APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has sworn in three justices to the Supreme Court with a charge to ensure that their judgments contribute to the orderly development of the nation is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has sworn in three justices to the Supreme Court with a charge on them to ensure that their judgments contribute to the orderly development of the nation.
He said the Constitution had positioned the Supreme Court as the policy court, where far-reaching decisions on the legal ramifications of the socio-economic development of the country were fashioned in response to the exigencies of the time.
“The perspective of its judges are, thus, critical for our national development, especially in these challenging times,” the President added.
The new SC judges, who were sworn in at a ceremony at the Jubilee House in Accra are Justice Henry Anthony Kwofie, Justice Yaw Darko Asare and Justice Richard Adjei-Frimpong.
President Akufo-Addo in tandem with the practice, administered the Oath of Allegiance, Judicial Oath and Oath of Secrecy in succession to the three, after which he presented them with the Warrants of Appointment draped in red, gold and green colours.
The newly sworn-in justices signed the Oath Book after which President Akufo-Addo also appended his signature.
The newspaper says that the shareholders of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) PLC have granted approval for a record capital injection of GH¢2 billion into the bank to strengthen its operations.
The resolution was passed at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the shareholders held in Accra on Thursday, December 28, last year.
The resolution received an overwhelming endorsement, without any opposition or abstention.
The approval now empowers the bank to raise the additional equity capital of up to GH¢2 billion through a renounceable rights issue.
The exercise was in furtherance of the bank’s intention to raise additional capital to shore up its minimum paid-up capital which has been adversely affected by factors, including the impact of the recent Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) and challenged performance of the banking sector over the past two years.
Other resolutions, including the approval of the appointment of a new external auditor for ADB, were also overwhelmingly passed in line with due process, the bank said in a statement.
Speaking at the EGM, the Board Chairman of the Bank, Daasebre Akuamoah Agyapong II, indicated that per Section 28(1) of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), ADB was required to maintain the prescribed minimum paid-up capital (unimpaired by losses, including accumulating losses or other adjustments).
“The current minimum paid-up capital prescribed by the Bank of Ghana for banks, including ADB, is GH¢400 million,” he added.
The Graphic also reports that the Government Statistician wants policymakers to focus attention on what causes inflation to rise in the country and devise targeted solutions to address it.
Professor Samuel Kwabina Annim mentioned food inflation, for instance, and noted that the government could use one of its flagship programmes —Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme- to heavily increase the production of vegetables such as tomatoes and onions, as well as fish, which always soar due to inadequate supplies.
Such a policy direction, he noted, could have a positive impact on the general price levels in the country.
“There are about 20 items in the inflation basket whose individual aggregate contribution is always almost one per cent or slightly above one per cent,” he told the Graphic Business in an interview as he provided insights into how government can work to tame inflation.
He said the GSS has provided enough data and analysis, having drastically modified the method of data gathering with commentaries that should help policymakers in their decision-making, as they work towards contributing significantly to lower inflation rate in the country.
Referencing tomatoes as one of the dominant commodities that pushes inflation up, a columnist in the Daily Graphic, Dr Kofi Fynn, wrote in a piece which pointed to Ghana’s heavy reliance, for instance, on imported tomatoes from a Sahelian country, Burkina Faso, to meet the demands of its population.
He cited data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry which pegs the import from Burkina Faso alone at a staggering $400 million, adding that the recent insurgence in the Sahelian country meant that Ghana was in the middle of a tomato famine.
The Ghanaian Times says that the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) ended the year with a strong per¬formance on the bourse despite the challenges in the capital market last year.
The GSE-composite index which tracks the performance of all companies traded on the bourse, closed the year with a return of 28.08 per cent.
However, the Financial Stock Index recorded a year-to-date loss of 7.36 per cent.
A summary report of the full year 2023 market activities of the GSE made available to the Gha¬naian Times indicated that the year closed with a decrease in volume, value and number of trades within the equities market, compared to the figures from the previous year.
The statement said the top gainers for the year, namely IIL whose shares rose by 25.00 per cent, BOPP (10.39 per cent), FML (7.62 per cent) and GOIL (3.45) drove the activities on the Accra bourse.
On the equities market, the GSE said the cumulative volume traded amounted to 579,675,316 valued at GH¢819,169,530.95, indicating a decline of 56.59 per cent and 50.11 per cent respective¬ly, compared to the same period last year.
“Despite a marginal 0.08 per cent decrease in the num¬ber of transactions, there was a noteworthy increase in market capitalisation, rising by 14.55 per cent from GH¢64.507.32 million at the end of December 2022 to GH¢73.893.17 million by the close of December 2023,” the report said.
On the Ghana Fixed Income Market, the statement said the market closed the year with a cu¬mulative volume traded of 98.44 billion which was a 57.26-per cent decrease from the 230.32 billion volume traded in the same period last year.
GIK/APA