The report of the first ever oil field infrastructure decommissioning works in Ghana has begun at the Saltpond Oil Field at Hini near Saltpond in the Central Region and the opening of formal negotiations between Ghana and the IMF for an economic programme are some of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that the country’s first ever oil field infrastructure decommissioning works has begun at the Saltpond Oil Field at Hini near Saltpond in the Central Region.
The decommissioning vessels arrived in the country in the early hours of last Thursday from Lagos and got to Saltpond last Saturday to start the decommissioning exercise and shut its wells permanently.
This is because the oil field, also known as Mr Louie, has outlived its economic life, according to the Ghana National Petroleum Commission, (GNPC).
The decommissioning contract is being undertaken by a wholly owned Ghanaian company, Hans and Co. Oil and Gas Company, leveraging a consortium of experts of varied professional backgrounds gathered from around the world to ensure all necessary procedural, technical and social controls and mitigation measures were rightly executed to reduce environmental impact to the barest minimum.
The GNPC at a press briefing at Hini near Saltpond in the Central Region last Sunday said this was because the current structural integrity of the field could not be vouched for.
The General Manager, Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations at the GNPC, Dr Kwame Baah-Nuako, who addressed the press, said the GNPC was collaborating with all relevant regulatory agencies to ensure the safest processes in the context of the environment within which the field was situated.
Dr Baah-Nuako noted that the decommissioning would take about one year to complete.
The newspaper says that Ghana and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday opened formal negotiations for an economic programme, necessary to forestall a debt default and stabilise the economy in the short-to-medium term.
It followed the arrival of an IMF delegation, led by the Mission Chief to Ghana, Stéphane Roudet, in Accra over the weekend.
The team will be in the country between now and October 7, 2022, a statement from the IMF said.
The negotiatons with the government team are meant to determine the form that an economic stabilisation programme, which will be Ghana’s 17th with the fund since 1957, should take and when it can kick off.
It would also explore the nature of the policies, reforms and programmes that the loan support should entail.
The negotiations come at a time when the economy is facing one of its worse challenges in recent times.
On Friday, Fitch Ratings downgraded the economy to CC from CCC, which is the country’s worst rating ever.
The agency said the downgrade followed “increased likelihood that Ghana will pursue a debt restructuring given mounting financing stress.”
The Ghanaian Times reports that the government says it is putting together a comprehensive post COVID-19 economic programme which will form the basis for the IMF negotiations.
In a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance to announce the commencement of negotiations with the IMF in Accra yesterday, it said “The Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana have commenced discussions with the IMF for an IMF-supported programme.”
It said a key prerequisite for a programme was confirmation that Ghana’s debt was on a sustainable path and would require a comprehensive Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA), which was currently ongoing.
“The programme seeks to establish a macro-fiscal path that ensures debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability underpinned by key structural reforms and social protection,” it said.
“The government negotiations with respect to the IMF-supported programme is commencing this week and we are optimistic about making progress in our discussions,’’ the statement said.
It said the government remained committed, and shall continue to actively engage all stakeholders, both public and private, in a clear and transparent manner.
The newspaper says that GIZ Ghana has launched free online financial literacy training programme to empower Ghanaian women.
The programme dubbed: “ Making Remittances Work for You,” is under the Programme Migration and Diaspora, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The e-learning programme aims to educate people, particularly women, through an interactive online course on basic skills to manage their remittances from the diaspora productively.
The capacity-building measure is being implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft for Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in Ghana.
Mr Guskowski, Head of Sustainable Economic Development at GIZ Ghana, said online modules had already been designed to cover diaspora money transfers on relevant business-related areas such as entrepreneurship, insurance, savings, and investment.
“GIZ seeks to create a future worth living around the world, we hope to provide an engaging and robust online training product for women in remittance-receiving households, and to deliver this successfully to a pilot cohort of women,” he said.
He said that the programme would help improve the skills and confidence of women in using digital financial services to invest portions of remittances for sustainable economic development.
Remittance flows and their usage are gaining more traction in international discourses on migration and sustainable development.
Remittances have evolved into a reliable source of funds for accelerating human development, financial inclusion, and productive investment.
The product is on GIZ’s e-learning platform, Atingi, and can be accessed through www.atingi.org.
Ms Florence Hope-Wudu, Managing Partner, Purple Almond Consulting Service, said the focus on women was because they carried a heavier burden in balancing work and family.
The platform, she stated, would enable women to become financially literate and increase their knowledge on the need to inculcate the habit of savings.
GIK/APA