Press spotlights Chinese envoy’s statement that Ghana will achieve debt sustainability, others

APA – Accra (Ghana)
The assurance by Chinese government that it will work with its Ghanaian counterpart to ensure that Ghana achieves debt sustainability is one of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that Chinese government has given an assurance that it will work with its Ghanaian counterpart to ensure that Ghana achieves debt sustainability.
China said it remained Ghana’s biggest trading partner and major investment source, and would, therefore, join hands to deliver tangible benefits to the people of Ghana.
“We will work with our Ghanaian counterpart closely under the G20 Common Framework in the following consultation to help Ghana realise debt sustainability,” the Director of Political Affairs of the Chinese Embassy in Ghana, Catherine Danzhu Lou, reiterated during the presentation of some items to the Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL) last Friday.
The Managing Director of GCGL, Ato Afful, supported by Editor, Graphic, Theophilus Yartey; the News Editor, Samuel Doe Ablordeppey; the Foreign News Editor, Mary Mensah, and the Photo Editor, Douglas Anane Frimpong, received the items, which included cameras, lenses, computers and a laptop.
The Chinese Embassy said the support to the largest circulating newspaper house would be annual.
Ghana owes China, its biggest trading partner, about $1.9 billion in bilateral debts, and China’s presence at the Paris Club table to decide debt treatment for Ghana was crucial in securing an International Monetary Fund deal.
This was made possible after the establishment of the Official Creditor Committee of the Paris Club, which China agreed to co-chair.
In the run-up to that, many countries and analysts expressed the position that China, as a matter of principle and policy, did not want to offer debt treatment to any of its support recipient countries.
This elicited some pressure at the country level, the donor community and the IMF for China to support its partner countries who were finding it difficult to service their indebtedness to her.
The difficulty in debt servicing has been occasioned mainly due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine.
The newspaper says that the Organised Labour has said that it will embark on a nationwide strike beginning July 10 over the sacking of three workers at Sunon Asogli Power who tried to form a labour union at the company.
The sacked workers at Asogli are said to have initiated moves to form a union but following a disagreement with the management of the company, they have been sacked.
The Organised Labour has therefore called for their reinstatement and threatened a nationwide strike beginning July 10, 2023.
The Graphic also reports that the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has bemoaned the high level of monetisation of politics in the country.
He explained that such was the situation that some writers had christened Ghana’s democracy “monecracy”.
“Conscience is on sale. Truth and honesty are scarce commodities. Elections have been reduced to a farce, open auctions, where the highest bidder wins,” he stated.
Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Bagbin said there was pervasive disregard for law and order with impunity.
“Vigilantism, gangsterism and the use of hoodlums are gradually becoming a norm of competitive politics,” he added.
Mr Bagbin said the democratic decay in Ghana was very pronounced and visible, and questioned if the country was witnessing the death of the Fourth Republic.
He said the situation should serve as a wake-up call to the political leaders to be the leaders that they had claimed to be.
“This calls for credible, honest and patriotic leaders not only in politics, but also in all facets of our lives,” he said.
The Ghanaian Times says that the Ghana National Petroleum Drivers Union and the Gas Tanker Drivers Union declared an indefinite sit down industrial action nationwide yesterday.
It claimed that the strike was necessary due to the unmotorable nature of their roads from the GTP roundabout at Community 4 in Tema, in the Greater Accra Region, linking the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) through heavy industrial area to Kpone, capital of Kpone KatamansoDistrict.
Speaking in an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday, Mr Raymond Aflo, secretary of the Ghana National Petroleum Drivers Union stated that the strike will be effective until government fixed the road.
“The road has become impassable and creates a risk to our drivers, the road served eight terminal depots and over 3,500 tankers ply these routes to supply the country’s petroleum and Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG).
“Vehicles including LPG trucks meander through hug potholes on this road,” he lamented.
“Last month a tanker loaded with petrol fell on its side and we had to call in the TOR emergency team, if it were an LPG truck that had this accident could we imagine the disaster it would have caused to the entire industrial enclave including TOR pipelines, the Asogli and Asaa power plants,” he stated.
The newspaper says that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has signed an agreement with the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat to invest $6 billion as funding for African Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) within the next three years.
A breakdown of the $6bn investment shows that a total of $1.2bn has been budgeted for the year 2023; $1.9bn for 2024, and $2.88bn for 2025.
UBA signed the agreement with AfCFTA on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 30th Afreximbank annual meeting held in Accra.
By this agreement, UBA, with the aim of boosting intra-African trade, will provide financial services in four main areas, including agro-processing, automotive, pharmaceuticals, and transport and logistics, to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in all the 20 African countries where UBA operates.
These countries are Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Congo DRC, Chad, and Cameroon.
One of the key initiatives of the AfCFTA agreement focuses on improving access to finance and markets for SMEs to encourage their growth and contribution to the socio-economic development of Africa.
UBA Group’s Deputy Managing Director, Muyiwa Akinyemi, who signed the agreement on behalf of the UBA Group, noted that as Africa’s global bank, UBA was committed to supporting SMEs in Africa, especially given its robust network, which is spread across the 20 countries.
He said, “We entered into this partnership because we see the future of intra-African payments developed by AfCFTA, which will ease payment constraints across 54 countries in Africa (with about 40 different currencies) powered by the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS).”
Mr Akinyemi said, “However, we need to develop these busi¬nesses before we can talk about helping them trade, which is the strength of UBA, as we are vital in supporting SMEs, and with our presence in 20 African countries, we say your small business is big business.”
GIK/APA