Conditions for strategic investors in telecom
Ghanaian companies join ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme
Tema Oil Refinery workers suspend work
Accra (Greater Accra) 07 June 2002 – The Government has made it a condition that interested strategic investors in the telecommunications sector should guarantee to provide the service within two to three years.
It is in furtherance of the policy to secure further investment into Ghana Telecom to support government's programme to connect all towns with Senior Secondary Schools and Training Colleges with efficient telecommunication services that would facilitate the use of the Internet.
Mr Felix K. Owusu-Agyapong, Minister for Communications and Transport, said this when answering a question in Parliament on Thursday asked by Mr Kwakye Addo, NDC- Afram Plains South, as to when telephone facilities would be extended to Tease, Mame Krobo and Ekye-Amanfrom in the Afram Plains South Constituency.
Mr Owusu-Agyapong said the government was confident that when the switching capacities were expanded and modernised through the injection of the needed investment, provision of telephone services would become a matter of course and be demanded as a right.
He said the Donkorkrom facilities as well as the switching system sited at Mpraeso were to be expanded from 100 lines capacities to 1,000 lines each to service the surrounding smaller communities in the Afram Plains South.
Mr Owusu-Agyapong said government appreciated the fact that the availability of telecommunications infrastructure would greatly contribute to the opening up of the Afram Plains to socio-economic development.
Mrs Edith Hazel, NDC-Evalue-Gwira, asked whether it was part of the package to improve upon existing facilities and the Minister said existing infrastructure had to be improved taking into account increasing the number of lines. He said the National Communications Authority has been mandated to work on the quality of service rendered by the telecommunication sector to ensure efficient service to the public.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 07 June 2002 - Energy Minister, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah on Tuesday dismissed as false, claims that OPA Inc, an American refining and marketing firm, had been denied the opportunity to purchase the Tema Oil Refinery.
Speaking at a press conference in response to allegations surrounding TOR's privatisation, Mr Kan-Dapaah said the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) was yet to be given the mandate to open a bidding process on the refinery and that the decision laid entirely with the government.
Mr Kofi Wayo, a businessman who is at the centre of the allegations claimed to be a Senior Vice-President of OPA Inc. Although the Minister admitted meeting a group of businessmen and had received a letter from OPA Inc, indicating its preparedness to buy TOR at 35 million dollars, the firm was duly informed that no formal government decision had been made on the ownership structure of TOR and that they would be contacted once that was done.
Mr Kan-Dapaah said the group also indicated to seek an additional financing of about 900 million dollars to expand TOR's processing capacity from its current 45,000 barrels to 100,000 barrels per day. This offer was, however, not documented in the formal letter of intent to the Ministry.
Other terms of the offer were the granting of a 15 per cent stock ownership to the government, a representative on the seven member Board, Employee stock option plan equivalent to five per cent stock ownership and also giving the staff one seat on the Board.
Mr Kan-Dapaah said a preliminary intelligence conducted on OPA Inc indicated that the company was wholly owned by an American couple and questioned Mr Wayo's claim of 10 per cent share in it. He said further investigation also revealed that the company did not have the capacity to act like an operating corporation since it was formed primarily to trade in crude oil.
Besides, the offer value OPA Inc quoted was less than 10 per cent of the estimated value of the refinery. "In spite of these negative revelations, we did pass on OPA's expression of interest in TOR to the DIC," which said the firm that they would be contacted once the process began.
Mr Kan-Dapaah, therefore, wondered why the OPA Inc and Mr Wayo should subject the government to all manner of attacks and said, "this practice is most unethical and uncalled for".
The government, the Minister said, would be fair to other interested parties in the divestiture of the refinery, declaring that no amount of insults or shouts would divert attention from ensuring a transparent divestiture process. "We believe in providing a level playing field for all stakeholders genuinely interested in the sustainable development of the country."
Besides, the government would scrutinise all dealings that have the potential danger of causing financial loss to the nation, the Minister said, adding that government would not entertain "spurious claims that are clothed in the mantle of patriotism."
"Nor should we be moved from our chosen course by loud-sounding, emotional appeals to sophistry. "Shouting on the airwaves and raining insults on government officials will not divert us from being fair to all, " he said.
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Takoradi (Western Region) 07 June 2002 -- The government has approved the admission of 156 Ghanaian companies into the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Cooperation, announced in Takoradi on Thursday.
This was contained in an address read for him by Mr Bonauventure Adjavor, Assistant Economic Officer of the Ministry, at a day's workshop on the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Goods and Persons.
The Ministry of Economic Planning and Regional Co-operation organised the workshop and officials from the Custom, Excise and Preventive Service, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Export Promotion Council, the private sector and the Western Regional Co-ordinating Council attended it.
Dr Nduom said these companies produced steel, rubber, cosmetics among other products and these goods would circulate freely and were exempted from import duties and taxes. ''They are not subject to any quantitative or qualitative restriction.''
He said member states have full responsibility for the implementation of the Trade Liberalisation Scheme and were expected to be accorded selected tax-free status envisaged in the scheme.
Dr Nduom said a study of the implementation of the protocol on Free Movement of Persons revealed the existence of persistent problems. ''This is because the abolition of visas has not spared community citizens the problems of administrative harassment and extortion at security check-points.
''Solution to these perennial problems would be for all ECOWAS member states to encourage the use of ECOWAS travel certificate that will ultimately be transformed into a common international passport to denote community citizenship.
Mr Joseph Aidoo, Western Region Minister, expressed regret that trade among ECOWAS member states in particular and Africa in general was very minimal. He said intra-Africa trade was fraught with cumbersome and highly repressive customs procedures and a lot of tariff and non-tariff barriers.
Mr Aidoo said movement of goods and persons from one ECOWAS state to another was subjected to rigid border formalities through the numerous road blocks and security checkpoints some of which had been mounted to cause delays, harass and extort money from travellers.
Awulae Annor Adjaye III, Omanhene of Western Nzema Traditional Area, said all countries of ECOWAS must be committed to the trade liberalisation before its objectives could be realised.
He said the proliferation of small arms and emergence of armed robbers from member states of ECOWAS were some of the constraints facing the implementation of the policy. Awulae Adjaye urged the government to be careful so that "the free movement of persons into the country does not destabilise it.''
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Tema (Greater Accra) 07 June 2002 - Workers of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) on Thursday suspended work for about five hours to demand an explanation for the alleged rumour of dismissal of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Yaw Akoto.
Mr Robert Forson, Deputy Managing Director, Operations, said the workers action followed rumours that the government had dismissed Dr Akoto, who replaced Mr William Parker in 2000.
Sources had it that information went round the refinery that the government had sacked the CEO because of alleged differences between him and the members of the Board of Directors.
When newsmen got to the refinery at 1600 hours the Management was meeting the executives of the local union at a meeting behind closed doors, while the Tema Regional Police Commander, Mrs Agnes Sikanartey and her second in Command waited outside to be briefed about what was happening at TOR. Mr Forson said the Management explained to the workers that there was no document about the dismissal of the CEO and, therefore, appealed to them to resume work.
He said the union agreed to talk to their members to load the tankers that had entered the loading rag before they closed. The Deputy Managing Director explained that the few hours hold-up would not disrupt fuel supplies in any way.
Mr Eric Yankah, Advisor to the Minister of Energy, who was at the meeting, denied that the CEO had been asked to go home. Meanwhile, Mr Akoto was busily working in his office as at 4:30pm when newsmen located him at his office and was questioned he agreed that he had returned from a meeting from the Sector Ministry at about 11pm.
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