The report that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured that the government is committed to turning round the economy of the country for the benefit of all and sundry is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Monday.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the government is committed to turning round the economy of the country for the benefit of all and sundry, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said.
“I want the economic statistics on Ghana to shift significantly to industrial, agricultural and infrastructural developments, by the time I leave the scene,” he said.
He said that the government was determined and focused this time, to ensure economic transformation by improving on agricultural productivity, as he observed that many people had of late, been speaking ill about food security in the country.
The President mentioned the planting for food and job initiative saying it was a good programme that would need to be deepened and consolidated for “food security in the country to be a major component in the life of every one”.
Nana Akufo-Addo was speaking on economic recovery plan of the country on a local radio station here, on Saturday, as part of a four-day working visit to inspect ongoing projects in some parts of the Ashanti Region.
He said the government was decisively accelerating the implementation of key economic policies to bring about industrialiSation that would create more jobs for the people of Ghana.
The newspaper says that the Registrar General’s Department (RGD)is set to delete the names of more than 100,000 dormant companies from its database in its maiden clean-up exercise to ensure a credible and updated register of companies.
The exercise begins this month with 3,100 companies, the first batch of companies registered since 2011, but had failed to company with a directive to file their annual returns or update their records.
A statement issued in Accra yesterday by the Registrar-General, Mrs Jemima Oware said the companies included public/private companies limited by shares; public/private companies limited by guarantee such as associations, fun clubs and churches; private unlimited companies, and external companies.
It said the exercise which would continue until the end of December this year, had become necessary after the end of the three months validation process conducted by the Department from July to September this year, to review the sampled group of companies not in good standing.
It said more than 257,241 companies existing in the database had not filed their returns or amendments with the Department since 2011 and 670, 282 Companies in the Legacy System (Old database) had not carried out the update of their data dubbed “Re-registration” as at March, 2020.
The Ghanaian Times also reports that Member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have been urged to adopt the regional bloc’s framework for gender mainstreaming in the energy sector to ensure inclusion.
The framework comprises the 2017 ECOWAS Policy on Gender Mainstreaming for Energy Access, and the ECOWAS Directive on Gender Assessment in Energy Projects which serves as policy guideline.
A former chairperson of the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA), Ifey Ikeonu, who made the call on Saturday, said member states were to adopt the directives.
She also stressed the need to put in place the relevant institutional and legal arrangements for implementation within two years, of the coming into force of the directive, which many of them were yet to do so.
“This continues to impact negatively on the ability of the sub-region to leverage social developments that can come from a more pro-active approach to gender mainstreaming”, she said on the last of a four-day workshop held at Akosombo in the Eastern Region.
The workshop aimed to build the capacity of communication experts from the electricity regulatory authorities of the member countries on the development of the ECOWAS regional electricity market, and the fundamentals of electricity regulation to enable them to effectively create public awareness.
Attended by 13 representatives from 11 member states including Ghana, it was organised by ERERA under the European Union (EU)-funded programme on Improving the Governance of the Energy Sector in the ECOWAS region which partly focuses on building the capacity of stakeholders on the electricity market.
Mrs Ikeonu, who is a senior expert in energy regulation on the programme, said the policy set forth five primary strategic objectives, including ensuring that that all energy policies, programmes and initiatives were non-discriminatory, gender-inclusive, gender-balanced and directed towards addressing energy poverty.
She said the target of one of the objectives which sought to increase women’s public sector participation in energy-related technical fields, and decision making positions was that at least 25 per cent women in the public sector energy workforce by 2020 and an equal (50-50) gender balance by 2030.
She said although ECOWAS was one of the first regions in the continent to put in place such a framework for gender mainstreaming in the energy sector, the major challenge remained with implementation.
GIK/APA