The statement by the President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, that the most important lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic for Africa is the need to build a defense mechanism against external shocks, especially in healthcare and financial security is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that the African Development Bank Group President Dr Akinwumi Adesina has said that the most important lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic for Africa is the need to build a defense mechanism against external shocks, especially in healthcare and financial security.
“Investing in health is investing in national security,” Adesina told African leaders on Saturday, at the opening of the 35th African Union Assembly in the Ethiopian capital. “Africa cannot afford to outsource the healthcare security of its 1.4 billion citizens to the benevolence of others.”
The Bank chief said the continent needed $484 billion over the next three years to address the socio-economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and support economic recovery.
Dr Adesina outlined three strategic priorities for an African healthcare defense system: building quality healthcare infrastructure; developing the continent’s pharmaceutical industry; and increasing the capacity of vaccine manufacturing. He added that the African Development Bank planned to invest $3 billion to support Africa’s pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing capacity.
Speaking about other critical areas for the continent, such as managing debt, Dr Adesina said: “Africa’s public debt, currently estimated at $546 billion, represents one-quarter of the continent’s GDP and is higher than the combined total annual government revenues of $501 billion.”
Dr Adesina said the African Development Fund, the Bank Group’s concessional lending arm, had supported low-income countries with $8.5 billion over the last five years.
Calling on African Union leaders to strongly support the Fund’s 16th replenishment in 2022, Dr Adesina advised that a funding restructure of the African Development Fund would allow the Fund to go to market, leverage its $25 billion in equity, and raise an additional $33 billion in financing for low-income countries.
The Bank Group chief reminded African leaders that they had asked for re-allocated IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to be channeled through the African Development Bank, a prescribed holder of SDRs.
The newspaper says that the Accra High Court has sentenced Oheneba Boamah Bennie, a radio presenter at Accra-based Power FM, to 14 days imprisonment for contempt of court.
The convict claimed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had influenced some justices of the Supreme Court after the declaration of the 2020 presidential election results.
The court presided over by Justice Elfrida Denkyi, also slapped the convict with a GH¢3,000 fine.
Oheneba Boamah Bennie claimed President Akufo-Addo had influenced some justices of the Supreme Court after the declaration of the presidential election results.
He was dragged to court by the Attorney-General (A-G) for contempt.
The A-G urged the Accra High Court to commit Bennie to prison for contempt of court for alleging that President Akufo-Addo had met with eight justices of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, and that the said meeting was to influence the judges in the event of any election petition.
The A-G averred that the comments by Bennie were false and were meant to bring the Judiciary into disrepute.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Government, since 2017, has paid close to GH6 billion to clear the social security contributions owed by previous administrations, Ms Emefa Agonyo, the SSNIT Public Affairs Officer, has said.
Also, more than 500 employers of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), including government employees, have arranged for terms of settlement of their indebtedness to the scheme.
She said the Trust continued to actively engage those entities to pay their workers’ contributions by the 14th day of the ensuing month to avoid penalties.
“We constantly put in measures to strengthen our compliance efforts to reduce debt owed,” MsAgonyo said at the Ghana News Agency platform to discuss issues of national interest.
She explained that as at the end of October 2021 the private sector entities owed SSNIT to the tune of GHC230 million.
Speaking on the topic: “Sustainability of the SSNIT Scheme: Measures, Policy Interventions to deal with it,” Ms Agonyo said in 2020 and 2021, the Trust spent GH¢3.3 billion and GH¢3.6 billion, respectively, in benefits payment.
These covered pensions, old-age lump sum, invalidity, refund of contributions, survivors’ lump sum, and emigration benefit.
The newspaper says that the World Bank Group (WBG) intends to mobilise up to one billion dollars to support Ghana’s socio-economic development efforts under a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) being developed by the bank.
Subject to the approval of WBG board at its forthcoming meeting, the partnership, which is to last for about four years, would require that the funds be used for projects in areas including energy, education, health and agriculture.
The WBG Regional Vice President for West and Central Africa, Ousmane Diagana, disclosed this at a press conference held in Accra on Monday as part of his three-day visit to Ghana.
“In the next couple of weeks, the World Bank will be presenting to its board a new CPF. One of the key goals of this strategy is to create conditions for a strong private sector growth, build resilience of population, economy and community, support reforms that would lead to job creation and secure the development path that Ghana is on,” he said.
The visit, his first time since his appointment in July 2020, is to afford him the opportunity to hold high-level discussions with government officials on critical areas of the bank’s programme in Ghana including macro-economic, energy sector issues, COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine.
GIK/APA