President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s warning that the unsavory politics of vaccine nationalism by developed economies in the world has the potential to derail global efforts at containing the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has told the European Union (EU) Parliament that the unsavory politics of vaccine nationalism by developed economies in the world has the potential to derail global efforts at containing the COVID-19 pandemic.
He has, therefore, called on the developed world to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all parts of the globe as the surest way of ensuring that the people of the world are safe from the increasing trend of the pandemic.
The President made the call yesterday when he addressed the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
“I am a firm believer in the statement that ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’. Let us help make vaccines available to all parts of the world, encourage our citizens to take the jab and we will win the fight against COVID-19 faster and together,” he said in an address monitored from Accra.
President Akufo-Addo noted that the prediction about Africa going to be hit dramatically, with its streets littered with dead bodies, when the virus reached the continent because of its relatively weak public health systems had not come to pass.
“We were not given credit for quickly following the science, as recommended, when many leaders in Europe were still fighting ideological battles and seeking to lay blame on the source of the virus, rather than uniting to fight it,” he said.
The newspaper says that a Deputy Minister of Finance, Mrs Abena Osei-Asare, has said 31 upstream companies are yet to pay corporate taxes as captured in the 2020 Auditor General’s Report because they are either in exploration or development stages in their operations.
According to her, they are yet to produce crude oil for sale, and therefore, had not generated income from which to pay corporate taxes and “this is in line with Section 63 and 65 of the income Tax Act 2015 (Act 896).”
Mrs Osei-Asare said this yesterday when she appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing.
She was at the PAC to discuss the Report of the Auditor-General on the Management of Petroleum Fund for the year ended December 31, 2020.
The Chairman of PAC, Mr James Klutse Avedzi, had indicated that per the Petroleum Revenue Management Act of 2011, Act 815, the Petroleum Holding Fund was established to receive all petroleum revenues to be disbursed.
The Ghanaian Times reports that Ghana needs a strong and viable financial systems to check money laundering, combat financial terrorism in the banking sector, Head of Financial Integrity Office, Bank of Ghana, Mr George Nkrumah, has said.
“The high standard of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financial Terrorism (AML/CFT&P) compliance by financial institutions is vital in ensuring a sustainable regime requisite for financial stability. Due diligence is key, when you get it wrong, you will get all wrong,” he said.
Mr Nkrumah stated these on Monday in Takoradi when he delivered the keynote address at a two-day sensitisation workshop for Rural and Community Banks (RCBs), Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and representatives of Ghana Association of Microfinance Companies in Western and Central regions.
Overall, the workshop will ensure the registration of institutions on the GoAML platform to drastically improve reporting to the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) by institutions in the sector and also enhance collaboration between competent authorities.
The GoAML application is a fully integrated software solution developed specifically for use by Financial Intelligence Units (FIU’s) by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Mr Nkrumah said, institutions needed to put in place measures to ensure that their systems were fraud- free, adding that, the BoG was desirous to ensure discipline in the banking sector.
The newspaper says that the Petroleum Commission will in January next year set up a technology transfer unit as part of measures to help indigenous Ghanaian companies (IGCs) to build their capacity, participate in highly technical areas in the upstream oil and gas sector.
This follows a monitoring exercise which revealed that many IGCs lacked the capability to undertake core technical works on their own, while there was low readiness to acquire the skills from International Oil Companies (OICs).
At the opening of the 7th Local Content Conference in Accra yesterday, the Chief Executive Officer of the Commission, Egbert Faibille Jnr, said this had created the situation where expatriates from OICs had dominated the work.
“What the commission is trying to avert is the situation where in 10 to 20 years time, the story would be that it is only foreign entities that can do the high end technical jobs,” he said.
The two-day conference organised by the Commission affords stakeholders the opportunity to discuss pertinent issues, especially pertaining to local content as stipulated in the Local Petroleum (Local Content And Local Participation) Regulations, 2013 (L.I 2204).
This year’s virtual edition, on the theme: “Optimising Technology Transfer in Ghana’s upstream petroleum Industry,” is being attended by more than 300 participants.
Mr Faibille said the monitoring exercise conducted earlier this year was to assess the level of compliance with Regulations 23, 24, 25 and 26 of L.I 2204 which required IOC to facilitate transfer of technologies to IGCs.
“It was disappointing to find out that some JV companies and their IGCs counterparts in engineering and fabrication businesses do not even have a yard or operational base of their own”, he said.
The Ghanaian Times also reports that the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has launched a year-long campaign to reduce considerably the spate of maternal mortalities across the country in line with achieving Goal 3 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Currently, Ghana’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR) stands at 308 per 100,000 live births which is way below the SDG target of less than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.
Launching the campaign on the theme; “Stop Preventable Maternal Deaths and Disabilities,” the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said nearly half of pregnancies recorded in Ghana annually were unintended often leading women and girls to resort to unsafe practices to terminate the fetuses, resulting in life-long complications and deaths sometimes.
He noted that although abortion-related maternal deaths were highly preventable, issues of stigma among other social and economic factors discouraged women from seeking safe techniques for terminating unintended pregnancies.
“This is why the GHS is seeking everyone’s support to remove all the barriers and unfair treatments that push women and girls with unintended pregnancies to dangerous paths that lead to their untimely deaths.
The campaign is further seeking support for these unfortunate people to avail themselves to the best and safest techniques for terminating unwanted pregnancies to save their lives and for timely family planning to prevent further unintended pregnancies,” the DG stated.
In the view of Dr Kuma-Aboagye, “no woman or girl in Ghana should ever have to use unsafe abortion due to social stigma or financial limitations.”
GIK/APA