Ghanaian press focuses on rise in inflation rate for June, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report that Ghana’s inflation rate climbed to a three-month high in June, primarily driven by soaring food prices is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Graphic reports that Ghana’s inflation rate climbed to a three-month high in June, primarily driven by soaring food prices.
After reaching a more than two-decade high of 54.1% in December, inflation had gradually declined for four consecutive months until April. However, annual inflation accelerated to 42.5% in June, up from 42.2% in May, according to Government Statistician Samuel Kobina Annim.
During a press briefing on Wednesday in Accra, Prof. Annim advised policymakers to critically examine the factors behind the increase in food inflation.
He highlighted that food inflation consistently showed a higher rise, with a difference of approximately 20 percentage points compared to non-food inflation.
Prof. Annim, addressing journalists after announcing the June inflation figures, pointed out that prices of essential staple foods, including vegetables and fish, continued to witness significant increases during the period. He emphasized the need to understand why food inflation was rising and called for a focus on narrowing the gap between food and non-food inflation.
According to Prof. Annim, food inflation stood at 54.2%, surpassing the national average. The prices of imported food products recorded a substantial increase of 43.8%, while locally produced items experienced a rise of 36.2%.
The newspaper says that the minority caucus in Parliament is engaging the Speaker, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, to subpoena the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, to appear before the Finance Committee of the House over some alleged breaches.
Among other things, the Minority has alleged that the Governor has failed to comply with its own law of filing and publishing its financial statements every 15 days and to Gazette its assets and liabilities at end of each month.
“It’s been almost six months now and the BoG is in clear violation of this provision,” Isaac Adongo, Deputy Ranking Member of the Finance Committee of Parliament, told a press conference in parliament on Wednesday.
Mr Adongo said the BoG had dragged people to court in violation of the BoG Act, leading to the collapse of some and was therefore strange that the central bank was violating its own Act.
“He should know that the same level of accountability would be extended to him.”
“He can decide whether to cut his losses to comply with the law or to continue with this violation of its own Act and that the long arm of the law is waiting for him.
And he should remember that criminality has no expiry date,” he stated
Mr Adongo warned the Board of Directors and auditors of the bank that they could be equally complicit for supervising unnecessary impairment of the bank’s assets emanating from careless lending and printing of money to government, stating that that would be investigated.
He said such investigations would reveal whether such auditors operate in accordance with acceptable practice.
“If we find out in future that the auditors and the board of directors are complicit by concealing the true statement of affairs at the BoG, we will take steps to remedy the situation.”
“Those steps include reporting these auditors to the regulatory bodies that govern their works,” Mr Adongo said.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the government is contemplating disposing off about 17 defunct state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that are listed on the books of the State Interest and Governance Accountability (SIGA), the Minister in charge of Public Enterprises, Mr Joseph Cudjoe, has disclosed.
He said the list of enterprises had already been submitted to cabinet for approval and would be made public once the approval was given.
Mr Cudjoe disclosed this to the media in Accra yesterday when he took his turn at the bi-weekly Minister’s briefing organised by the Ministry of Information.
He said study undertaken by the government and completed in 2019 estimated that the market value of the State’s equity holding in 63 active entities stood at GH¢ 35.7billion as of December 2016.
The Minister explained that State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) accounted for 92 per cent of this value while the remaining eight per cent represented the State’s equity stake in Joint Venture Companies (JVCs).
He said the government had undertaken some steps to bring sanity into the SOE space and these steps included restructuring of active companies, listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange, looking for strategic investors, liquidation and disposing some off totally.
Mr Cudjoe said as part of measures to ensure efficiency he has had interactions with boards and management of about 44 specified entities.
“The visits helped to resolve pertinent issues relating to the entities. It afforded the entities the opportunity to raise challenges they were facing which required support and direction especially from SIGA,” he emphasised.
The newspaper says that the suspects, who include three foreigners, are currently on bail, assisting in investigations, were also believed to be involved in extortion and cyberbullying.
The joint cyber security taskforce, made up of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Bank of Ghana (BOG), the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) and Ghana Police Service, which conducted the swoop on July 10 at three undisclosed locations, also retrieved 654 mobile phones, 22 laptop computers and 800 SIM cards.
After screening by the taskforce, the suspects were found to be associated with Mascedi Consultant, Valley A. Consult, Makto Technology Limited and FourCredy which operate the FourCredy, FiCashX, 4Cedi, Aliloan, Boseapa, CediBoom, Cocoaloan, Mach Loan, Easy Loan, Onloan and other mobile applications (Apps) involved in the scheme.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Accra yesterday, Director General of the CSA, Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako said, the Authority was inundated weekly with about 250 reports of cyberbullying experienced by users of Apps.
He said the influx of the lending Apps was in contravention of the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), adding that their access and use of the data of users was also in violation of the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843).
During installation of the identified Apps, he noted that the data of victims including name, phone number, Ghana card ID number, contacts, photos, among others were permissible to be accessed.
Dr Antwi-Boasiako called on Ghanaians to review access permissions for mobile applications carefully before installing them.
GIK/APA