APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report that the Bank of Ghana has suspended the forex license of Fidelity Bank and First National Bank Ghana for a period of one month, beginning June 29, 2023 dominates the headlines of the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the Bank of Ghana has suspended the forex license of Fidelity Bank and First National Bank Ghana for a period of one month, beginning June 29, 2023.
The two banks were also fined a combined 1000 penalty points each for breaching sections 3.4, 3.5, and 3.9 of the Ghana Interbank Forex Market Conduct rules.
Given the license suspension, customers of these banks may have to now look elsewhere to do their forex business within this period.
Section 3.4 of the rules states that “Licensed Foreign Exchange Dealers (LFXDs) are required to update indicative quotes for buying and selling US dollars at regular intervals, on the Reuters and Bloomberg information systems. Indicative quotes shall be updated at intervals of no more than 30 minutes.”
Section 3.5 also states that “all interbank FX trades must be booked on the Reuters platform and appropriately confirmed within five (5) minutes after the trade is concluded. These trades must also be reported in the daily FX report submitted to the Bank of Ghana.”
The BoG in a notice said the two banks breached these sections of the guidelines and therefore cautioned forex market players including banks, forex bureaus, forex brokers, and money transfer operators (MTOs) to adhere strictly to the applicable forex market regulations and guidelines.
The newspaper says that about 20 young innovative entrepreneurs in the country have graduated from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) StartUp Lab.
It is after an intensive six-month accelerator programme focused on business and product development.
The UNICEF StartUp Lab is an accelerator programme dedicated to support businesses working towards advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for children and young people.
It is led by UNICEF in Ghana and supported by KOICA under the “KOICA-UNICEF Accelerating Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Ghana”.
This milestone marks the culmination of a journey aimed at enhancing the business, technological, and communication skills of participating entrepreneurs, strengthening their product and businesses, and ultimately increasing their social impact. New cohort
Addressing participants at the graduation ceremony in Accra, the Deputy Representative of UNICEF in Ghana, Fiachra McAsey, said UNICEF would continue to be inspired by this new cohort of talented startups, who were leveraging digital technology and their business acumen to build new products and services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges faced by young people in Ghana.
He said the 20 startups make up a cohort of resourceful, dedicated and talented individuals from across the country.
The Ghanaian Times reports that a five-year research and learning project aimed at equipping state institutions and service providers towards the provision of sustainable water and sanitation services in the country has been launched in Accra.
Dubbed, ‘Urban Resilience by Building and Applying New Evidence in WASH (URBAN-WASH)’, the initiative was being undertaken by the Ghana Water Limited, formerly Ghana Water Company Limited in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The project is designed to generate evidence through applied research to promote sustainable, equitable and climate-resilient WASH and water resources management policies and programming in urban and peri-urban areas.
The primary objective of the URBAN WASH project is to address knowledge gaps of service providers and government institutions in USAID priority countries, including Ghana and to strengthen the evidence base for decision-making.
Launching the project yesterday, Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Ms Cecilia Abena Dapaah, in a speech read on her behalf, said, the project which aligned with the Ministry’s WASH Sector Development Programme (GWASHSDP) 2021-2030, would enhance efforts by government and partners to provide sustainable water and sanitation services in the country.
Even though access to basic water services in urban areas stands at 96.4 per cent according to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) Population and Housing Census, 2021, she explained that, a segment of the population within the lower wealth group still lacks access to basic water services.
In this regard, she said, the government supported the Ghana Water Limited to create a Low-Income Consumer Support Department (LICSD) dedicated to addressing the water needs of low-income customers in urban and peri-urban areas and thus ensuring equity in water services delivery in the urban water space.
Also, with the support of the World Bank and the government of Denmark, the Minister noted that, service pipelines and household connections have been extended to some communities within the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Areas which hitherto did not have access to basic water services and were buying water from third parties which had issues with water quality and affordability.
This, she stated, had also provided the beneficiary communities the opportunity to improve their resil¬ience towards water-related public health crises, like COVID-19.
Ms Dapaah said that, additionally, a number of Water Supply Systems were being constructed in different parts of the country including Damongo, Sekondi-Takoradi, Sunyani, Keta and Tamale under the Water for All agenda to improve water accessibility in those areas.
The newspaper says that the Sub-Saharan African Director, Mr Rahul Ghosh, has called on Ghanaian businesses to explore partnerships in Singapore in order to make them competitive.
This, he said, would enable them to access not just the Singaporean market but also the Asian market for their products.
He explained that there were enormous opportunities in using start-ups, and technology companies could address Asian challenges using Ghanaian Innovation and Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana, and must exploit it to their advantage.
“There are educational technologies and payment system solutions being offered by Ghanaians that can be exported to Singapore and other Asian countries, and Ghanaian businesses must capitalise on it,” he emphasised.
Mr Ghosh made the call during an interaction with some selected journalists in Accra last Wednesday.
The interaction was to brief the media about the Africa-Singapore Business forum, a platform for business exchange and fostering trade between Africa and Asia.
It also aimed at highlighting the mutual benefits to be drawn by both Ghana and Singapore in their partnership.
Mr Ghosh noted that both the Singaporean government and the private sector were ready to facilitate such partnership through the Enterprise Singapore.
He explained that economic diversification did not only depend on state enterprises or industries, but also a strong service sector.
The Director said Singapore stood in ready to offer the needed assistance and advice to help Ghana improve its service sector as well as the manufacturing sector.
He noted that Singapore had collaborated with Ghana in many areas for mutual co-operation, including climate change issues, and ready to do so in other areas as well.
GIK/APA
Press focuses on suspension of forex licence of two banks by BoG, others
