Trade Minister visits Ghanaian-owned
businesses in UK
Energy is critical to development - Veep
Trade Minister visits Ghanaian-owned
businesses in UK
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- The Government is making funds available under the Ghana Investment Fund to assist companies interested in setting up export processing plants in Ghana.
A statement from the Ghana High Commission in London said Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, Minister of Trade and Industry announcing this when he and the High Commissioner, Mr Isaac Osei, visited 26 Ghanaian-owned enterprises in the United Kingdom, said now that the economy had been stabilised, the government was giving the private sector the necessary support for realisation of the objectives of the "Golden Age of Business".
He underscored the need for Ghanaian businessmen to draw on the experiences they have acquired in UK and focus on setting up similar ventures in Ghana. The visit formed part of the High Commission's outreach programme to forge and maintain close collaboration with the Ghanaian community in UK to encourage them to expand their businesses and invest some of their profits in Ghana.
It also afforded the Trade Minister the opportunity to learn about the difficulties faced by Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the UK. Mr Osei announced that the High Commission had initiated discussions with officials of the Ghana International Bank to impress on them, the need to assist Ghanaian businesses with loans to develop and expand operations.
Responding to some concerns on the importation of fish and meat products from Ghana, the High Commissioner advised Ghanaians involved to invest in processing plants, which fall within standards required by the European Union.
He said the establishment of such plants would break the monopoly enjoyed by the few companies certified by the EU to process the exportation of fish and meat products into the European markets and also remove current bottlenecks encountered by the retailers.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Tanker with fuel berths at port
Tema (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- A fuel tanker with 27,000 metric tonnes of petrol docked at the oil berth at the Tema harbour on Friday morning. It is hoped that this will to off set any possible fuel shortage in the country.
A GNA report quotes Mr Robert B. Forson, Deputy Managing Director, Operations of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), as saying that "we are reaching all filling stations by this week-end".
He said: "To enable us to achieve this, we are working full day on Saturday to enable tankers to go out." Mr Forson explained that there was a four day delay by the tanker that was bringing in the fuel, which should have docked on April 1, but couldn’t do so until this morning.
He said there was no need for motorists to panic, adding, "we know your anxiety and we are always prepared to serve you better." Mr Forson denied that TOR has been reducing quantity of fuel sent to filling stations as being claimed by some fuel station managers.
Meanwhile, the Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan area, Ahanta West, Wassa West and Nzema East districts in the Western Region have been hit with fuel shortage bringing business activities to a halt.
Long queues of Taxis and trotro had formed at filling stations in the Sekondi-Takoradi area, according to a GNA report. Mr Kwesi Yankson, a taxi driver attributed the shortage to hoarding by the fuel station operators while others alleged that the products were being stored in anticipation of a price increase.
The shortage started to be felt on Thursday night and some filling stations were rationing the products to serve as many customers as possible. Nana Aboah in charge of the Sekondi roundabout GOIL filling station said suppliers were not delivered on time creating the shortage. He said some drivers especially those of taxis and Trotros were "panic buying" in case of a price hike.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- A 100-cedi loss by Aluworks Limited (ALW) on Friday brought to an end a string of gains made by the GSE All-Share Index as slight gains by SSB Bank and Accra Brewery could not prevent the fall.
The Index, the main market gauge, lost 1.64 points from 1,020.02 points to 1,018.38 points. Aluworks plunged by 100 cedis to 4,200 cedis in the broader market where there were three price changes.
Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) gained four cedis at 327 cedis and SSB bank gained one cedi at 2,705 cedis. Total number of shares that was traded plunged from Wednesday's 5,286,200 shares to a mere 32,200.
The change for the year also down to 6.53 per cent from 6.70 per cent. Market capitalisation also responded, going down to 4,005.38 billion cedis from 4,008.81 billion cedis. The following are the closing prices of the equities in cedis:
ABL 327 +4
AGC 18,800
ALW 4,200 -100
BAT 637
CFAO 60
EIC 3,126
FML 1,000
GBL 1,000
GCB 1,700
GGL 910
HFC 950
MGL 250
MLC 147
MOGL 18,805
PAF 750
PBC 450
PZ 1,200
SCB 20,500
SPPC 361
SSB 2,705 +1
UNIL 2,901
CMLT 430
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- The World Bank has earmarked 600 million dollars for the development of regional power infrastructure in West Africa for the next three years - 2002 to 2004.
One third of the amount has been allocated to the development of a regional power market, a project for which ECOWAS energy ministers met on Friday to adopt recommendations by a working committee to initiate action to begin work on the project that would last for the next 15 years.
Ms Marie Nelly Marie-Franciose, a representative of the World Bank, said at the meeting on Friday that the 600 million dollars was in addition to the support the Bank already provided at country levels in the region.
The amount required for the project is 10 billion dollars. The meeting was the third by the energy ministers on the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP) aimed to, among other things, to establish inter-connection infrastructure and development of plants such as hydro and thermal plants to produce about 1,000 megawatts of power capacity to the region.
Fourteen countries attended the meeting including Ghana, Benin, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and some donor representatives was to initiate immediate steps to begin the process for the Project.
It was organised by the Volta River Authority, ECOWAS and the Ministry of Energy, among other organisations. Ms Marie-Franciose said the development of such a market was a long-term process and the World Bank was ready to initiate the preparation of an operation that would cover the first phase of the project.
The proposed operation would include two main components of an investment aspect to finance critical transmission links required to build the regional network. The other is the institutional component that would provide technical assistance required to define the operating procedures of the market regulatory framework and build information infrastructure and technology capacity.
Ms Marie-Franciose said the operation to be funded by the Bank was estimated at about 150 million dollars and that includes seven million dollars for the institutional component. But funding for the investment component would cover the three lines located in Cote d'Ivoire to Mali, Ghana to Togo and Cote d'Ivoire to Burkina Faso.
She said even though the priority investment programme was larger, it was important to start with the emergency lines that were required for the firm exchange of power across countries. Ms Marie-Franciose said on the administrative side, the Bank's objective was to prepare the operation within 12 to 16 months and the aim was to present it to its board by June 2003.
"This will require acceleration of the work on our side but also closer collaboration with the ECOWAS team and member states." She said the bank had already mobilised 900,000 dollars for project preparation through grants resources. About 1.1 million dollars was required for that.
Energy Minister Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah said a study commissioned by ECOWAS and USAID acknowledged that if successfully established, WAPP would constitute a significant organisational and commercial innovation for the region.
It would also be a breakthrough model for the eventual development of other cross-border infrastructure projects within West Africa. On the country level, the Energy Minister said recent power problems that Ghana had experienced must serve as a good lesson to whoever had doubts about the need for the project.
Ghana has a capacity demand of 1,200 megawatts inclusive the Valco load and exports to Togo and Benin. To meet this demand, Mr Kan-Dapaah said, "we have an installed capacity of 1,650 megawatts and we can support this with an additional 250 megawatts import."
He said as far as demand and supply were concerned, therefore, one could say that Ghana was safe. "However, the reality is that we have not been safe at all. The combination of inadequate rainfalls and excessive hydro draft rate in recent years has resulted in low reservoir elevation.
"We have therefore, had to curtail hydro generation to about 600 megawatts, a reduction of more than 400 megawatts." Mr Kan-Dappah observed that in addition, transmission bottlenecks did not permit the evacuation of more than 450 megawatts from the thermal and import sources even though the nation could potentially access 800 megawatts from those sources.
"The result is that we can hardly meet our capacity demand of 1,200 megawatts today." The Minister noted that during this period of temporary imbalance between supply and demand, a regional power pool would have automatically solved the problem.
"I would have been spared the agony I have had to go through recently by asking a major customer (VALCO) to reduce its load and further resorting to load shedding from time to time."
Mr Dapaah hailed the WAPP and said the benefits were too tempting to postpone. He told the Ghana News Agency that work on the project starts immediately.
Dr Remi Aribisala, Deputy Executive Secretary of Integration Programmes at ECOWAS office, emphasised the need for an institutional legal framework to guide all aspects of the project. She also called for efforts to be made to improve human capacity and upgrade energy technical training institutes.
Some donor representatives and investors from Kuwait, European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank expressed their commitment to continue to support the region to achieve its goal.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Friday signed a partnership agreement with the Indiana Public Utilities Regulatory Commission of the United States for the exchange of co-operation from the more experienced side.
Dr Remi Aribisala, Deputy Executive Secretary, Integration Programmes of ECOWAS, signed for the sub-region and expressed the hope that the agreement would benefit the region in its quest to establish the West African Power Pool
(WAPP).
The agreement was signed after the opening of the third meeting organised by the Volta River Authority and the Ministry of Energy among other organisations for energy ministers in the sub-region.
Mr Phillip Assis, Senior Programme Co-ordinator of the Energy Partnership Programme, a department under the United States Energy Association, told the GNA that the agreement was the 81st signed so far by the Indiana Commission and the fourth in the sub-region.
He said under the agreement, the USAID would fund trips for four ECOWAS members to learn at first hand regulatory practices of the US-based utilities commission. A team from the US would also be funded to study the region's regulatory practices and offer ideas.
Mr Assis said both sides would set up meetings to discuss the best of ways to achieve the successful implementation of the WAPP. He expressed the hope that at the end of the agreement programme, the two sides would adopt the best of transmission and regulatory practices.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- Ghana government officials and their development partners would meet in Accra from 8-10 April for the 11th Consultative Group Meeting on Ghana, an official statement from the World Bank said on Friday.
It said the partners would discuss Ghana's "Agenda for Growth and Prosperity" in sessions covering the Economic Situation and Prospects, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy and Decentralisation and Governance.
The statement said also key on the agenda is a discussion of the five priority development areas identified by President John Agyekum Kufuor. These are infrastructure, modernised agriculture based on rural development, enhanced social services, good governance and private sector development.
The statement said the government would present its Ghana Government Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) and civil service society and private sector representatives would be participating fully.
Mr Peter Harrold, World Bank Country Director, said: "Ghana is well poised for every productive meeting with its developmental partners and Ghana's partners welcome this opportunity to discuss Ghana's poverty reduction and growth strategy."
Ghana's economy stabilised in 2001 as the government exercised tighter control over fiscal expenditure, domestic borrowing and money supply. Inflation rate declined to around 20 per cent at end of year and the cedi has been stable.
The external environment similarly improved, allowing the authorities to increase international reserves to about 1.5 months of imports by the end of 2001. About 1.5 billion cedis in external assistance to Ghana was committed during the last Consultative Group meeting for 1999-2000.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- Dr Charles Mensa, the resident director of Valco on Friday charged the donor community to open their markets unconditionally for products from developing nations to halt their staggered growth cycle.
He said when this is done, developing economies which have great potential in meeting the demands of development and to effect great change would make an enormous impact on the world scene.
Dr Mensa, who was addressing the First Shadow Consultative Group Meeting for Ghana, urged the donor community to also stop providing subsidies for their agricultural products," since this does not only kill the initiative of poor farmers in Ghana, but makes production costs and products expensive."
Organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the meeting was attended by all the representatives of the donor community in Ghana, chiefs and civil society groups. It is the first for civil society groups before the main Consultative Group Meeting next week.
Dr Mensa also called on European markets especially to open their markets for Ghana's banana, cocoa and other non-traditional exports, which have the potential of turning the economy around. He asked the donor community to stop food aid to Ghana which, usually comes in the form of budgetary support, saying, "this does not help us in anyway".
Mr Kwame Pianim, an Economic Consultant and an Adjunct Scholar of IEA said there is need to search for ways and means for igniting growth and sustaining it. "We need to put together focused and sector specific programmes and incentive systems that are robust to make the growth sustainable."
Mr Pianim who spoke on 'prospects for the nation, the way forward,' said there are no magic wands to the complex paradigm of development, but condemned the weak implementation capacity and capability of Ghana as a nation.
He said the nation's development partners should engineer new inclusive partnership structures encompassing civil society, the state and the private sector including both employers and employees to tackle implementation constraints of programmes.
He urged the donors to make government place tax incentives for the establishment of provident fund and other pension-like schemes that will be supplementary to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).
"Without such forced savings, the public sector austerity may be accompanied by the private sector consumption especially in the light of liberalised import regimes... since in the long run, gross national savings and domestic investment show strong correlation despite low barriers to capital mobility."
Mr Pianim urged the donor community to stop implementing policies that they do not or which the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) directors do not ask for in their home countries. He explained that there was no sense in donors asking for the sale of a profitable national asset or a national asset only because they think it is best if done so.
"First we should ask whether it is in the interest of the nation and if it brings about development. The sale of Ghana Commercial Bank, Ghana Telecom and the others must all be seen in this light," he added.
Mr Kofi Asamoah, Deputy Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) speaking on the Human Factor in Productivity said "the TUC is particularly concerned about the paltry incomes that is the lot of Ghanaians. It is inconsistent with all the opportunities created and supposed to be created by globalisation."
He noted that globalisation is indeed increasing social inequality and social exclusion, which is not in, lines with the desire to enhance productivity of labour. Mr Asamoah said it is the hope of the TUC that all stakeholders including donors, "will appreciate the central concerns of organised labour as it is a necessary condition for recognising donors too as real development partners."
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 06 April 2002- Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama on Friday said the non-availability of dependable power was likely to be the single most critical constraint to Ghana's development in the coming years.
"Unfortunately, the situation exists in most, if not all of the countries in the sub-region," the Vice President said, in a speech read for him by Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Integration, at the opening of the third meeting of ECOWAS Ministers of Energy on the West African Power Pool (WAPP) project.
The WAPP is a 15-year development project by the ministers of energy of ECOWAS member states, who agreed to establish a regional energy policy about 20 years ago.
The meeting, attended by ministers from about 14 countries including Ghana, Benin, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and some donor representatives, is to initiate immediate steps to begin the process for the Project.
The Vice President said that per capita electricity consumption in the sub-region was among the lowest in the world today. "If per capita electricity consumption is truly a measure of the level of development, then the reality of the situation is one of under development and poverty."
He observed that as a result, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) initiative, which is aimed at accelerating development in Africa, would be severely hindered by poor electricity infrastructure supply.
"We must therefore, strive to ensure sustainable supply of reliable electricity in our respective countries," Alhaji Mahama said, adding, "fortunately, our sub-region is endowed with abundant natural resources that could be tapped for the generation of electricity to meet all our requirements." He stated that a clear solution to ensuring availability of power was obviously to pool resources.
The Vice President said: "We are fortunate to have the building blocks of a power pool already in place. "There is already a strong and functional integration and inter-connection with Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin."
He said the spirit must be expanded to cover all the countries in the sub-region. He said Ghana was committed to the realisation of the Bui hydroelectric power plant and had initiated the process for its development. He urged governments of the sub-region to rise to the political challenge and allow the operation of the pool to take off without interference.
"Lastly, let us allow the rule of law to give comfort to our development partners, investors, operators and customers in the sub-region. Our challenge is to allow the legal mechanisms that are agreed on to be enforceable when required."
Under WAPP, partners aim to optimise energy resource utilisation, harmonise national energy development plans through interconnection of electricity power grids to ensure security of energy supply to member states at competitive prices.
Benefits to be derived from the project, which would combine hydropower from Bui in Ghana, Fomi, Fello Song and Sambangalou in Guinea, Salthino in Guinea-Bissau, Bumbuna in Sierra Leone and Manantali in Mali and thermal power by the use of natural gas from Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire are varied.
Currently, out of an estimated hydroelectric power generation potential of 23,900 megawatts, the installed production capacity is only 3,897 megawatts. Electricity consumption in West Africa was 26,000 gig watts per hour in 1994. Since 1980, the average growth rate has been 4.2 per cent. Consumption is concentrated in Nigeria (54 per cent) with Ghana having 23 per cent, Cote d'Ivoire (eight per cent) and Senegal (3.2 per cent).
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com