The approval of the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government by the Parliament on Tuesday by voting in favour of the overturning the earlier rejection of the budget by the House last Friday is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that the Parliament on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, voted in favour of the 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government, overturning the earlier rejection of the budget by the House last Friday.
The approval of the budget was undertaken by the 138 members of the Majority, including the First Deputy Speaker, Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu, who presided over proceedings.
The Minority members, who had voted against the budget last Friday, were not in the Chamber of the House to take part in proceedings leading to the approval of the budget.
Before proceedings started, both the Majority and the Minority sides were locked up in caucus meetings with their leadership, which started just around 10 a.m.
Proceedings in the House started at 4 p.m., but without the Minority side of the House.
They did not show up in the Chamber until their Majority counterparts had approved the budget.
That doused the highly anticipated heated debate in the House.
Journalists from a multiplicity of media houses stood ready to follow proceedings but had to wait on end.
The newspaper says that the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, has described the YouStart initiative being pursued by the government as a game-changer geared towards accelerating job creation.
He said it formed part of efforts by the government to kick-start an entrepreneurial state as it sought to remove the primary impediment to the growth of enterprises in the country — access to credit.
According to him, the initiative also incorporated the broader vision of the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda under the Ghana CARES ‘Obaatan Pa’ programme.
“By working in tandem with our international development partners and financial institutions, an unprecedented GH¢10 billion will be committed to supporting entrepreneurship over the next three years.
“Over the next three years, the government will commit up to GH¢1 billion annually to the YouStart, while development partners and financial institutions will complement it with close to GH¢2 billion and GH¢5 billion, respectively,” Mr Ofori-Atta said at a Springboard Youth Dialogue in Cape Coast in the Central Region.
Essentially, he said, the YouStart would serve as a vehicle to support the youth to develop commercially viable businesses, gain access to capital, training, technical skills and mentorship to enable them to establish and operate their own businesses.
The Graphic also reports that the Iron and steel manufacturing company, Fabrimetal Ghana Ltd, has commissioned a new section mill plant at its Prampram factory premises to expand production.
The $10 million investment is part of the company’s expansion project to address the growing demand for steel products in the market.
It also forms part of the company’s avowed confidence in the economy, hence the investment.
Section mills are facilities that carry out series of processes to produce angle bars, flat bars channels, square bars among other merchant bars aimed at meeting the growing needs of the construction and fabrication industry.
A Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Michael Okyere Baafi, who led a delegation to the factory premises near Prampram in the Greater Accra Region, applauded the efforts of Fabrimetal Ghana and the private sector in general in assisting in the steady growth of the local manufacturing economy.
He said the government in recognition of these significant contributions by the private sector had also introduced industrial development programmes such as the 1D1F initiative to boost private sector development.
“The private sector-led IDIF initiative seeks to change the nature of Ghana’s economy from one that is dependent on exports of raw materials and imports of finished goods to one that is focused on manufacturing, value addition and export of processed goods”, he said
According to him, through the initiative, the government had created the necessary conducive environment for businesses to access funding from financial institutions and other support services from government agencies.
The Ghanaian Times says that Ghana continues to make steady growth in the patronage of electronic products and services, as the third quarter performance report by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) shows a growth of over 146.1 per cent in the volume of transactions in the first nine months of 2021.
A total of 125.8 million transactions were processed from January to September of this year compared to 51.1 million transactions over the same period in 2020.
The value of the transactions for the same period, however, recorded a lower growth of 36.1 per cent to 241.5 billion cedis.
The very high growth in volume strongly suggests that more people are patronising electronic payment channels, an indication that the cash-lite agenda is on course.
The GhIPSS third quarter performance report also revealed that almost all GhIPSS services recorded growth in volume and value of transactions.
The only exception, e-zwich however, recorded marginal growth in the value of transactions.
The report also demonstrates that the public continues to strongly prefer real time electronic payments.
The GhIPSS Instant Pay (GIP) platform (including GhQR), which ensures that interbank payments or transfers are received instantly, posted the highest growth in volume of transactions.
It went up as high as 407.66 per cent from about 4.3 million to almost 22 million transactions in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year.
GIK/APA