The projection of $250 billion to achieve its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2070 by the National Energy Transition Committee (NETC), the body tasked with developing a national energy transition policy is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that the National Energy Transition Committee (NETC), the body tasked with developing a national energy transition policy has projected that Ghana will need approximately $250 billion to achieve its target of net 0 carbon emissions by 2070.
A member of the NETC, Callistus Nero said as part of efforts to fund the transition, the Committee intends to devise a strategy in the policy that would entice local or international investors to participate in Ghana’s energy transition.
He made this known on Monday at a Policy Dialogue on Energy Transition held in Accra.
Making a presentation via Zoom, Mr Nero said although countries worldwide were expected to stop their reliance on fossil fuels by 2050, Ghana’s “cautious transition” meant it would meet the target in 2070. The country currently has a C02 emission per capita equivalent to 0.51tonnes.
“Locally, Ghana wants to transition but we want to do that at our own pace, based on our needs and our resources,” Mr Nero said.
“So, we want to first of all transition to a low carbon economy and eventually to Net 0 which per our plan looks at us achieving at 2070”.
He said the Committee was tasked with putting in place measures to ensure that Ghana meets this target.
The Committee is to assess the benefits, risks and costs associated with the global energy transition.
The dialogue was jointly organized by Action for Citizens-led Transformation Africa (ACT Africa) and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). It was themed: “Our state of play and agenda for COP 27”.
The newspaper says that Israel has organised a workshop for various heads of government and private sector institutions on emerging trends and challenges of cybersecurity.
The initiative was born out of requests to the Israeli Trade and Economic Mission (IT&EM) to lead such initiatives for the cybersecurity ecosystem in Ghana.
Speaking at the opening of a three-day executive cybersecurity workshop in Accra on September 7, 2022, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Shlomit Sufa, said that for over 30 years, Israel had been a global force in the development of IT security technologies, thus the need to leverage such expertise to impart Ghana.
She said the threat of cyber-attack was a grave concern to organisations worldwide, as they aimed to reach various heights in digital transformation.
“Senior managers often have difficult time understanding and appreciating the technicalities associated with it. Preparing for and responding to increased cyber threats is necessary; it is an executive responsibility, and setting the tone is essential,” she said.
She hoped the workshop had afforded participants the chance to learn best practices and be equipped to help increase cyber resilience of their organisations and be prepared for incident response.
Israel is touted as a second to only the United States of America as the world’s leading exporter of cyber technology, with cyber security exports reaching approximately $10 billion (10 per cent of global exports) while Israeli start-ups in the field garner over 40 per cent of global investments.
In 2021, Israeli cybersecurity companies raised $8.84 billion in over 100 deals, including 11 of them that became unicorns’ private companies valued at over $1 billion.
This accounts for 40 per cent of the total funds raised by cybersecurity firms worldwide.
The Ghanaian Times reports that a total of 613,633 cases of hypertension were recorded in various health facilities across the country in 2021.
Similarly, more than 200,000 cases of diabetes were recorded during the year under review.
These two diseases are known as Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD), also called chronic diseases.
According to the Ghana Health Service (GHS), NCDs are responsible for 71 per cent of all deaths worldwide.
In the few decades, NCDs have gained recognition in Ghana accounting for more than 43 per cent of all deaths in the country.
It also added that 28 to 40 per cent of the adult Ghanaian population has hypertension.
According to GHS, this could be attributed to multiple complex socio-economic, demographic factors including the rise in risk factors such as unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, harmful use of alcohol and tobacco use, among others.
The Acting Programme Manager, Non Communicable Diseases, (NCD), Dr Efua Commeh, described hypertension as a persistently abnormal blood pressure of 140 over 90 and above.
She said “people suffering from hypertension do not feel any symptoms making the diseases very dangerous.”
When the blood pressure starts going up, normally it does not show any symptoms so the person does not feel sick, there is no headache or dizziness so by the time they start feeling it, their blood pressure is very high and is beginning to give them problems,” Dr Commeh said
According to her, when hypertension is not detected on time, one could suffer from stroke, heart attack or failure, weakness and narrowed blood vessels which could affect the eye, kidney and other vital organs in the body.
Dr Commeh advised the public, especially the youth to adopt healthy life such as exercising and healthy food.
“Junk foods, alcohol, tobacco, sugars, too much salt intake are the things that ultimately get deposited in the blood vessels and before you realize, the vessels are getting blocked and then blood pressure has started rising so we have to avoid these things,” she said
Dr Commeh said persons already diagnosed with the disease should ensure that they take their prescribed medicine regularly to control their BP and also consult their doctors if there are issues with their medicines.
She advised people to undertake frequent check-ups for early detection of the disease, saying “you don’t need to wait until the problem has gotten out of hand but whiles you are well we advise that you keep on checking your blood pressure,”
With regards to diabetes, Dr Commeh said when one has diabetes, the person either could not make enough insulin or could not use his or her own insulin.
She said there were three types of diabetes; type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes.
Dr Commeh said type one diabetes had to do with lack of insulin production in children and type two, either the body does not make enough insulin or the body’s cells do not respond normally to the insulin and gestational diabetes often occurs during pregnancy.
She cautioned that diabetes could cause blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
The newspaper says that Ghana’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for August 2022 showed a contraction in business activity in the private sector as it declined to 45.9 per cent, as against 48.8 per cent in July 2022.
According to the Weekly Fixed Income Update by Databank Research, the deteriorated business conditions come on the back of subdued consumer demand, which was negatively affected by the heightened price pressures.
Overall, it said, input price inflation accelerated to an eight-year high owing to unfavourable foreign exchange rate movements and increasing fuel prices, propelling output prices to record levels.
“We expect the BoG to soften its hawkish stance on policy rates with the hardening business conditions,” the report said.
This week the Treasury will seek to raise ¢1.717 billion across the 91-day to 364-day tenors. The uptake will be used to refinance total maturities worth ¢1.598 billion.
The Treasury allotted ¢2.226 billion out of the total bids of ¢2.288 billion, translating into a bid-to-cover ratio of 1.03x.
The government thus continued to build buffers by taking up excess requests, exceeding its target by 32.37 per cent and its T-bill refinancing obligation by 42.03 per cent.
The 91-day and 182-day tenors cleared at 29.48 per cent and 31.05 per cent, respectively.
The T-bill curve remains humped with upward corrections expected for the 364-day in the upcoming auction.
GIK/APA