The report that foreigners living in Ghana or who intend to be in the country for more than 90 days are required to register their SIM cards for their mobile phones to be able to keep their numbers is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that foreigners living in Ghana or who intend to be in the country for more than 90 days are required to register their SIM cards for their mobile phones to be able to keep their numbers.
As mandated by the National Communications Authority (NCA), such foreigners also have up to March 31, 2022 to have their SIM cards re-registered.
Consequently, they are required to acquire their Ghana cards from the National Identification Authority (NIA) for the purpose.
In an interview, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Ken Ashigbey, explained that the re-registration was for the SIM cards and not for persons or personalities.
“The exercise is not just for Ghanaians; it’s for SIM cards in use in Ghana, so whether they are for calls or data, they have to be registered, and that is the regulation. It does not matter who owns the cards — all that is required is a valid Ghana Card.
“For non-Ghanaians who are in the country for more than 90 days or visitors coming to stay for more than 90 days, they will have to acquire Ghana cards and then go through the registration exercise,” he told the Daily Graphic.
Dr Ashigbey said discussions were still ongoing for the final decision on how best to deal with people who will be in the country for a brief period but who require the use of SIM cards.
He explained that at the moment such persons who did not intend to stay beyond 90 days would need valid passports or ECOWAS cards to acquire and register SIM cards.
The newspaper says that so far, 180 Ghanaian companies have been selected to receive support from the Ministry of Trade and Industry to export under Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
This support, which comes under the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s Facilitation Programme, will enable Ghanaian companies and businesses exporting under the AfCFTA to fully participate in the single continental market.
The Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa, who announced this at a media training programme for some selected media practitioners on Monday, January 31, 2022, at Peduase in the Eastern Region, said the support forms part of the Ministry’s action plan towards boosting Ghana’s intra-African trade.
He said the Ministry of Trade and Industry “is implementing a 10-Point Industrial Transformation Agenda to build productive capacity for both domestic and export markets”
Mr Krapa said the implementation of AfCFTA would help to address the challenges of small fragmented markets, adds value to Africa’s abundant natural resources, provides a boost in intra – Africa trade and ultimately, promotes economic diversification and industrialisation.
For him, AfCFTA would provide more jobs for Africa’s very young population, knowledge and skills transfer to the continent, and all put together, an improvement in a sustaining way, of the standard of living of its people.
He called on the media to collaborate with the government in deepening knowledge on AfCFTA, saying “Government and the media, must collaborate strongly for an effective actualisation of this most important objective.”
The Graphic also reports that the food and beverage sub-sector of the economy is facing acute challenges that are crippling the businesses of operators in the sub-sector.
Companies such as UNILEVER, Nestle, Olam, Guinness Ghana Breweries, Coca-Cola and Wilmar Africa that produce locally and also import finished and semi-finished products are faced with 18 different levies and charges at the ports, aside from the general taxes and fees that they pay to shipping lines and other private institutions to facilitate their trade.
The taxes include 20 per cent import duty, 12.5 per cent each of import value added tax (VAT) and National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL), 0.5 per cent ECOWAS Levy, two per cent special import levy (SIL), 0.4 per cent and 12.5 per cent network charge and network charge VAT, respectively, and 0.2 per cent African Union Import Levy.
The companies are also faced with general taxes such as the COVID-19 Levy, the sanitation and pollution levy (SPL), the financial sector recovery levy, among others.
The enormous tax burden on operators in the sub-sector, coupled with the rising cost of shipping and other operational expenses, has affected the ability of the companies to operate at optimal capacity, leading to some of them folding up, while others have relocated part of their operations to neighbouring countries where they say conditions are relatively better.
It has also weakened their ability to create and sustain jobs, as well as expand and contribute to national development through moderate prices for increased consumption and higher revenue generation.
The Executive Secretary of the Food and Beverages Association of Ghana (FBAG), Mr Samuel Aggrey, told the Daily Graphic that efforts to seek relief from the government and other regulatory agencies had failed, forcing the operators to occasionally pass on the cost to consumers through price increment, adding that the companies were mostly compelled to absorb the cost as well.
He, therefore, described efforts to reverse the discount policy on imports introduced in 2019, as well as the introduction of the E-Levy, as detrimental.
The Ghanaian Times says that a total of 33,180 children from some cocoa communities in the country are at risk of becoming child labourers, according to a Child Labour Monitoring report by Child Rights International (CRI).
Out of the number,64.1 percent are males with the remaining 35.9 per cent being females.
These came to light during the launch of Child Labour Monitory System Report (CLMSR) carried out by CRI from August 2020 to December 2021.
The survey was conducted in seven regions which included, Ahafo, Bono, Ashanti, Eastern, Central, Western and Western North.
The 60-page report also stated thata total of 11,522 representing 22.5 per cent of children were engaged in hazardous child labour with a higher proportion of male children being 25.5 per cent and 19.5 per cent female.
The report is intended to provide adequate information on child labour to support planning of intervention for community development and welfare of children in such communities.
Presenting the report in Accra yesterday, the Executive Director of CRI, Mr Bright Appiah, said the survey was designed to determine the prevalence rate of child labour in some cocoa farming communities in seven regions.
GIK/APA