Global economy loses $500b dollars in road accidents annually
Sunyani (Brong Ahafo) 13 December 2001 - The global economy loses 500 billion dollars annually as a result of road accidents, Mr Moses Dani-Baah, Deputy Minister of Health said at Sunyani on Wednesday, quoting World Bank report.
In a speech read for him at the opening of the annual conference of the Association of Health Service Administrators that one fifth of the amount was borne by developing and transition countries. In Africa the problem was estimated at about two per cent of the gross national product.
The 150 delegates at the four-day conference, under the theme: "The role of support services in health service delivery - the case of transport", would review their performance in the previous year.
The delegates, including regional transport managers, would also develop new strategies to achieve their goals. The deputy minister said the situation was clearly a major drain on the limited human and material resources of the country.
"The implications of road traffic accidents to the national economy makes it imperative for road safety issues to be effectively handled to forestall any regrettable escalation on the health of the people", he said.
Mr Dani-Baah called for a comprehensive transport policy that encompassed road safety activities as well as adequate financial and institutional arrangements involving all the relevant sectors.
He said the government was committed to importing new vehicles for the health sector and urged the conference to come out with strategies that would ensure their maximum and effective use.
Mr Yaw Adjei-Duffuor, Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, asked the delegates to initiate and design efficient and effective transport policies, including adequate budgetary allocations for both running cost and maintenance of the vehicles.
He expressed dissatisfaction with the reported theft of vehicles belonging to the Ministry of Health (MOH) in some districts in the region and called for greater care to ensure their safety.
The Deputy Minister appealed to the MOH to give priority attention to the Brong Ahafo Region in the allocation of the new vehicles. That would help improve the health delivery service in the region whose health institutions were located far in-between.
Mr Kwasi Addai-Donkor, President of the Association, called on the MOH to address the imbalance in the distribution of health service staff to ensure efficient service delivery, especially in the Northern and Volta Regions.
GRi../
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Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 – The government would help execute the
proposal to establish a permanent consultation between it and the private
sector to exchange views on the economy before the annual budget was finalised,
Vice President Aliu Mahama said on Wednesday.
The
proposal was made by Mr Kwesi Abeasi, Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment
Promotion Centre (GIPC) at an awards ceremony in Accra to re-launch the
membership listing of Ghana's top 100 companies.
Alhaji
Mahama lauded the proposal, saying, it would enable members of the Club to
share their "rich ideas and experiences" with public officials in the
planning of the economy and national policy formulation.
The Vice
President said he was happy that GIPC was taking steps to develop a one-stop
facility and reviewing the law for the smooth operation of the private sector.
The Ghana
Investment Promotion Centre launched the listing in 1998 to provide reliable
information on corporate industry performance and to serve as a forum for
companies to break the culture of silence about their operations.
The
selection criteria are based on companies' volume of sales and turnover, net
assets, number of employees, profit per employee and net profit, among others.
Ashanti
Goldfields Company was adjudged the first in the listing. It registered the
highest turnover, pre-tax profits and the number of employees.
The
Vice-President reiterated the government's commitment to providing a conducive
macro-economic environment, peace and good leadership, which were critical for
the country's development and for the private sector to perform well.
"Our
determination is that Ghanaian entrepreneurs should play a leading role in
every department of Ghana's economic development," he said, and added that
for the first time the business community had a friendly and trustworthy
government ready to work and to make them succeed.
"You
have a government that is largely made up of former businessmen and women;
people who came from your fold to assume the mantle of leadership," he
said.
"The
President ...was a businessman. I was a businessman. And many of our colleagues
in government today, were in one way or the other on their own in business and
consultancy work."
He
underscored the important contribution that industries had made despite the
numerous challenges they faced and reminded them of the pivotal role they had
to play in the resuscitation of the ailing economy.
The
Vice-President expressed the hope that the economic conditions next year would
make the playing field more levelled to make competition among the firms more
exciting.
Mr Kwamena
Bartels, Minister for Private Sector Development, said the government would
remove the bottlenecks that impeded the private sector to enable it re-direct
the country's economic prospects.
He assured
the business community of the supply of an efficient and reliable energy at low
cost to enable them to carry on their operations at reduced costs.
Mr Abeasi
said since the first publication of the listing, competition among companies
had increased tremendously. He said the GIPC Act was being reviewed to reflect
global trends and to make it a one-stop shop by next year, explaining that the
change would enable GIPC to co-ordinate the flow of government investment and
those of other investment attracting agencies.
Present at
the launch are the Speaker of Parliament, the Chief Justice, Council of State
Members and a cross-section of the business community.
GRi../
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Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) All-Share
Index, the main market gauge, slipped on Wednesday as the poor performance of
the bourse continued.
Fan Milk
Limited, which recorded the only price change, lost 30 cedis to close at 920
cedis.
The GSE
All-Share Index lost 0.3 points at 958.25 points from 958.55 points. Shares
traded went up from 65,000 shares to 255,400 shares and market capitalisation
was also down at 3,903.48 billion cedis from 3,909.06 billion cedis.
Only 11
equities, out of the 22 listed on the bourse, sold shares. Change for the year
slipped at 11.69 per cent. Below are the closing prices of listed equities in
cedis:
ABL 320
AGC 18,800
ALW 4,300
BAT 627
CFAO 60
EIC 3,010
FML 920 -30
GBL 1,000
GCB 1,566
GGL 901
HFC 952
MGL 241
MLC 145
MOGL
18,200
PAF 800
PBC 450
PZ 1,005
SCB 20,500
SPPC 341
SSB 2,300
UNIL 2,300
CMLT 430
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