said.

Pfizer also released early data from a second study suggesting that the treatment reduced hospitalizations by around 70% in a smaller trial of standard-risk adults, including some higher-risk vaccinated people.

Pfizer said those results showed a positive trend, but were not business24.com.gh

statistically significant. They are following the results and plan to release data from the final 20% of participants in the 1,100-patient trial. The trial did not show that the drug alleviated symptoms of COVID-19 in that population.

Dolsten said he expects authorization for use in high-risk individuals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies soon. He does not believe an FDA advisory panel meeting will be needed.

Reuters