Accra (Greater Accra)
26 September 2002 - The unstable political situation in Cote d'Ivoire has
affected flight operations to that country from Ghana.
Airlines operating
along the West Coast of Africa have had to adjust their flight schedules to
fall within the curfew currently prevailing in that country while passengers in
transit have also reduced.
Ghana Airways, South
Africa Airways and Air Ivoire all plying the West Coast have suffered as a result
of the political instability in that country.
According to an
official of Ghana Airways, their daily flights, except on Mondays to Abidjan
continue uninterrupted except that the flights times have changed.
He said they have also
experienced a reduced passenger flight connections put over the period.
According to the official, Ghana Airways flight on Monday, 23 September from
Monrovia with 107 passengers had to fly over Abidjan because of the curfew,
adding that the following day's flight carried only 32 passengers and that has
not improved.
An official of South
African Airlines said they have also experienced a reduced passenger flight and
adjusted their flight schedule to conform to the Ivorian curfew regulations.
GRi…/
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Juapong (Eastern
Region) 26 September 2002- Mr Gilles Moisan, Managing Director of Juapong
Textiles Limited (JTL), on Tuesday announced that the company's maiden
consignment of about 100,000 yards of grey-baft (Cotton) has been exported to
VLISCO, a Dutch textile manufacturing company.
He said VLISCO, which
has 62.75 percent shares in JTL, belongs to the Gamma Holdings of Holland and
is listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Mr Moisan was briefing Mr Kwasi
Owusu-Yeboa, Volta Region Minister, during a visit to the textiles factory to
familiarise himself with its operations.
He said about four
million yards of the material would be exported to Nigeria, Togo, Burkina Faso,
Cote D'Ivoire, Niger and South Africa for the manufacture of industrial
textiles, exotic fabrics and interior decorations.
Mr Moisan said about
12 million dollars have so far been spent since 1998 on repair works,
replacement and rehabilitation of obsolete equipment and the upgrading of
skills of staff.
''JTL can compete on
the international market provided it maintains its quality and quantity of
materials since the competition from the Far Eastern countries is stiff.''
He appealed to the
Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) to offer financial support to cotton
farmers to produce more to feed the industry since uncoordinated approaches
would lead to smuggling of the produce into neighbouring countries.
Mr J. K. van Baaren, Technical
Director of JTL, said the factory, with a production capacity of 24 million
yards per annum, is operating at about 65 percent capacity. He said government
has 24.5 percent shares in the factory while Freedom Textiles of Hong Kong had
12.75 percent.
Mr Kofi Bayitse,
Director of Human Resource of the factory told the Minister that
management-worker relationship have improved tremendously and all were working
as partners towards the sustenance of the factory.
He said the company
was providing potable drinking water to the community. Mr Owusu-Yeboa commended
management and workers for maintaining a high standard and appealed to them to
sustain it in order to compete on the international market, create employment
and wealth for the people and the nation at large.
He called for hard
work, transparency and accountability in their operations and asked them to
maintain dialogue and shun confrontation when labour issues occurred.
GRi…/
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Tema (Greater Accra)
26 September 2002 - The management of the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) said
it would declare 80 employees redundant with effect from 1 October.
Mr Ron Helton,
Managing Director, told the company's workers that the decision had been taken
to further improve "our efficiency to remain competitive in the face of
the very difficult challenges posed by the worldwide aluminium industry".
He said "with
consistently low aluminium prices over the last several months, which
shows no signs of improving soon, coupled with reduced operating capacity since
March, 2002, VALCO finds itself in severe financial squeeze that threatens its
long term competitively".
Mr Helton said the
redundancy would affect both unionised and non-unionized employees. He said that as
part of the exercise, ''an evaluation and force-ranking system based on merit,
potential skills in current job, physical and mental ability to assume other jobs
as well as conduct will be used for the redundancy exercise.''
Employees wishing to
go voluntarily may write to their department heads, latest by 1500 hours of 26
September, expressing such a wish. Mr Helton said low metal prices, the lowest
in three years, low demand for metal, low volume of metal produced as a result
of the one line shut down in March, had led to significant revenue losses. ''VALCO is in worse financial situation now
than the company was in March 2002.''
The Managing Director
assured that work is starting immediately with the union and all other
stakeholders to develop a redundancy package in line with the provisions of
employees' conditions of service to minimize the impact of the exercise on
employees and the company.
VALCO, which was
producing at 80 percent capacity before March, was forced to reduce to 60
percent due to low level of water in the Volta Dam. In March 199 workers were declared redundant.
GRi…/
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Accra (Greater Accra)
26 September 2002- The Ghana Stock Exchange on Wednesday experienced a dull
trading that saw the total shares traded on Monday dropped significantly. However,
the All-Share Index, the Market Index, managed to gain 0.8 points to close
trading up at 1,307.20 points from 1,306.40 points. Shares traded dropped from
624,200 to 103,400.
The change in the year
to date stood at 36.74 per cent from 36.66 per cent while the market
capitalization moved up while market capitalization moved up from 4,852.84
billion cedis to 4,854.63 billion cedis.
On the broader market,
there were five positive price changes. Unilever Ghana Limited (UNIL) gained 10
cedis to close trading at 4,240 cedis. Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) finished the
day richer by four cedis at 3,351 cedis.
The SSB Bank gained
three cedis at 3,880 cedis. Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and Ashanti
Goldfields Limited gained two cedis each to close the day up at 26,023 cedis
and 18,807 cedis respectively.
The following are the
last prices of listed equities in cedis:
ABL
380
AGC 18,807 +2
ALW 4,000
BAT 953
CFAO 67
EIC
4,520
FML
1,627
GBL 900
GCB 3,351 +4
GGL 912
HFC 955
MGL 254
MLC 261
MOGL
19,720
PAF 750
PBC 400
PZ 1,850
SCB 26,023 +2
SPPC 387
SSB 3,880 +3
SWL 285
UNIL 4,240 +10
CMLT 460
GRi…/
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