Business24 Newspaper 6th October, 2021 by Business24 Online

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

BUSINESS24.COM.GH

Wednesday October 6, 2021

Republic Bank introduces new mortgage repayment plans See page 9

NO. B24 / 257 | News for Business Leaders

Special Report on Manufacturing

"Ghana's ambition for manufacturing-led growth and development" Inside

‘Oil palm could be Ghana’s new gold’ By Patrick Paintsil p_paintsil@hotmail.com

AFD to deepen alliances with dev’t banks— Country Director By Eugene Davis ugendavis@gmail.com

urging demand for oil palm both domestically and across the continent suggests there is a huge market for the commodity that Ghana could explore to boost its gains from the single continental market, says Samuel Awonnea Avaala, a director and General Manager of the nation’s biggest producer of the commodity, Benso Oil Palm Plantation Plc. Oil palm consumption in Africa

hristophe Cottet, the Country Director of Agence Francaise de Development (AFD), says the French development agency will focus in the years ahead on strengthening its partnerships with emerging developing banks. See page 3

Cont’d on page 2

ECOWAS Parliament to chart new roadmap for peace at upcoming meeting By Eugene Davis ugendavis@gmail.com

he upcoming Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament is expected to develop a new roadmap aimed at ensuring peace and political stability in the sub-region, the leader of Ghana’s delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has said. Cont’d on page 3

Cont’d on page 2 Cont’d on page 2

Editorial / News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Editorial

AFD’s plan to work with dev’t banks is most appropriate

ommercial banks’ lending to the private sector has not been encouraging, especially amid the resurging pandemic, and in the instances where they get to extend credit to businesses, those facilities are mostly short-termed. The banks, however, cannot be blamed either because they won’t part with other peoples’ savings for long, even more so that recent data has revealed a surge in bad loans on their balance sheets. It is not surprising that the thought of establishing a development bank to offer patient capital or credit facilities to some strategic anchor sectors of the economy has been greeted with so much enthusiasm across

board. Adding some impetus to this trend is the decision of the French development agency (AFD) to strike good partnerships with development banks whose purpose of operations are both specific and critical. For a nation that is in dire need of funding for its most pressing infrastructural projects, such alliances with donor partners like that of the AFD come in very handy. As aptly stated by financial analysts, the kind of alliances would will enhance access to long-term credit and loans for companies and support critical sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture and housing Thankfully, there is already a

legislation to supervise or enforce the operations of development banks in the county. The Development Finance Institutions Act 2020, Act 1032, was passed by Parliament and received presidential assent on October 27, 2020. The Act establishes the framework for licensing, regulation, and supervision of DFIs within the country. It must be noted that development banks are the models for the future of banking and it is just right for Ghana’s bilateral and donor struck the right partnerships that could see specific businesses accessing funds that are peculiar to the needs of the respective sectors in which they find themselves.

‘Oil palm could be Ghana’s new gold’ Continued from cover

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hit 9m metric tonnes in 2020 against an average of 6m metric tonnes in the past ten years, with Ghana named among the countries where oil palm imports are increasing, he argued. “Now that we’re in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, it is a fine opportunity for Ghana to increase its oil palm production so that we can satisfy our own needs and also export to the sub-region and even the whole of Africa,” Mr. Avaala said at the company’s recently held Facts behind the Figures session. According to the global research firm Fitch Solutions, the West African palm oil sector will struggle to increase production substantially due to a number of long-standing challenges, but at the same time improvements in the conditions for investment in the region, in particular growing demand and high palm oil prices, will incentivise plantings. The firm also tips Ghana as a bright spot for production growth in the coming years, where recently established government and industry bodies will help

to address some of the existing challenges. This trend shows the huge prospects for the oil palm market, but to achieve that, government will have to address the cumbersome land tenure system and facilitate access to patient capital backed by the right publicprivate sector partnerships, Mr. Avaala said. “If we get these two, the rest will fall in line, especially in terms of human capital. There are plantations in Ghana that are RSVO-certified with approved human resources. We can expand and accelerate all of these with the Tree Crops Development Authority and industry associations.”

Mr. Avaala also announced that Benso Oil Palm is exploring new options to raise patient capital to finance its plan to double both production capacity and value and also position the company for sustainable growth. The company intends to raise the new funds either through the bank or the local bourse to support its ambitious targets. “With oil palm production, you’re not going to harvest anything in the first four years. So, you’ll either need patient capital with a four-year moratorium and up to ten-year span. Therefore, selling of shares or raising patient capital from the stock market will be the right way to go,” he said.

News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

ECOWAS Parliament to chart new roadmap for peace at upcoming meeting Continued from cover Winneba will host this ECOWAS event from October 12 to 22 following an earlier conference in July this year, when the city hosted the Delocalised ECOWAS meeting. According to Afenyo-Markin, who is also the Deputy Majority Leader in Ghana’s Parliament, the event will afford the regional bloc the opportunity to take stock of all activities in the past 20 years and draw up new strategies to improve peace and political stability in the sub-region. Addressing the press at Parliament House in Accra on Tuesday, he said, “We are going to review everything that we have done as a sub-region for the past 20 years and perhaps come up with a new roadmap aimed at ensuring peace and political stability. There is also a last extraordinary session that is going to take place in November, and we need to discuss this, get the communiqué and put it across and make sure that the heads of

Alexander Afenyo-Markin

authority are able to know the position of Parliament and same will inform their discourse as we go along.” All 15 member states are expected to participate in the event, except Guinea, which has been suspended. One hundred

and ten MPs from the sub-region are expected to attend the event. Mr. Afenyo-Markin disclosed that President Nana Akufo-Addo will open the session as chairman of ECOWAS. “I have no doubt we will have a profitable and pleasurable event.

It is the first time an ECOWAS session is being hosted outside the capital, and Effutu is ready. We hosted the delocalised meeting, which was highly successful, so we’re looking forward to this one.”

AFD to deepen alliances with dev’t banks— Country Director Continued from cover According to him, development banks are models for the future and are worth investing in, adding that the country’s move to establish a national development finance institution

Christophe Cottet

to provide critical financing for economic development is a positive initiative. “Development banks will be one of our major clients. Very recently, we signed an US$85m agreement with Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund

(GIIF), which is not exactly a development bank. We [also] have a lot of operations with ADB,” he told the press at a validation workshop by the African Center for Economic Transformation on the political economy of national development banks in Ghana. “We would like to have more, and we have been in discussion with others. In the years to come,

a big part of our portfolio will be with development banks,” he added. AFD is expected to provide support through partnership on guarantees when the Development Bank Ghana takes off fully. Finance Minister Ken OforiAtta recently told members of the Association of Ghana Industries that the government is aiming to establish the Development Bank Ghana by the end of 2021 with an initial capitalisation of around US$250m from the government. Financial analysts have stated that the development bank will enhance access to long-term credit and loans for companies, and support critical sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture and housing. The Development Finance Institutions Act 2020, Act 1032, was passed by Parliament and received presidential assent on October 27, 2020. The act establishes a framework for the licensing, regulation, and supervision of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) within the country.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Free Zones showcase Ghanaian businesses to regional market

he Ghana Free Zones Authority (GFZA) has embarked on a robust program to showcase Ghanaian businesses and products to the regional and international markets. As part of this drive, the GFZA recently took part in the second edition of the ‘Ghana Business Expo’ in Abidjan. The three-day event organized by Global Afrique Ltd. between 15th and 17th September 2021 had as its primary focus an objective to help introduce Ghanaian businesses and products to the Ivorian market whilst also creating trading and economic opportunities for both Ghanaian and Ivorian companies. Leading the Ghanaian delegation to the expo was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GFZA, Mr Michael Oquaye Jnr who also chaired a seminar organized on the side-lines of the expo to share ideas on trading and business development. He was accompanied by Mr. Kwame Nsiah Asante, Director of Estate and Zones, Mrs. Patience Acorlor, Director GFZA

Tema Regional Office, Ms. Anita Novi Quashie Marketing and Promotions Manager, and other staff members from GFZA. In attendance at the expo was the Minister Plenipotentiary (Economic and Political) of the Ghana Embassy in Cote d’Ivoire, Mr Moses Envolah who represented the Ghana Ambassador in Cote d`Ivoire; high ranking representative of the Ivorian Customs who educated participating Ghanaian businesses on the tax and tariff systems in Cote d’Ivoire and duties aligned to the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Officials of the Ivorian Food and Drugs Authority (CODINORM) were also present to apprise the Ghanaian companies of standards and certification for entry into the Ivorian market. Making his opening remarks, Mr Oquaye Jnr expressed his delight at seeing businesses in the two sister countries create more avenues for trade investments. He was hopeful the Business Expo would create a deeper linkage between Ghana and Cote d`Ivoire to ensure a quicker economic recovery from the

Covid-19 scourge. According to him “Statistics shows that in 2019, Ghana exported $114 million worth of goods mainly made up of unglazed ceramics, used clothing, and synthetic filament yarn woven fabric to Cote d’Ivoire.” “In the same year under discussion, Cote d’Ivoire also exported $234 worth of goods to Ghana” he added. He advised Ghanaian businesses participating in the expo to take advantage of the opportunities presented under AfCFTA and enter into joint ventures with their counterparts from Cote d’Ivoire to create economies of scale to better serve the whole of Africa. The GFZA CEO and his team took the opportunity to have

private industry meetings with several Ivorian institutions, notable amongst these are the Centre de Promotion des Investissements en Cote d’Ivoire (CEPICI) and the Village des Technologies de L’Information et de la Biotechnologie de Cote d’Ivoire (VITIB). The team also travelled to VITIB Free Zones in Grande Bassam where they met with the Chief Executive Officer of VITIB the Free Zones Authority in Cote d`Ivoire, Dr. Philippe A. Pango. Discussions centered on investment opportunities flowing into Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire and how the two countries could build synergies to attract more investments.

UPSA launches Enterprise and Innovation Centre to offer support to student entrepreneurs

he University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) has opened an Enterprise and Innovation Centre aimed at fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship by unearthing, grooming and supporting students with compelling business ideas into viable businesses. The newly-launched UPSA Enterprise and Innovation Centre (UEIC) is targeting young entrepreneurs with vital practical experience to set them up to run their own student businesses. While working on real-life business with their own business ideas, they will be equipped with the needed technical support from experienced industry players. The Dean of Faculty of Management Studies, Dr Fidelis Quansah, says most forwardlooking universities across the globe are becoming business hubs and incubators, and the fulcrum around which high growth businesses are built. She said it was against this backdrop that the faculty of

Management Studies with support from the entire University community was championing this initiative. “I am excited that our students who decide to climb the good tree of entrepreneurship from now on will be given the needed push from the UPSA Enterprise and Innovation Centre,” Dr Mrs Quansah said at the official launch of the centre. The Vice-Chancellor of UPSA, Prof Abednego F. O. Amartey, in a speech read on his behalf by Dr

Koryoe Anim-Wright, Registrar of UPSA, observed that global economy is rapidly changing with the advent of technology. These economic dynamics, he said, have been compounded by youth unemployment, calling for graduates that are equipped with the requisite skills, capabilities, attributes and mentoring not only to be entrepreneurial but also accorded the necessary financial and technical support to enable them succeed. “This is what the UPSA

Enterprise and Innovation Centre seeks to offer,” the ViceChancellor said. He added that the Centre will support students to fine-tune their business ideas – from startup to scale up – by giving them the support they need to thrive. It will also offer budding student entrepreneurs the platform to bring their ideas to life while connecting them to experts, support network, mentoring, facilities and funding to grow their businesses. “We applaud the partners who have walked the talk, by partnering UPSA to create this Enterprise and Innovation Centre where many more Ghanaian entrepreneurs like themselves will be discovered, supported and encouraged to thrive and have sustainable businesses that will outlive them.” Prof Amartey said as someone who is passionate about entrepreneurship and innovation, he believes, the two hold the key to job creation.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Tullow to support economic development through sustainable oil and gas development

he Chief executive Officer of Tullow Oil Plc, Rahul Dhir, has said that Tullow’s renewed Corporate Strategy and purpose is to build a better future through responsible oil and gas development that creates value for host nations, investors, staff and communities. Mr. Rahul Dhir disclosed this when he led the senior leadership team of Tullow Oil Plc to pay a courtesy call on the Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at the Jubilee House. Speaking about Tullow renewed strategy, Mr. Rahul Dhir, said the company remained committed to supporting government’s efforts of delivering economic development. He said, “Tullow recognizes that the risk of climate change is real, but the energy security for development is key to Africa’s growth. To this end, Tullow Oil Plc is committed to a long-term plan of working with the Government of Ghana and other African countries in the recovery of oil and gas resources that enables us to support government’s efforts of delivering economic development.” “Tullow has, therefore, made a firm commitment to become a Net Zero company by 2030 on its Scope 1 and 2 emissions through a combination of decarbonising its operated assets in Ghana and pursuing a nature-based carbon

removal programme to offset our hard to abate emissions. Over the next decade, Tullow plans to partner with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forestry Commission and other government agencies to pursue carbon offset projects such as reforestation, afforestation and conservation in order to reduce Co2 emissions,” he added. Commenting on the performance of the company, Mr. Dhir and the SLT said, a strong operational performance and the completion of a transformational debt refinancing programme, had put the company on a firm footing to deliver its Business Plan. The company is witnessing good operational progress in Ghana with rising gross production from the Jubilee and TEN fields and stable uptime on the two FPSOs at an average of 98%.

The Executives also provided an update on the Jubilee Partners’ progress on the Ghana Value Maximisation Plan. Over the last year, Tullow and its partners have had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the Ghana Assets. Given the quality of the Jubilee and TEN fields – the potential for a highly profitable investment opportunity through a combination of measures, the JV partners are investing in the next 10 years, over $4 billion through the ‘Value Maximisation Plan’ that will deliver consistent revenue to the Government of Ghana and value to the nation. The plan includes the drilling of over 50 new wells over the 10year period, as part of a multiyear and multi well campaign, and installation of additional

PIAC gets newly constituted board

embership of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), the statutory body with oversight responsibility of the management and use of the country’s petroleum revenues, has been reconstituted following the expiration of the tenure of some Members. New Members were swornin together with some members who had their tenure renewed by their nominating institutions in Accra. The new members are Mrs Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee who replaced Professor Akosua Darkwah, as the representative of the Independent Policy Research Think Tanks and Odeefuo Amoakwa Buadu VIII, representing the National House of Chiefs, and replacing Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II. The members who were re-

nominated are Professor Kwame Adom-Frimpong, representing the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), Mr Nasir Alfa Mohammed of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA) and Mr Bashiru Abdul-Razak of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI). In a short address, a Deputy Minister for Finance, Mr John Kumah, reiterated government’s commitment to supporting PIAC to carry out its mandate. He urged the Members to consider their appointment as a call to public service, and to fulfil the mandate of PIAC to ensure that citizens benefitted from the country’s petroleum revenue. In a response, Professor Kwame Adom-Frimpong urged government to take action on PIAC’s recommendations to ensure effective and efficient use

of petroleum revenues. The reconstituted committee re-elected Professor Kwame Adom-Frimpong as its Chairman for another one-year term in a meeting on Thursday, 30th September, 2021. Accepting his re-election, he expressed gratitude to the Committee for the confidence reposed in him, and pledged his commitment to PIAC and service of the citizenry. Prof. Adom-Frimpong is currently the Managing Director of Mainstream Reinsurance Company. He previously worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers as Audit Supervisor, SSNIT as Head of Audit, and at ABC Brewery Company as Senior Cost and Management Accountant. As a graduate of the University of Wales, Bangor, UK (MBA) and the University of London, he also

subsea infrastructure. This year marked the beginning of the implementation of the plan, with a target to drill and complete 4 wells across the Jubilee and TEN fields. So far, three wells have been drilled and completed. The 2021 drilling campaign will offset near-term production decline, and further wells in 2022 will see production materially recovered and sustained for the long term. When completed, the plan is expected to benefit the Government of Ghana in terms of revenues from petroleum estimated at a total of over $10 billion. The Tullow delegation, which comprised the Chief Executive Officer Rahul Dhir, Chief Finance Officer Les Wood, General Counsel Mike Walsh and Director, People and Sustainability Julia Ross as well as the leadership of Tullow Ghana represented by Managing Director for Ghana, Wissam Al Monthiry, also an SLT member and Deputy Managing Director for Ghana, Cynthia Lumor, also paid courtesy calls on the Ministry of Energy, Petroleum Commission, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Ghana Stock Exchange, the Bank of Ghana, Environmental Protection Authority, Forestry Commission the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), amongst others.

obtained a Doctorate degree in Business Administration (DBAFinance option) from the Faculty of Professional Studies, Arcadia University, USA, in 2001 and again had PhD in Economics Finance from the same University in 2004. Prof. Adom-Frimpong is a qualified Chartered Accountant, and the immediate past President of the ICAG (2018- 2020). He is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Bankers (FCIB) and Chartered Insurance Institute of Ghana (FCIIG). He is also a Barrister-at-Law, and a member of the Ghana Bar Association. After his re-election, Prof Adom-Frimpong swore in Mr Osei Kwadwo Addo as a Member, representing the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA). The newly-elected Vice Chair of the Committee is Mr Nasir Alfa Mohammed of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA).

News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp back after global outage

ocial media services Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are gradually being restored after a global outage, which lasted nearly sixhours. "To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us," Facebook said. The services, owned by Facebook could not be accessed on the web and smartphone apps. Downdetector, which tracks outages, said it was the largest failure it had ever seen, with 10.6 million problem reports around the world. The outage began around noon Eastern time (1600 GMT) and service had yet to be restored more than four hours later. On Sunday, a whistleblower accused Facebook of repeatedly prioritizing profit over clamping down on hate speech and misinformation. The firm owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Shares of Facebook (FB.O), which has nearly 2 billion daily active users, opened lower after the weekend whistleblower report and slipped further to

trade down 5.3% in afternoon trading on Monday. They were on track for their worst day in nearly a year, amid a broader selloff in technology stocks on Monday. Facebook was inaccessible because users were not being directed to the correct place by the Domain Name System. Facebook itself controls the relevant settings, suggesting the problem was an internal one. Security experts said the disruption could be the result of an internal mistake, though sabotage by an insider would be theoretically possible. DNS allows web addresses to take users to their destinations. A similar outage at cloud company Akamai Technologies Inc (AKAM.O) took down multiple websites in July. An outside hack was viewed as less likely. A massive denial-of-service attack that could overwhelm one of the world’s most popular sites would require either coordination among powerful criminal groups or a very innovative technique, security experts said. Facebook acknowledged users were having trouble accessing its apps but did not provide any specifics about the nature of the problem or how many were affected by the outage.

“We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience,” Facebook tweeted about 30 minutes after the first reports of the outage. One Facebook employee told Reuters that all internal tools were down. Facebook’s response was made much more difficult because employees lost access to some of their own tools in the shutdown, people tracking the matter said. Multiple employees said they had not been told what had gone wrong. The social media giant, which is the second largest digital advertising platform in the world, was losing about $545,000 in U.S. ad revenue per hour during the outage, according to estimates from ad measurement firm

Standard Media Index. The estimates were based on total Facebook and Instagram ad spending from major advertising agencies during January to August this year. Downdetector - which only tracks outages by collating status reports from a series of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform - showed there were more than 50,000 incidents of people reporting issues with Facebook and Instagram. The outage might be affecting a larger number of users. WhatsApp, the social-media giant’s instant messaging platform, was also down for over 35,000 users, while Messenger was down for nearly 9,800 users. Reuters /BBC/GNA

FanMilk donates NutriDay yoghurt to schools

anMilk PLC, Ghana’s leading manufacturer of dairy based and juice-based products has embarked on a ‘Strong at School’ drive to promote the consumption of nutrient rich foods while at school. With the new Strong at School programme FanMilk has provided 150,000 school children across Ghana with the new zinc fortified NutriDay yoghurt, to support their immune systems. This comes on the back of the company’s one-planet one-health agenda and its commitment to protect the health of its people and keep the environment safe. Following the global health pandemic, interest in healthy living among consumers have heightened exponentially. Parents have adopted healthy eating measures to ensure that they avoid diseases while boosting the whole family’s immune systems. Now, as schools resume,

it is important that the trend continues, hence FanMilk’s initiative to roll out a donation drive to keep Ghanaian children healthy while in school. FanMilk’s Marketing Director, Samuel Dery, explained the idea saying “As a Danone company, we are always looking for ways to serve our people with healthy products and impact our community positively. You may recall how in 2017, we introduced the FanChoco school caravan, an innovative school programme that has now trained 250,000 children in good sanitation practices, while providing them with healthy snacks. We followed that with the launch of SuperYogo, Ghana’s first fortified frozen yoghurt which contains Vitamins B6 & D to support the immune system.” “Now recently when COVID struck, we responded by launching the latest addition to

our nutrition portfolio, the new NutriDay Yoghurt, fortified with Zinc to support the immune system. NutriDay also contains Vitamin A, B6, B12, and Calcium and it was designed to support the immune system and help Ghanaians in the fight against COVID 19. We will keep innovating to ensure Ghanaians are well nourished.” Speaking on the initiative, Ziobeieton Yeo, Managing Director, FanMilk Ghana, said “FanMilk, has a dual mission; a social mission and a business mission. We know that there’s no healthy business without a healthy community. That’s why we are showing our strong commitment in times like this, when we must all make a conscious effort to eat foods rich in nutrients such as zinc to boost our immune system, as the world continues to battle coronavirus.” “We understand and share in

the nutrition vision of Ghanaian families. We also understand that parents, especially mothers are always thinking of how to keep their children nourished and healthy especially now that they are in school. To make it easier, we are bringing NutriDay to the schools so that parents can focus on other things while their children are at school, knowing that they are getting the right source of nutrients whenever they enjoy their bottle of NutriDay,” he added. FanMilk Ghana has been in existence since 1962 and is currently engaged in the production and distribution of quality refreshing dairy and juicebased products.

News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Republic Bank introduces new mortgage repayment plans

epublic Bank (Ghana) PLC has introduced on the market two new mortgage repayment plans that are targeted at giving home owners more flexible forms of repayment and saving on interest paid at the end of the loan term. This is the first of its kind in Ghana and provides customers the ability to save up to 40% of their total interest on the mortgage loan and repay earlier without increasing the loan installment. Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Farid Antar, Managing Director of Republic Bank (Ghana) PLC said, the Bank has over the years been deliberating on methods of making home ownership experience less stressful and value adding for both existing and potential mortgage customers. “As a pioneer of the mortgage business in Ghana, our focus has been on coming up with attractive value

propositions to aid our diverse customer segments whilst making the entire mortgage journey easy and affordable for them” he said. The new repayment plans are meant to eliminate the view of mortgage acquisition in Ghana being frustrating and lengthy. He added that the two new repayment plans reduce the

number of repayment years’ customers would have to satisfy their mortgage. Mr. Farid Antar explained that the core of the Bank is Customer Satisfaction, “we are obsessed with providing Ghanaians an incredible mortgage process through our powerful expertise, knowledge and quick processes.

Customers now have many ways of repaying their mortgages no matter their salary structure. Our customers deserve the opportunity to easily choose the method that makes them most comfortable and these additional repayment options truly puts the power of choice into their hands” he said. The introduction of the two new repayment plans is to cement Republic Bank as the bank of choice for all mortgage or homeownership needs whilst giving its existing and potential customers options that best suit their pockets. As the pioneer of mortgage banking with over 30 years of experience, Republic Bank has been very instrumental in the Ghanaian mortgage banking space providing thousands of home loans to Ghanaians home and abroad. The Bank continues to be the most diversified financial institution in the country and the number one home loan provider.

Prof Frimpong tours UGBS Innovation and Incubation Hub

he Provost of the College of Humanities, Professor Daniel Frimpong Ofori, paid a working visit to the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS). The Provost toured the UGBS to familiarise himself with ongoing renovation projects at the school with special emphasis on the UGBS Innovation and Incubation Hub. The Provost was warmly welcomed at the foyer of the

business school by the school’s Dean, Professor Justice Bawole, together with members of the school management committee including: Professor Kwame Asamoah, Professor Charles Andoh, Professor Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah, Dr. Anthony Afful-Dadzie, and the School Administrator, Mr. Emmanuel Poku-Sarkodee. Also present were Professor Mohammed Amidu; Mrs. Selina Saaka and the

UGBS Innovation and Incubation Hub Coordinator, Dr. George Acheampong. Professor Justice Bawole briefed the Provost on the various renovation projects on the business school’s drawing board. The Dean stated that there are plans to renovate and redemarcate sections of the old UGBS graduate building to incorporate a PhD Lounge; creation of additional office

spaces as well as remodelling some of the large lecture halls into smaller rooms for dual use purposes. At the Innovation and Incubation Hub located at the basement of the auditorium, Dr. George Acheampong, the coordinator, presented a synopsis of the project. His briefing included the project aims and objectives, outputs and anticipated outcomes. He indicated that the project sponsor, AMG Fertilizers had assured the school that the contractor hopes to hand over the project by the end of October 2021. The Provost expressed his satisfaction with the pace of work of the various projects and commended the School’s management and staff for the initiatives. He was hopeful that upon completion, the Innovation and Incubation Hub would be the game-changing driver of the Business School’s production of digital technology entrepreneurs. To this end, the Provost pledged the full support of the College to enable the School achieve its objectives.

Feature

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Free mobile money transactions and the cash-lite economy

ith the wide-spread use of mobile phone devices, the introduction of mobile money in Ghana since 2009 has had quite a significant impact on the Ghanaian economy by reducing unemployment to some extent, developing the payment ecosystem, providing a means of savings for people without access to banks, timely completion of financial transactions, among others. More than a decade down the line and the importance of mobile money to the economy cannot be underrated especially during this pandemic where the risk of fomite transmissions through paper money can be reduced by using cashless payment systems. In 2020 alone, the volume of mobile money transactions was worth GHc 571.8 billion according to the Deputy Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor, Mrs. Elsie Awadzi, thus surpassing all other payment platforms. The telecommunication companies have mobile money services offered at a little fee per transaction, yet mobile money merchants who aim to maximize their profits have made it costly by introducing unapproved charges. They do not comply with the rules of transaction stated by the telephone companies and thereby, discouraging consumer patronage to some extent. This is somewhat due to the poor education of the customer base and the laxity of telcos in monitoring the actions of merchants and enforcing compliance.

Wow! It’s free. Who would’ve imagined a charge-free mobile money transaction? I transferred a huge sum of money from my Vodafone Cash (VF Cash) wallet and it incurred no charges. Interestingly, this is a crossnetwork transaction that I have always known to incur higher transaction rates than transactions on the same network. Kudos to the Government for the Mobile Money Interoperability (MMI) initiative and to Vodafone Ghana for making all VF Cash transfers including those across the MMI platform free. This probably is a marketing strategy aimed at increasing the patronage of VF- Cash and thus, the customer base of Vodafone Ghana at large but ruminating on this makes me appreciate the reduction in financial burden on customers too. It’s already a year and counting since Vodafone Ghana waived charges on mobile money transfers to all networks yet with the profit motive of most businesses, other networks still charge fees. Other telcos should learn, emulate and have Vodafone’s innovation continued even post-Covid. Why? Aside from drastically reducing the financial burden on customers, and frustrating hard cash transactions within the pandemic, waiving charges on mobile money transaction will tend to make the service more appealing to the ordinary Ghanaian and effect a rise in patronage, and impacting the incidence of robberies and loss of one’s money. As unsafe as our communities

and roads can be to move cash, mobile money provides a form of insurance to patrons since they do not have to worry about the risk of attacks by armed men on our highways. In cases of such attacks where mobile devices are lost, one could simply have their SIM cards replaced at almost no cost with their e-cash intact after meeting the requirements. As the world migrates to a digital economy, telecommunications companies must change their perspective from mobile money being a means of convenience to it being a necessary luxury, and hence, mobile money charges particularly on person to person (P2P) transactions should be phased out, or drastically reduced and applied increasingly on Person to Business (P2B), and Business to Business (B2B) transactions. It is worth noting that MTN has zero charges for transactions below GH¢100 However, more can be done. Telecommunication companies like other businesses are inclined to profit-making as they owe financial obligations to shareholders, employees, and the state. This could render phasing out charges on transactions an impossible feat but largely compensated for by considering how much revenue these telcos could be losing through the illegal practices of rogue merchants and developing robust measures to curb the illegality. That is not to disprove the loss of some revenue but as difficult as it might seem to sacrifice some percentage of the revenue generated from mobile money

transactions, we learn from Vodafone that it is possible, and is a step in the right direction to reduce cash in circulation to some extent. Mobile money charges on cash withdrawals could have the rates revised to champion the course of a cashlite economy. I believe this initiative can be taken up by the Government through the Bank of Ghana in the quest to develop a cashlite economy, where a more effective and efficient monetary management of the economy can be done. Also, a proper national identification system aiding the registration of SIM cards would help reduce the incidence of money laundering through mobile money services since clients are known through the National Identification System. Telecommunication companies should develop robust measures in monitoring their merchants, thus, discouraging the dubious practices that their merchants use in ripping customers off. This would make the mobile money service appealing to many. Also, the government and its regulatory agencies, particularly the Bank of Ghana, National Communications Authority, Economic and Organized Crime Office, etc. should force the hands of these telecommunication companies to work towards zero charges on mobile money transfers to champion the digital economy dream. Contact: t.edmund@hotmail.com; 0559766195

Feature

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

The neglected sources of China's economic resilience By Zhang Jun

ver the last 20 years, a number of thriving technology companies have emerged in China. This has invited much speculation about the country’s scientific and technological prowess, and about its ability to innovate. Some argue that China is already nipping at America’s heels in these domains, and has become a world leader in some sectors. Others believe that China is not quite as far along as it may appear, and the government’s regulatory clampdown on tech companies will impede its continued progress. Which is it? Those who doubt China’s progress emphasize the country’s reliance on Western technology, pointing out that its homegrown tech companies still do not compete with their American counterparts globally. But China optimists note that those companies continue their rapid international expansion, a reflection of China’s exceptional capacity for learning. The latter camp has a point. In fact, China’s capacity for learning is the secret to the country’s economic success, and it says much more about China’s prospects than where the country stands technologically. After all, technological innovation is less an input than an output of entrepreneur-led economic development. It is by building thriving businesses that entrepreneurs gain opportunities to develop new technologies and applications. True, China has faced growing external challenges in recent years, including clampdowns on technology sharing by developed economies. Furthermore, the government’s efforts to maintain internal economic order and mitigate financial risks, such as through increased regulation of tech companies, has been controversial in the market. And some foreign manufacturing firms have reportedly withdrawn from China. But the economy has not ground to a halt. On the contrary, the entrepreneurial impulse driving China’s development remains strong. It helps that China has a huge internal market of 1.4 billion people connected by well-developed transportation systems, advanced communication networks, and flexible and efficient supply chains. While many foreign firms have come and gone, this has always

happened, and it is not because outsiders are treated unfairly in the Chinese market. Foreign companies simply struggle to compete with local companies, which enjoy a significant advantage, including less bureaucratic red tape and deeper market knowledge. Moreover, while foreign firms might arrive in China with a slight technological advantage, it is usually shortlived, given how fast Chinese companies learn. Today, there is a staggering number of successful small and medium-size Chinese companies. They might not be household names – in fact, they’re referred to as “invisible champions” – but they are constantly innovating in applying advanced technologies. And their ranks continue to grow. There is also a large number of Chinese companies serving overseas customers, with many maintaining a far larger presence in Europe and the United States than in China. These firms leverage China’s efficient warehousing, distribution, and logistics systems, as well as its superior capabilities in product design and manufacturing, to bolster their competitiveness in overseas markets. Shein, an online fast-fashion retailer that was founded in 2008 in Nanjing, is a typical example of such a firm. It began as a crossborder e-commerce company, selling clothing via platforms like Amazon and eBay. But, in 2014, the company created its own brand and launched a bespoke website and app in markets around the world, from the US and Europe to the Middle East and India. By selling inexpensive clothing directly to consumers, Shein thrived. Before long, it had become the second-most-popular e-commerce site for young

Americans, behind only Amazon. According to Google trends, users in the US – Shein’s leading market – search for Shein more than three times as often as they search for Zara. Despite being worth an estimated $15 billion, Shein was not particularly well-known in China until last year, when it was listed as one of China’s top-ten “unicorns” (private companies with a valuation over $1 billion). That is because it does not serve the Chinese market. Instead, it has leveraged China’s advantages – the result of huge amounts of government investment over the last 20 years – to build its own flexible supply chain, concentrated in Guangdong, the country’s most developed manufacturing center. Thanks to this supply chain, Shein is reportedly able to take a product from design to production in ten days. Its fastfashion competitors – whose products are typically designed in Europe, manufactured in Southeast Asia and China, sent to European headquarters for warehousing, and then shipped to global markets – simply cannot keep up. Shein has also started to build warehouses in some key markets. Shein is no anomaly. China boasts a number of other fastfashion cross-border e-commerce platforms, and a total of 251 unicorns, as of last year. The list includes social-media apps such as TikTok, which has taken the world by storm. The influence of Chinese internet companies is large and still growing in the European, American, and South Asian markets. China’s government is partly to thank. After the SARS outbreak of 2003, it worked to support the expansion of e-commerce. Then, to offset the shock of the

2008 global financial crisis, it made continuous investments in internet, communication, and transportation networks, mobilepayment systems, logistics and warehousing capabilities, and supply chains, while promoting linkages among sectors. These efforts have helped strengthen and sustain the economy’s base-level sources of innovative dynamism. To be sure, China’s super-size, fast-growing economy suffers from its structural problems, which seem not to correspond with its underlying dynamism. This apparent discrepancy is a reminder of the economy’s complexity. For example, because the state-owned sector captures a disproportionate share of financial resources, it is often regarded as a source of misallocation. But recent studies find that state-owned enterprises might have served as an informal channel for alleviating the financing constraints of small and medium-size enterprises. Those who focus excessively on surface-level phenomena will continue to underestimate China’s economic resilience. One cannot truly understand the Chinese economy and its prospects without paying attention to the irrepressible dynamism that forms its base. Zhang Jun, Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University, is Director of the China Center for Economic Studies, a Shanghaibased think tank.

News

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

CSOs call for end to gender-based violence in West Africa

he international hybrid conference for the CSO networks capacity building workshop on advocacy to end gender-based violence and child marriage has ended in Ghana with a call to end gender-based voilence situations in Ghana and West Africa. This initiative was implemented by ProHumane Afrique International - Ghana with the development Research and Projects Center (dRPC) Nigeria with funding from the Ford Foundation West Africa Office through its BUILD project. Participants joined from Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, Senegal and Liberia. This international conference held at Miklin Hotel in Ghana sought to among other things to; increase knowledge, awareness and understanding of new and emerging factors putting girls and women at risk of Gender Based Violence and child marriage. The conference as part of its objectives addressed new and emerging opportunities to ending these practices, identified advocacy issues to end child marriage and strengthen the capacity and efficacy of selected CSOs and CSO networks to design and conduct evidence informed advocacy to on how to accelerate action to end GBV and Child Marriage. Selected CSOs and CSO networks including

the SDG Goal 5 platform, Girls Not Brides, Netwright, UNFPA and the University of Ghana’s Department of Gender among others took turns to address the delegates during the opening ceremony. Conference delegates undertook an advocacy visit conducted on the third day to the 50th year old OIC Ghana one of the first and oldest TVET centers in Ghana where the students of the center were educated and encouraged to speak up on GBV issues. The authorities thanked the delegates and pledge commitments to supporting the center create more awareness to its students through the Guidance and Counseling unit of the center.

Government officials, academia, CSO networks, implementing partners as well as non-government actors, shared experiences on issues of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and propose how these global issues can be addressed. Globally, 12 million girls marry before age 18 each year – which is almost one every 2 seconds. More than 150 million girls by 2030 will be married before age 18 if we don’t take action to stop child marriage now! Child marriage violates girls’ rights to health, education and opportunity. Ending child marriage and guaranteeing girls’ rights means a fairer, more secure and prosperous future for all.

Present at the opening ceremony, Ghana’s Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Sarah Adjoa Safo’s special representative, in an address read on her behalf, said gender-based violence was a violation of fundamental human rights that denied the victim’s human dignity and hampered national development. The unequal power relations among men and women were one of the root causes of gender-based violence faced by the country and the continent as a whole, she said. The minister said her ministry had developed several policies, laws, and strategies to protect women and girls to enable them to fully contribute their quota to national development. Among these frameworks were a fiveyear strategic plan to address adolescent pregnancy in Ghana, a national gender policy and its strategic implementation plan, national framework on ending child marriage and national domestic violence policy and plan of action to implement the Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (Act 732). Madam Safo said the Ministry had made interventions as part of efforts to adequately address gender-based violence and child marriage, through engagement with men and boys as advocates for gender equality, and the elimination of harmful cultural practices to aid the rescue of the girl child from early marriage.

Academic City mentors Aburi Girls ahead of global robotic competition

s part of measures to encourage and increase participation of girls in science, technology, engineering

and mathematics (STEM)- related fields, Academic City University College, in partnership with a non-governmental organisation

(NGO) STEMbees, has organised a robotic session for students of the Aburi Girls’ Senior High School (SHS).

The activity is part of measures to prepare students of the school for the upcoming FIRST Global Challenge. The FIRST Global Challenge is an annual Olympicsstyle, international robotics competition. Aburi Girls’ SHS is representing Ghana for this year’s competition which will be participated by 160 countries. The projects under which the students are undertaking for the competition include designing and developing a biodegradable nose mask from plantain fibre, CubeSat prototype and robots for different purposes. The Academic City engineering students are currently mentoring the girls as they develop their project

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Special Report on Manufacturing

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The road to prosperity goes through manufacturing By Special Reports Team

anufacturing—or the business of making things—is a path many nations have trod to prosperity. For more than six decades, Ghana has sought to travel the same road to affluence, with dissatisfying results. Still convinced of the manufacturing route to economic development, the current administration has been making efforts to rev up the sector. Visible progress has been chalked up, but the country is still a long way from fulfilling its aspirations. Since 2017 the government has taken steps to increase investment in manufacturing. Under the One District, One Factory (1D1F) programme, whose goal is to ensure every district in Ghana gets a factory to add value to commodities produced in the district, the state has sponsored the establishment of scores of new factories and the expansion of capacity in some existing ones. According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, 104 factories (both new and expansion projects) have been built and operationalised since the 1D1F programme was launched four years ago, with 150 more under construction. The Ministry estimates that the factories, which range from agroprocessors to a ceramic plant and a steel mill, support about 150,000 direct and indirect jobs. The 1D1F programme is a component of the government's Ten-Point Industrial Transformation Agenda that also includes policies to revive financially depressed manufacturing firms, establish industrial parks and special

economic zones, and improve the general business environment. Besides promoting new factories, the government has helped some struggling yet viable manufacturing firms obtain subsidised credit from banks to revive their operations or fund new investments. One of them, Intravenous Infusions, which makes and sells intravenous fluids to hospitals, has acquired new equipment to scale up and plans to venture into vaccine production in a few years. Manufacturers have also enjoyed a more stable and encouraging macroeconomic environment in the past four years, as evidenced by lower inflation and cedi depreciation rates, which businesses require to help keep their costs under control. Given also the improved reliability of energy supply, it is no accident that real manufacturing output growth more than doubled from an average annual rate of 3 percent in 2014–2016 to 6.6 percent in 2017–2019. The history of economic development suggests that Ghana is justified to pursue manufacturing as a rapid route to prosperity. Today's rich countries—and increasingly well-off ones like China—almost without exception grew rich by making things in factories and over time innovating the processes involved in order to raise national productivity and output. This is the model that the government seeks to follow. Manufacturing provides significant economic benefits. Not only is it a promising

source of productivity growth, which is good for wages and national income growth, but also manufacturing facilitates job creation and economic diversification. And as the World Bank said in a 2019 report, "More diverse economies have more dynamic private sectors and are better able to move into activities with expanding global demand and to participate in global value chains. Economic diversification also helps reduce vulnerability to external shocks that can undermine prospects for longerterm economic growth." For the country to realise these benefits, however, there is a great amount of work to do and a long road to travel. Despite the undeniable progress in the current industrialisation effort, there are many formidable constraints hindering the competitiveness and success of manufacturing firms. These include low access to finance, especially for small businesses; weak infrastructure; a poorly regulated land market; inefficiencies in legal and other public services; and recurring macroeconomic volatility. That

is why despite the buzz about the recently launched regional single market, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), many local businesses fret that they may succumb to competition from other African producers. “The AfCFTA is an opportunity but also a source of competition,” says Nana Osei Bonsu, chief executive of the Private Enterprise Federation, a leading business advocacy organisation. “The question is, can we compete with Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria and others? Do local businesses have the requisite tools to be able to compete with those coming from AfCFTA?” In response to such fears, the government has outlined a plan to assist Ghanaian industries and exporters to improve their competitiveness so as to penetrate the single market. Many public-private discussions have been taking place as the plan is put into operation. How well it accomplishes its goals in the coming years will be an important gauge of the success of the government’s industrialisation agenda.

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Burgeoning auto manufacturing a success story of ambitious industrial drive By Patrick Paintsil

overnment has pulled yet another industrial masterstroke with its automotive policy which is geared towards positioning Ghana as a fully integrated and competitive industrial hub for the assembling of vehicles and spare parts in West Africa. The nation’s automobile industry is witnessing a renewed momentum currently with a number of top global carmakers setting up plants to assemble some of their brands and components locally, a wave of change that makes the domestic car market a significant element of government’s attempt to aggressively transform the economy through industrialisation. The well-thought-through Ghana Automotive Development Programme (GADP), which offers incentives to attract investment into the automotive sector, has gained the buy-in of stakeholders and has already begun to drive transformation across the domestic automotive value chain. “When the government of Ghana announced the policy to encourage the assembling of vehicles in Ghana, Stellantis Group expressed commitment to support it. This is going to be an exciting time for Ghana and our company together in 2022,” said Asad Nazir, Chief Executive Officer of Silver Star Auto, the sole local distributor for Peugeot, when he announced the company’s decision to assemble

the Peugeot 3008 SUV and the newly-introduced Landtrek pickup range of vehicles in Ghana within the next six months. Peugeot is only the newest addition to the list of carmakers building local assembly plants following the introduction of the new auto policy. Nissan, Toyota, Suzuki and Renault have already followed German carmaker Volkswagen (VW) in moving into local assembly of vehicles, and at the core of their motivations is the new auto policy. VW’s plant, based in Accra, has the capacity to assemble 5,000 units annually and will make Tiguan, Teramont, Passat, Polo and Amarok models, initially through its local partner Universal Motors. The German carmaker’s investment in Ghana makes the country the fifth to host a VW plant in sub-Saharan Africa, joining South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda. Ghana’s automotive development programme was born of the conviction that vehicle assembly and automotive components manufacturing could be positioned as a strategic anchor industry to provide opportunities for higher value addition and highly skilled employment. The specific goals of the policy include improving Ghana’s balance of payments through competitive import substitution and export market development, creating sustainable jobs across the automotive value chain, and positioning the nation as the

automotive hub of the sub-region. A thriving automotive sector is likely to generate highly skilled jobs in automotive assembly and the manufacture of components and parts, with spillover effects on other sectors of the economy. According to the government, the automotive policy adds to a raft of measures to create an enabling environment for investments to drive socio-economic transformation. “This [strategy] will help to diversify the nation’s industrial landscape and economy through value-added production, reduce its import bill, and shift from the overreliance on traditional exports,” says Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Michael Okyere Baafi. According to Statista, motor

cars and transport vehicles were the leading commodities imported into Ghana in 2019, as they registered the highest value. This makes Ghana’s automotive policy opportune, because aside saving the economy potential billions of import dollars, the country’s growing middle class can have access to affordable new vehicles in the local market to reduce the heavy reliance on used vehicles, which create environmental and safety issues. Suffice to say that the wave of transformation across the automotive value chain is one success story of the government’s ambitious quest to reposition the Ghanaian economy for sustainable growth through industrialisation.

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Silver Star presents its elegant Peugeot line-up

he Peugeot model of vehicles have a very highquality offering, with vehicles that are fuel-efficient, economical, and are built with enhanced safety features. These vehicles meet the expectations of today’s knowledgeable, demanding and discerning customers, who can expect to have a superior customer experience at Silver Star Auto. The new Peugeot models marketed in Ghana include Peugeot 5008, 3008 and 2008 SUVs; Peugeot 508 and 301 saloon; Peugeot Pick-Up; and the all new Peugeot Landtrek 4x4 Pick-Up. The Peugeot vehicles offer a unique blend of style, comfort and road handling. The spectacular state-of-the-art Peugeot i-Cockpit® gives new meaning to being in the driver’s seat. It offers a more intuitive and intense driving experience, with a compact steering wheel, 12.3” head-up display and central capacitive touchscreen console, with ergonomic piano keys to top it all off. The new Peugeot 3008 also offers a number of driving aids and other high-tech equipment, as well as seamless triple play connectivity. With over 120 years of automotive experience, the new Peugeot 301 saloon car comes in 1.2L (82hp) M/T or 1.6L (115hp) A/T with Bluetooth and USB Connectivity, large boot volume of 640L, rear park assists and a stylish design. Visit Silver Star Auto for our new 7-Seat Peugeot 5008 SUV with 1.6L (165hp), 6 speed A/T with a new Peugeot i-Cockpit, compact multi-function

steering wheel with cruise control and speed limiter, 8-inch touchscreen and triple connectivity, and 7 independent seats with retraceable and removable row 3 seats. The Peugeot Pick-Up comes with 2.5L Turbo Diesel (115hp) engine, roof and roll bars, side step boards and bucket liner as standard, LED Daytime running lights with rear park assists. It also has a central locking with remote key plus 4 electric windows and a spacious cabin with comfortable rear seating. The new Peugeot Landtrek marks the revival of the Peugeot Pick-up and includes all the brand’s best strengths. This new Pick-Up truck completes a range of commercial vehicles from the Peugeot brand, which has been renowned for its robustness and its adaptation to customer uses across the African continent for nearly a century. It enables Peugeot to make a strong comeback on the African market, where the brand has a very strong heritage fuelled by its numerous racing victories, and it personifies the DNA of legendary models such as the 404 wagon and the 504 Pick-Up truck. The brand is becoming increasingly global with the new Peugeot Landtrek, which is entering the One Ton PickUp segment with the goal of becoming a new reference in a market that represents around 300,000 annual sales units in the Middle East Africa region. The new Peugeot Landtrek is available in three body styles: double and single cab as well

as a chassis cab suitable for different conversions. It has the most accommodating body in its category and an adaptability that is unique in the segment. It offers flawless crossing performance and meets both professional and family needs, with a payload that can exceed one tonne and a towing capacity of up to 3.5 tons. When designing the new Peugeot Landtrek, particular attention was paid to reliability, robustness and ease of repair, which are among the main expectations of commercial vehicle customers.

It comes with 1.9L (150hp) engine, 4x4 cruise control and speed limiter, 2 independent seats with central armrest, Radio MP3, Bluetooth, USB with 4 speakers, heavy duty elliptic leaf spring and rear suspension. The guarantee is 5 years or 100,000 km, and the maintenance interval has been extended to 10,000 km with a view to optimising reliability and running costs, key elements for professionals and buyers of commercial vehicles.

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either related or unrelated, and in SMEs to bring them to a competitive level. So, the industrialisation policy should look at how foreign direct investment impacts on the local development of our SME sector. B24: Are there some government policies which are undermining domestic manufacturing, and what should be done about them?

Interview: Nana Osei-Bonsu,

Chief Executive Officer, Private Enterprise Federation The seasoned private sector advocate shares his thoughts on the state of the manufacturing sector and Ghana’s industrialisation policies. B24: How would you describe the present state of Ghana’s manufacturing sector? NOB: Nothing to write home about, because manufacturing should be the lead to provide wealth and jobs to the nation. But our manufacturing doesn’t create products. We have research institutions like CSIR and other businesses that are not creating the potential business products. The manufacturing sector needs to be empowered. And by empowerment, I mean the technical skills, the infrastructure, the factories that are sustained, and the delivery of low-cost money. So, with manufacturing, the resources and the infrastructure as well as the cost of power that go into boosting the sector are the four things that we need. Once you put these together, then you should be able to produce a product that you can go and market. Unfortunately, our manufacturing sector is not at the level where it should be. So, if we are going to succeed at

manufacturing, then we should make sure that we have low-cost infrastructure available, lowcost money, low-cost power, and then the technical skills and competencies that would be utilised to create the products that we need. B24: What is your assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the government’s industrialisation policies? NOB: We have to look at the industrialisation policy in its entirety. We have had this oneway investment attraction for foreigners to come in and invest in Ghana. How does that enrich the resource mobilisation of our local businesses? For most of our Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), we provide tax incentives. I think that any tax incentives should go to an FDI that has a partnership with a local company. Secondly, we should not allow them to repatriate 100 percent of their profits. They should reinvest a percentage. We want them to invest at least 25 percent of the profit into sectors,

NOB: I wouldn’t say undermining, but we should re-examine investment policies that allow foreign investors to come into the country to invest and repatriate all their profit. For example, let’s say Kempinski invests in Ghana in the hotel system and makes a huge sum of money within five years. Before they repatriate some of their profits, we should require them to invest 25 percent of that profit in SMEs and some local sectors in the tourism industry. This is one of the areas that we have to be able to tackle to make sure that we have the benefit of the foreign investment that flows in, and the investors also benefit as well. B24: Generally, what reforms would you like to see towards creating viable and competitive home-grown industrial enterprises? NOB: The investment policy should be reviewed in totality. Also, creating home-grown industrial enterprises means we have to help our firms with the technical resources, the capacity building, and the competencies. For example, people set up businesses to make starch but without the capacity to grow the business to the level where they can now export quality cassava flour or convert starch into something else. So, you have to look at their capacities and their limitations. Sometimes the government gives money to businesses, such as when Covid-19 came, but it’s not always money. Let us use the money to acquire knowledge and technical skills, and these become very necessary tools to move the company from one level to another. B24: Does the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) have the potential to transform Ghanaian industry, and what is needed to tap this potential? NOB: AfCFTA is an opportunity but also a source of competition.

The question is, can we compete with Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria and others? Do local businesses have the requisite tools to be able to compete with those coming from AfCFTA? What support are we giving to businesses in those sectors where we are creating unrestricted access under AfCFTA? So, AfCFTA is an opportunity and at the same time a threat. That is why we have to support the local industries instead of living them to fight it on their own? B24: Does the Ghanaian tax system support or hinder manufacturing growth? In what ways? NOB: The Ghanaian tax system should be reviewed in its entirety. Private Enterprise Federation has done a three-year study that shows that unless we change our tax code and create a tiered tax system, doing business would continue to be difficult for our locals. We should create a segmented tax system so that those at the lower level pay certain sums at certain percentages and those at the higher level pay an equivalent percentage that is commensurate with the profits that they make. Also, given that majority of our businesses, about 92 percent, are SMEs, the GRA should engage the business associations and find a common ground to interpret the tax laws as it is known. Apart from the interpretation, the tax schedules are not conducive because, as I said, different countries within the AfCTA are now converting into the segmented tax system. We should be in that position as well. Unless we do that, we would be found wanting at the later stage when it might be too late to do it. B24: What is PEF’s view on the Development Bank Ghana (DBG) initiative? NOB: I am against in totality the development bank initiative. When you go and borrow money to set up this development bank that is just like the universal banks in the system, then they become competitors. Let’s not forget that this development bank we talk about doesn’t take deposits from the parties. When this development bank goes into the short-term credit system, then what is the difference between it and the normal universal banks? So, let’s not go and borrow to come and invest in risky investments when we could look within.

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Business with impact: Coca-Cola provides safe and affordable water to underprivileged communities

s the world continues to find a remedy to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Coca-Cola System is making safe water readily available to disadvantaged communities to promote effective handwashing and related hygiene protocols. On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, under the Replenish Africa Initiative, RAIN, The Coca-Cola System, with implementation support from Plan International, a global humanitarian and development organisation, handed over 27 boreholes and 90 handwashing stations to 3 districts in the Volta, Eastern and Central Regions of Ghana to provide clean and affordable water to over 19,000 inhabitants of these communities. The ceremony to hand over the equipment was held in the Afadzato South district of the Volta Region and brought together officials from The CocaCola Bottling Company of Ghana (TCCBCG), Plan International, and the Afadzato South District Assembly. A few inhabitants of the community were also present to witness this life-enhancing

intervention. Handing over the facilities on behalf of The Coca-Cola System, Mr. Bethel Yeboah, Public Affairs and Communications Manager (PAC) of TCCBCG, emphasised Coca-Cola’s commitment to reaching out to communities and called on community leaders to support in the management of these facilities. The Afadzato South District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr. James Etornam Flofu, expressed his appreciation to The Coca-Cola System for the kind gesture and assured the company the facilities will be well managed to meet the need for which they were constructed. To ensure the effective management of the water facilities and to promote good hygiene behaviour, more than 300 residents in the beneficiary regions have been trained to oversee this mandate. Additionally, in line with CocaCola’s effort of empowering women, 114 have been trained to take up leadership roles in the management of water and sanitation.

The economic lives of the people in these regions have been meaningfully enhanced by setting up 45 savings groups with a total membership of 1,469, of which 1,039 are women and 430 are men. Through this savings initiative, contributors

have become empowered to handle unforeseen expenses and adequately manage their income. The Coca-Cola System is devoted to impacting the communities it serves and will not relent on its mandate.

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Voltic helps gifted children to sip on success C

oca-Cola Beverages Africa subsidiary Voltic is sowing the seeds of a brighter future for gifted children in a partnership with NGO Joy2theWorld. Joy2theWorld is located at Medie, off the Accra-Nsawam Highway, and provides education for 300 brilliant but needy children, from nursery school to junior high. Their mission is to end the cycle of poverty through education. As a neighbour to the school, Voltic is providing drinking water as part of its water for schools programme. “Having Voltic support us this way is such a relief because it takes away a significant portion of the cost of running the academy,” said Kathleen Gibbs, Director of Education at Joy2the World. The NGO also addresses social welfare issues affecting the health of the community, particularly children. CCBA is a proud industry leader in developing increasingly sustainable ways to manufacture, distribute and sell its products. “Our aim is to create greater shared opportunity for the

business and the communities we serve across the value-chain. Opportunity is more than just money, it’s about a better future for people and their communities everywhere on the African continent,” said Worlasi Seddoh Bedu-Mensah, Voltic’s Public Affairs, Communication and Sustainability Manager. Reliable access to good, safe water is essential to life, nature, and the health of communities. Across the world, approximately 1.9 billion people live in potentially water-scarce areas. Globally, over 80 percent of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the environment without being treated or re-used. By 2050, the global water demand will have increased by 30 percent. “As the first ingredient in most of our beverages, safe, clean water is also critical to the longterm success of our business. A number of African countries are water-stressed, and in this context, we take our water stewardship responsibilities very seriously,” said Bedu-Mensah. “CCBA, together with The Coca-Cola Company, is a leader

in using water responsibly in our operations and giving it back. We continue to manage water resources through country projects that reduce water use in our operations, protect local water resources and provide safe, clean drinking water to communities in need. “As part of the world’s leading beverage company, we have a responsibility to use water as respectfully and efficiently as possible. We’re continuously looking for new ways to reduce water use in our operations, while treating our wastewater to the

highest standards,” Bedu-Mensah added. “We will continue to further improve water access for communities and nature, aligning our water stewardship priorities with The Coca-Cola Company’s 2030 Water Stewardship strategy, which involves: regenerative operations—reducing local shared water challenges; healthy watersheds—improving watershed health and supply chain sustainability; and resilient communities—enhancing community water resilience, focusing on women and girls.”

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Full cream ahead for Coca-Cola Beverages Africa’s US$26m dairy bottling plant

US$26m investment in (CCBA) first dairy factory is in full flow and pumping out a total of 22,000 bottles per hour at Voltic Ghana Limited, as the bottler accelerates its evolution towards becoming a total beverage company. Voltic (GH) Limited, a subsidiary of CCBA, has commenced production of CCBA’s new Hollandia dairy line, which includes tasty and nutritious evaporated full cream milk, enriched with Vitamin B12 and calcium, as well as plain sweetened or strawberry yoghurt. The evaporated milk range is available in 97g, 215g and 323g pack sizes. The expanded offering continues the company’s investment in a growing portfolio beyond sparkling soft drinks, including tea, coffee, juices, value-added dairy and purified water — being made available to more people in more places. Construction began in 2018 and the facility now employs 25 permanent and 40 casual staff. The move into value-added dairy has also taken off in Uganda, where CCBA offers

Climb Up flavoured milk. Climb Up is available in a variety of immediate consumption sizes, with 125ml and 250ml proving the most popular, especially with the youth and contributing 75 percent of the volume. Strawberry and Vanilla dominate the flavoured milk market, commanding an 80 percent share of volume. The company recently unveiled a new Minute Maid Fruity Boost Mango drink, formulated to support the “Buy Uganda, Build Uganda” agenda. The fruit and dairy blend was the first product off a brand new US$15 million production line

installed this year to produce drinks from raw materials made in Uganda. CCBA CEO Jacques Vermeulen said that by investing in the manufacturing and distribution of different drinks, CCBA was increasing local sourcing of raw materials and providing its employees with new skills. “This is part of our larger strategy to grow sustainably, by creating shared opportunities on our journey to becoming a total beverage company,” Vermeulen said. “People everywhere want new beverages and experiences throughout their day, and as

a franchised bottler of The Coca-Cola Company, CCBA is innovating to give people more of what they want while actively encouraging informed choices and balanced lifestyles. In some cases, that means adding vitamins and minerals or rethinking our recipes to reduce sugar while keeping the great tastes people love. In others, it means finding new, exciting flavours.” Vermeulen further said: “The introduction of Hollandia and Climb Up value-added dairy products in Ghana and Uganda is part of that journey and we are very excited about the potential of this category in Africa.”

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Pharmanova Limited—the gold standard in pharmaceutical care and production

he 5th of May, 2005 is the date when Pharmanova Limited was born in Ghana. It was established by Mr. Dhananjay Tripathi, and under his able leadership and visionary approach, the company has been providing gold standard healthcare in this country of gold (Ghana) for more than 16 years now. Since 2005, the company has been manufacturing as well as importing affordable but efficacious pharmaceutical products for distribution throughout Ghana and countries in the West Africa sub-region. Milestones achieved During this remarkable 16year journey, the company has achieved various milestones as mentioned below: 2009 – First company to locally manufacture Multivitamin, B-Complex, Folic Acid & Chlorpheniramine in Blister Pack. 2010 – First to locally manufacture Cardiac Products like Lisinopril + Hydrochlorothiazide and later extended to other products like Losartan + Hydrochlorothiazide, Ramipril, etc. 2011 – The company started exporting products to countries like Benin & Togo. 2012 – Pharmanova launched its flagship product for Malaria (Artemether + Lumefantrine) 2013 – Became the first company to launch Sevoflurane in the entire West Africa. 2014 – Pharmanova started business in Burkina Faso on a very large scale 2015 – The company extended

its operations to Ivory Coast 2016 – Pharmanova launched polyvalent anti-snake venom (ASV) specific for 10 different species of poisonous snakes in Africa 2017 – Received the award from the Vice President for “Outstanding Contribution to the Pharmaceutical Industry in Ghana” and also the award for “Best Growing Company of the Year” The launch of Atlantic Lifesciences In 2017, the shareholders and directors of Pharmanova Ltd. decided to embark on an importsubstitution strategy to promote local employment with the motto of “Made in Ghana”. Thereby, all Infusions, Eye, Ear & Nasal Drops, Inhalation Anesthetics which the company was hitherto importing into the country would be produced locally. This vision was actualized through the establishment of Atlantic Lifesciences Ltd. in March 2021. With financial support and encouragement from Exim Bank Ghana, Atlantic Lifesciences, the sterile pharmaceutical plant, using the latest German technology, was started at Larpleku in the NingoPrampram District Assembly under the Government’s flagship programme of 1D1F. We have started commercial production for Infusion and are currently validating the process for the Eye, Ear & Nasal Drops. Local manufacturing of vaccines at Atlantic Lifesciences Additionally, we have been the

major importer of Anti-Snake Venom and Anti-Rabies into the country and the West Africa subregion, and as part of that vision of import-substitution strategy, Atlantic Lifesciences Ltd. has received a loan facility from our Bank to establish a Bulk Fill n’ Finish of Biological Products such as anti-snake, anti-rabies, anti-tetanus, anti-gangrene, antidiphtheria, and anti-scorpion sera, and also for various childhood vaccines in addition to Covid-19 vaccine on the adjoining land to the Infusion Plant. The civil work for this facility has been completed and the complete line for vial Fill n’ Finish has been ordered for installation and validation. It is our intention to get this up and running by the first quarter of 2022. The line includes vials washing machine, De-pyrogenation Tunnel, Lyophilizer (Freeze Drying) and Packing Machinery, Clean Room Partitioning & Air Handling Units (AHU/HVAC), Building Management System (BMS) and Environmental Management System (EMS). All utilities are now in place. Focus on Quality Control & Quality Assurance At Atlantic Lifesciences, we have constructed a Quality Control department equipped with ultramodern Analytical instruments, namely: 3 HPLCs with Autosamplers, Atomic Emission Spectroscopy, Atomic Gas Chromatography, online & offline TOC, Air & Liquid Particle Counters, UV and PDA, 3 Walk-in Stability Chambers, UV Spectrophotometer, IR

Spectrophotometer Digital Polarimeter and Bacteria Endotoxin Test (BET) in the microbiology Lab, etc. & all other relevant lab equipment required as per current Good Laboratory Practices There is the Quality Assurance department with responsibility for spearheading the quality management system in the face of current good manufacturing practice, (cGMP), while the Microbiology department also parades state-of-the-art installations like Bacteriological Incubator TI 800G, Muffle Furnace TM 30G, Horizontal Laminar Flow unit for microbiology and HPHV Autoclave. The huge capacity at Atlantic Lifesciences The Fill and Finish line for the vaccine shall have a capacity of 70,000 vials per day, giving an output of 1.75 million vials per month of 25 days. We have an upcoming greenfield project for Bulk Fill n’ Finish vaccine with a capacity of producing 10 million vials per month. Conference room & other allied facilities We are also constructing a 100-seater conference room for receiving tertiary students from various related disciplines. This will also be used to support academic programmes in addition to organizing seminars for neglected tropical diseases such as the management and treatment of snakebites.

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The necessary voice of the global south

By Javier Solana

“

We face the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetimes,” United Nations SecretaryGeneral António Guterres declared in his speech at the opening of the UN General Assembly’s high-level meeting for leaders of its 193 member countries. When it comes to two of those crises – climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic – it was the leaders of smaller and developing countries, rather than those of the world’s major powers, that had the most compelling stories to tell. Nigerien Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassoumi Massaoudou, for example, highlighted the “devastating effects” of climate change in his country. These include intensifying droughts, such as the one in 2010 that killed an estimated 4.8 million cattle – roughly 25% of the country’s herd – at a cost of more than $700 million. Meanwhile, rising sea levels threaten to cause irreversible changes to the ecosystems of Pacific island countries, and even to submerge them completely. “Will Tuvalu remain a member state of the UN if it is finally submerged?” asked Prime Minister Kausea Natano. The fact that developing countries are facing such immediate and existential threats highlights the moral imperative of effective climate cooperation. But developed economies should also be motivated by enlightened selfinterest. The European Central Bank estimates that, without climate action, Europe’s GDP would shrink by 10%, causing a 30% rise in corporate defaults. And the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather

events will threaten global food security. But our chances of avoiding the worst effects of climate change are fading fast. According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5° Celsius – or even 2°C – above pre-industrial levels will be impossible. Voices from the Global South at the UN General Assembly also offered important perspectives on the COVID-19 crisis. For example, Namibian President Hage Geingob called out the “vaccine apartheid” that is impeding progress toward ending the pandemic. And, indeed, our multilateral system has utterly failed to deliver on its commitments to ensure vaccine equity across countries. As former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently pointed out, only 2% of adults in low-income countries are fully vaccinated, compared to over 50% of adults in most high-income countries. The world has proved highly efficient at making COVID-19 vaccines: we now produce 1.5 billion doses per month. And yet we have been grossly wasteful in distributing them. According to Airfinity, a major research firm, 100 million unused doses will pass their expiration dates by the end of this year, if we do not act now to redistribute them. The COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) facility, which aimed to distribute at least two billion doses to low-income countries by the end of 2021, has so far rolled out only 300 million. Like climate action, vaccine equity is both a moral and a practical imperative for the

advanced economies. The more the virus is allowed to spread, the more likely it is to mutate into new, more transmissible, deadly, and vaccine-resistant variants. Already, countries with high vaccination rates – such as Israel, which by August had administered two doses to more than 60% of its population – have had to reimpose restrictions, owing to the spread of the Delta variant, against which vaccines are less effective. Beyond ensuring vaccine equity today, the international community must strengthen the World Health Organization’s preparedness for public-health emergencies. Early detection of future crises will be possible only if we have a capable, wellfunded multilateral body. But, as it stands, assessed contributions account for less than a quarter of the WHO’s budget, making it dependent on voluntary contributions. There are high barriers to progress. The UN General Assembly meeting unfolded at a time of escalating geopolitical confrontation, which is increasingly playing out in the Indo-Pacific. On the heels of its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States established a new security and technology alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom, AUKUS, heightening tensions with China. An escalation of hostilities in the Indo-Pacific – which accounts for about 65% of the global population, 62% of world GDP, and 46% of total merchandise trade – would have devastating consequences. And there are numerous potential triggers. Taiwan is proving to be a particularly dangerous flashpoint in US-China relations, with tit-

for-tat military exercises over the island becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence, increasing the chances of a miscalculation or accident. Amid such high tensions, climate cooperation becomes increasingly difficult. This was apparent during US Climate Envoy John F. Kerry’s recent trip to Tianjin, which highlighted just how strained bilateral relations have become in a range of areas, including trade, human rights and democracy, and defense and security in the South China Sea. Speaking to Kerry via video link, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned bluntly that climate cooperation will be unsustainable unless the relationship improves. The US-China rivalry is also hampering efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic, as the two countries engage in “vaccine diplomacy”: providing vaccines to third countries as a way to establish long-term political dependencies and geopolitical influence. This approach compromises the safe and fair distribution of vaccines, not least because it neglects many countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, where the virus will continue to spread – and mutate – unchecked. Javier Solana, a former EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, secretarygeneral of NATO, and foreign minister of Spain, is President of EsadeGeo – Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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Ghana to consider mandatory food and nutrition labelling to improve diets

utrition science and technology are rapidly evolving, and so is related public health legislation. Over the years we have been overburdened by obesity and other nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases. Thus, Ghana is experiencing multipleburden of malnutrition. The malnutrition situation is largely being driven by inadequate access to nutritious, safe, and healthy foods, as well as exposure to unhealthy food environments. As part of a complex food system, policy efforts to improve food environments need to be tackled at multiple levels, engaging multiple actors across diverse sectors that account for the coexistence of multiple forms of malnutrition. In response to this, the Ministry of Health (MOH) convened a consultative meeting on Thursday, the 30th of September, 2021, to provide stakeholders an opportunity to contribute to the development of food policy bundles for healthier diets. Stakeholders included academics, Government actors, United Nation agencies and civil society organizations. One of the food environment policy bundles looked at food labelling. Food labelling policies enable consumers to make informed choices regarding the healthiness of processed/pre-

packaged foods. These include mandatory front-of pack labelling, indicating healthiness of food products. Overwhelming evidence points to the efficacy of front-of-package nutrition labelling in nudging consumers’ towards healthier choices. Providing updates from the DFC/Tacled Projects that benchmarked Ghana’s policies for creating healthy food environments at the meeting, the presenter, Professor Michelle Holdsworth, mentioned gaps in food labelling policy implementation. According to her, the study found that although listing of ingredients or nutrient declarations on food packages was second best in implementation in relation to international practice, regulatory systems for health and nutrition claims was low. The study further identified Government support for nutrition advocates for nutrition labelling as a very important and feasible policy priority to promote healthier food environments while mandatory front-ofpack labelling was seen as very important but less feasible. During the discussion, stakeholders identified laboratory capacity and legislature as a gap to proper food labelling. According to a stakeholder at the meeting, there is no law

mandating labelling and also the capacity of laboratories to analyse food content such as the trans-fat component is not available incountry. He added that, companies have to travel as far as South Africa to have that analysis done. It was reiterated by another stakeholder that, in Ghana, labelling is not mandatory but if one attempts to label his/her product, the Codex Alimentarius format must be followed. The Codex Alimentarius is a collection of internationally adopted food standards. Although a priority, labelling according to CODEX comes at a cost of which most of our industries that operate as small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) might not be able to afford. Some of the recommendations from stakeholders to address food labelling gaps impressed the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) to make it mandatory to properly label processed foods indicating the added sugars, fats, etc. They further called out legislators present to become agents who will push the policy in parliament. In terms of practice, coordination, leadership and having a roadmap were recommended. Meanwhile, some other countries have adopted front-ofpack labelling systems, such as star systems to rank the healthfulness of products (Australia and New Zealand), or traffic lights (Sri

Lanka) or nutrient warning labels (Chile) to identify products that are high in calories, sodium, sugar, or saturated fat. These labels are associated with healthier food and beverage purchases and have also led food companies to reformulate their products to avoid warnings or improve ratings. For example, a study conducted in Chile, reported a 15% reduction in products that were high in sugar following implementation of mandatory front-of-pack nutrient warning labels. It is time for Ghana to take advantage of science-based food labelling as an important tool for protecting consumers and promoting healthy diets. Ending the meeting, Amos Laar, an Associate Professor of Public Health, at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, and Principal Investigator of the MEALS4NCDs Project, stated on behalf of the Academia that, “We will do our best to provide what we are capable of providing; the evidence that is needed to push this forward and ensure that it becomes reality, not only when the policy or laws have been passed, but we will continue to generate evidence with respect to monitoring the implementation of same such that in the end our food environment would be improved, our health will be improved and then Ghana will be the beneficiary”.

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ICT

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i: The must-have earphones for your ultimate entertainment

he HUAWEI- FreeBuds 4ii earphones is a complete one with high-quality sound, long-lasting battery topped off with Immersive noise cancellation Are you looking for a pair of new wireless earphones with high-quality sound, super long battery life, impressive active noise cancellation, fast charging, and one that comes with a chic design? Huawei has exactly what your heart desires, introducing the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i earphones with highquality sound, the longest battery life, and active noise cancellation. The HUAWEI- FreeBuds 4ii earphones is a complete one with high-quality sound, long-lasting battery topped off with Immersive noise cancellation Are you looking for a pair of new wireless earphones with high-quality sound, super long battery life, impressive active noise cancellation, fast charging, and one that comes with a chic design? Huawei has exactly what your heart desires, introducing the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i earphones with high-quality sound, the longest battery life, and active noise cancellation. HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i – Honey Red Listen to your music with high-

about low battery. Thanks to its fast charge and impressive battery life, you no longer need to worry about the battery level when you are out or rush back home just to charge your earphones. Isolate yourself from unwanted noise

quality sound Huawei’s newest earphones are designed for young, active city dwellers who enjoy listening to their music a bit more than everyone else does. Speaking of music, the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i comes with a 10mm dynamic driver with wellbalanced performance, ensuring sharp sound and high quality no matter the kind of audio. The HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i was expertly tuned for music, they subtly balance instrumental and vocal audio frequencies making these pair a great companion for all sorts of music lovers. Rapid charging with long battery life

What is the point of wireless earphones if they cannot be charged swiftly or if their batteries run out of power now and then? Another problem avoided with the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i, more charging speeds equals more operational time. The HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i can offer 10 hours of continuous music playback or 6.5 hours of voice call on a full charge. Together with the charging case, it could achieve up to 22 hours of music playback or 14 hours of voice call. Moreover, these earphones can provide 4 hours of audio playback with just a quick 10-minutes coffee break charge. Additionally, the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i supports fast charging to address any concerns

Listening to your favourite tunes when in noisy places could be a challenge, we know. Talking to your superior over the phone when in crowded areas can also be difficult sometimes, thankfully the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i addresses these issues. The HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i actively cancels out noise to provide you with immersive audio, regardless of where you are. Moreover, the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i comes with an Awareness mode to stay aware of your surroundings and communicate clearly with those around you without having to take off the earphones. Your calls are also clear, thanks to the multiple technologies used by the HUAWEI FreeBuds 4i including the emission of “inverted soundwave”, supported by two external microphones for accurate sound pickup. It also comes with a unique anti-wind design, which can effectively improve wind noise cancellation for greater call clarity.

ICT sector demands full involvement of enterprising ladies - minister

rs Ursula OwusuEkuful, Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, says the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector demands the full involvement of enterprising and well positioned ladies to impact the society. She said the ministry would continue to pursue innovative ways of bridging the digital gender divide as fast as it could. Mrs Owusu-Ekuful was speaking at the closing ceremony of the maiden ICT workshop for female tertiary students for Girlsin-ICT tertiary programme in Accra. The training is aimed at giving the Girls an exposure that opens to them to the world of possibilities through ICTs. Some of the participants, who performed well in their assigned projects were rewarded with Huawei products like Huawei

tablets. The first prize went to Miss Daisy Mensah, who received GHS4000, followed by Miss Bridgette Akua Anese, GH¢2000, Miss Esther Aboagyewaa Anankwa and Benedicta received GHS1000 each. The Minister said, “I believe that this training workshop is timely and could not have taken place at a better time than this, right after training a thousand girls between the ages of 10 and 16 from upper primary to JSS 2 in the Western North Region.” She said this was the maiden training provided for the tertiary level, adding,“we aware very much aware that the demand at the tertiary level is just as high, so we therefore intend to go on a larger scale going forward as we obtain more funding.” Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the facilitators from Huawei took

the students through concepts such as Deep Learning, Machine Learning and Cloud with support from the National Cyber Security Centre also facilitating a presentation on Cyber Security and Cyber Hygiene, which was critical especially knowing that these days everything was done the phones as majority surf the internet. “We must push ourselves strategically as ladies/women to be able to compete effectively in this ‘male dominated’ sector to assume our place as co-equals with our male counterparts,” she said. AI projects topics students pitched include oil fertility and seed viability tester, pest and crop diseases control, smart irrigation, Unihealth and digi parl.

She commended Huawei Technologies (Ghana) S.A. Limited for their commitment for the initiative. The Minister called on Ghanaians to endeavour to register their SIM Cards with their National Identification Cards (Ghana Card), urging them to participate to ensure that “we continue to keep our SIM cards and also weed out fraudulent activities within the mobile space.”

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Feature

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 6, 2021

Award the Nobel Peace Prize to nature's protectors

By Svenja Schulze, Carole Dieschbourg, Teresa Ribera, Zac Goldsmith, Pascal Canfin, Juan Manuel Santos

iodiversity and nature’s contributions to people around the world are declining at an unprecedented rate. Species extinctions are accelerating, with grave implications for human health, food and water security, and poverty reduction. We must show solidarity with the one million species of animals and plants that are now threatened with extinction. Nature is a life insurance policy for the world’s 7.8 billion people. By protecting it, we will also be defending an irreplaceable economic resource. According to a January 2020 report from the World Economic Forum, over half of global GDP is dependent on “natural services” such as pollination, water purification, and disease control. Preserving biodiversity and ecosystems thus provides security against a wide range of threats, from food and water crises to violent conflicts fueled by resource scarcity. The years 2021 and 2022 will be milestones in the global effort to preserve and restore nature. The International Union

for Conservation of Nature’s quadrennial World Conservation Congress in Marseille last month paved the way for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China (which will be held in two parts, first in October and then next April). There, representatives from around the world are expected to adopt an ambitious new framework for saving nature. Unfortunately, there is still a profound lack of public awareness and understanding about the degradation of nature, its terrible consequences for people around the world, and the risks it poses to peace and security. While climate change has rightly been held up as a defining challenge of our times, biodiversity loss remains relatively underappreciated, even though it, too, poses an urgent and existential threat to human society. In fact, climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. Both are accelerating, and both have already reached levels unprecedented in human history. We now stand at a generational crossroads. This is our best chance to tackle both issues as part of an interconnected crisis. Success will require that citizens and policymakers develop a better scientific understanding of the

problem, so that we can ensure evidence-based custodianship of nature and set in motion the transformative changes needed to secure a more sustainable and peaceful future for people and the planet. The award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its scientific work was instrumental in thrusting global warming to the forefront of the global policy agenda. After that, it became increasingly difficult for climate-change deniers to gain credibility in public debates or in policymaking circles. We should now aim to create the same momentum for biodiversity. To that end, we have nominated the Intergovernmental SciencePolicy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, the winner of which will be announced on October 8. IPBES has played a leading role in bringing together the best available research and evidence about biodiversity loss and its implications for humanity. Inspired by the IPCC, it has established itself as the most credible global authority on the science for biodiversity, strengthening the

world’s knowledge base and providing policymakers with the information they need to make better decisions and set higher ambitions for the preservation of nature. Like the IPCC, the work of IPBES has covered a wide range of issues that bear directly on the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. It has, inter alia, shone a spotlight on threats to pollinators and food security, documented trends in land degradation, and assessed the biodiversity status of every region in the world, thereby helping to reduce the risk of species extinctions. Awarding the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to IPBES would send a clear signal about the value of nature, our trust in science, and the need for insights from diverse knowledge systems. It would boost efforts to tackle biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation at a critical moment; offer encouragement to scientists around the world who are tirelessly working on these issues; and would help in the fight against climate change. There is no better moment to make clear to the world that nature is in a state of emergency, and that science has the solutions to address it.

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Starvation, hunger-related deaths a reality amid worsening food crises, says FAO

ith some of the world's worst food crises in recent years impacting tens of millions of people, there is an urgent need for specifically targeted funding for emergency livelihoods assistance and to build resilience, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said today. "Today we face unprecedented food crises on multiple fronts. Starvation and hunger-related deaths are a present reality," FAO Director-General QU Dongyu told the High-Level UN event: Action in Support of Preventing and Ending Famine Now. "As we near the end of 2021, the situation has continued to deteriorate." Over half a million people in four countries (Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen) are experiencing catastrophic food insecurity and more than 41 million are on the edge of famine, in emergency conditions (IPC Phase 4 out of 5) - one shock or stress away from a worst-case scenario, QU said. Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria are also facing an increased risk of acute food insecurity. Today's event was convened in collaboration between the Governments of the Dominican Republic, Ireland, Norway and Sweden, FAO, the UN Office for

the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Food Programme (WFP). The FAO Director-General said the situation had continued to deteriorate, with amounts of aid allocated and disbursed falling well short of the $6.6 billion sought by humanitarian organizations to meet urgent needs. In addition, of the funding provided, far too little was focused on the resourcing of emergency livelihoods assistance - a central component of any effective strategy to prevent famine, QU said. Since UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced the creation of a High Level Task Force on Famine in March, FAO has helped at least 5.5 million people in the six countries designated as high priority by the group to produce critically needed food in the last few months. FAO is also committed to building long-term resilience to protect, restore and improve livelihoods in the face of threats that impact agriculture, nutrition, food security and food safety. FAO points to evidence on the ground showing that the emergency humanitarian support is highly effective: • Hundreds of thousands of families in Yemen face the imminent threat of losing their

sole source of income to easily preventable animal diseases. With just $8, FAO can vaccinate and deworm an average herd of five sheep or goats in Yemen, protecting assets worth $500 on the local market. • In South Sudan, FAO provided essential livelihood packages to 545 000 families, distributing cereal and vegetable seeds and fishing kits, ensuring a steady supply of nutritious food for almost 3.3 million people. • In Burkina Faso and Northern Nigeria, FAO was able to provide seeds, cash and other time-bound inputs to more than 700 000 people, a further 1.4 million people missed the critical main season planting this year, because the funds allocated for this were simply not sufficient. • Providing a farmer in Madagascar with cash and drought-tolerant seeds enables them to remain on their land, to continue producing food, to earn

their own income and ensure their children are well nourished and educated. Across the six priority countries that the task force is focused on, FAO has received less than one-quarter of the resources needed for emergency livelihoods assistance. But many more countries and regions also face the growing threat of acute food insecurity. Among those about which FAO is concerned are: Haiti where livelihoods are threatened by COVID-19, instability, insecurity, the earthquake, livestock diseases and economic turbulence; Afghanistan, where one in three Afghans were already acutely food insecure and where basic services are under threat; East Africa, which faces the threat of a third consecutive season with scarce rains for crops and livestock, with significant implications for food security.

SIC strengthen pillars of partnership with customers - Mrs Tufuor

IC Insurance PLC has disclosed that in view of the poor insurance penetration in the country, it has stepped-up efforts to strengthen the pillars of partnership with customers so that individuals and public entities are not disadvantaged. Mrs Cynthia Kwarteng Tufuor, SIC Tema Area Manager, who also has oversight responsibility over the Volta and Eastern regions stated that SIC sought to maintain and build closer partnerships with the customers and business partners for mutual benefits. “I am sure you will agree with me that risk is ever present in our lives. Its presence in all of our activities makes us vulnerable to the possibility of unexpected losses. “The volumes of which

are sometimes beyond our estimation, and which would leave us incapable of recovering adequately if we were unable to secure any external support,” Mr Tufuor stated at the sixth edition of the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office “End of Month Stakeholder Engagement and Workers Appreciation Day” seminar-an initiative which creates a platform for state and non-state actors to address national issues. The monthly engagement also serves as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters towards national development in general and growth and promotion of the Tema GNA as the industrial news hub. Mrs Tufuor noted that the

unavoidability of risk, coupled with its unpredictability made it imperative that individuals and organisations transferred all such uncertainties in their lives to competent professionals. “This is where SIC come in as a reliable, dependable, and committed partner. “Our priority still remains our consumers, who we believe are at the heart of our existence. While we aim at maintaining our position in the industry, we also tailor our products to suit the needs and desires of every customer and ensure that our products are at the right place, at the right time and at the right price.” She said to maintain and develop SIC business further, “we are constantly restructuring:

strengthening management and providing sound leadership to ensure that all our operations and processes are transparent, efficient and effective”. Responding to questions, Ms Cynthia Twumasi, Deputy Tema Area Manager explained that, SIC insurance, which is Ghana’s largest and preferred insurer would continue to promote human resource development through insurance skills training and business ethics to deepen the confidence in the company. She said “We are also upgrading our insurance policies based on international practices and providing customers with the best service to settle claims fairly and promptly. GNA