Nine equities registered gains to push index up
Organised group urges utility watchdog to reject proposal
Trade Minister deplores production standards in Ghana
Accra (Greater Accra) 09 May 2002 - Nine out of the 23 listed equities on the Ghana stock Exchange made gains during mid-week trading on Wednesday to push the GSE All-Share Index up. But market volumes were low.
The Index, the key market measure, rallied 5.3 points to close at 1,048.56 points as against 1,043.26 points. Only 28,800 shares changed hands in a dull market, which saw twelve equities selling shares.
British American Tobacco (BAT) gained 11 cedis to close at 771, Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) appreciated 49 cedis at 1,850 cedis, Enterprise Insurance made 30 cedis at 3,550 and Fan Milk was up 29 cedis at 1,053.
Accra Brewery Limited was up one cedi at 328 cedis, Patterson Zochonis gained one cedi at 1,211, Super Paper Product Company made one cedi to close at 368 cedis, SSB Bank appreciated five cedis at 2,915 cedis and Sam-Woode Limited appreciated five cedis at 280 cedis.
The change to date stands at 9.69 per cent. The market capitalisation was up at 4,069.37 billion cedis from 4,059.13 billion cedis on Monday. The following are the closing prices of the equities in cedis:
ABL 328 +1
AGC 18,800
ALW 4,300
BAT 771 +11
CFAO 60
EIC 3,550 +30
FML 1,053 +29
GBL 1,000
GCB 1,850 +49
GGL 910
HFC 950
MGL 250
MLC 147
MOGL 18,810
PAF 750
PBC 450
PZ 1,211 +1
SCB 20,500
SPPC 368 +1
SSB 2,915 +5
SWL 280 +5
UNIL 2,916
CMLT 430
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 May 2002 - Stakeholders at a public hearing on the proposed increase in utility tariffs on Wednesday asked the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to reject the proposal for a hike the companies had placed before it.
The Trade Union Congress, various consumers associations and members of the public asked the utility companies to address their operational inefficiencies to reduce cost rather than passing them on in the form of high tariffs to consumers.
The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Volta River Authority (VRA) had all made representations to the PURC for upward review of the current levels of tariffs.
The GWCL is asking for a 69 per cent upward review, bringing a unit price of water to 4,810 cedis per metre cube as against the existing rate of 2,716 cedis. Under the proposed rate commercial and industrial consumers will pay 127 cedis per bucket instead of 73 cedis.
The Volta River Authority (VRA) had proposed 478 cedis per kWh from the current 194 cedis in the Bulk Supply Tariff (BST), representing an increase of about 153 per cent. The Electricity Company of Ghana is also demanding a 60 per cent hike from the current level of 97 cedis per kWh to 196 kWh.
According to the companies, the increase would enable them to improve on their service delivery and investment in critical areas. But Mr J. Y. Atopley, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, said the tariffs were outrageously ridiculous and recommended to the PURC neither to accept them nor for Ghanaians to pay for them.
He asked the utility companies to examine critically the negative impact such high increases would have on the level of employment and the welfare of the citizenry. Mr Atopley said while the TUC realised the need for economic rates for efficient services this should not, however, affect businesses and consumers negatively.
He said there had not been any significant change in the standard of living of workers despite improvements in the macro-economic indicators such as inflation, interest rate and depreciation. "Unreasonable and a large increase in tariffs will over-burden workers," he said.
He suggested to the PURC to take into account the 30 per cent increase in the minimum wage in examining the proposal since it was determined to take cognisance of all the needs of workers, which included payment for utilities. "Any increase, therefore, should take into account, affordability, the high incidence of poverty, low income and the high unemployment rate.
Mr Badu Brown, Executive Director, Ghana National Consumers Association, said payment of economic rate was not a guarantee for improved services and asked the utility companies to publish forensic audit report into their activities to enable consumers to know the true state of affairs in the companies to enable them to make informed decisions.
Mr Brown asked for the government continuous funding for the companies until such a time that their monopolies were broken. Mr Joseph Kofi Ofeidea, Finance Director VRA, said the approval of only 45 per cent of the proposed tariffs in 2001 had led to a massive loss of 364 billion cedis last year.
He said the VRA required funds to meet the average annual increase of 9.5 per cent growth in electricity demand through increasing its transmission capacity. He said the VRA currently relied on thermal generation, which used fuel, to complement supplies from the Akosombo Dam so as to meet the demands of consumers.
Mr Ofeidea said since the VRA imported about 90 per cent of its inputs, the depreciation of the cedi impacted negatively on its operations. He asked the PURC to index, approved tariffs to crude oil prices and this should be immediate. Mr Christian Tetteh, Finance Director ECG, said the company had increased its revenue collection by 10 per cent.
He said a control unit had been established to check illegal connections, adding that those who were caught were made to pay penalty or prosecuted. Mr Tetteh said to solicit public co-operation to check the illegal connection, the company had raised informant fees from 50,000 to 100,000 cedis.
Nana (Dr) S.K.B. Asante, Chairman of PURC, said the commission did not automatically grant approval when a utility company filed proposals for review. He said the hearings were useful mechanisms for engaging all sectoral stakeholders and the general public in meaningful discussions on an important issue such as tariffs.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 May 2002 - Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, Minister of Trade and Industry, on Wednesday urged Ghanaians to strive to demand and achieve quality standards in the production of exported and imported goods both locally and on the international markets.
He said Ghana's economy was going through a difficult time in a period when trade barriers posed greater challenge to the country, yet Ghanaians had become receptive to low standard products wherever they came from.
The Minister was speaking at a national seminar organised in Accra by the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) on Technical Barriers to Trade and Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (TBT/SPS) with regards to agreements, quality management and export packaging in multilateral trading systems.
These measures are legislation, regulation or official procedure having the purpose to prevent the introduction and or spread of quarantine pests. Dr Apraku observed that agencies in charge of inspection of imports sought their personal gains and collaborated with importers at a tremendous expense to consumers.
He condemned the display of unworthy goods and wrongly labelled products on supermarket shelves saying; "this is totally unacceptable". Dr Apraku noted that international trade barriers had moved from being quantitative to qualitative both of which were difficult for the country to meet.
The essence of recent World Trade Organisation (WTO) meetings had been to urge developed countries to help increase access to the international market through the removal of subsidies, he said adding, however, that there had not been enough progress due to the technical barriers in quality with reference to packaging, labelling and size of products.
"These technical barriers are costly and sometimes impossible to meet, yet ours (technical standards) are violated all the time", Dr Apraku observed, saying, "I am even more angry that our own people allow such violations to occur with impunity. "For the fishing industry, only one company from Ghana was allowed by the European Union to enter its market," he said
Dr Apraku said, "Ghanaian yams were delayed for standard purposes only to reach the destination country rotten after going through a lot of hassles. In some cases, no payments are made. "Importers of Ghanaian pineapples have also recently complained about chemical residue which has become a cause for alarm.
"We have always been the underdogs to do the right thing while they do whatever they like," Dr Apraku said and added that whereas some African countries flouted the regulations, Ghanaians have been pre-occupied with complying with the rigid standards.
Dr Aparaku said: "We have to pick standards that are good for us. We do not need anybody to tell us what is good", he said and noted that there was also the need to meet sanitary standards. He said the government on its part was ready to provide the needed resources "but we all have the responsibility to learn and incorporate into our production processes quality and sanitary standards not only for the international market but also for our own market".
He said the Ministry was also working on a legislative instrument that would enable it to monitor the quantum and revenue generated from of exports to the international market. This was because the country lacked data on quantities of exports and actual revenue generated from exports, he said, and added that such data if encouraging, would urge the government to provide more incentives for manufacturers and exporters.
The system would experiment with about two products for a start. He said the packaging industry was also a priority area that government was ready to support to ensure that the country built an effective packaging industry to meet international standards.
There are only two packaging industries in Ghana owned by South African and Ivorian companies. Other efforts to bring efficiency and quality into Ghanaian products were the reviewing of agreements with inspections agencies and the documentation of a national enquiry point by the Standards Board to serve as a quick information point for exporters.
Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) sponsored the seminar and was attended by manufacturers, exporters, agriculturists, customs officials, trade organisations and civil society, including representatives from the Trades Union Congress, Third World Network-Africa and Friends of the Earth.
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