Inter-bank exchange rates of the cedi
USAID launches Trade Capacity-Building Initiative
Third Asian business session underway in Accra
Standchart gain pushes index up
Trade Minister visits Free Zone
Pay Reform Policy approved - Aliu
Oversight body needed to coordinate salaries - Armah
Inter-bank exchange rates of the cedi
Accra (Greater Accra) 22 May 2003 - The following are the average inter-bank
exchange rates of major currencies against the cedi issued by the Ghana
Association of Bankers on Wednesday 21May:
Currency Buying
(Cedis) Selling (Cedis)
U.S. Dollar 8,552.55
8,742.42
Pound Sterling
14,039.87 14,356.85
Swiss Franc 6,636.67
6,783.62
Canadian Dollar
6,348.86 6,488.09
Danish Kroner 1,349.75
1,379.33
Japanese Yen 73.32
74.93
South African
Euro
10,022.03
10,241.00
CFA Franc
15.28 15.61
Naira
67.84 69.38
ECOWAS WAUA
11,796.42
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USAID launches Trade Capacity-Building
Initiative
Projects stemming from the strategy would support those
countries' participation in trade negotiations, implementation of trade agreements
and economic responsiveness to trade opportunities, it said in a statement
issued in
In most cases, USAID said, specific projects would be
selected jointly with partner governments with top priority given to proposals
that help generate local support for trade reforms. "The strategy
recognises that trade capacity building activities are likely to have the
greatest impact in reform-minded developing countries that have made advances
in establishing a sound investment climate and creating an export-supporting
environment," USAID said.
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Third Asian business session underway in
The session attracted participants from the Confederation of India Industries, Korea International Trade Association and Malaysian Chambers of Commerce, who are interacting with Ghanaian trade officials and entrepreneurs to expand investment opportunities.
The forum, a collaborative effort of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC);
United Nations Industrial Development Organisation - Asia-Africa Investment and
Technology Promotion Centre (UNIDO-AAITPC), would facilitate the building of
alliances amongst African Investment Promotion Agencies and their counterparts
in Asia.
Kwamena Bartels, Minister for
Private Sector Development, said government had revised the legal and
regulatory framework on investment to encourage the growth and development of
the private sector. Bartels in a speech read on his behalf by Ishmael Ashitey, a Minister of State at the Ministry of Trade,
Industry and President's Special Initiatives, outlined the numerous benefits
that would accrue from foreign investors that included a corporate tax of only
eight per cent on export
income.
Bartels said the extension of the railway network to the Northern Sector of the
country and investments in the agricultural sector were among the priority
investment opportunities. "Indeed with cocoa, our aim is to increase
processing from the current 10 per cent to 20 per cent to at least 40 per cent
of the total production and we will do all we can to encourage you to get into
these areas," he said.
Ahmed Akpa, UNIDO Regional
representative lauded the impressive growth rates of Asian countries within the
past 30 years, and this he said was the result of their willingness to attract
foreign investments.
He said
Referring to the benefits that would accrue to
Tsukiji said the distance between
said research had shown that developing countries could generate over ¢300bn
annually if trade barriers were lifted and fair prices paid to them.
"Clearly weighed against the requirement of only $50 to $60bn by the New Partnership For Africa's Development programme per annum, it is obvious that there should be more trade for developing countries if the world were to make any headway in development and in fighting poverty."
The session would discuss: "Investment Opportunities In
Ghana;" "
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Standchart
gain pushes index up
The index, the main gauge of the bourse, gained 14.53 points to close at 1,830.02
points from 1,815.49 points. SCB gained ¢1,995 at ¢36,000. Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh of Data Bank
Brokerage firm told the GNA in
On Wednesday, 20 of the 25 listed equities recorded no offer
prices. Total shares traded slumped to 54,300 from 1,164,800 on Monday. Total
shares traded on Monday jumped largely on SSB Bank selling more than one
million shares.
Tetteh said generally, the banking sector has remained attractive for investment. He said GCB had not been performing very well after its Annual General Meeting because of the reluctance of investors to sell in expectation of high performance if government should sell the bank.
Market capitalization went up from ¢7,922.82bn to ¢7,958.18bn while the change
in the year to date fixed at 31.16 per cent. On the broader market, there were
three price changes - all positive. Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) and Unilever
Ghana Limited (UNIL) gained ¢1 each to close the day at ¢431 and ¢6,752
respectively. SCB gained ¢1,995 at ¢36,000.
The following are the last prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL 431
+1
AGC 28,500
ALW 4,000
BAT 1,702
CFAO 72
CPC 630
EIC 5,005
FML 2,216
GBL 550
GCB 5,400
GGL 2,001
HFC 1,500
MGL 258
MLC 400
MOGL 19,950
PAF 750
PBC 380
PZ
2,040
SCB
36,000 +1,995
SPPC 390
SSB
7,000
SWL 285
TBL
5,200
UNIL 6,762
+1
CMLT 460
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Trade Minister visits Free Zone
The visit is under the President's Special Initiative in promoting the garments and textiles industries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). It is also to afford the delegation the opportunity to appraise the infrastructure development at the Free Zone village.
Kyeremanteng told the GNA that the government wanted
to encourage potential foreign investors to set up garment and textile
manufacturing companies that would take advantage of the AGOA initiative and
produce for the U.S market. He said the proximity of the Ghanaian market to
both the U.S and
They visited PRINTEX Company Limited, manufacturers of wax prints and Agridot Company Limited, a garment factory in
She said the delegation examine means of fulfilling the dream of President Kufuor of creating an export led economy. Ms Whitaker said
the delegation had already placed an order for 200,000 pairs of pants for a
Ghanaian company to supply under AGOA to the U. S market.
The delegation is also looking at investing in other areas
such as power production, chocolate and sea-foods manufacturing. She said the
prevalence of peace, stability and skilled labour
force in
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Pay Reform Policy approved - Aliu
Accra (Greater Accra) 22 May 2003 - The Government has
approved a Pay Reform Policy that would ensure a proactive and motivated Public
Sector, capable of supporting good governance, sustainable development and
other objectives
toward socio-economic growth.
Vice President Aliu Mahama,
who announced this at a lecture, on Wednesday, said with the approval, the
National Institutional Renewal Programme (NIRP), which formulated the policy,
had been mandated to develop
implementation strategies.
This would enable the Cabinet to consider a more holistic, systematic and
comprehensive compensation package that would be competitive to attract and
retain critical skills in the public sector and also help change employee
habits, productivity and performance.
The Lecture, the sixth to be organized by the Public Services Commission since
1998, was under the theme:" Toward a Disciplined and Productive Public
Services: Implications of Adequate Compensation and Motivation for Efficient
Service Delivery".
Vice President Mahama, who delivered the keynote
address, noted that many of the problems resulting in the poor performance of
the public services were related to low levels of compensation and lack of
appropriate incentive, making pay reforms essential.
He said the NIRP had also finished work on a study that compared Public Sector
Pay with analogous grades in the Private Sector, explaining that the results
established the actual cost implications for salary
administration in the Public Service.
"The NIRP is working on a Public Sector Employee Census
and functional reviews to establish the right size of the public service and to
apply data to remove any 'ghost names' that may be detected on the
Payroll." Vice President Mahama said the
elimination of ghost names would release additional funds for human resource
development, stressing that the government would monitor the implementation
timetable to ensure that the programme was completed on schedule.
He commended the Public Service Commission for linking the
issue of discipline to compensation, saying the canker had to be addressed
while that of compensation was being addressed. He said: "It is quite
clear to all that indiscipline is a big problem in our country. Many people
infringe the laws with impunity and many more take these laws into their own
hands.
"Late attendance to work, poor reception of clients, poor attitudes toward government property, weak supervision at workplaces and the lackadaisical attitude to work had contributed to low productivity and performance in the Public Service."
Vice President Mahama, however, expressed regret that
acts of indiscipline during school strikes, workers' demonstrations, struggles
within churches and undemocratic intervention in the body politic, were
sometimes justified or explained away as struggle for justice.
"The struggle for the restoration of justice need not be waged with
indiscipline. Discipline should rather enforce justice if it articulates and
reflects the will of the people." Vice President Mahama
reiterated that his call for discipline in all spheres of life was not new,
saying, "it has been the call of organised societies for ages".
Discipline, he said, should, therefore, not be considered as
an imposition, but the ability for self control... to train the mind and
character in a way that makes a human being accept that he or she is living in
a society and therefore has certain obligations and responsibilities toward the
other person."
He warned that families, companies, professional
organisations and societies would not survive without discipline. Mrs.
Elizabeth Joyce Villars, President of the Association
of Ghana Industries, who chaired the function, urged Ghanaians to contribute
toward the creation of wealth for the nation to benefit from its sharing.
She said it was important for workers to be discipline to
raise productivity. Prof Bartholomew Armah, Senior
Fellow of the
wage and salary structure.
He urged the government to address the distortions, that
had worsened in recent times because of lack of coordination between the two
responsible review bodies and selective pay enhancement packages by government
for certain organisations.
About 80 minutes of the two-hour lecture attended by heads of institutions,
members of the Council of State and Parliamentarians proceeded in darkness
because of a power outage.
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Oversight body needed to coordinate
salaries - Armah
Accra (Greater Accra)
made the issue of salary distortion through the Ghana Universal Salary
Structure (GUSS) less effective.
Delivering the sixth annual lecture of the Public Services
Commission in
Salary payment to state functionaries identified in Article
71 of the Constitution is currently being informed by the A1-A154 salary
structure, which is determined by the President on recommendations of a
committee appointed by him acting in accordance with the advice of the Council
of State.
He spoke on the topic: "Realistic Income Policy
Measures and Strategies to ensure Sustainable Adequate and Equitable
Compensation in the Public Services."
Prof Armah said because the
processes for salary review under the GUSS was different from the corresponding
processes for the A range, salary distortions in the public sector had been
exacerbated resulting in curious anomalies in the pay scale.
"This phenomenon, partially accounts for the salary distortions existing
within the judicial and Legal Services where two salary structures operate
currently, creating a situation where a Circuit Court Judge on GUSS is on a
higher salary than a High Court or an Appeal Court Judge on the 'A' range
salary structure."
According to him, this distortions cut across public
services, with the President's salary, which is the highest on the 'A' range
scale being lower than the highest paid person on the GUSS scale.
"In sum, attempts to address salary distortion through
the introduction of the new incomes policy have not met with much
success," Prof Armah said, adding that, lack of
rigorous process of job evaluation and grading in the public service to
establish job equivalencies within the service had created distortions in the
salary scale, which undermine the incentive to work and the principle of equal
pay for equal work.
Prof Armah said distortions have also risen because of lack of a coordinated framework for salary review in the past and government tendency to selectively accede to wage demands for some workers while leaving others with the same job classification untouched.
Prof Armah traced the history of past committees set
up to look into the issue, arguing that, they had all failed to pay attention
to developing a framework for absolute income by focusing on resolving issue
bordering on relative incomes or income disparities.
He said the implementation of the Price Water House Coopers framework that
ensured public service personnel received equal pay for comparable work must be
tackled if government was to realise the full benefits of its investment in the
job grading exercise.
Prof Armah said despite its usefulness the PWA exercise did not however provide a framework for achieving a
living wage in a sustainable manner. He called for the development of
indicators of public sector productivity, which in combination with
considerations of inflation and the overall resource of the country provide a
basis for salary negotiations.
Prof Armah also stressed the need
for expediting action on the implementation of the total compensation policy by
incorporating allowances in the salary structure, saying poor monitoring of the
process and the fact that institutions were allowed to adopt their own
interpretation of consolidation, salary disparities within the service had not
diminished.
Mrs. Elizabeth Joyce Villars said
there was the need to open a national debate on the issue of public sector
wages and income.
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