Baafour-Gyimah appointed Games Commissioner.
Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - Ghana realised 400 million dollars from the tourism industry last year, Deputy Minster of Tourism, Nana Akumea, said on Tuesday.
He said there has been a rapid growth in the industry during the last 10 years adding that, 20 million dollars was earned in 1985 while 80,000 tourists visited the country the same year.
It is estimated that by the year 2010 Ghana will receive a million tourists, the Deputy Minster added, Nana Akumea said this in Accra when he received a nine-member Thai business delegation led by Dr Suthiporn Chirapanda, Chairman of the Board
Marketing Organisation for Farmers in Thailand.
The delegation is in the country on a five-day business tour to explore opportunities in agro-tourism, agro-processing and the hospitality industry. The delegation will go on a field trip around Accra, visit the tuna industries at Tema, the Volta Lake and some farms among others.
The Deputy Minster said the position of Ghana, linking Europe and South Africa, makes it easier for investors and tourists to visit and explore business opportunities.
He asked the delegation to take advantage of the government's declaration of golden age of business to be among the first to do business with Ghana.
Nana Akumea mentioned the hotel industry as one area where they could invest since the very few five and four star hotels charge too high, between 160 and 200 dollars a night.
Nana Akumea said Ghana's 500-kilometer beach coastline could also be explored and developed for tourism. The delegation complained of difficulties in acquiring visas and other documents on Ghana and asked that the government should work on that to make it easier for investors in their part of the world to visit Ghana.
In another development, Mr. Robert William Hrisir-Quaye, Acting Executive Director, Du Bois Memorial Centre, has presented certificates of appreciation to Ms Hawa Yakubu, Minister of Tourism, Nana Akumea and the Chief Director of the Ministry.
At the presentation ceremony in Accra, Mr. Hrisir-Quaye said that the certificates are to show appreciate for the role the three officials played during the 8th Du Bois annual lectures in August.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - Thirteen companies, including White Chapel and Krif, alleged to have defrauded VAT Secretariat, have been nabbed by the Commercial Crime Unit of the Police CID.
Other defaulting companies are, WINTES Enterprise, CODAMS, ALDERS, Citizen and Gold and AKOF Enterprise. They allegedly failed to register to collect VAT.
Sources at the Commercial Crime Unit told the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday that a 26-year-old Lebanese owner of Aladen Restaurant at Osu, Hussein Habbib Ghadder, had been charged with tax evasion and falsification of tax invoice.
The source said White Chapel, Krif, FM & B Technical, City and City, WALGRA Enterprise, MABKING and NAZARENE had failed to issue invoice to customers.
In the case of Ghadder, investigations revealed that he had been under-declaring on the VAT invoice by recording different figures on the original invoice, the duplicate and triplicate receipts.
The sources said for instance on VAT invoice number 05117927, an amount of 243,000 cedis was written on the original invoice while the duplicate and triplicate had 12,000 cedis declared as VAT.
Another invoice number 05117930 had 282,000 cedis declared on the original while the duplicate and the triplicate had 39,000 cedis recorded.
On invoice number 05117903, an amount of 123,000 cedis was recorded on the original but 18,000 declared to the VAT secretariat.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - The Petroleum Strategic Levy has been increased from 10 cedis to 30 cedis per litre, Albert Kan-Dapaah Minister of Energy, told newsmen in Accra on Tuesday.
The money from the increase in the levy would be used to purchase petroleum for strategic purposes for times of emergency, he said after inaugurating the board of directors of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company on Tuesday.
Mr Kan-Dapaah said the country would need eight million dollars a week to purchase oil in case the country's suppliers failed to adhere to existing agreement or during any eventuality.
"With the levy as collateral the company could access funds from financial institutions to establish new depots and expand existing ones".
Mr Kan-Dapaah said at the moment the country had no petroleum reserves although it had operational stocks to last six weeks.
He said the main aim of the government was to ensure that the strategic reserves would be expanded to cover the country so as to have enough reserves to help countries in the sub-region that would be hit by emergencies.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - Finance Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo on Tuesday called for a structured relationship between the endowed formal and rural banks and other informal institutions to facilitate the flow of credit to productive sectors in rural areas.
He said through the provision of training and exchange of personnel, the formal banks would be contributing positively to the human resource development of rural banks and also in deepening financial intermediation, especially in micro-financing in those areas.
Mr Osafo-Maafo told the fifth national banking conference that sustained savings mobilisation was a major challenge facing the banking industry in the government's new economic direction.
"Funds which are at present outside the banking system need to be brought within it and made available for investment."
The two-day conference, on the topic: "Responding Positively to the Challenges and Opportunities posed by the Government's new Economic Direction" is being organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers to bring to the fore the need for financial institutions to assist the private sector and remind the government of its role in creating an enabling environment for sustainable economic growth.
According to the Minister, although there was the urgent need to raise the levels of productivity in all sectors, this could not be done without adequate bank financing and credit.
"There cannot be increased production without investment and there cannot be increased investment without increased savings mobilisation."
Mr Osafo-Maafo said while the government was working to create a stable economic environment to boost savings mobilisation, lack of confidence in the banks as result of past instability in the economy, fraud, lack of customer convenience and the high bank spread, which is the difference between the bankers interest on mobilised deposits and interest charged on its credits and advances, were militating against banks efforts to mobilise deposits.
He called for an effective public education and also asked bankers to exercise the highest standards of professional integrity to ensure the needed trust and confidence.
The Minister asked the bankers to also pay attention to their minimum deposit requirements, especially as the government's focus now was on the informal, small and medium scale enterprises.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said there were numerous opportunities for banks to broaden their focus and markets by extending their activities to the informal sector.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - A senior economics lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon, on Tuesday called on the government to scrap the special tax imposed on some imported items, saying it had not achieved its purpose.
"The special import tax has failed to achieve its objective. Rather, it has improved the tax revenue from imports," Dr Fritz Gockel said when he presented findings of a study on the effect of the special tax imposed by the government last year to give a competitive edge for locally manufactured products.
Dr Gockel, in a 48-page report funded by the United Nations Development Programme, said the government earned as much as 14.5 billion cedis in revenue as at the end of the first quarter of this year.
The study was initiated by the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) with the view of using the findings to effectively dialogue with the government for necessary improvements in the macro-economic policies, regulations and legal framework affecting the private sector.
Respondents of the research were of the view that the policy rather hurt consumers by increasing the prices of the affected imported items.
It also increased indirect taxes to the government, Dr Gockel said, adding, "for instance, indirect taxes increased to 11.05 per cent of GDP in 2000 from 10.73 per cent in 1999."
The Government in an effort to give a competitive edge to locally manufactured products slapped a 20 per cent special tax on what it termed luxury imports in 1998.
The tax which, became effective in 2000 affected items such as poultry products, fish roes, milk, human hair, potatoes, grapes, apples, flour, edible oil, cocoa beverages and chocolate and biscuits.
The rest are potatoes chips, peanuts, fruit juices, soups and broth, ice cream, mineral water, beer, paint, gas cylinders, toilet tissue and soap. However, following agitation from affected groups such as the Ghana Union of Traders' Association whose operations were also being hurt by factors, especially, the sliding cedi, the government reduced the tax rate to 10 per cent.
According to Dr Gockel, the aim of the tax was not for the government to increase revenue but to assist struggling firms. "However, this study has shown that if care is not taken and other support mechanisms devised to rid the industries of other over-riding constraints, some of these industries would become perpetual or adult infants that would require more and heavier doses of tariff support to be able to break even," he said.
"Ghanaian manufacturing industries require support but what the studies have revealed is that a blanket tariff regime is not the appropriate support required."
Dr Gockel, therefore, urged the government to assist "winning firms" which made good use of the tax but were facing retaliatory measures by way of impediments from Francophone West African countries.
He also pointed out that the special tax did not take the consumer into consideration. As a result consumers still had the option to choose between high quality imported items at a higher cost and low quality products from local manufacturers. The trend in imports had also not changed much since the introduction of the tax.
He urged the government to address the issue of mediocrity and take steps to promote the production of high quality goods for consumers' satisfaction. Participants at the presentation of the study expressed mixed feelings.
Some agreed with the report's findings and called for the tax to be abolished but others said the measure was hurting exports.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - Albert Kan-Dapaah, Minister of Energy, has charged the Board of Directors of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company to work towards the establishment of strategic oil depots to ensure reliable supply of energy throughout the country.
"My vision, really, is to see storage depots created at strategic locations all over the country," he said. "Indeed having strategic depots in all the regional capitals will go a long way to improve security of supply of petroleum products in the country."
The Energy Minister, inaugurating a nine-member Board of Directors of BOST, the first in the history of the company, which was established in 1993, said the government was aware of the strategic importance of BOST, would require that the board ensured improvements in the transportation of petroleum products.
The board has Nana Addo Dankwa, Okuapehene as chairman. Other members are Nana Baffour Appiah Dankwah, Ms Christian Aboraah, a businesswoman, Mr E. Mahami, a legal practitioner, Mr Kwabena Fosuhene-Asante, a Quantity Surveyor, Mr Seth Ahyia, a businessman, Mrs Naomi Agram, a Chartered Accountant, Mr Joseph
Addo-Yobo, Managing Director of BOST and a representative of the Ministry of Energy.
Mr Kan-Dapaah mentioned specifically the need to expand the existing depots at Kumasi and Bolgatanga, which did not contain even one litre of petroleum as at now.
He said the transportation of petroleum via railway was another project, which the board must tackle with all seriousness since the plan had been on the drawing board for sometime now.
The minister urged the members to bring their experience to bear on the activities of BOST. "The task ahead is great, but I believe that it can be achieved with your efforts. I count on your experiences and expertise to help nurture BOST into a company whose impact will be felt by every Ghanaian."
Mr Kan-Dappah said the ministry would provide the necessary policy directions, leadership and political support for the board to discharge its work judiciously and with commitment.
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Tema (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - Bytes and PC World, one of the leading Information Technology (IT) solutions companies in the country, has teamed up with TYME International (UK) to establish computer parts manufacturing company in Ghana.
Mr Aseye Tay, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bytes and PC World, told the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday that the 1.2 million dollar investment, would take-off in the second quarter of next year.
Mr Tay said the computer parts manufacturing company, which would be the first in West Africa, would produce parts for all types of computers to save the country huge resources used in the importation of such parts and earn more foreign exchange.
Bytes and PC World, the sole representative of Sony Computers, is currently undertaking free servicing of all types of computers in the country.
He said the company, which aims to be the most innovative IT company in Ghana is currently providing free mobile phones for any personal computer it sells in furtherance of its total communication package.
Bytes and PC World, also distributors of American Power Convention (APC) Uninterrupted Power Supply System (UPS) in Ghana, was the first to start with the schools computerisation programme and five senior secondary Schools in the country have benefited from the programme.
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Sekondi (Western Region) 21 November 2001 - The Albert Bosumtwi-Sam Fishing Harbour at Sekondi is to be upgraded with more facilities like cold store and fish processing plant.
Other facilities would include a modern fish-landing shed for direct discharge of fish from vessels as well as a fish market.
Nii Nikoi Amasa, Manager of the Harbour told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Sekondi on Monday that the Port was being modernised to increase the tonnage of fish being landed there.
He said over 590 tonnes of fish had been discharged at the Harbour by 301 fishing vessels since it was commissioned two years ago.
Nii Amasa said an ice block making plant capable of producing 5,457 tonnes of ice blocks for trawlers and fish sellers has already been constructed. He said land around the harbour would be allocated to the private sector to enable people to establish auxiliary services needed there.
The harbour has the capacity of receiving fishing trawlers measuring 15 to 60 metres in length and over 80 in-shore fishing boats and canoes.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001
Currency Buying Selling
US Dollar 7,039.00 7,243.27
Pound Sterling 9,966.52 10,259.37
French Franc 947.83 974.82
Swiss Franc 4,261.93 4,383.78
Deutsche Mark 3,177.90 3,270.23
Canadian Dollar 4,426.81 4,552.03
Japanese Yen 57.21 58.85
Dutch Guilder 2,821.30 2,901.57
S/African Rand 722.57 742.53
Euro 6,215.48 6,393.72
CFA Franc 9.48 9.75
Naira 64.31 66.17
Ecowas/WAUA 9,049.07 --------
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Baafour-Gyimah appointed Games Commissioner.
Accra (Greater Accra) 21 November 2001 - President John Agyekum Kufuor in consultation with the Council of State has appointed Mr Alex Baafour-Gyimah, a private legal practitioner, as the Games Commissioner.
A Government statement issued in Accra on Tuesday said the Commissioner's Secretariat would be at the Ministry of Finance.
It said the Commissioner would be responsible for the registration and licensing of all lottery operations including the Department of National Lotteries and regulate the games industry.
He would enforce existing legislation and institute measures to prevent fraud and malpractices in the lottery industry and other betting games.
The Games Commissioner would advise the Minister of Finance on major policies and measures to resolve conflict and ensure fair and orderly operation of the lottery industry.
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