The launching of a GH¢2-billion guarantee scheme to support universal banks in the country to offer financial support to small and medium enterprises and the devastation caused by torrential rains in parts of the North East Region are some of the trending stories in Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the government has launched a GH¢2 billion guarantee scheme to support universal banks in the country to offer financial support to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for them to recover from the COVID-19 shocks.
The Ghana Care Guarantee Scheme (GCGS), to be administered by the Ghana Incentive-based Risk-sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL), is to help SMEs to borrow from banks at lower rates and with longer tenor.
The GIRSAL is a non-bank financial institution incorporated as a private company by the Ministry of Finance, with seed funding from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
The GCGS will guarantee up to 80 percent of the credit extended by participating banks to their clients.
Launching the initiative in Accra, the Minister of Planning, Professor George Yaw Gyan-Baffour, explained that under the initiative, the government had targeted specific industries within the agri-business, manufacturing, hospitality and tourism and technology sectors, among others.
The newspaper says that the torrential rains that devastated parts of the North East Region recently have subsided, but the humanitarian situation in the area remains dire.
Some 13,469 people across the region have had their houses completely destroyed by the floods and are currently putting up in schools, churches and temporary camps set up by the North East Regional Secretariat of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).
Speaking to the Daily Graphic yesterday, the North East Regional Director of NADMO, Mr John Kweku Alhassan, said aside from internally displaced people, 51,736 others were also affected by the floods in other ways.
The North East Regional NADMO Office itself is overstretched and has called for support to contain the situation.
Mr. Alhassan, who described the development as “very devastating”, appealed to corporate bodies and individuals to go to the aid of the flood victims to lessen their plight.
The Graphic also reports that the North East Regional Minister, Mr. Solomon Namliit Boar, has expressed worry over the frequent use of his identity by cybercriminals to defraud unsuspecting Ghanaians on various social media platforms.
“I have on a number of occasions fallen victim to cybercrime and in the last six months, people have been scammed through the use of fake social media account that bears my name and pictures”.
Mr. Boar expressed this concern during a Regional Cyber Security Sensitisation Programme organized by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in Nelerigu in the North East Region.
According to him, the engagement by the NCSC is a timely one since many individuals have limited knowledge on cybersecurity issues, stressing on the need for participants who were predominately heads of departments at the Regional Coordinating Council to organise sessions for their departmental teams to help improve their knowledge of cybersecurity issues.
The Times reports that the Ghana Railway Company Limited (GRCL) will on Monday resume passenger services on the Takoradi-Sekondi rail line through Kojokrom.
The Acting Traffic Manager, Comfort Awinya, announced in a statement released on October 14 that she noted that services on that line were suspended on March 24 due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Ms. Awinya explained that the resumption followed a successful test run conducted by the GRCL and a joint test run with the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA), the regulator, to ascertain the suitability of the line for passenger services after the suspension in March.
She added that the Takoradi-Sekondi via Kojokrom line had since been certified by GRDA to be fit for passenger services and assured the general public of the usual comfortable and safe services that the GRCL provided.
In June this year, the Ghana Railways Development Authority and Amandi Holdings Limited signed a 500-million-dollar agreement meant to transform Ghana’s railway sector.
The newspaper says that a 32-member committee has been inaugurated to reinvigorate activities towards eliminating Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the country.
The members of the Ghana Intra-Country Coordinating Committee (ICCC) for NTDs were drawn from various Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), to among others advice, mobilise resources and oversee the implementation and monitoring of NTD sustainability plans and programmes.
Comprising three sub committees; Technical, Advocacy and Communication as well as Resource mobilisation Committee, the ICCC is expected to accelerate Ghana’s progress towards achieving the WHO target to eliminate all forms of NTDs by 2030.
At a re-launch of the committee in Accra, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, noted that there were many influences that come to bear on the health of the population, outside the health sector.
As a result, he underscored the need for multi-sectorial collaborations to “address the determinants of health and well-being.”
GIK/APA