The plans by the new developers of the Ada Songhor Salt Project to boost salt production at the facility to one million metric tonnes annually by next year to make Ghana the leading producer of the commodity in West Africa is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that the new developers of the Ada Songhor Salt Project are seeking to boost salt production at the facility to one million metric tonnes annually by next year to make Ghana the leading producer of the commodity in West Africa.
Electrochem Ghana Limited — which was granted a 15-year mining lease by Parliament in October 2020 to explore the salt resource in the Songor Lagoon and surrounding communities — has also projected to produce two million metric tonnes of salt a year in the long term.
The Ada Songhor Salt Project produced 60,000 tonnes of salt last year, but the General Manager of Electrochem Ghana Limited, Mr. David Cameron, said the company was already on track to produce over 200,000 tonnes by the end of 2021 after investing over $50 million into the project.
Ghana imported over 600,000 tonnes of high-quality industrial salt last year, and Mr. Cameron said Electrochem was hoping to capitalise on local demand for the product, as well as the demand in Africa and the global space.
“We have taken over a failed operation; it was technically insolvent. It didn’t have enough money to pay itself. What Electrochem has done is that we have improved it and already we have produced about 40,000 tonnes in four months this year as compared to 60,000 for the whole of last year. We have still got quite a bit of the year to go,” Mr. Cameron told the Daily Graphic last Friday during a tour of the facility by members of the Ada Traditional Council.
The newspaper says that persons who are eligible for the second shot of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine will have to go to the same centre where they took the first shot for the repeat dose when the exercise begins tomorrow, the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said.
Also, all such persons must ensure that they present the cards they were given when they took the first jab, as the card, which is a form of identity, will facilitate the data needed as well as make it easier to verify persons who actually qualify to receive the second shot.
The Programme Manager of the EPI, Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic to explain some concerns raised with regard to the roll out of the second shot, said the list of all those who were qualified for the second dose had been compiled and sent to the various districts where they would be taking the injection.
“All persons who took the first shot should return to the centres they had it to receive the second shot. The database compiled from the first roll-out has been forwarded to all the regions, districts and centres to make for easy verification. So it is important that people who received the first shot return to the same centre for the second shot.
“For instance, if you took the first shot at Adabraka Polyclinic, you have to return to that same venue because your data has been captured within that district and will need to be verified within that database before taking the jab. If you visit another district or even region, that will be difficult, despite you having the card,” Dr. Amponsa-Achiano explained.
Those who will receive the jabs are in the 43 districts in the Greater Accra, Ashanti and Central regions where the first exercise took place.
The nine-day exercise is the third phase of the national vaccination programme against COVID-19.
The Graphic also reports that Parliament is to reconvene on Tuesday, May 25, 2021 to commence the second meeting of the first session of the eighth Parliament.
The Parliamentary Service has, therefore, informed all members and staff of Parliament to take due notice of the commencement of the meeting which will begin at 10 a.m.
This was contained in a statement issued on May 10, 2021, and signed by the Clerk-to-Parliament, Mr. Cyril Kwabena Oteng Nsiah.
“The Parliamentary Service wishes to inform all honourable members and staff that the Rt Hon. Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, in pursuance of Standing Order 37 has directed Parliament to commence sitting of the second meeting of the first session of the eighth Parliament on Tuesday, May 25, 2021 at 10 a.m. in the forenoon at Parliament House, Accra,” the statement said.
The House, which started sitting on January 7, 2021, went on recess on March 10, 2021.
The Times says that Ghana’s year-on-year inflation rate for April declined to 8.5 percent from 10.3 in March, reverting the country back to the pre-pandemic COVID-19 inflation rate, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has announced.
This represents an 18 percentage points lower than the rate recorded in March, and a month-on-month change rate of 0.6 percent, higher than the rate recorded in March.
Government Statistician, Professor K. Annim, who announced this at a virtual news conference in Accra on Wednesday, indicated that the food sector drove the April inflation rate.
“April 2021 inflation was 8.5 percent. This shows that the effect of price hikes recorded at the onset of COVID-19 was waning and inflation almost at the pre-covid rates,” he said.
The food inflation for April dropped to 6.5 percent from 10.8 percent in March, while the non-food inflation inched up from 10.2 percent to 10.0 percent in March.
Prof. Annim said food inflation was decreasing in its contribution to total inflation to 33.8 percent, the lowest contribution observed since the Consumer Price Index basket was rebased in 2018.
The Government Statistician stressed that inflation for locally produced goods fell to 8.7 percent in April from 11.7 percent in March this year.
However, he said inflation for imported items went to 7.4 percent in April from 6.87 percent in March.
GIK/APA