The plan by the German government to support Ghana to conduct feasibility studies on the possibility of producing vaccines locally and the collaboration between the United States Embassy and the National Disaster Management Organisation to find solutions to disaster challenges in Ghana are some of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday.
The Graphic reports that the German government is to support Ghana to conduct feasibility studies on the possibility of producing vaccines locally.
When successful, the initiative will help accelerate national plans to produce vaccines for better health outcomes and job creation.
Speaking with the Daily Graphic in Accra on Monday, the German Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Christoph Retzlaff, said the COVID-19 pandemic had shown how critical it was for Africa to produce its own vaccines.
He said the shortage of vaccines and the dependence on delivery from other parts of the world were major hurdles in Africa’s fight against the global pandemic.
“If I am informed well, Africa is producing only one per cent of vaccines that are needed on the continent. I am not talking just about the COVID-19 but all vaccines needed on the continent. There is almost no vaccine production capacity in sub-Saharan Africa; it is a situation we have to change together,” the Ambassador added.
Mr Retzlaff said as part of the support, Germany, through its development cooperation implementing agency, the GIZ, was assisting a committee set up by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to lead the national vaccine production agenda with funding and technical assistance from Germany to conduct initial feasibility studies.
He said stakeholders were in the process of determining the cost of the feasibility studies, which are to begin soon.
The newspaper says that the United States Embassy in Ghana is to collaborate with the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to find solutions to disaster challenges in Ghana.
According to the US Ambassador to Ghana, Mrs. Stephanie S. Sullivan, disaster prevention and management were key to protecting lives and property.
Mrs. Sullivan said this during a courtesy call on the Director-General of NADMO, Mr. Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh, in his office in Accra last Friday.
The Ambassador was accompanied by a team from the North Dakota National Guard (NDNG) in the US.
They included the State Partnership Programme Director for Ghana-Togo-Benin, Lt Col Mark McEvers; the Regional Bilateral Affairs Officer, Ghana-Togo-Benin, Maj. Jarrod R. Simek, and the Supervisory Programme Officer, Mr Kevin Brown.
Discussions at the meeting centred on key issues of disaster prevention, response and communication strategies.
NADMO has the mandate to coordinate and manage disasters in the country. Apart from governmental support, it seeks partnership and collaboration with stakeholders in and outside the country to achieve results.
Over the years, NADMO has received support from the NDNG in the areas of training and simulation exercises.
The Graphic also reports that five indigenous financial institutions have defended the government’s decision not to seek support under a global initiative meant to suspend the payment of interest costs on the public debts.
The specialists in debt structuring and capital market operations said the debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) by the Group of 20 Countries (G20) under the auspices of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) posed negative challenges for the economy and the nation at large and any attempt to benefit from it would complicate matters for public finances.
The institutions — Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited, CalBank PLC, Databank Brokerage Limited, IC Securities (Ghana) Limited and Temple Investments Limited — were responding to Graphic Business enquiries on the implications of Ghana not participating in the debt suspension programme, meant to help create fiscal space for the economies of developing countries but returned to the International capital market (ICM) for a $3.025 billion loan at a time when interest cost on the debt stock had assumed record levels.
The enquiries followed the successful issuance of the 2021 Eurobond in March during which the five institutions, which are all 100 per cent owned by Ghanaians, were the co-managers.
In the response sent to the paper, the firms said if Ghana participated in the DSSI, it would have sent the wrong signals to the international investor community that the country was either in debt distress or had difficulties servicing its debts.
That, they said, would have resulted in higher borrowing costs to the economy at a time when the country needed low cost debts to contain spending pressures and help moderate the pace of debt accumulation.
The co-managers explained that it would have also caused international rating agencies to downgrade Ghana’s credit rating and that would have limited the government’s ability to access additional finances from the ICM to support development, finance COVID-19-related expenses and retire costly existing debts.
The Times says that Chad’s President Idriss Déby has died of his injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend.
The army’s announcement came a day after provisional election results projected that he would win a sixth term in office.
The government and parliament have been dissolved. A curfew has also been imposed and the borders have been shut.
Mr. Déby, 68, spent three decades in power and was one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
A military council led by Mr. Déby’s son, a 37-year-old four star general, will govern for the next 18 months.
Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno will lead the council but “free and democratic” elections will be held once the transition period is over, the army said on Tuesday.
An army officer by training, Mr Déby came to power in 1990 through an armed uprising. He was a long-time ally of France and other Western powers in the battle against jihadist groups in the Sahel region of Africa.
GIK/APA