APA – Accra (Ghana)
The report that Ghana has moved to the next stage of handling the government’s debts internationally and has initiated talks with China over Ghana’s debt following a successful Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian Times on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that Ghana has moved to the next stage of handling the government’s debts internationally and has initiated talks with China over Ghana’s debt following a successful Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has told Citi News that negotiations with China are important because China holds the majority of the external bonds.
Mr Ofori-Atta says he will lead a delegation to China to plead for debt cancellation.
“The big elephant in the room is China, we will be visiting China by the end of the week to really discuss how they come into the envelope as quickly as possible. So we are looking at that support from them. China represents about a third of the $5.7 billion loan and so it is important that we engage them,” he said.
In January 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it was working towards a debt cancellation programme for Ghana and other countries amid a global economic recession scare in 2023.
The other countries are Ethiopia, Zambia, Chad, Lebanon, Surinam, and Sri Lanka.
The move, Madam Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF Managing Director, said was to avert any “bad surprise” on the global economy, out of which 25 percent had its trade in emerging markets territories.
“We’re working hard to press for debt resolution for these countries, and we’ve engaged with the traditional creditors, the Paris Club, the non-traditional creditors, China, India, and Saudi Arabia. Our call is very simple: Urgently we have to act,” she said in an interview.
The newspaper says that Ghana has given the final approval for the transfer of the 70 percent majority shares in Vodafone Ghana (Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited) held by Vodafone Group Plc to Telecel Group.
The approval for the sale was given after Telecel submitted a revised financial and technical proposal in December 2022.
The sector regulator, the National Communications Authority (NCA) had turned down an initial sale plan submitted by Vodafone Ghana early last year as it did not meet required regulatory standards.
The NCA said that the revised proposal provided more clarity on funding required for the transaction and met the regulatory threshold.
Senior officials of Telecel say they intend to use the Vodafone Ghana acquisition as a launch pad to the capital markets to raise funds for its operations in Ghana.
Telecel has, therefore, indicated that it plans to issue an Initial Public Offer (IPO) once the acquisition goes through all regulatory approvals from the government for it to acquire majority stake in Vodafone Ghana.
The $500 million all-cash deal is part of Telecel’s expansion strategy into Africa.
In a release Tuesday morning (Feb 21, 2023), the National Communications Authority (NCA) explained that the final approval follows “satisfaction of conditions outlined in the conditional approval of the shares transfer, including the agreement of the Government of Ghana, who remains the 30% minority shareholder.”
It will be recalled that the NCA had announced on January 16, 2023, that pursuant to the evaluation of the revised proposal from the Telecel Group, it had granted conditional approval for the transfer of the 70 percent majority shares in Vodafone Ghana held by Vodafone Group Plc (the Seller) to Telecel Group (the Buyer) subject to concessions made by the Seller and representations made by the Buyer to the NCA.
The Ghanaian Times reports that a team of environmental experts from Japan arrived in the country on Monday to begin work with their Ghanaian counterparts on galamsey-polluted rivers which are said to have high density of toxic mercury and dangerous to health.
The objective of the team is to make the rivers clean and hygienic again – using micro-nano-bubble, unique bacteria and other cleaning technologies.
During their stay, the Japanese will collaborate with the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) to conduct further tests to ascertain the toxicity of the rivers.
The Chief of Water and Soil Environment Division of the Meiho Engineering Incorporated, Atsushi Umeda and Professor Tomihisa Ohta of the Gifu University in Tokyo, were the first to arrive and they would be around for two weeks for the project.
The Japan-based Meiho Engineering is experienced in environmental restoration and provide solutions such as preliminary environmental pollution surveys, clean-up planning, and designing purification agents according to the pollution levels, production of cleaning agents, process management, and post project surveys.
Four major water bodies in the country have been identified by the Japanese team as posing serious health risks due to the activities of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.
The rivers mentioned were the Pra, Birim, Ankobra and Ofin – all of which are reported to have high density of toxic mercury and are dangerous to health.
A survey conducted by Meiho Engineering, warned of birth defects and nerve damage on the use of the polluted water bodies.
The survey cautioned people in such areas not to eat any seafood in the rivers or suffer severe pain by nerve damage.
“Furthermore, if you eat the seafood in this area, your pregnancy might have variable deformity of children.”
The arrival of the Japanese team was initiated by a former resident in Japan, Mr George Afriyie – a renowned entrepreneur and former vice president of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), who had reportedly met the President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, to discuss the project.
According to Mr Afriyie, two other residents in Japan -Professor Kwasi Kyei and Mr David Boateng, initiated the idea of bringing the team to Ghana for the project.
Professor Kyei, he said, had a brief meeting with the President on the project when he came on a working visit to Japan, Tokyo, in 2018.
The team, the Ghanaian Times was told, would also address problems of water quality, water resource and ecosystems that Ghana is facing today.
“They will plan and implement strategic solutions to these issues and prevent potential risks to the environment,” Mr Afriyie added.
The newspaper says that a Collaboration between the downstream petroleum unit of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) Customs Division, and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), a revenue and assurance audit firm, has saved the country GH¢ 3 billion in petroleum revenue from June 2020 to June 2022.
Since the introduction of the technology, the average volume per month recorded by SML metres for the white product is 400 million litres, which has resulted in extra revenue for the government.
Mr Christian Tetteh Sottie, Managing Director for SML Ghana, who disclosed this, said the collaboration was helping the GRA to meet and exceed its annual targets.
He was speaking at a stakeholder engagement held in Tema last week with the leadership of the downstream petroleum unit of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) Customs Division to discuss new initiatives and solicit opinions on how both sides can improve the successes chalked and further improve the country’s revenues. This meeting forms part of regular stakeholder engagements.
The GRA, last year, mobilised GH¢75.5 billion domestic revenue, which is GH¢3.60 billion more than it was tasked to collect. The collection was a five per cent increase over last year’s target of GH¢71.94 billion.
The feat also meant the domestic revenue the GRA mobilised was 31.5 per cent more than what was collected in 2021. The Customs Division, which includes the petroleum downstream sector, collected GH¢22.26 billion as against a target of GH¢20.20 billion, also exceeding the target by GH¢2.06 billion.
The stakeholder engagement brought together the various Customs heads in charge of downstream petroleum depots across the country’s 16 regions.
SML Ghana took the Customs officials through the latest technologies such as scanning of way bills and purchase orders, and reconciling them with metre volumes at the depots in real time and introduction of level sensors to monitor, manage, and measure the petroleum stocks.
Mr Sottie stated that the engagement was to take the officials through a detailed method on how SML Ghana was leveraging technology to improve the sector and remove any misconceptions while establishing the foundation of both sides as partners.
GIK/APA
Press spotlights developments in handling of government’s debts internationally, others
