Business24 ePaper Feb10 2020

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MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2020

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Toyota, VW entry to disrupt used cars market

Avoid high risk borrowings— World Bank cautions

By Eugene Davis

Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye (R) and World Bank Country Director, Pierre Frank Laporte,(L).

By Dominick Andoh & Eugene Davis

The planned establishment of vehicle assembly plants in Ghana by international automobile brands Volkswagen (VW), Nissan, Toyota, Renault and Sinotruck, has forced a policy rethink on used cars import by the Ghanaian government.

With no significant car assembling plants, used and salvaged automobiles are the single highest imports of the country. Top five (5) imported

goods in descending order are vehicles, machinery, electronics, cereals and plastics.

Average annual import of vehicles since 2018 has averaged US$1.85billion—of which used vehicles (5-10 years old)—constitute about 70 percent. Minister of Parliamentary Affairs who is also the Majority Leader in the 275-member legislature, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, announced government’s intention to ban the importation of used cars which are 10 years old and above, as a prerequisite to ensure the entry of VW, Nis-

san, Toyota, Renault and Sinotruck.

Business24 sources say, despite the initial firm interest shown by the named automobile companies in establishing assembling plants in the country, the stark statistics of imported used cars made them request for action to be taken as a pre-requisite to their entry in order to ensure there is market for their products ahead of their scheduled production date. Currently, importers of used cars, which are 10 years and above are made to pay a fine in addition to the duties on the car as deter-

mined by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA)—Customs Division-- computation. The Customs Amendment Bill, 2019 is, therefore, expected to be considered in this current meeting of Parliament before it rises early March.

Mr.Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, speaking to the press in Accra on Friday said: “You would know that thanks to the economic environment that we

World Bank Country Director, Pierre Frank Laporte, has cautioned government to ensure it stays within the sustainable development path it has forged in order to prevent the nation from sliding into a high risk debt distress situation.

The warning comes on the back of on an oversubscribed US$3 billion Eurobond last week.

Concerns have also been raised regarding the borrowed funds being used mainly for consumption rather than capital projects or investments.

Speaking to Business24 on the sidelines of a courtesy call on the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Laporte said: At the moment Ghana’s debt situation based on World Bank description is a country of moderate to high risk debt distress, so of course the country has

MORE ON PAGE 2

MORE ON PAGE 2

UNIPASS system pilot at Takoradi Port stokes more controversy News Desk Report

The Ghana Revenue Authority’s decision to pilot the new UNIPASS trade facilitation tool at the Takoradi Port this week has stoked more controversy, as the Economic Management Team (EMT), headed by the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, are yet to be presented with the new system by Ghana Link and its oversea partner CUPIA Korea Customs, Buiness24 sources have re-

vealed.

At a press briefing last week, the Customs Division of Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) said the UNIPASS trade facilitation tool will be piloted at the Tak ATCZ oradi Port this week.

The question many stakeholders are asking is what system will the Koreans pilot at the Takoradi Port when they have not demonstrated a newly-built superior and tested system and the chief promoter of the paperless agenda, Dr. Bawumia and his team, are yet to be presented

with the said system.

Commissioner of Customs, Col. KwadwoDamoah, acknowledged that there is more work to be done before the UNIPASS system takes off fully. “Certainly, everything that is required by way of infrastructure will be in place by the time we are ready to roll out fully.”

Policy think-tank, IMANI Africa, in a release last week, asked the government to rescind its decision on UNIPASS until its promoters have been able to demonstrate a tested

FEATURE

FEATURE

FANTASY FISCAL POLICY

PREVENTING THE DEATH OF THE WORLD’S RIVERS

Will the next recession be worse than you think? With the major central banks having little space for further interest-rate cuts.

PAGE 5

Hundreds of millions of people still depend on rivers And yet we are rapidly destroying the planet’s river systems, with serious implications for our economies. PG8

and superior system in order not to disrupt trade and revenue flows and the achievements chalked by the paperless system.

According to IMANI there are set standards and methodologies for implementing IT systems of this scale that needs to be followed.

The think-tank noted that UNIPASS ought to prove what components of the system are developed by CUPIA’s Ghanaian partners, Ghana MORE ON PAGE 2

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Avoid high risk borrowings— World Bank cautions continued from page 1 to be careful. But the country is at a stage where things are critical.

“I am confident that the Finance Minister and his team are fully aware of that, we discuss it all the time, so borrowing is not a bad thing but you borrow on the right terms as best and most favourably as possible and in the right amount”.

He however applauded the country for the economic progress made over the last couple of years, but added that there are important challenges that the nation needs to address.

“Of course Ghana has made progress but there are important challenges. What matters is that the World Bank is ready to continue supporting the country as long as it feels it needs us financially, capacity building, and knowledge sharing we can bring from outside.

“Developing countries would have to borrow because most of us do not have adequate resources. We have to borrow to develop but you have to borrow responsibly,” he added Ghana’s total public debt stock increased by GHC 6.3 billion between September and November 2019 to reach GHC 214.9 billion in November 2019.

Of the total debt stock, domestic debt was GHC 101.4 billion, of which GHC 11.2 billion (3.8 per cent of GDP) represented bonds issued to support the financial sector cleanup.

In 2019, interest payments on loans were expected to be GHC 19.756 billion. Out of this, GHC 4.60 billion was spent on the external debt while GHC 15.156 billion was used to service loans contracted from the domestic market.

On the recently passed 5 percent of GDP deficit cap, he noted that: “Is the norm that most countries aim to, because it has proven to be sustainable over time. The Minister for Finance has committed in the budget to respect it.

At the end of the day, we just starting 2020, so I am not the one to judge what will happen. I am confident in the Minister’s ability and perspective of what he needs to do.

At the end of the day if it falls below 5percent good, government must make sure that it stays within the sustainable development path that it has taken.”

Editorial: Toyota et al need all our support The establishment of assembly plants by major automobile manufacturers in Ghana comes at a time the country is seriously trying to find ways to stop the rising number of fatalities on our roads.

Hundreds of lives are lost on the country’s major roads each year.

The causes, as posited by the experts and policy makers, range from over-speeding by drivers, poor road design, and poor condition of vehicles -- mostly used and salvaged

vehicles imported mainly from Europe, USA, Korea and Japan.

Indeed, the Majority Leader in Parliament aptly noted in a press briefing last week that these over age, used, salvaged and flooded cars that are imported into the country is one of the major causes of road accidents in the country.

The move by government to amend the existing Customs Law so as to ban the importation of used and salvaged vehicles over 10years

is laudable.

We fully support this drive based on two main reasons: the carnage on our roads must stop and fatalities reduced to the barest minimum ( single digit) and the need to ensure a ready market for the brand new cars to be assembled locally.

Toyota has indicated it’s preparedness to start assembling cars in Ghana this year. It’s a good development that will see some

of its acclaimed models made available at competitive prices on the local market.

VW, Nissan and Sinotruck are also lined up to start assembling cars in Ghana.

It’s the position of Business24 that all the support necessary should be accorded these companies to enable them start production soon.

Toyota, VW entry to disrupt used cars market Continued from page 1

have now, and of course the political stability that we have in the country, the sojourning of the President is yielding positive dividends in the sense that there are many auto-manufacturing companies that now want to come and begin assembling automobile in the country.”

“Volkswagen (VW) has given indication; Nissan has also done same, Toyota and Sinotruck as well as Renault. Now if they want to come we need to clean up the environment, you cannot have them to come and begin production of vehicles when you allow unfettered importation of second-hand vehicles.It doesn’t oc-

cur anywhere, so you have to regulate the importation of second-hand vehicles.

“For a start, maybe we may begin by banning the importation of vehicles that are older than 10 years and then also prevent the import of salvaged vehicles (accident cars),” the Majority Leader added.

Auto companies deepening footprint in Africa Toyota, the Japanese car maker which also has a stake in Suzuki, is part of the top 10 corporate brands in the world with a brand value of over US$35.3 billion.

The car maker will be deepening its footprint in Africa by establishing an assembly plant in Ghana. It already has presence in North Africa (Egypt), East Africa (Kenya), and South Africa.

Its African expansion strategy and heavy investment in assembly plants on the continent show the potential the continent holds.

The Chief Operations Officer of the company in charge of the Africa division of Toyota Tsusho, Mr. Imai Toshimitsu, notes that: “The products to be assembled in Ghana include the Toyota Hilux pickup, which is already popular in Ghana. Since it will be locally produced, I hope it will be more popular. We are also planning to introduce small passenger cars, with two Suzuki brands,” the Toyota COO explained.

Colin Coleman, a former CEO for Goldman Sachs in Sub-Saharan Africa, notes that: “Africa has the potential to go much further. The world’s youngest and fastest-ur-

banizing continent, Africa will have 24 million more people, on average, living in its cities each year between 2015 and 2045 – more than India and China combined – according to a 2016 McKinsey & Company estimate.

“This implies major increases in consumption. Already, spending by consumers and businesses in Africa totals US$4 trillion.

Household consumption is expected to grow by 3.8% annually until 2025, reaching US$2.1 trillion, and business spending should grow from US$2.6 trillion in 2015 to US$3.5 trillion in 2025. Altogether, the McKinsey report predicts US$5.6 trillion in African business opportunities by 2025.”

UNIPASS system pilot at Takoradi Port stokes more controversy

US$750m IPO for Minerals Development Fund next month

continued from page 1

Government has announced plans to issue an initial price offer (IPO) to raise US$750million for the Minerals Development Fund in March this year.

Sale of shares in the fund was initially scheduled for the start of the year but had to be postponed to allow for the review of the rules and processes that dictate mineral royalty payments.

“We have made considerable progress and we would have more meetings before I leave.

We are confident and we are targeting March for the IPO that is US$750 million which will further go to strengthen our foreign exchange reserves,” Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on the oversubscribed US$3billion Eurobond.

“This will also diversify our economy into a more modern economy and take advantage of our branding as the largest gold exporter on the continent at this point,” the Finance Minister added. “The Ghana Minerals Investment Income Fund (MIIF) was established by an act of Parliament

Link and SML and provide evidence on the methodology used for South Korea and other reference countries and why Ghana’s approach has been different.

The Economic Management Team (EMT) on December 18, 2018, directed the Ministry of Trade and Industry to suspend the single window system takeover by CUPIA of Korea Customs Service (UNIPASS) and Ghana Link Network Service Limited.

The decision which was communicated to the Ministries of Trade and Finance was to ensure that issues regarding the takeover of operations at the country’s ports were addressed.

In the statement, the EMT tasked CUPIA of Korea and Ghana Link Network Service to provide a demonstration that they had developed a “full end to end Customs Technology Solutions Systems, successfully tested, with independent Stress Report and provide a comprehensive implementation plan to the EMT by the end of January 2019”.

Various sources say promot-

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ers of UNIPASS are lobbying for GCNet to handover its system to UNIPASS so they can start operations. GCNet, sources say, has been promised that it will remain at the ports until its contract expires in 2023 if the owners agree to handover.

According to the sources, GCNet has declined and is not ready to hand its system to any company, not even UNIPASS promoters.

UNIPASS still under probe?

Investigators last year started a probe into allegations that the Single Window software that belongs to the Government of Ghana had been plagiarized and was being sold back to the same government of Ghana at an amount of US$180 Million through a 10-year sole-sourced contract, christened UNIPASS, on the blind side of Parliament and Cabinet.

The case is now in court awaiting judgment.

Editorial: Dominic Andoh: E ditor Eugene Kwabena Davis: Head of Parliamentary Business & Commodities Benson Afful : Head of Energy & Education Patrick Paintsil : Head of Maritime & Banking Eliezer Mensah: Head of Production Marketing: Alexander Lartey Agyemang: Business Development Manager

which was passed in December 2018. It has been structured to receive royalties and pay dividends from these inflows.

Among other things, the MIIF Act seeks to use the Minerals Development Fund (MDF) as a special purpose vehicle to mobilise funding for development in health, education, economics and other sectors.

Previously, Ghana’s mineral royalties went into the consolidated fund, where 80 percent was retained and 20 percent was disbursed to the MDF. Under the new law, the whole of mineral royalties will be lodged in the MIIF, where part of it will be disbursed into the consolidated fund and other statutory funds stipulated under the law.

US$750m To be raised for the Minerals Development Fund in March this year

Gifty Mensah: Snr. Marketing Consultant Irene Mottey: Snr. Marketing Consultant Edna Eyram Swatson: Snr. Marketing Consultant Ruth Fosua Tetteh: Snr. Marketing Consultant Events: Evelyn Kanyoke Snr. Events Consultant Accounts Joseph Ackon Bissue: Accountant Operations: Ampomah Akoto: Director of Operations

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News

GIFF wants steering committee to drive Paperless port

By Patrick Paintsil

The Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), has called for the setting up of a Steering body that will ensure that the real impact of the paperless port is felt on the ground and to sustain the momentum that the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, brought to the whole exercise.

“We [GIFF] think the paperless port is one of the best things that ever happened. The only problem is that its effect has not been felt on the ground like we envisaged. I’d rate it at 50-60% implementation,” President of the institute, Eddy Akrong, said.

The GIFF boss who was speaking on GPHA’s Eye on Port on consolidating the strategic role of the freight forwarder in modern port operations, called for direct government involvement in the management of the project.

“If you will bear with me, in the initial days, when this policy was effected, there was a direct govern-

GIFF President, Eddy Akrong

ment hand and a push right from Jubilee House according to how it should go, and everybody was whipped in line and made sure compliance was optimum,” he argued.

At a port efficiency conference in Accra, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, announced the idea of paperless

Gov’t runs to partners to develop railway sector

transactions at the ports to among other things, facilitate trade and cut down on the cost and time of doing business. Dr. Bawumia’s three-point directive included: the removal of all Customs barriers on the country’s transit corridor; a joint inspection by all regulatory agencies; and

100 percent paperless transactions at the ports from September 1, 2017.

This was followed up with an official unveiling of a road map for the paperless process to guide operators and agencies in the port clearance chain – with WestBlue Consulting and GCNet as the IT solutions

providers. Stakeholders in the country’s maritime business unanimously lauded the initiative right from take-off, citing convenience in the goods clearance process.

The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Ghana Union of Traders Associations (GUTA), Association of Customs House Agents Ghana (ACHAG) and the two systems operators, GCNet and West Blue Consulting, all attested that paperless transactions at the ports have brought relief to the shipping community.

But according to the GIFF boss, all of such expectations are dying down hence the need for government to have a direct hand in the project, contrary to the suggestion of a lead agency within the clearance chain to drive its sustenance.

“We have always talked about a certain governance structure which is actually a UN Model. When you promulgate policies, the government has to have a direct hand in it to make sure it is working the way it is supposed to work,” Mr. Akrong indicated.

Huawei named among top 10 global brands

By Benson Afful

Though government has shown commitment to the development of the country’s railway sector, the capital-intensive nature of building rail infrastructure has forced the government to run to development partners for support.

The government in its 2020 budget allocation did not make any allocation to capital expenditure that will ensure the building of rail lines.

The Ministry of Railway Development told the Parliamentary Committee on Transport that the government would not use it funds to build the lines due to the huge amount of money that is required to achieve it.

It is estimated that that government will require US$7billion to revive the railway sector in Ghana.

The US$7billion projection for revamping the railways caters for construction of the Eastern Line from Accra to Kumasi, the Western Line from Takoradi to Kumasi and the Central Spine from Kumasi to Paga – with two branch-lines from Kumasi to Nyinahin where there are bauxite reserves, and Tamale to Yendi areas where significant iron ore reserves can be found.

The distance to be covered by these railroads would be 1,400km.

The railway sector is one of the prioritized ministries among the infrastructure sector which the government is interested to support its

development.

A total of GH435million was earmarked for the Ministry of Railways Development for the implementation of its programmes for 2020 fiscal year.

Out of this amount, GH¢80million was allocated for management and administration while 354million went into rail transport.

In line with its mandate, the ministry and its implementing agencies undertook a number of projects.

For instance, a 30km narrow gauge railway line from Accra to Tema was rehabilitated last year. The section of the line from Achimota to Nsawam, which is about 40km, was also rehabilitated and test runs was commenced for the relaunch of the sub-urban commuter rail services from Accra to Nsawam.

The railway lines are part of Ghana’s efforts of inter connection project which will link the country to other West African countries and improve trade relations between Ghana and its neighbours.

The Minister for Railway Development, Mr. Joe Ghartey is quoted as saying “his government was committed to delivering a modern railway system that will ease the movement of people and goods thus improving trade not only for the people of Ghana but also, its neighboring countries.”

Brand Finance, a leading brand valuation and strategy consultancy headquartered in the UK, has named Huawei one of the top 10 most valuable brands for the first time ever.

According to a statement from Huawei to the Ghana News Agency, the recently published Brand Finance Global 500 2020 report, placed Huawei as the third Chinese company on the list with a brand value of US$ 65.084 billion, up 4.5 per cent year-on-year This marks the first time in history that Huawei had entered top 10 of the list, an indication that the brand was meeting global technological needs.

“Clearly, the next big opportunity for the telecoms industry, the 5G space is inviting fierce competition, with Huawei expanding into markets traditionally covered by Western providers.

Despite sparking controversy, the Chinese giant is making clear headway, and with a brand value of US$ 65.1 billion, now counts among the world’s top 10 most valuable brands for the first time,” writes Brand Finance in the report.

The statement said with 205 companies accounting for 45.4 per cent of the top 500, US is the most represented economy in the ranking with a combined brand value of US$ 320.4 bil-

lion, while China follows closely with 70 companies, equivalent to 18.9 per cent, and a combined brand value of US$ 133.4 billion.

The technology sector continued to draw the most attention as the most valuable sector.

Of the 500 most valuable brands, the statement said, 46 of them representing 14 per cent originated from the tech sector, together, they had a combined brand value of US$ 986.5 billion.

Huawei is the sole Chinese tech brand among the top 10 most valuable brands, it noted.

According to the statement, Huawei’s brand value growth could be attributed to its commitment to innovation to continually improve product competitiveness and consumer experience.

In 2019, it predicted that it would ship 240 million units of smartphones and retain its position as the world’s second largest smartphone manufacturer and it shipped more than 44 million units of its ‘HUAWEI Mate Series’ and ‘HUAWEI P Series’ flagship devices, recording a 50 per cent increase year-on-year.

“Winning critical and popular acclaim for their technological breakthroughs, Huawei’s 5G smartphones recorded 6.9 million unit shipments as of December 2019,” the statement said.

Last year, Huawei also built out its all-scenario experience by introducing a range of new prod-

ucts spanning multiple categories, including tablets, PCs, wearables and IoT devices in the HiLink ecosystem, all of which exhibited a certain degree of growth.

Looking at the future, Huawei remains committed to the all-scenario strategy. Mr Richard Yu, the Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Consumer Business Group said: “The all-scenario strategy will remain the primary focus of Huawei for the next five to 10 years. We are steadfast in our commitment to creating an integrated ecosystem, in which tablets, PCs, VR devices, wearables, smart displays, smart speakers, cars and IoT devices are all connected to smartphones to deliver a truly seamless user experience.”

Huawei’s products and services are available in more than 170 countries and are used by a third of the world’s population. Fourteen R&D centres have been set up in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Russia, India and China, the statement said.

‘Huawei Consumer BG’ is one of Huawei’s three business units and covers smartphones, PC and tablets, wearables and cloud services.

The brand’s global network is built on over 30 years of expertise in the telecom industry and is dedicated to delivering the latest technological advances to consumers around the world.

GNA

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Feature

Fantasy Fiscal Policy

By Prof. Kenneth Rogoff

Will the next recession be worse than you think? With the major central banks having little space for further interest-rate cuts, might the next cyclical downturn become a crash? In theory, fiscal policy can go far in filling the void. The past decade has seen a rise in fiscal evangelism among many economists and policymakers, and it is indeed likely that fiscal fine-tuning will be widely tested in the next downturn.

Are they right?

I am skeptical. Fiscal policy is far too politicized to substitute consistently for modern independent technocratic central banks, which until now have largely taken the lead in short-term stabilization.

Fiscal policy takes the lead in fundamental but hugely contentious issues – concerning growth, longterm stability, and allocation – that need to be decided in a democratic fashion, at least in advanced economies. And yet academic depictions of fiscal policy as an objective technocratic tool often make one feel like we are living in an episode of the American television series The West Wing.

In that critically acclaimed series, the fictional Democratic US president, Jed Bartlet, is an econo-

mist by training. A good and moral person, supported by similarly well-intentioned and brilliant staff, Bartlet exhibits a gift for weighing sophisticated advice from experts to reach nuanced economic-policy decisions that strike a balance between efficiency, fairness, and political realities. Of course, he often faces opposition in getting his legislation passed, but Bartlet and his staff generally prevail. It does not hurt that the ideologues on the right who oppose Bartlet are not only bad people, but also intellectual lightweights.

It is not just academic economists who are arguing that the time has come for activist fiscal policy, given the limits to monetary policy in an environment of ultra-low interest rates. Many leading central bankers also maintain that, instead of just playing its traditional role of deciding the allocation of government spending, investment, taxes, and transfers, fiscal policy can substitute for monetary policy in economic fine-tuning and fighting recession.

Touring the economic journals and major meetings of academic economists, one sees model after model of West Wing fiscal policy – thoughtful, reliable, and credible – that seems to buttress such arguments. But the recent literature and debate almost completely ignores

political-economy issues that were studied intensively in the 1980s and 1990s. The lessons learned then are now largely forgotten.

It is precisely because fiscal policy inevitably involves messy, hardfought compromises – often overturned by future elections anyway – that most countries have turned to central banks for short-term stabilization policy. The modern, independent, technocratic central bank is arguably the greatest innovation in macroeconomics since John Maynard Keynes pioneered demand management. Governments can and should make the big decisions about the long-term direction of policy, but anyone who thinks that legislatures can consistently make fine-tuned decisions is living in an alternative reality.

The fact is that in most countries today, economic policy is highly polarized, with decisions being made by razor-thin majorities. In the United States, for example, fiscal policy for Democrats largely means an opportunity to engage in more spending and transfers. For Republicans, it means cutting taxes in order to downsize government. Such differences are a recipe for seesaw policy. As a short-run stabilization tool, fiscal policy will inevitably be difficult to time and calibrate in the same way that central banks have succeeded in doing with monetary

policy.

Especially over the past 20 years, central bankers have increasingly recognized that consistent, stable, and predictable policies are just as important as any short-term decision-making. Indeed, at conference after conference, central bankers can be heard weighing the nuances of slight changes in messaging and their effects on expectations.

But in West Wing-style academic papers, fiscal-policy functions – government spending and tax policy – are assumed to be totally stable and predictable. All problems concerning credibility and consistency are assumed away.

It is possible that in the next recession, fiscal policy in some countries will land a lucky punch, getting the calibration and timing just right.

And yes, central bankers sometimes get it wrong. But the idea that we should cast aside the division of assignments between the two is naive. So is the idea that strengthening “automatic stabilizers” such as unemployment insurance and transfers can solve all problems of fiscal-policy credibility by enabling adjustment to occur without political action. The fact is that stabilizers invariably have incentive effects, and political battles over how far any should be expanded are inevitable. But the deeper problem is that in any given circumstance, policy-

Prof. Kenneth Rogoff

makers can – and often do – override automatic stabilizers.

The right solution is not to cast aside monetary policy, but to find ways to strengthen its effectiveness in a low-interest-rate environment, possibly by finding ways to use negative rates more fairly and effectively. Until then, with monetary policy hampered and fiscal policy the main game in town, we should expect more volatile business cycles.

Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist of the IMF, is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University. © Project Syndicate 1995–2020

Realizing the Potential of AI Localism

By Stefaan G. Verhulst & Mona Sloane

Every new technology rides a wave from hype to dismay. But even by the usual standards, artificial intelligence has had a turbulent run.

Is AI a society-renewing hero or a jobs-destroying villain? As always, the truth is not so categorical.

As a general-purpose technology, AI will be what we make of it, with its ultimate impact determined by the governance frameworks we build. As calls for new AI policies grow louder, there is an opportunity to shape the legal and regulatory infrastructure in ways that maximize AI’s benefits and limit its potential harms.

Until recently, AI governance has been discussed primarily at the national level. But most national AI strategies – particularly China’s – are focused on gaining or maintaining a competitive advantage globally.

They are essentially business plans designed to attract investment and boost corporate competitiveness, usually with an added emphasis on enhancing national security.

This singular focus on competition has meant that framing rules and regulations for AI has been ignored. But cities are increasingly stepping into the void, with New York, Toronto, Dubai, Yokohama, and others serving as “laboratories” for governance innovation. Cities are experimenting with a range of policies, from bans on facial-recognition technology and certain other AI applications to the creation of data collaboratives. They are also making major investments in responsible AI research, localized high-potential tech ecosystems, and citizen-led initiatives.

This “AI localism” is in keeping with the broader trend in “New Localism,” as described by public-policy scholars Bruce Katz and the late Jeremy Nowak. Municipal and other local jurisdictions are increasingly

taking it upon themselves to address a broad range of environmental, economic, and social challenges, and the domain of technology is no exception.

For example, New York, Seattle, and other cities have embraced what Ira Rubinstein of New York University calls “privacy localism,” by filling significant gaps in federal and state legislation, particularly when it comes to surveillance. Similarly, in the absence of a national or global broadband strategy, many cities have pursued “broadband localism,” by taking steps to bridge the service gap left by private-sector operators.

As a general approach to problem solving, localism offers both immediacy and proximity. Because it is managed within tightly defined

geographic regions, it affords policymakers a better understanding of the tradeoffs involved. By calibrating algorithms and AI policies for local conditions, policymakers have a better chance of creating positive feedback loops that will result in greater effectiveness and accountability.

Feedback loops can have a massive impact, particularly when it comes to AI. In some cases, local AI policies could have far-reaching effects on how technology is designed and deployed elsewhere. For example, by establishing an Algorithms Management and Policy Officer, New York City has created a model that can be emulated worldwide.

AI localism also lends itself to greater policy coordination and increased citizen engagement. In

Toronto, a coalition of academic, civic, and other stakeholders came together to ensure accountability for Sidewalk Labs, an initiative launched by Alphabet (Google’s parent company) to improve services and infrastructure through citywide sensors. In response to this civic action, the company has agreed to follow six guidelines for “responsible artificial intelligence.”

As this example shows, reform efforts are more likely to succeed when local groups, pooling their expertise and influence, take the lead. Similarly, in Brooklyn, New York, the tenant association of the Atlantic Plaza Towers (in collaboration with academic researchers and nongovernmental organizations) succeeded in blocking a plan to use facial recognition technology in lieu

of keys. Moreover, this effort offered important cues for how AI should be regulated more broadly, particularly in the context of housing.

But AI localism is not a panacea.

The same tight local networks that offer governance advantages can also result in a form of regulatory capture. As such, AI localism must be subject to strict oversight and policies to prevent corruption and conflicts of interest.

AI localism also poses a risk of fragmentation. While national approaches have their shortcomings, technological innovation (and the public good) can suffer if AI localism results in uncoordinated and incompatible policies. Both local and national regulators must account for this possibility by adopting a decentralized approach that relies less on top-down management and more on coordination. This, in turn, requires a technical and regulatory infrastructure for collecting and disseminating best practices and lessons learned across jurisdictions.

Regulators are only just beginning to recognize the necessity and potential of AI localism. But academics, citizens, journalists, and others are already improving our collective understanding of what works and what doesn’t. At The GovLab, for example, we are deepening our knowledge base and building the information-sharing mechanisms needed to make city-based initiatives a success. We plan to create a database of all instances of AI localism, from which to draw insights and a comparative list of campaigns, principles, regulatory tools, and governance structures.

Building up our knowledge is the first step toward strengthening AI localism. Robust governance capacities in this domain are the best way to ensure that the remarkable advances in AI are put to their best possible uses. project-syndicate

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Markets USDCAD STRUCTURE • ABC Zigzag corrective wave PREVIOUS/FORECAST • USDCAD successfully completed its bullish impulsive swing to around 1.3300 price region • Expecting sell off to around 1.30445 price region as price corrects its bullish swing in an abc zigzag corrective wave

**current price @ time of analysis: 1.33084 USDCAD STRUCTURE • Bullish Harmonic Butterfly Pattern, ABC Corrective wave PREVIOUS/FORECAST • The Euro continued to trade lower, forming a bullish harmonic butterly with PRZ around 1.09460 price region • Expecting price to buy in an abc zigzag corrective manner to about 1.11598 price region

**current price @ time of analysis: 1.09599 USDCAD STRUCTURE • ABCDE Contracting Symmetrical Traingle PREVIOUS/FORECAST • GBPUSD broke and retested the lower boundry trendline of earlier discussed abcde contracting symmetrical triangle • Expecting sell continuation to around 1.28241 price region to be followed by bul rally

**current price @ time of analysis: 1.29337

ADVICE TO BE PROFITABLE IN TRADING Why do people fail in the forex market?

You would be demotivated when you hear the fact that the failure rate in the forex market is more than 95%.

Yes. Most of the people who try their hand in the forex market, get out of it even before completing one full year. It doesn’t mean that it is really tough to make it in the forex market. And also, there is no need to crack thousands of hard puzzles to open the door of treasures.

If you go through the analysis by experts, it reveals that there is a pattern in the way people approach, and do execute in the forex market. And get the same results!

At the instance you realize it, you would also be the one who accepts the realities. Eventually, you will move ahead and do the needful to be in the earning club.

“Not Following The Market” You’ve learned forex trading.

Well. Beware! It’s not like driving your new car, and it doesn’t have steadfast results. With the top gear and the right acceleration, there is no guarantee to get the right speed.

While trading, you should listen to the market and adapt yourself

to it instead of being stubborn with your ideas. That’s the right way to surf the tides in the forex sea.

“Not Having The Passion” Forex market is not available in common places to fall in love at first sight.

But to be successful and prosper as a trader, one has to develop a real interest in it during learning and executing the knowledge. Otherwise studying the market and analyzing the factors to place your trades would become a tough job. Then quitting in midway is a SURE thing to happen.

“Not Seeing The Reality” In the forex market, success means no 100% win. It’s a combination of ‘WINS’ and ‘LOSSES’, and keeping your losses at a minimum is the key. All successful traders still incur losses, and (it’s part of the game).

Without realizing it many “newbie traders” set unrealistic expectations and burn their energy down.

Be informed, and you should not let a streak of failures to let you down and you should devise your strategies to face the failures.

ing. When you form your trading strategy, you have to take your capital into consideration. Relying on leverage, with the aim of making a big profit, is not advisable as it would eventually lead to the closure of your trading account.

Trade addiction is doing forex trade just for the sake of trading without realizing the need for it. This overtrading, which is incompatible with the capital you have also causes failure.

“Not Having A Proper Forex Plan” Doing forex trade, without a plan is like gambling and incurring a loss is an event to occur, sooner or later. Then, you should trade with the proper risk-reward ratio, which helps you to approach each trade with the right portion of your capital as an acceptable loss.

Moreover, it further helps you to sustain in the market, and you could make winning trades subsequently.

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“Overtrading” Aiming unrealistic high profits, trading addiction, and trading beyond the investment potential led the traders to indulge in overtradAgyei Samuel

Luis Boah

Iroanya Jonahan

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Feature

Preventing the Death of the World’s Rivers

By Brahma Chellaney

From the Tigris to the Indus and the Yangtze to the Nile, rivers were essential to the emergence of human civilization. Millennia later, hundreds of millions of people still depend on rivers to quench their thirst, grow food, and make a living.

And yet we are rapidly destroying the planet’s river systems, with serious implications for our economies, societies, and even our survival.

China is a case in point. Its dam-building frenzy and over-exploitation of rivers is wreaking environmental havoc on Asia, destroying forests, depleting biodiversity, and straining water resources. China’s first water census, released in 2013, showed that the number of rivers – not including small streams – had plummeted by more than half over the previous six decades, with over 27,000 rivers lost.

The situation has only deteriorated since then. The Mekong River is running at a historically low level, owing largely to a series of Chinese-built mega-dams near the border of the Tibetan Plateau, just before the river crosses into Southeast Asia. In fact, the Tibetan Plateau is the starting point of most of Asia’s major rivers, and China has taken advantage of that, not least to gain leverage over downstream countries.

China may be the world’s largest dam builder, but it is not alone; other countries, from Asia to Latin America, have also been tapping long rivers for electricity generation. The diversion of water for irrigation is also a major source of strain on rivers. In fact, crop and livestock production absorbs almost three-quarters of the world’s freshwater resources, while creating runoff that, together with industrial waste and sewage discharge, pollutes those very resources.

In total, almost two-thirds of the

world’s long rivers have been modified, and some of the world’s longest – including the Nile and the Rio Grande – now qualify as endangered. Of the 21 rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) that still flow freely from their mountain sources to the sea, most are in remote regions of the Arctic and in the Amazon and Congo basins, where hydropower development is not yet economically viable.

These trends strain water resources, destroy ecosystems, and threaten human health. For example, heavy upstream diversions have turned the deltas of the Colorado River and the Indus River into saline marshes. Moreover, lower river-water levels impede the annual flooding cycle, which in tropical regions helps to re-fertilize farmland naturally with nutrient-rich sediment. In periods of below-average rainfall, a number of rivers increasingly run dry before reaching the ocean, and even when they do make it, they are depositing less of the nutrients and minerals that are vital to marine life.

Globally, aquatic ecosystems have lost half of their biodiversity since the mid-1970s, and about half of all wetlands have been destroyed over the last century. A recent United Nations study warned that up to a million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.

Humans are hardly exempt from the health consequences of river destruction. In Central Asia, the Aral Sea has all but dried up in less than 40 years, owing to the Soviet Union’s introduction of cotton cultivation, for which water was siphoned from the sea’s principal sources, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. Today, particles blown from its exposed seabed – thick with salts and agricultural chemical residue – not only kill crops; they are sickening local people with everything from kidney disease to cancer.

Convention, and add these rivers to the World Heritage List, alongside UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This would be in line with recent efforts in some countries – Australia, Bangladesh, Colombia, India, and New Zealand – to grant legal rights to rivers and watersheds. For such initiatives to work, however, effective enforcement is essential.

As for the rivers that are already damaged, action must be taken to restore them. This includes artificially recharging rivers and aquifers with reclaimed wastewater; cleaning up pollution; reconnecting rivers with their floodplains; removing excessive or unproductive dams; and implementing protections for freshwater-ecosystem species.

The world’s rivers are under unprecedented pressure from contamination, damming, and diversion.

International cooperation can save them, but first we must recognize the consequences of doing nothing.

Free-flowing rivers play a critical role in moderating the effects of climate change, by transporting decaying organic material and eroded rock to the ocean. This process draws about 200 million tons of carbon out of the air each year.

In short, the case for protecting our rivers could not be stronger.

Yet, while world leaders are often willing to pay lip service to the imperative of strengthening river protections, their rhetoric is rarely translated into action. On the contrary, in some countries, regulations are being rolled back.

In the United States, almost half of rivers and streams are considered to be in poor biological condition.

Yet last October, President Donald Trump’s administration repealed “Waters of the US,” which had been introduced by his predecessor, Barack Obama, in order to limit pollution of streams, wetlands, and other bodies of water. Last month, the Trump administration replaced the rule with a far weaker version,

called the “Navigable Waters Protection Rule.”

Likewise, in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has relaxed environmental rules in the name of economic growth. Among the casualties is the Amazon River, the world’s largest river in terms of discharge, which carries more water than the next ten largest rivers combined. Already, the Amazon basin in Brazil has lost forest cover over an area larger than the entire Democratic Republic of Congo – the world’s 11th-largest country.

The absence of water-sharing or cooperative-management arrangements in the vast majority of transnational river basins facilitates such destruction. Many countries pursue projects without regard for their cross-border or environmental effects.

One way to protect relatively undamaged river systems – such as the Amur, the Congo, and the Salween – would be to broaden implementation of the 1972 World Heritage

By Brahma Chellaney

(Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research and Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including Asian Juggernaut, Water: Asia’s New Battleground, and Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis. )

The economic cost of female genital mutilation An interactive data tool launched

by WHO reveals for the first time the current and future financial cost of health care for women living with conditions caused by female genital mutilation (FGM).

The total costs amount to USD 1.4 billion annually.

The FGM Cost Calculator is being launched on this year’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM. This new tool shows that if FGM were abandoned now the associated savings in health costs would be more than 60% by 2050.

This data, available for 27 of the 30 countries where FGM is practiced, will strengthen the economic argument of community activists, policy makers, programme planners and donors working to end this human rights violation.

A human rights violation with economic costs FGM includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated. [1] An extreme form of gender discrimination, it is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women: including the right to health, security and physical integrity and the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or

degrading treatment.

FGM has no health benefits and causes only harm. Women and girls who are subjected to FGM are at risk of both short- and long-term negative health consequences – including for their physical, sexual, mental, and social well-being.

The direct financial cost of treating the negative health complications caused by FGM can span generations, starting as early as childbirth.

This puts a significant economic burden on health systems and national budgets, especially in countries with rates of FGM greater than 10%. Until now, there have been limited data on the financial costs associated with FGM, making it hard to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of programmes and policies that can prevent FGM by 2030 – a global priority in the Sustainable Development Agenda. The new WHO Cost Calculator now provides an economic argument which can be used by those advocating for an end to FGM. Calculating health care costs of FGM Users of the new FGM Cost Calculator can choose a country and identify current costs of treating health conditions caused by FGM. Since the tool is interactive, it produces bespoke graphs showing the potential amount of money saved if FGM is prevented by a selected percentage.

If no action is taken to prevent FGM, it is estimated that related health costs will soar by 50% by 2050, as populations grow and as more girls undergo the procedure.

How it works The FGM Cost Calculator combines data on health risk associated with FGM, health costs and national FGM prevalence to analyze the economic impact on national health services of treating the consequences of these harmful practices.

Health risk data were taken from a WHO database created for this analysis, pooling all available information from systematic reviews of health consequences of FGM. The following categories were used, each with a biological link to FGM:

gynaecological, obstetric, urological, mental and sexual, as well as the immediate health complications that can result following the cutting.

To be included in the calculator, a health condition needed to show evidence of increased risk when comparing women with and without FGM. It also needed to have a treatment which could be implemented and costed in the health sector.

Health costs were calculated from the WHO One Health Tool and other data. The financial burden of treating selected health conditions was calculated at a national level.

A strong case for investment in preventing FGM Rates of FGM have declined over the past 30 years, but not fast

enough to keep up with population growth. If trends continue, the number of girls and women undergoing FGM will rise significantly in the next 15 years, in turn raising national health care costs of caring for them.

Additional resources are urgently needed to scale up interventions that can prevent FGM in the future and reduce health complications.

By providing quantifiable numbers on the cost of treating health conditions directly linked to FGM, for the first time, the FGM Cost Calculator can be a crucial tool in building an investment case for a future where no girl or woman is cut. (WHO)

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Banking

Barclays rebrands to Absa today

Barclays Ghana Limited will officially rebrand to Absa Bank Ghana Limited today to align with its position as a forward-looking bank deeply rooted in Africa with global connectivity and a passion for excellence.

The new name will kick-start a novel era in the bank’s history and comes with it a wide array of exciting customer experience.

Marketing and Corporate Relations Director at Barclays Bank Ghana, Ms Nana Essilfuah Boison, said of the new brand last Friday: “As we become Absa, we are not only building on our 100-year heritage in Ghana, we are also one of Africa’s top three largest banks, backed by a large capital base and strong balance sheet with a commitment to connect

people’s dreams with financial opportunities.

She made this comment after the bank announced celebrated musician, M.anifest, as its brand ambassador.

The bank also concluded an agreement with the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a member of the World Bank Group, in a strategic move to expand its financing offerings across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Per the agreement, MIGA will issue guarantees of US$497 million to Absa, valid for as long as 15 years and it will apply to the bank’s subsidiaries in Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Uganda and Zambia.

CBG pushes Wear Ghana initiative with corporate wear Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) has outdoored its customized African fabric as its corporate Monday-wear for staff of the bank.

Designed with the bank’s iconic logo and dynamic colours, the CBG Monday wear is part of the bank’s efforts to lead in innovation and actualize the country’s Wear Ghana initiative.

Speaking at the launch, Managing Director of CBG, Daniel Wilson Addo was passionate about what the cloth symbolizes for the bank.

“Today marks another day that we can say we did something different as a bank. Introducing another innovation to project the image of the bank makes me very proud. With this new corporate wear, we are affirming our commitment to our customers and potential customers that we are ready to present CBG’s values, mission and vision throughout our service approach and customer experience”.

Complimenting colleagues on their new look, Mr. Addo advised

all to present themselves well in the CBG cloth to project the brand well and as walking billboards for CBG. “We are all looking beautiful in our new corporate wear for Mondays. Let us remember that as we wear this beautiful CBG cloth, we represent the brand. In everything that we do, let us remember our

core values, mission and vision”, he concluded.

In her remarks, Director of Human Capital, Esi Mmirba Wilson, said the inspiration behind the initiative to wear the African print on Mondays was to start the week with something Ghanaian as an innovative local bank.

Nigeria Bourse Urges Brokers to Combine as It Readies Listing

The Nigerian Stock Exchange is urging stockbrokers to buy dormant licenses or combine with other operators rather than apply for new ones as the bourse prepares to go public.

Members of the exchange will vote on March 3 to convert from a member-owned mutual organization into a public limited-liability company.

The exchange, which has 252 dealing members as well as 166 listed equities and 154 bonds, will change its name to Nigerian Exchange Group Plc and then

list its shares on its own market as part of the process, known as demutualization. “Interested parties have been advised to purchase existing licenses,” the NSE said in an email. “The exchange stopped issuing licenses as it progresses with its intention to demutualize.”

The demutualization comes after a 20% surge in the market value of the fixed-income segment of the exchange last year helped to compensate for a decline in equity volumes and income, according to the bourse.

Equity trading volumes last year

fell to the lowest levels since at least 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s also contributed to the lack of new applications for licenses in 2019, according to the Association of Securities Dealing Houses of Nigeria.

A record 19 brokerages registered in 2006, according to data compiled by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, before banking industry upheavals and the global financial crisis caused domestic equities to tumble.

“Going into 2020, the NSE is committed to completing the proposed demutualization,” the exchange said in an email. This “will further provide avenues to diversify our operations and evolve into a more competitive, robust and liberalized stock market.”

The bourse has started four new indexes with Afrinvest Securities Ltd. and Meristem Securities Ltd. as a precursor to creating more exchange traded products, it said.

That follows the launch of Greenwich Alpha ETF, which tracks the top 30 companies on the market, while NewGold Issuer Ltd. ETF returned 32%, it said. Currently, 10 ETFs trade on the Nigerian bourse.

USAID, UBA join forces to advance two-way trade and investment

U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Prosper Africa initiative is partnering with the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to increase two-way trade and investment between the United States and the nations of Africa.

This partnership ensures businesses are equipped with the technical and financial tools they need to enter into new trading and investment relationships in Africa and the United States.

USAID will provide technical assistance and advisory services to prospective businesses through its Trade and Investment Hubs, and will connect UBA with African Diaspora business groups working across the United States.

The MOU enables UBA, the only sub-Saharan African bank licensed to operate in the United States, to expand access its reach and extend financing to American companies in the United States looking to do business with African nations.

Recognizing tremendous growth opportunities, USAID and UBA are

collaborating to advance Prosper Africa’s goal of substantially increasing two-way trade between Africa and the United States.

By working together, they will extend financing and technical assistance to businesses that will strengthen the American economy, grow African economies, and create jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.

The two institutions entered into this agreement as part of the opening ceremony of the Tunisia Prosper Africa Conference, co-organized by the U.S. Embassy in Tunis and the American Chamber of Commerce of Tunisia. The event facilitated U.S. and African business-to-business connections and featured remarks by key representatives from the U.S. Government and the U.S. and African private sector.

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Feature

Special Report: Ghana and the rosewood curse

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

When the final stock is eventually taken, the illegal logging of rosewood would be found to have left a deep scar on Ghana and mostly its vulnerable people and communities. The level of illegal logging of the precious tree species for export has left a gaping hole in the savannah forests of the country’s northern regions, largely poor and far behind on the development index.

Ghana - a country at the verge of so many possibilities; economic growth, human development and social cohesion, but also a downward spiral. The country is endowed with so many natural resources; gold, iron ore, cocoa, oil, timber species, including rosewood, but her people living in areas where these resources abound are steeped in poverty, in need of ordinary potable water and decent living standards.

People of the regions of the North are bearing the brunt of the vicious rape of their natural resources. The Northern, Savanna and North East regions, were once one region, simply known as the Northern Region.

It was the largest region in the country. But after a referendum in December 2018, the region was split into three in 2019.

The regions once had large reserves of rosewood, but not anymore. The rosewood trees in these regions are practically gone – from farmlands to forest reserves, greedy wood merchants, with the backing of some public officials and political appointees, using subterfuge, deceit and clout have ravaged the regions’ savannah lands and plucked out every available rosewood; including trees with diameters so small that they aren’t good for export.

Other tree species such as the pauper, has also been targeted.

“Considering the fragility of the ecosystem, a lot more needs to be done to preserve the forests. So far, the forest resources are not well managed,” says Godwin Evenyo Dzekoto, Project Manager of environmental activist group, Arocha.

“With some 80 per cent of citizens involved in farming, more must be done to preserve the forest resources. Women who pick shea fruits are affected too,” he adds.

Suweidu Abdulai, is the Monitoring &Evaluation and Resource Officer of Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA) based in Tamale. He believes that the regions are no longer endowed with forests.

“The northern zone is a protected area, and the Timber Act doesn’t allow commercial logging in the zone.

The activities of loggers are contributing to desertification. Rosewood fixes nitrogen in the soil, oil can be extracted from it and the wood has medicinal uses. Rosewood bark is also used for dyeing smock, and can be used for mortar and pestle,” he says.

According to Abdulai, during the ban on logging of rosewood in the region, permits were still being issued for salvages, “and the permits were used as cover to harvest wood,” he said.

Different governments have announced bans, lifted them and re-announced bans so many times that one would lose count of them.

But despite the bans and public announcements to stop the rampage of the fragile forests of the savannah, the rape of the forests have continued.

The chief of Tantalaa in the Mamprugu Magduri District, Masangya

Asuma acknowledges the benefits of forests and trees. He believes that lack of trees also predisposes the community to diseases.

“We get food, shea, dawadawa and honey from the trees,” he says.

But he is also of the view that population increase is accounting to forest loss, as people are farming, building houses, burning charcoal, harvesting rosewood and pauper trees.

The Chief of Gorba, Mahamadu Nantogma says the loggers come all the way from Accra without any documents to cut trees in the community. “Now only smaller rosewood trees are left in our forests.

The land was more fertile when there were a lot more trees,” he says, arguing further that when trees are cut, some should be planted.

Two weeks of investigation, traversing the farmlands, trails, villages and reserves in Damongo, Kpri, Bole, Tailorpe, and Mole in the Savanna region, Yagaba, Tantalaa, Gorba and Kubori in the North East, there are visible signs everywhere of impacts of climate change on farms and lives, poor rains leading to failure of cowpea and other crops – leaving in their trail disappointment and hopelessness for subsistent farmers and households.

Eviscerated and ravished, the forests look over-exploited, signs of slash and burn activities are everywhere as farmers prepare the sparse land and look forward hopefully to the rainy season so they can plant – while they wait for the harmattan season to pass.

“They brought people from Techiman, Kintampo and Kumasi with chainsaw to cut down trees, specifically rosewood. Until 2012, we didn’t realize they were cutting rosewood. They are now entering the Mole National Park. They have cut down almost all rosewood in the area,” says the Youth Chief of Da-

mongo, YakubuJarga.

The Mole National Park and its surrounding areas, serve as an important corridor for the country’s protected hippo population.

But officials of the Mole Park declined to speak when contacted, directing us to seek permission from Accra. The Park has been targeted, for rosewood specifically.

Under-staffed, with a total number of about 200 employees, all of them trained as guards but not all involved in actual guard duties, the overworked and overstretched employees are expected to protect the 4,577sqkm national park, but they are unable to effectively do so, they are unable to cover the length and breadth of the reserve holding protected species, among them, antelopes, elephants, warthog, royal python, buffalo and hippos, exposing the resources to loggers and poachers, who are often lucky to get away. Sometimes, the authorities get lucky and intruders are arrested and prosecuted. But they don’t often get lucky, and sometimes when they do arrest offenders, they receive orders ‘from above’ to release them.

Use of deceit to harvest trees Wood merchants use every available trick in their sleeves, including deceit to get access to rosewood trees and cut them for export. In one case, we found that they used a hospital invoice as a permit.

“In Kafalba in the East Gonja District, a hospital invoice was used to fool a local chief, and the entire forest in that community was cut,” says activist, Jeremiah Seidu of the Jack Sally Development Association, an environmental protection organization.

“Even more worrying,” says Seidu, “is the fact that when communities arrest and impound trucks loaded with rosewood, they simply go to

the Forestry Commission to pay a fine and the trucks are released.

Sometimes individuals with political influence step in and ask for their release.”

Loggers also approach communities with salvaging permits, but they fell fresh trees which they haul to the Tema harbour for export, mostly to China. Available records show that China is the leading destination for rosewood from these parts of the country.

And curiously, export figures show that there is massive under-invoicing of rosewood exports to China.

The export figures recorded from Ghana are lower than the import figures reported in China. The records from Ghana says between 2010 and 2018, 506,199 cubic meters of wood was exported to China, but the Chinese records show that the country imported 953,827 cubic mentres from Ghana, leaving an unaccounted 447628 cubic mentres of rosewood. While the country appears to be earning from the export, the communities from which the trees are logged don’t get much.

Local youth felt cheated According to Jarga, the youth of Damongo, who naturally would protect their community and environment, felt powerless in the face of the surging pillage. Feeling cheated, when they couldn’t make more money from loggers, they decided to join the trade.

“The youth felt cheated,” says Chief Jarga, “they started demanding higher payments from wood buyers before they would allow them passage. But the buyers refused and so some joined the trade.

However, in 2017, the youth approached me and asked that we stop the wood buyers. The Gonja Youth Association approached the Overlord of Gonja. They spoke to the District Chief Executive who agreed and a ban on rosewood felling was

imposed,” he added.

A clear example of failure of the State - the youth of Gonja took it upon themselves to halt the plunder – their decision given bite by the respected leader of the Gonjas – effectively indicating that the national ban failed to stop the illegal logging.

Chief Jarga said they convinced other youth in other areas and villages like Busunu, Larbanga and Kabankpe to join the campaign to halt the uncontrolled logging of rosewood in the areas.

“The youth of Daboya didn’t join the campaign initially, but they later did,” he said.

But then the loggers soon found a big loophole which they exploited; the Damongo chieftaincy dispute that arose in 2018. The dispute brought division among the people.

“The dispute affected cohesion and the youth looked the other way while the logging resumed,” Jarga recalled.

Impact of logging on climate In addition to climatic conditions, the communities started suffering social problems as well. As the trees are removed, signs of climate change showed up. Water bodies in the communities are drying up, and so are dams.

Chief Jarga vividly remembers an incident a day after Easter in 2014.

“A storm ripped off the roof s of buildings - something uncommon in these areas. We also started experiencing armed robbery, a menace unknown here. The youth had tasted excessive money from the rosewood business. But now they can’t make that much money and so they resorted to crime,” he added.

We trekked to the Kpririver, over which a bridge has been built, we found it drying up, and lying not far from the banks of the now vanishing river are felled rosewood that couldn’t be exported because loggers for some reasons among oth-

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SPECIAL REPORT continued from page 10 ers, the smaller girth sizes, couldn’t move them. We counted some 300 logs wasting away!

The impact is being felt even on local diets, says Rev. Fr. Clement Aapengnuo of the Centre for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies in Damongo.

“The indiscriminate felling of trees is affecting the rainfall pattern. We are losing the windbreak function of trees and local people can’t find honey anymore,” he said.

He adds that the rainfall pattern has changed; the communities are now experience heavy winds, because the wind-break function of the trees isn’t there.

The Murugu community that depended so much on honey harvesting couldn’t harvest honey in recent times, according to Rev. Aapengnuo. “The people are now beginning to see the linkage between trees and honey,” he added.

Damongo used to export maize to Angola Chief Abdallah Ahmed, alias Chief Mornor, the traditional ruler of Tolodonpey in the Buipe Traditional Area recalls that in the 1970s Damongo used to produce maize and export to Angola.

There was the Gonja Development Corporation that managed a silo that was efficiently used to store maize. But the silo at some point was abandoned. Even though it was recently renovated with funding from the African Development Bank it has been abandoned again and it is empty.

“Sometime ago, residents of Damongo used to buy wood from Techiman to roof their buildings. But these days wood is sold to Techiman from Damongo,” he pointed out.

The construction of the Fufulso-Sawla road opened up the area to rosewood logging in Damongo, Chief Ahmed said. Construction of the 145km Fufulso-Sawla road started in 2012 and was commissioned in 2015. Costing $166 million, the road which joined the regions of the north to the Upper West region was funded with a loan from the African Development Bank.

“Because the logging was uncontrolled, a rise in charcoal burning entered the fray,” says Chief Ahmed.

As any available tree species became a target of wood hunters, the communities became exposed to the elements of the weather.

“The high volumes of trees cut in the communities started showing in the pattern of storms. And local people believe the level of deforestation is causing storms to hit

the communities. But the youth have benefitted from the rosewood trade. Some have built houses, bought trucks and cranes,” says Chief Ahmed, adding, “an illegality was converted into legal. The youth became accustomed to the phenomenon of ‘quick money,’ and many abandoned farming to enter the rosewood trade,” he says.

Meanwhile, there is no policy

around charcoal burning, leaving the field to all kinds of activities.

Paul Hinneh is the Assistant District Manager of the Forestry Commission in Bole. The district is responsible for the Yerada and Kenikeni Reserves, but with only 10 forest guards and two range supervisors, they are outnumbered and overwhelmed by the activities of potential loggers and poachers, and often they are compelled to look above their shoulders with concern over interference from political and traditional leaders, as a result of which they are unable to do as much as they can and should, to protect the forests from the marauding loggers.

A tractor used for carting logs has been arrested and it has been sitting on the compound of the Commission for almost two years, as officials refuse to budge in this instance to release the tractor to the offenders.

Despite the difficulties, two loggers who were arrested by the team recently, have been successfully prosecuted and jailed, Hinneh says.

“Sometimes, when we arrest the trucks carrying the wood, we make them pay and we release them,” he adds. Interference from state officials At the height of the logging, local people decided to stop the log-

gers from moving logged trees from the communities. But each time they stopped trucks from transporting logs, they would receive calls from state officials to let them go.

While local people are flouting the laws and exploiting the forests themselves, interference from political office holders also played a role in deepening the problem of logging.

“You would be here and people

will come with permits and letters from Accra. Sometimes, you would see trucks with military escort. In such cases, what could you do?”

Chief Jarga asks.

Asked why he thinks the logging has persisted in spite of the known side effects and impacts, Abdulai says there are many people who don’t know the impacts of logging on the environment.

He however adds, “logging affects economic activities and should therefore be done legally to generate revenue, instead of illegally. It is going on because community members and chiefs are involved, and government is not strongly committed to ending the practice,” he said.

He adds that the government should specifically pass a law to protect rosewood.

A classic case in point was when a Chinese national was arrested as she carted rosewood out of the Northern Region. In May 2019, the Northern Regional Police Command arrested 43-year-old Helen Huang for transporting two trucks loaded with four 20-footer containers of rosewood heading to the port city of Tema for possible onward export to China. While everyone expected her criminal prosecution, there is no final word on the case.

The Ghanaian who stood surety for her, Mohammed Bondirigbum was briefly arrested and later acquitted by the courts.

There are unanswered questions about the whereabouts of the trucks and their contents – the rosewood she was smuggling.

The police in Damongo about a month ago arrested a crane carrying logged pauper logs. The truck was still sitting in the yard of the District Police at the time we visited.

An officer who confirmed to us that the truck was arrested said, they are warding off interference from public officials and politically connected individuals to release the truck to the owners.

Investigation following report

by EIA Last year the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) conducted an investigation into the activities of rosewood loggers and established that there is official collusion. The Executive Director of the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission was named in the investigation as receiving a percentage of the value of the rosewood exported illegally, and the investigation said he was

being bribed to sign export permits illegally. He denied the accusations, and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources set up a committee to look into the allegations.

On December 23, 2019, the Committee submitted its findings to the Minister, Kwaku Asomah Cheremeh. The findings are yet to be made public, but the official, some sources say is very likely to be cleared – following a common trend in Ghana.

The woodcutter Not far from Busunu, is the small village of Tailorpe, nestled in the corner of the Fufulso-Sawla road.

Mainly a farming community, the locals also became introduced to the logging business. Fuseini Tahiru, (not his real name), says he used to farm, until he found a new vocation in cutting down trees for the wood merchants. Asked about his age, he says, he is either 35 or 36 years. He has three wives and 10 children.

“After farming for 20 years, I needed to do something else. I considered the income I could make from farming and from cutting down trees – particularly rosewood,” he says, with some wariness.

After purchasing a chainsaw, Tahiru started his trade. He would first identify a tree to be cut. Then he would inform the local chief or landowner.

“The landowner gets a share of income from every wood sold,” he says.

The trees have different prices, Tahiru says. According to him, depending on the tree species, they pay GH¢500 for 100 trees.

Asked if he didn’t think his activities were illegal, Tahiru said he didn’t think so, because he got permission from landowners and chiefs to log the trees, and he adds, “everyone was doing it”; that is cutting trees to sell.

“Compared to farming, which activity gives you more money,” we asked Tahiru.

Beaming with smiles, he said, “logging gives me more money. I have bought two cars.”

He followed up with a grim truth, however. “We have finished cutting all the pauper trees. You can’t find pauper in the forest. As for rosewood, we don’t cut anymore, because of the ban,” he said.

Even though he says he has been arrested thrice in the past, he said he paid his way out of any criminal

prosecution.

He told a story of how a truck they had loaded with rosewood last year was arrested and the key seized by officials of the Forestry Commission, but the owner of the truck managed to recover the truck with the logs.

“Twice I have been arrested by Forestry Commission officials. I said they were looking for their daily bread, so I paid them money and they released me,” he said. Asked if receipts were issued for the payment, he said “no.”

Meanwhile, his chainsaw is not licensed.

Tahiru is however hopeful that in the future, the ban will be lifted and more rosewood would grow in the forest as he knows where to find the trees.

“Now I am back into farming. I farmed 19 acres and harvested 10 bags of maize,” he says.

Tahiru however, knows that cutting trees has negative impacts on the land and crop yield.

“There is overgrazing by cattle, the soil is degraded and crop yields are low as a result of cutting trees,” he admits, however adding that, “I would choose logging over farming.

If farming is the only job there was, there would be lots of thieves and people would be in debt,” he argues.

While he makes as much money as he can from cutting all the precious tress he could find, Tahiru thinks that at the current rate of logging, his children may grow up and not see any of the species of trees he is logging away.

We sent a written letter to the CEO of the Forestry Commission seeking responses to the issues, but we have not received a reply as at the time of publishing.

Copyright ©2020 by Creative Imaginations Publicitynting the Global Water Crisis. )

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BUSINESS24 | MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2020

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Aviation

Africa, Intertwined With China, Fears Coronavirus Outbreak There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Africa yet, but with steady traffic to and from China, experts worry that the epidemic could overrun already-strained health systems.

As the 9 a.m. flight from Dubai arrived at the international airport in Ethiopia’s capital on Wednesday, four government health specialists in face masks and protective glasses worked their way to the line of incoming passengers to check their passports.

The health specialists found what they were looking for — two passengers who had just returned from China — and pulled them aside to check their temperatures to see if they might have been infected by the coronavirus.

The two passengers had normal temperatures, so were allowed to continue on their way, a government policy that does not account for an incubation period that is up to 14 days.

As the coronavirus wreaks havoc in China and has spread to countries around the world, experts are increasingly concerned that Africa is particularly vulnerable.

The continent’s health system is already fragile. It has few facilities even to test for the virus. Its doctors are already straining to contain deadly outbreaks of other diseases, like malaria, measles and Ebola.

Chinese and Ugandan workers at the Isimba Hydro Power Project in eastern Uganda in 2018. Chinese citizens have flocked to Africa, working in industries ranging from manufacturing and technology to health care and construction.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times

And on top of that, Africa has large numbers of Chinese workers, many now returning to the continent after visits to China for the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile, some of the 81,000 African students who have been studying in China are now heading home. But while more and more countries tighten their controls over travel with China, Ethiopia has kept the door open and the planes flying.

If the coronavirus hits Africa, said Dr. John Nkengasong, director of Africa Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention in Addis Ababa, “it will be massive.”

There have been 32 suspected cases of coronavirus in Africa, but none tested positive for the virus, according to the Africa C.D.C. But until this week, only two countries on the continent — South Africa and Senegal — had laboratories capable of testing for the coronavirus.

Most hospitals on the continent, other than large ones in capitals or regional seats, do not have the intensive care units that patients diagnosed with the coronavirus might

require, experts say.

“If this happens in Africa it will be a huge struggle because the health services are quite overstretched dealing with ongoing diseases like malaria and measles and the current Ebola outbreak,” said Michel Yao, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Operations Program Manager for Africa.

Africa was largely spared in 2002 and 2003 when the SARS virus, which also originated in China, spread around the world, killing nearly 800 people and infecting

Kenya upbeat on direct cargo flights deal with US Kenya is optimistic of improved trade connectivity with the US after the two countries struck a new deal for direct cargo flights between the two nations.

The amendment deal, which adds all-cargo rights to the existing air transport agreement, is expected to offer air carriers greater flexibility to meet customers’ cargo and express delivery needs more efficiently.

It adds seventh-freedom traffic rights for all-cargo operations, meaning cheaper costs and efficiency in cargo movement. The agreement was signed in Washington D.C by US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Manisha Singh and Kenya’s Transport Secretary James Macharia.

Mr. Macharia said the deal “will facilitate expansion of air freight services by allowing airlines from both countries to set up and operate air cargo hubs in either country”.

Manufacturers welcomed the introduction of direct cargo flights to the US from Kenya, saying they can now explore opportunities to sell flowers directly in America.

“Generally we expect to see faster movement of goods and increased penetration of Kenyan products to the US market, particularly flowers which pass through Amsterdam before being dispatched to their destination,” said the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) in a statement.

Kenya imports capital goods and machinery from the US while some of the products Kenya exports to the US include textiles and apparel.

KAM said the direct cargo flights would cut costs.

“Direct cargo flights from US to Kenya will ease logistics for Kenyan importers by cutting down the time it takes to import such goods to the country,” said KAM. While national carrier Kenya Airways said it would not immediately be able to tap the opportunity due to capacity constraints, the airline said it would work with other car-

riers to leverage the new opportunities for air freight services arising from the deal.

“KQ does not have big enough cargo aircraft at the moment to be able to fly directly to the US and therefore benefit directly from this agreement,” KQ acting chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka told the Business Daily.

“This arrangement will mainly benefit US carriers with KQ being an incidental beneficiary from interline cargo to smaller African destinations from our hub in Nairobi.”

Trade data released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) for the 11 months to November last year showed that the US imported Kenyan goods worth Sh46.4 billion compared to Sh44 billion over a similar period in 2018.

This made the US the second biggest market of Kenyan products behind Uganda (Sh49 billion) in the period to November 2019.

Goods worth Sh55.1 billion travelled the opposite direction in the 11-month period registering a 10.4 percent growth compared to Sh49.9 billion spent on American imports over the same period in

2018.

The new cargo pact is expected to enter into force shortly having been negotiated from last December.

Kenya Airways launched direct flights from Nairobi to New York in October 2018 after being granted security clearance by US authorities. Former Kenya Flower Council CEO Jane Ngige had earlier said that the direct flights to the US would open a new and lucrative avenue for Kenya cut flowers and horticulture products at large.

“The rights in the Amendment facilitate the movement of goods throughout the world by providing air carriers greater flexibility to meet their cargo and express delivery customers’ needs more efficiently,” said the US State Department in a statement.

“Specifically, the Amendment allows US all-cargo airlines to fly between Kenya and a third nation without needing to stop in the United States, an important right if operating a cargo hub.”

Kenyan all-cargo carriers have reciprocal rights to serve the United States under the deal.

“This Amendment further expands our strong economic and

commercial partnership, while creating new opportunities for all-cargo airlines, exporters, and consumers,” said the US. “It will fully open the Kenyan air cargo services market to US carriers, and represents one way in which the US Government is delivering for US all-cargo carriers and American workers.”

The Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi was last year ranked as the second fastest growing airport in world cargo ranking by a global report highlighting top airports for passengers, cargo and aircraft movements.

The World Airport Traffic Report Data for 2018 released by Airports Council International (ACI) ranked JKIA second in the ‘Fastest Growing Airports (Handling over 250,000 metric tonnes of air cargo)’ category. JKIA handled over 342,000 metric tonnes of air cargo in 2018, a 25 percent growth from 2017.

According to the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), JKIA air cargo traffic growth has been seen to and from Europe, Asia, America, and most recently China and Australia.

“In the last few years, JKIA has seen the entry of several modern transit sheds, increasing its annual overall cargo to 1.2 million tons,” said KAA earlier.

Mitchell Cotts, a leading cargo and logistics company, is currently also constructing its new shed at JKIA whose completion is expected to inject an additional annual capacity of 150,000 metric tons at the airport.

Astral Aviation, a cargo airline operating from JKIA, has in the last year acquired three Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft to boost its freight capacity and expand its network.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is currently in the US for an official visit and was expected to meet his host, President Donald Trump, for bilateral talks aimed at deepening trade and investment between the US and Kenya. (Business Daily)

more than 8,000, mostly in China and Hong Kong. Africa reported only one case, in South Africa.

But the risk is far greater now, experts say. China and Africa have become intertwined in the last two decades as China has expanded its political, economic, and military ties to Africa, funding large infrastructure projects and pledging tens of billions of dollars in investments and loans.

Chinese citizens have flocked to Africa, working in industries ranging from manufacturing and technology to health care and construction. Estimates of how many Chinese are now living in Africa range from about 200,000 to as many as two million.

Air travel between China and Africa has increased exponentially in the last decade alone, from one flight a day to an average of eight direct flights.

Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s biggest and most profitable carrier, is the main gateway between China and Africa, shuttling up to 1,500 passengers each day between Addis Ababa and China on dozens of weekly flights. The airline has a center in the Addis Ababa airport to help Chinese travelers easily process their visas to dozens of African states. The Ethiopian airport itself was built in part with funding from China. (Source: NYtimes)

Zipline begins safety testing of new highperformance drones Zipline has begun safety tests on its high-performance drones in readiness of the opening of the third and fourth distribution centers.

Since launching in Ghana, Zipline has safely delivered over 20,000 units of blood, vaccines and critical medicines to patients in need at more than 350 health facilities over the course of more than 4000 flights from our distribution centers in Omenako and Mpanya.

Over the next four months we’ll be opening our third and fourth distribution centeres in Vobsi in the North East Regions and Sefwi Wiaso in the Western Regions as we expand to serve close to 2,000 health facilities.

A key part of what will allow us to make that expansion possible and serve even more patients in need across the country is deploying a brand-new generation of drone, which flies further, faster and can carry more medicine.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be testing the flight safety features of the new drone, which includes the parachute landing system, before the aircraft enters full service.

Yesterday, we conducted just such a successful test from our Mpanya Center.

The parachute landing feature allows our plane to safely land in the event of things like unexpected bad weather, or emergency requests from air traffic control.

So if you see one of our drones making a parachute landing, know that it is an important part of what makes Zipline the safest and most reliable instant drone delivery service in the world.

Safety is our top priority and that’s why we have built it into everything we do. Serving patients in Ghana is a tremendous honor. And we are humbled by the opportunity to help improve the lives of people across the country.

For more information on the safety features of Zipline’s drones, including the parachute landing system.

(Zipline)

BUSINESS24 | MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2020

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13

Energy

So Energy is committed to service excellence in Ghana –MD As a leading company in the oil and gas sector in Ghana, So Energy, an affiliate of the energy giant, Sahara Group, continues to redefine the bar of innovation and service excellence to boost economic growth and development in Ghana. In this interview, Yvette Salormey, MD, Sahara Downstream Companies in Ghana sheds light on the company’s operations, corporate citizenship and future

Security and Environment (QHSSE) and work closely with organisations such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who assist us to audit and ensure we are continuously transacting our business in an eco-friendly manner.

Q: How do you think the adulteration of petroleum products can be checked?

The regulator, NPA is currently taking huge measures to curb adulteration in the downstream sector.

Just one example is through the PPMS (Petroleum Product Monitoring System) test run by the Authority where random inspections are carried out by NPA officials on Petrol/diesel pumps to test product quality.

Q: So Energy recently commissioned a retail station in Accra. What is driving the company’s decision to increase its retail outlets?

Yes, we currently commissioned a station at Alajo and we are going to commission several more during the year.

Our drive to increase the number of retail outlets in Ghana is in line with our vision to bring energy to life by providing access to clean, safe and efficient fueling solutions to drive economic growth and development.

Appropriate action is then taken against the erring dealers Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) and its Dealers. As a company, we are currently embarking on Automation of our Retail Outlets which will enable the real-time capture of sales transaction and monitoring of tank stocks and receipts. This in a way helps curb the rare incidence of adulteration and immediate information on stocks and sales is readily available for audit.

We have been operating in the downstream sector for a number of years and have created a household brand amongst our customers who would travel long distances just to purchase fuel from a So branded station. To ensure easy accessibility of our products and services to the end users, we have decided to increase our retail outlets to also enhance our brand visibility.

Q: Safety in the energy sector is an essential requirement. How does So Energy manage its safety mechanism?

So Energy Ghana Limited is committed to managing Health, Safety and Environmental (HS&E) matters as an integral part of our business. It is always our policy to ensure the HS&E integrity of our processes and facilities and at all places.

Q: How long has the company been operating in Ghana and what has been your experience over the period?

Since 2005, it’s been an interesting yet challenging experience with the evolving and dynamic business environment in Ghana. We have had to infuse a lot of innovation into our business model to keep our business ahead by offering tailored services to our customers.

Over this period, the So Energy brand has grown with the market and created a strong bond with all stakeholders in the sector, all on the strength of our commitment to professionalism, service excellence and integrity. In fact, Ghana has been a home like no other to So Energy Q: Can you share with us how So Energy gives back to Ghana in terms of corporate social responsibility projects?

So Energy has been involved in a number of corporate social responsibility projects powered by Sahara Foundation, the corporate responsibility vehicle of the Sahara Group. Some of these projects include a borehole project (this was a strategic partnership between Sahara, the Carter Center Foundation and W.A.T.E.R Ghana towards eradicating guinea worm across West Africa), collaborating with the Ghana Health Service to carry out surgeries for buruli ulcer patients in the Amasaman district, funding for the Saint Francis Xavier school in the north whose dormitories had been razed down by fire, funding for the Kumasi market women after the fire that gutted the market in 2018, contribution to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) general office to assist with relief and so many other projects. Support for Tema Senior High School through the donation of sanitation facilities (washrooms), rehabilitation of classrooms, hostels and laboratories. These facilities have improved the learning conditions for over 1,600 students.

We always seek to accomplish this by adhering to the principles of; Compliance, Communication, Continuous Improvement, Risk Reduction, Prevention, and Resource Management. We continue to adopt measures to minimize risk and protect our employees and the communities in which we operate by employing clean technology, including safe technologies and operating procedures, as well as being prepared for emergencies.

Yvette Salormey, MD, Sahara Downstream Companies

Q: So Energy staff usually play prominent roles in sone if your CSR activities. What is the reason behind this?

Helping the helpless is very fulfilling. Our aim is to imbibe the culture of giving back to our community amongst the staff. Our staff have over the years connected with the community and developed a sense of responsibility towards the society through the numerous Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs that the company has undertaken.

This has become more of a personal responsibility to the members of staff and they pride themselves in being a part of the CSR activities.

Through Sahara Foundation’s partnership with Ashesi University, staff members have reaffirmed our commitment to youth empowerment by serving as volunteer mentors during the annual Ashesi Innovation Experience programme which has directly impacted over 250 young Ghanaians.

Q: What do you think of the downstream sector in Ghana?

The downstream sector has shown remarkable growth over the years.

It is an integral sector that has contributed in no small measure to

Ghana’s economy. The deregulation of the market also encouraged a new wave of private sector participation; the number of stakeholders has increased.

Regardless of the industry challenges, all investors have their hands-on deck to ensure solutions are proffered. The National Petroleum Authority (NPA), as the regulator has in no small measure made for more accountability and efficiency in creating greater visibility in product distribution and integrity.

Q: We understand So Energy is looking to redefine supply chain efficiency in Ghana’s downstream sector. How do you intend to achieve this?

So Energy is part of a bigger scheme in the supply chain stream which aims to ensure competency in product movement. As we are strategically placed in each of the sectors, our customer promise is consistency in supply which is in line with the Sahara vision and to achieve this, we guarantee productive collaboration with all stakeholders. T hrough innovative partnerships and by leveraging on our core values and culture, there is an under-

standing of this goal which translates into satisfying customers.

Q: Achieving the United Nation’s sustainable development goals is a global quest that has 2030 as target date. How is So Energy contributing to this?

So Energy is an equal opportunities provider which means that we endeavour to give all employees, irrespective of background, tribe or gender a platform to showcase their abilities and talents and contribute to the growth of the organisation.

We are bridging the gender divide actively and employing more women which is exemplified in females heading 3 out of our 5 departments aside myself as the head of the business. We actively organise health screening workshops annually for all our staff as well as provide access to healthcare 24/7.

Over the next 10 years we will continue contributing to Ghana’s economic growth with sustainable investments in more remote and rural locations, thus expanding the access to jobs, petroleum products and solutions and ultimately infrastructural development.

Finally, due to the nature of our business, we continue to invest heavily in our Quality Health Safety

Q: What are the near and long terms plans of So Energy in Ghana?

In the short term, our plan is to expand our presence (retail stations) in every region of Ghana. On the long term, in line with our vision, and through adequate partnership, we plan to be a household name in downstream by constructing an LPG storage facility to help close the gap of inadequate gas storage in Africa.

Q: Running So Energy as a young Ghanaian must be an achievement you’re proud of. What does this mean for the youth in Ghana?

As a company we are passionate about promoting youth empowerment, especially at giving wings to their aspirations and changing the narrative. This remains a vision I largely share in. Consequently, I would continue to take keen interest in creating an enabling environment for young people to express their talent, challenge norms, break grounds and add incalculable value that will impact society and Ghana as a whole.

It is important to note that 65 percent of our staff population is mainly youthful, with a unique collection of vibrant young men and women connected to opportunities that will help them grow and reach their aspirations.

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BUSINESS24 | MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2020

BUSINESS24 | MONDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2020

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15

Commodities

Spanish Farmers Rise Up Against Unfair Prices Amidst The Worst Agri-Food Crisis In Decades Spanish farmers have engaged several mobilizations across the country protesting the lack of fair prices in the market.

The agri-food sector is living one of its worst crisis of profitability in the last decades. In 2019, the agricultural income fell by 9%.

Among the challenges, the unions have highlighted the imbalance in the agri-food chain.

The current phenomenon that tends to concentrate the power in big chains to the detriment of smallscale producers is “pushing thousands of families all over Spain to the limit,” unions have warned.

The price of some products has reached historical minimums in the last few months. This is the case of olive oil, which has fallen around 20% –from €2.5 ($2.75) to €2 ($2.2), –meaning farmers are selling at a loss. This figure contrasts with the prices at supermarkets, where the bottles cost around €4 ($4.4).

In addition to the market transformation, farmers are facing the consequences of the international trade war.

Last October the U.S. administration implemented the announced trade barriers linked to the Airbus case against European products such as oil, wine or cheese worth $7.5 billion. The Spanish government estimated an impact of around $841 million, of which olive oil is the main product affected. In this context, the Spanish government called

for tenders to withdraw olive oil and store it in the short term to regulate the market supply. The European Commission has backed the measure considering the foreign trade uncertainty together with the low prices and “an exceptionally high level of initial stocks.”

The minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food Luis Planas has celebrated the “positive result” of the third tender since the European Commission has authorized the withdrawal of 149,630 tons.

Last week, Planas held a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, in which the Spanish minister stressed that the tariffs in the agri-food sector “are not the solution.” Climate challenge is also a big concern for the

sector, which is obliged to comply with high environmental standards while competing with products from other territories with lower requirements.

Large-scale distribution farm unions

VS

Following all these hostilities, demonstrations throughout Spain have been rising since the beginning of 2020. Farmers feel they have been left alone by the ruling institutions. “The protests are intended to be a turning point given the dynamics that are leading to the ruin of farmers in many sectors,” unions said. The main roads and highways in some cities in Andalusia and Extremadura were cut during last week’s mobilizations. The protests

Gold Fields, Impala flag big earnings jumps on precious metals rally Gold Fields and Impala Platinum (Implats) are the latest precious metals producers to flag big jumps in 2019 earnings. The rally in the likes of gold and palladium are clearly flowing to bottom lines.

South Africa’s mining industry remains challenged on a range of fronts, a recurring theme at the Investing in African Mining Indaba that was held this week in Cape Town. But it has been getting a big break where it really counts: the prices that end-consumers pay for some of the key commodities produced here. And that has helped gold and platinum group metals (PGM) producers to build on a swing back to profits.

Gold Fields and Impala Platinum (Implats) are the latest companies to issue trading statements ahead of the release of 2019 results later this month that flag steep jumps in their profits. Gold Fields said on Thursday 6 February that it expected full-year 2019 headline earnings per share to rise between 171% and 200% to between 19 and 21 US cents per share. This will be “driven by higher production, higher gold prices achieved, lower cost of sales and lower impairment charges in 2019”.

Gold’s spot price rose 19% last year and is widely seen adding to those gains in 2020, setting the stage for producers such as Gold Fields, which has worked hard at containing costs as it pivots from South Africa to mechanised operations elsewhere.

“Gold is poised to perform strongly in 2020, with geopolitical risk set to remain elevated,” Wood Mackenzie said in a recent note. Rising Middle East tensions, uncertainty about where the trade war between the US and China may go next, unknown consequences from Brexit, Donald Trump’s erratic behaviour and boorish foreign policy in general — wherever one looks, there are geopolitical

risks in spades as the 21st century embarks on a potentially turbulent third decade. This enhances the “safe haven” appeal of gold. Globally low interest rates also help as other safe havens such as cash and bonds offer low returns. All in all, it is not a bad time to be a gold producer, and this will reflect in a spate of earnings to come out in the coming weeks.

PGMs also have a new lustre, driven by surging palladium and rhodium prices. The price of palladium, the metal of choice for petrol autocatalysts, has soared around 500% over the past four years to more than $2,500 an ounce, driven by a supply crunch which was widely expected in some circles, but has still taken the market by jolting surprise.

Implats, which battled for years with depressed prices and labour and social unrest, has been turning a corner and 2019 looks set to be a bumper year. It said in a trading statement that its interim headline earnings and headline earnings per share were expected to in-

crease between 42% and 62% and 32% and 50% respectively.

“Gross profit is expected to increase by more than 90% to approximately R6-billion, primarily due to the higher rand PGM basket price,” it said. Anglo American Platinum has also said it expects a huge jump in profits.

Is this good for South Africa?

It certainly means that gold and platinum producers are making money, which means they are less likely to lay off staff, can spend more money on social and labour plans, and give back cash in the form of dividends to both domestic and foreign investors, who in turn might invest more in the country.

It also boosts exports, helping to support the rand and the balance on the current account. The industry only hopes the government won’t be tempted in its constrained fiscal environment to impose windfall taxes or some such thing. After years of generally bad news, there are some silver linings on the South African mining front.

Source: (goldfields)

spread to the capital on Wednesday (February 5), when farmers called for solutions in front of the Ministry of Agriculture in Madrid.

In response to mobilizations, the ministry Planas has launched a dialogue table with the main agricultural unions ASAJA, COAG, and UPA. After holding the first meeting on Monday (February 3), Planas announced he will meet the largescale distribution companies such as Carrefour, Lidl, and Mercadona aiming to end the big chains’ lowering prices strategy.

“We cannot afford to lose the economic value of the Spanish countryside,” said Planas, who also emphasized the dispersion of supply in relation to the concentration of distribution as the main structural problem of the sector.

Spain has around 800,000 producers and 4,000 cooperatives.

“We are the fourth largest agri-food producing country in Europe but there is no Spanish cooperative among the top 50 in the EU,” the minister indicated.

Rural Spain at centre stage of Spanish politics Among the measures announced, the government intends to reform the Food Chain Law to fight “unfair competition practices” and “avoid sales at a loss”. However, unions do not trust this would be enough to solve the market’s disparities.

One of the proposals that have

gained force lately is the approval of a law of minimum prices in the agricultural sector.

The government has stated that no administration can set prices, although is opened to establish regulatory measures to reduce price volatility both from an economic and a climate point of view.

In contrast, the anti-austerity party Unidas Podemos —in the coalition government since January— has recently defended the need of a bill on minimum prices, a measure that was included in their political pledges.

One thing both the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos have a consensus on is the need to place the challenge of the “Rural Spain” at the top of the government’s agenda.

Especially taking into account the threat of the far-right, that has conquered the rural areas of countries like France where the tradional parties were not able to improve people’s lives. Forbes

The protests are intended to be a turning point given the dynamics that are leading to the ruin of farmers in many sectors.

Farm Unions

Malaysian palm giant Sime Darby says it will work with environmental groups

Malaysia’s biggest palm oil producer Sime Darby said on Friday it is committed to working with environmental groups, days after a senior executive called for government action against them.

Franki Anthony Dass, chief advisor and value officer at Sime Darby Plantation - the world’s biggest palm oil company by land size - told an industry forum on Tuesday that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were orchestrating attacks on palm oil.

“If they are so unfriendly, why allow them to be in our countries Malaysia and Indonesia,” he said. “We have the right to control this and do something drastic for once.”

Indonesia and Malaysia are the top two producers of palm oil, the cultivation of which is blamed for large scale deforestation in Southeast Asia and for endangering wildlife, such as orangutans and pygmy elephants.

Sime Darby said that Franki made his comments in his capacity as chairman of the Malaysian Palm Oil Certification Council, the national sustainability body, and his com-

ments did not refer to all NGOs. “It was referring to the misbehaviour of certain unreasonable NGOs that are trying to discredit painstaking efforts by the industry to raise its sustainability standards via certification such as the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil,” the company said in a statement to Reuters, referring to the Malaysian green certificate for palm oil.

Environmental groups, especially in Europe, have called on palm oil producers to be more sustainable.

Sime Darby said it has collaborated with many NGOs in its path to sustainability and will continue to do so. Palm oil is used in everything from ice cream to lipstick to fuel.

Last year the European Union legislated to phase out palm oil use in renewable fuel by 2030 because of concerns about deforestation.

Producers, though, say palm oil buyers including major consumer goods companies, must share responsibility because they don’t buy enough sustainably produced oil, undermining efforts to reward those who adopt greener practises and reduce deforestation. Reuters

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Automobile

Honda quarterly profit drops Honda Motor Co. reported a 2.1 percent decline in operating profit in the latest quarter as falling sales, higher r&d outlays and swinging foreign exchange rates hit earnings.

Operating profit slipped to 166.6 billion yen ($1.53 billion) in fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, Honda said Friday in its earnings report.

Net income fell 31 percent to 116.4 billion yen ($1.07 billion) in the three-month period, partly because the company was hit by higher income tax expenses in the U.S. Revenue decreased 5.7 percent to 3.75 trillion yen ($34.4 billion), as worldwide sales retreated 11.4 percent to 1.25 million vehicles in the October-December quarter.

Despite the downturn in operating profit, Honda raised its full fiscal year profit outlook, citing a return to more favorable foreign exchange rates and better-than-expected sales in Japan. But the company still expects global sales to decline 6.4 percent this fiscal year.

North America, Honda’s biggest second-biggest market after Asia, was the automaker’s biggest profit engine in the three months to Dec. 1. Regional operating profit more than doubled to 101.7 billion yen ($932.6 million) in the period, even as regional unit sales declined.

North American sales declined 4.8 percent to 474,000 units in the quarter.

In the key U.S. market, Honda notched a 0.2 percent sales increase in 2019, even as total demand fell 1.2

percent. Rivals Toyota, Nissan and Mazda, posted bigger declines than the market. Although Honda’s U.S. passenger car sales fell, it achieved a 2.9 percent sales increase in higher-margin light trucks, tapping big demand for the Honda CR-V and HR-V crossovers. The CR-V alone booked monthly sales records in October and November, Honda said.

The addition of the Passport crossover to the lineup also bumped up business. Honda is under-represented in light trucks compared to the

overall U.S. market. They accounted for about 56 percent of American Honda’s total volume in 2019. Industrywide, crossovers, pickups, vans and SUVs comprised about 72 percent of total U.S. sales.

And that is just fine with Honda for the time being, Executive Vice President Seiji Kuraishi said. Honda will keep the production schedule roughly in lineup with the current mix. “We don’t have any plans to change the lineup drastically,” he said. But Honda is also turning to incentives more than before.

Toyota to idle China plants through Feb. 16 Toyota Motor Corp. has said it production at all of its China plants would remain suspended through Feb. 16, joining a growing number of automakers facing stoppages due to supply chain issues as the coronavirus spreads.

The Japanese automaker, which operates 12 vehicle and component factories in China, said it would extend shutdowns “after considering various factors, including guidelines from local and region governments, parts supply, and logistics.

“For the week of Feb. 10, we will be preparing for the return to normal operation from Feb. 17 and beyond,” it said in a statement.

The decision extends Toyota’s initial plans to suspend operations through Sunday, and comes as the spreading coronavirus crisis further threatens the global auto industry.

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and affiliate Kia Motors said on Friday that they plan to restart production at their Chinese factories on Feb. 17, from a previously planned Feb.9.

“We will take preventive measures against infection at factories,” a spokeswoman said.

A growing number of carmakers are flagging the possibility that their global operations could take a hit if they cannot access parts from China, where there are transportation bans to help contain the virus.

Honda Motor Co. said Friday it will keep operations at assembly plants in Wuhan, China, suspended through Feb. 13, as previously planned.

The Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday that Japan’s third-biggest automaker would extend the factory suspensions until at least late February.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Thursday said one of its European plants could close within two to four weeks if Chinese parts suppliers cannot get back to work soon, while Hyundai earlier this week suspended production at its South

Korean plants due to a shortage of China-made parts.

Parts made in China are used in millions of vehicles assembled elsewhere, and China’s Hubei province -- the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak -- is a major hub for vehicle parts production and shipments.

To limit the spread of the virus, Chinese authorities have announced an extended holiday period in Hubei and 10 other provinces, which account for more than twothirds of the country’s vehicle production.

IHS Automotive projects plant closures through Feb. 10 would result in a 7 percent reduction in China’s first-quarter vehicle output.

In a note, its analysts said extended closures into March may result in lost production of over 1.7 million vehicles for the period, a decline of roughly one-third of pre-virus output expectations.

“If the situation lingers into midMarch, and plants in adjacent provinces are also idled, the China-wide supply chain disruption caused by parts shortages from Hubei, a major component hub, could have a wide-reaching impact,” they said.

Other industry experts said suppliers had built up a cushion of parts in inventory and in-transit ahead of the long Lunar New Year holiday in late January. Those will start to run out if factories cannot get back to work next week, or if flights to and from China remain limited.

Toyota said its plants outside China were operating as normal for the moment.

On Thursday, a company official told reporters the automaker was considering the possibility of manufacturing parts commonly made in China in other regions, to minimize the impact of China plant stoppages on its global production network.

In the October-December period alone, average spiff spending on Honda and Acura brand cars

by American Honda Motor Co. increased 20 percent and to $2,493, although the outlays were still well below the industry average of $4,123 per vehicle, according to figures from Motor Intelligence. Average industry outlays increased 11.0 percent in the quarter.

European sales fell 14.6 percent to 35,000 units in the quarter as the regional operating profit declined 8.4 percent to 1.2 billion yen ($11.0 mil-

lion). Global results were undercut by uncooperative foreign exchange rates.

The yen’s appreciation against the U.S. dollar and other currencies cut 40.0 billion yen ($366.8 million) off quarterly operating profit. An increase in r&d spending, to the tune of 35.2 billion yen ($322.8 million), also dented profits, as Honda ramped up investment in next-generation technologies such as electrification.

Honda aims to increase r&d spending 4.9 percent to 860.0 billion yen ($7.89 billion) this fiscal year. The investment in future technology will account for 5.7 percent of its expected revenue.

Looking ahead, Honda lifted its forecasts for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2020.

Honda now predicts operating profit will increase 0.5 percent to 730 billion yen ($6.69 billion), rather than decrease 5 percent as forecast in November. Net income is now expected to fall only 2.5 percent, rather than the steeper 5.8 percent decline Honda earlier predicted.

Global sales are seen falling 6.4 percent to 4.98 million vehicles.

That too is better than Honda’s earlier expectation for a 6.5 percent decline to 4.975 million units.

Honda predicted that North American sales will decline 4.6 percent to 1.865 million vehicles in the current fiscal year, while European sales fall 20 percent to 135,000 units.

Toyota, Lexus recall 52,000 vehicles over possible coolant leaks

Toyota Motor North America is recalling about 52,000 vehicles over possible coolant leaks. The recall covers 2020 Toyota Avalon Hybrid, Camry, Camry Hybrid and Lexus ES 300h vehicles as well as 2019-20 Toyota RAV4 and RAV4 Hybrid vehicles.

The recall includes about 44,000 vehicles in the U.S., Toyota said in a statement Thursday.

Affected vehicles may be equipped with an engine block that was manufactured incorrectly, the release said, and can cause an internal and/or external coolant leak “during normal engine operation.”

“This can lead to engine noise, engine smoke, warning lights/ malfunction indicator illumination, an audible chime sounding, and/or, in some cases, engine overheating and possible internal mechanical engine damage,” Toyota said in the release.

If the leak occurs in a conven-

tional gasoline vehicle, it said, “the vehicle could stall while driving at higher speeds” without warning, increasing the risk of a crash. In both hybrid and gasoline vehicles, engine damage from a coolant leak could cause engine oil to leak, “which, in the presence of an ignition source, can lead to an increased risk of fire.”

A spokeswoman for Toyota declined to comment when asked whether any accidents or injuries had been reported stemming from the defect.

Owners will be notified of the recall by early April, Toyota said in the release.

“Toyota and Lexus dealers will inspect the engine block casting serial number to determine if it is involved. In the cases where an involved engine block is identified, dealers will replace the engine including the engine block with a new one at no cost to customers.”

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Education

The world is off track in meeting its education commitments by 2030 One-third of the way to the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals, new projections prepared by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR) for the UN High-level Political Forum show that the world will fail its education commitments without a rapid acceleration of progress. In 2030, when all children should be in school, one in six aged around 6-17 will still be excluded. Many children are still dropping out: by 2030, only six out of ten young people will be completing secondary education.

The global education goal, SDG 4, calls on countries to ensure that children are not only going to school but also learning, yet the proportion of trained teachers in sub-Saharan Africa has been falling since 2000, according to the new projections, which are released in the publication Meeting Commitments: Are countries on track to achieve SDG 4?. The publication is also available in French and Spanish.

At current trends, learning rates are expected to stagnate in middle-income countries and drop by almost a third in Francophone African countries by 2030. It is expected that, without rapid acceleration, 20% of young people and 30% of adults in low-income countries will still be unable to read by the deadline. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasizes leaving no one behind yet only 4%

of the poorest 20% complete upper secondary school in low-income countries, compared to 36% of the richest. The gap is even wider in lower-middle-income countries.

The UIS and GEMR propose six steps to accelerate progress by looking beyond ‘business as usual’: 1. Beyond averages: Sharpen the focus on equity to ensure that nobody is left behind Governments should finance household surveys and improve collaboration between education ministries and statistical offices to target policies towards those in danger of being left behind.

• International partners should coordinate funding for

2.

•

•

household surveys and pool resources to make good use of the information that is already available.

Beyond access: Focus on learning and its monitoring, not just on the number of children in classrooms Governments should finance national assessments to inform policy, curricula and teacher training, and fund participation in regional or international assessments.

International partners should coordinate funding for learning assessments to lower costs and support the development of national assessment capacity.

3.

•

•

Beyond basics: Expand the content of education beyond reading, writing and mathematics to embed the learning needed for healthy and prosperous societies Governments should finance the analysis of national curricula and textbooks to identify areas for improvement and alignment with the SDGs, from gender equality and human rights to the skills needed for decent jobs.

International partners should coordinate research and policy dialogue to explore how learners can make better use of their knowledge as agents of change.

4. Beyond schooling: Expand the focus to include adults • Governments should finance labour force surveys and direct assessments to understand how skills are distributed across populations and to inform the design of education and training programmes.

• International partners should coordinate improvements in labour force survey questions on youth and adult education and training.

5. Beyond education: Improve cross-sectoral cooperation • Governments and international partners should work together to develop key indicators, such as those related to early childhood development and other factors that have a major influence on education.

6. Beyond countries: Enhance regional and international coordination • Governments and international partners should work together in regional and global fora, such as the Technical Cooperation Group (TCG), which discusses SDG 4 benchmarks, methodologies and the financing of data collection and helps broker between countries and donors to promote information sharing.

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Aviation

South Africa: Government not happy with SAA’s route cuts The decision by SAA business rescue practitioners to cancel local and regional flights will cause market and customer uncertainty that may jeopardise the long-term future of the airline, the South Africa’s government said on Friday.

Reacting to the cancellation of many domestic as well as some regional and international routes, the department of public enterprises said it will be making representations to the business rescue practitioners in order to “balance the necessity for trimming unprofitable routes with the need to ensure the future sustainability of both the airline and SA’s aviation industry”.

“This will necessitate a review of the business rescue practitioners’s recent announcement. Our submission will include a proposal that the route network changes announced by the business rescue practitioners be reviewed to ensure the sustainability of the airline,” the department said. “Whilst understanding the impact of the business rescue process on the restructuring of routes, staffing and costs, the

government and business rescue practitioners are both committed to a viable SAA as an outcome of this process,” it also said. “The SA government had already communicated to the business rescue practitioners that the rescue plan to be developed by the business rescue

practitioners should result in a restructured SAA, a national carrier which is sustainable and viable in the future,” said the statement.

The department’s statement was released a few hours after President Cyril Ramaphosa issued similar sentiments. Addressing journalists

before jetting off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the AU summit, Ramaphosa said that he does not agree with the decision to cancel several local and international SAA routes from the end of the month. “ We are not in agreement with what the business rescue practi-

tioners have come up with ... that those domestic flights should be cancelled,” said Ramaphosa. “We want to find out what the rationale is. We want to have a discussion with them because SAA is not only a great symbol for the country but also an economic enabler.”

This is the third time the airline has announced the cancellation of flights since being placed under business rescue and comes after the practitioners told the airline’s employees that they intended to expedite retrenchments.

SAA went into business rescue in December after several years of heavy losses that necessitated perpetual bailouts from the state. It recently received a R3.5bn loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa, which enabled it to continue flying while the business rescue practitioners prepare to restructure the company into what is hoped to be a sustainable business.

The business rescue practitioners spokesperson Louise Brugman declined to comment on the statement. (Source: BusinessLive)

Nigeria slashes visa fees for US citizens

Africa: Qatar Airways in talks to buy 49% stake in Rwanda’s state carrier

The Federal Government has slashed its visa application charges for citizens of the United States from $180 to $160.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the old amount comprised $160 as visa fee and $20 as “processing and expedient fees”.

According to the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Mr Muhammad Babandede, the reduction followed a review of the US’ visa reciprocity policy for Nigeria.

Babandede stated this in a February 5 memo marked NIS/HQ/ CGI/806/7 and addressed to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In August 2019, the US government imposed additional visa fees on Nigerians in retaliation for the “treatment afforded to US citizens” by the Nigerian government.

The policy required successful applicants for nonimmigrant US visas in the B, F, H1B, I, L, and R categories to pay between $80 and $303 as reciprocity fees.

This is in addition to the normal visa application fees of between $160 and $190.

Qatar Airways is in talks to buy a 49 percent stake in Rwanda’s state carrier, RwandAir, the Gulf airline’s chief executive officer has said. A stake in an African airline would widen the company’s reach in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation regions, and potentially help it bypass restrictions imposed on it by some Arab states.

“We are very tough negotiators … we will take our time to negotiate,” Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar al-Baker told reporters on Wednesday in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Qatar Airways already owns stakes in British Airways-parent International Airlines Group, China Southern, Cathay Pacific and Chile’s LATAM Airlines Group. It bought some of its stakes in other airlines since once-lucrative markets the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia banned it from its airspace in 2017 amid a regional diplomatic rift. “We are very tough negotiators … we will take our time to negotiate,” Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar al-Baker told reporters on

“The total cost for a U.S. citizen to obtain a visa to Nigeria is currently higher than the total cost for a Nigerian to obtain a comparable visa to the United States.

“The new reciprocity fee for Nigerian citizens is meant to eliminate that cost difference,” the US Embassy said in a statement on its website then. In his letter, the NIS urged all Nigerian missions in the US to immediately implement the new visa charges payable by US citizens, and “discontinue charging processing or expedient fees”.

“Our Missions are to issue up to two years multiple entry visa to frequent short visit travelers on request in line with reciprocity,” he said. A senior official of the Nigerian Consulate in New York, told NAN that the “processing and expedient fees” of $20 was for online application and payment services rendered by a private firm. NAN reports that Babandede’s letter came a day after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), launched the Nigeria Visa Policy 2020 which, among others, increased the country’s visa classes from six to 79.(punchng.com)

Wednesday in the Qatari capital of Doha. Qatar Airways already owns stakes in British Airways-parent International Airlines Group, China Southern, Cathay Pacific and Chile’s LATAM Airlines Group.

It bought some of its stakes in other airlines since once-lucrative markets the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia banned it from its airspace in 2017 amid a regional diplomatic rift.

Qatar Airways has been forced to fly longer routes to avoid the blocked airspace of some of its neighbours.

The ban does not apply to non-Qatari airlines flying to Qatar. RwandAir could potentially carry passengers from Africa over the blocked airspace to the state-owned airline’s hub in Doha without any airspace restrictions. There was no immediate comment by RwandAir. Qatar Airways agreed in December to take a 60 percent stake in a new airport in Rwanda.

Al-Baker also said the airline could be interested in increasing its holding in LATAM and working with fellow shareholder Delta Air Lines.

“When the right opportunity comes and at the right price we

will look at increasing our investment in LATAM,” he told Reuters News Agency. Qatar Airways, which holds a 10 percent stake in the South American airline group, would be interested in having a stake that is the “same like Delta”, he said.

Delta surprised the industry when it announced in September it was taking a 20 percent stake in LATAM. Qatar Airways has historically had a contentious relationship with Delta and other big US carriers, which have accused Gulf airlines of receiving unfair government subsidies, distorting competition and costing Americans jobs. The Gulf carriers have rejected such accusations.

However, al-Baker said he had no ill-feeling towards Delta and was willing to work with the US airline at its hub in Atlanta.

“We can transfer passengers on each other. We are the only Middle Eastern carrier going into their hub so there is huge opportunity,” he said.

Qatar Airways has also expressed interest in taking a stake in India’s IndiGo and Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc. A transaction with either airline has yet to take place.

Aljazeera

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