The approval by the Ghanaian Parliament of $86 million loan facility from Israel and commissioning of 75 Greenhouses and an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre at Dawhenya in Greater Accra Region are some of the leading stories in Ghanaian newspapers on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the Parliament has approved an $86 million loan facility from Israel for the purchase of armoured vehicles for the Ghana Armed Forces.
About $80 million of the amount will go to Elbit Systems Land Limited of Israel for the supply of the vehicles whilst the rest will go to firms arranging the facility and other associated costs.
The procurement of the equipment is in response to the security challenges the country might be exposed to as a result of increased terrorist activities in the Sahel region.
The equipment would be used to establish 154 and 155 armoured units of the Armed Forces in Tamale and Sunyani respectively.
The newspaper says that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Thursday, August 13, 2020, commissioned 75 greenhouses and an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre at Dawhenya in Greater Accra Region.
It was constructed by the Ministry of Business Development and the National Entrepreneurship and Innovations Plan.
This is the biggest green village estate in Ghana, and, indeed in West Africa, President Akufo-Addo said at the commissioning.
The 75 greenhouses can produce 4,500 tonnes of tomatoes annually, bringing in a yearly revenue of some GH¢11 million.
It can also employ a total of 230 people.
The Times reports that the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has called for swift investigations into the assaults of the Tv3 journalist who was brutalised by a soldier in Accra on Wednesday.
The assault follows a TV3 cameraman, Stanley Nii Blewu, who had gone to Tema Station in Accra Central to do a story on the state of sanitation after the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Madam Cecilia Dapaah had said that the government had achieved 85 percent of its target of making the capital the cleanest city in Africa.
According to GJA, the soldier asked a police officer to arrest the TV3 crew for taking shots of a clean-up exercise on Wednesday.
The policeman reportedly declined and pointedly told the soldier that the cameraman had not committed any crime for filming the clean-up in a public space.
The newspaper reports that over 50 shops of foreign traders at the Tip-Toe Lane at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra were yesterday closed down for operating without the relevant documents.
The exercise, which was conducted by the Presidential Committee on Retail Trade under the Ministry of Trade and Industry followed numerous agitations over concerns that foreigners were engaged in the local retail space, contrary to Ghana’s laws.
According to Prince Boakye-Boateng, Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Trade and Industry, the exercise was to enforce recommendations from the Presidential Committee probing the impasse between Ghanaian traders and their foreign counterpart.
He said the shops were locked down due to the failure of the affected foreign traders to regularise their business.
The shops, Mr. Boakye-Boateng insisted would remain locked until the traders follow the directives on retail trade in the country.
GIK/APA