The assurance by the official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Ghana will emerge stronger from the current economic challenges that have seen the prices of goods and services soar is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is optimistic that the country will emerge stronger from the current economic challenges that have seen the prices of goods and services soar.
The challenges have also led to difficulties for the government to access the international capital market for funds to finance development.
The IMF said the country had a history of navigating shocks in ways that had built strong buffers and adequate resilience for challenges such as those currently confronting the economy.
The Resident Representative of the IMF in Ghana, Dr Albert Touna Mama, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic, said Ghanaians and the investor community should have faith in the country’s ability to turn the corner and return to the path of growth and stable macroeconomic environment.
Dr Mama, who is ending his duty tour of the country as the lead representative of the IMF, was speaking with the Daily Graphic at a farewell dinner held in his honour last Tuesday.
“I am confident about the country’s resilience.
“This country has known a lot of shocks and we have navigated those together. There is no reason it cannot navigate the current ones,” he said.
The newspaper says that the Auditor-General has retrieved more than GH¢2.2 billion from disallowances captured in the Auditor-General’s reports between 2017 and 2020.
The amount was out of the expected GH¢4 billion disallowances by the Auditor-General.
It was retrieved after the Audit Service had conducted audits of ministries, departments and agencies, public boards, the District Assemblies Common Fund, internally generated funds, pre-university institutions and technical universities and determined expenditure improprieties.
The amount was also retrieved through seven irregularities in cash utilisation, contracts, indebtedness (advances/loans), payrolls, rents, stores (procurement) and taxes which the Auditor-General disallowed after the audits.
Of the amount, GH¢1.6 billion was from tax irregularities, GH¢420.31 million from indebtedness (advances/loans) and GH¢131.07 million from cash irregularities.
The rest, amounting to GH¢13.60 million, was retrieved from contracts, payrolls, rent and stores/procurement.
The Auditor-General, Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, who made this known exclusively to the Daily Graphic in Accra, said the recovery was made upon recommendations in the various Auditor-General’s reports to Parliament and management letters issued to auditees.
He explained that a task force was set up in May 2022 to follow up on all outstanding disallowed expenditures between 2017 and 2020.
He said the task force was mandated to go through the Auditor-General’s reports and ensure that all expenditures made contrary to law and disallowed were recovered.
The Graphic also reports that the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has issued a health alert following a confirmed rabies outbreak in the Ashanti Region.
As of Monday, September 12, 2022, the region had recorded a total of four confirmed cases and one probable case.
The cases were reported from Asante Akim South, Bosomtwe and Kwabre East with a case fatality rate of 100 per cent.
“The Regional Health Directorate brings to the notice of all health facilities, a rise in confirmed outbreak of rabies and deaths in three districts in the Ashanti Region,” the Service said in an alert.
The GHS alert further urged all health facilities across the country to start taking precautions against the disease.
It added that the facilities should be on the lookout for suspected cases of persons with headaches, neck pain, nausea, fever, fear of water, anxiety, agitation, abnormal tingling sensations or pain at the wound site or contact with a rabid animal.
The GHS also ordered all the Regional Health Directorates across the country to enhance community/public sensitization to rabies, improve case search for rabies in the facilities, follow up and treat all cases of dog bites, and liaise with veterinary officers in districts for dog vaccination exercise.
The Ghanaian Times says that all 16 regions in the country are to benefit from a high level diagnostic centre under a proposed Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project.
The “Clinical Laboratory Improvement Project (CLIP)” is expected to decentralise laboratory services in the country’ while enhancing disease detection and effective care for patients to advance quality healthcare delivery.
At a market sounding event in Accra yesterday, the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, said diagnostic services was pivotal to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and ensuring equitable distribution of quality healthcare.
According to him, investments in the public health delivery system over the years had paid minimal attention to diagnostic care services, particularly at the primary and regional healthcare level.
“The goal of CLIP is to improve access to quality and affordable laboratory services and we will start in the regional hospitals and other selected health facilities to have at least one high level diagnostic centre to provide services that meet international standards,” he said.
Mr Agyeman-Manu said the growing demand for laboratory services burdened the few public facilities equipped to offer expected outcomes, thereby prompting referrals to private and foreign laboratories which sometimes delayed treatment and caused mortalities.
“This will increase access and improve turnaround time in the provision of laboratory services even at the regional level to ensure timely availability of test results for clinical decisions.
“We hope to improve efficiency in the provision of laboratory services to drive down cost of tests and enable the government to expand testing in an affordable manner to contribute to the goal of UHC,” he added.
The newspaper reports that the Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, has urged Ghanaians to promote and consume local dishes, in order to attract more people into the agriculture sector.
According to him, it is only when Ghanaians patronise and consume local farm produce on regular basis that farmers would get value for their efforts and produce in large quantities.
“We have a lot of local dishes that when we consume them on regular basis, our farmers would get money and also invest in producing more to feed the entire country without depending on foreign products,” Dr Akoto stated.
He made the call during the recently held Homowo Cooking Competition, organised by the La Dadekotopon Women’s Wing of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), in Accra.
The competition, aimed at testing the culinary skills of the women within the party to climax the Homowo celebration of the Ga people, was also to foster unity ahead of the 2024 General Election.
Dr Akoto praised the organiser of the competition for the display of rich Ghanaian culture, saying “I was surprised to see the display of various Ghanaian dishes by the women, which is an indication that we have a lot to offer as Ghanaians”.
He said “we can produce abundantly to feed ourselves if we make agriculture attractive to everyone, especially the youth.”
Government, Dr Akoto said, was committed to partnering everyone, including those in the private sector, to ensure that the country produced enough food.
He noted that Ghana and other countries in the world were facing economic challenges due to COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, but said with the intervention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), everything would be back to normal.
“We would not only produce, but ensure that prices have been reduced for everyone to afford,” Dr Akoto stated.
GIK/APA