Ghanaian press zooms in on Diaspora Property Festival, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report that “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” was a kick-start campaign in Ghana that encouraged many from the black diaspora to trace their roots and find new opportunities in Ghana is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that the “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” was a kick-start campaign in Ghana that encouraged many from the black diaspora to trace their roots and find new opportunities in Ghana.
Since then, Ghana has seen an influx of black diaspora and foreigners, especially during the Christmas festivities.
Notable personalities who have visited the country following the campaign include WWE champion Kofi Kingston, Idris Elba, Boris Codjoe, Usher, Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, and Chance the Rapper.
Increased revenue from tourism, investment deals, partnerships in various sectors and closure for the African diaspora have been some of the tangible benefits of this campaign.
As a country with a rapidly growing youthful population, the issue of youth unemployment in Ghana is particularly important.
It has evolved into a critical worldwide issue with far-reaching implications for individuals, communities, and governments.
The newspaper says that the Bank of Ghana has won the 2023 Financial Inclusion Institutional Leadership Award at the just ended AFI 2023 Global Policy Forum which climaxed in Manila, Philippines, last Friday.
The award was for the bank’s pioneering role in promoting financial inclusion and intellectual contributions to the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Knowledge Products and Policy Guidelines.
The award was received by the Second Deputy Governor, Mrs Elsie Addo Awadzi, who also chairs AFI’s Gender Inclusive Finance Committee.
Through the bank’s representation on all seven Working Groups of AFI, three of which it chairs, it contributes significantly to peer reviews of member jurisdictions’ policy and regulatory frameworks and helps to shape enabling policy and regulation of various pillars of financial inclusion.
The bank has also hosted a number of AFI peer learning exchange programmes where it has provided training for members of the AFI network.
The Ghanaian Times reports that Ratings agency, Fitch, says it does not expect Treasury bills to be included in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme in the near term.
According to the UK-based firm, despite the high yield on the short term securities, it was the only financing tool left for the government, and therefore it would be suicidal to include it in the domestic debt restructuring.
A Senior Director, Emerging Market and African Sovereign Ratings at Fitch Ratings, Toby Illes, speaking at the Africa Webinar Series titled “Reform and New Challenges in Western Africa”, said the government would not restructure T-bills.
He said, “We don’t expect T-bills to be restructured. Just given the need for that financing tool, we wouldn’t expect that to be included.”
“In Ghana’s case, it is generally very complicated to include that in domestic debt restructuring. I guess the main question is that domestic debt restructuring, we would have now is about that the domestic debt restructuring is more about medium term when actually you move a lot of these maturities down the line,” he said.
He, however, expressed worry about the huge domestic debt ser­vicing expected in the years 2027 and 2028 respectively.
“The policy adjustment from now till then is a downward trend. However, as I said when we get to 2027-2028, we would have a huge hung of domestic debt service.”
The newspaper says that the Electoral Commission (EC) said it has registered a total of 182,831 eligible voters in the first six days of its ongoing limited voter registration exercise.
Per the data, the Ashanti region has the highest registration with 29,255 registrants representing 16 per cent followed by the Greater Accra region; 27, 264 representing 14.9 per cent.
The Western region recorded 11,644, really resenting 6.4 per cent, Western North 6,491, 3.6 per cent, Central Region 17,590, 9.6 per cent, Volta Region, 12,681, 6.9 per cent, Oti Region, 4,427, 2.4 per cent, and Eastern 19,327 representing 10.6 per cent.
The Bono region recorded 6,580 registrations representing 3.6 per cent, Ahafo, 4,519, 2.5 per cent, Bono East 7,291, 4.0 per cent, Savannah, 4,655, 2.5 per cent, Northern Region 12,982, 7.15 per cent, North East, 4,244, 2.3 per cent, Upper East 8,639, 4.7 per cent and Upper West, 5,241, 2.9 per cent.
Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs Jean Mensa, who gave the fig¬ures at the ‘Let the Citizen Know’ media engagement in Accra yesterday said though the exercise took off slowly with 12,000 registrations on the first day same has risen to 42,776 registrations on Sunday, the sixth day of the exercise.
“In spite of the few hiccups we experienced in the first two days, the exercise is proceeding well to the glory of God,” she stated.
The cause of the hiccups, she explained included internet failure, faulty kits, and large crowds and queues at the registration centers which slowed the exercise.
To address this, she said registration desks were increased from one to four in some cases and faulty kits replaced to speed up the process.
“As a Commission we are on the ground and working around the clock to ensure that every eligible voter who is desirous to register as a voter does so with ease,” she emphasized.
On allegations that by restricting the registration to their district offices some eligible voters may be disenfranchised, Mrs Mensa said assertions were false.
The AU and leaders of member nations from Ghana to Senegal to Zamia alleged that the “big three” ratings agencies – Moody’s, Fitch and S&P Global Ratings – do not fairly assess the risk of lending to African countries, and say they are quicker to downgrade them during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
GIK/APA