The report that Ghana will host the 61st Ordinary Session of the Authority of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government in Accra on July 3, 2022, which will mark the end of the second-year stewardship of President Akufo-Addo as Chair of ECOWAS is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Thursday.
The Graphic reports that Ghana will host the 61st Ordinary Session of the Authority of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government in Accra on July 3, 2022 at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel.
The Summit will mark the end of the second-year stewardship of President Akufo-Addo.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who is also the Chair of the Authority of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government will host his colleagues, 12 ECOWAS member states.
President Akufo-Addo assumed the Chairmanship of ECOWAS on September 7, 2020 in Niamey, Niger after Mahamadou Issoufou, former President of Niger, had ended his stewardship.
In June, 2021, the mandate of President Akufo-Addo was renewed by his peers for another one year based on his sterling leadership and to complete ongoing institutional reforms geared towards the reduction of the number of Statutory Appointees of the ECOWAS Commission from Fifteen (15) to Seven (7) as well as streamline operational cost.
Among many others, the Summit would be dedicated to examining and taking decisions on the political, security and humanitarian situations in the Region.
Most notably, the Summit shall review the current state of affairs in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso, suspended from the organisation, following the unconstitutional changes of government in the three countries.
The newspaper says that the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, has stressed the need for African Union member states to embrace the idea of industrialisation if they wish to remain competitive within the global trade space.
According to him, the over reliance on export of the continent’s primary commodities as well as on external partners to come and invest in the continent has brought about the lack of competitiveness.
“When you think about why Africa lacks competitiveness, it is because we have been fragmented leading to the continuous reliance on export of our raw materials which are processed abroad and re-exported to us, creating a value chain and employment generation for those countries,” Mr. Mene said.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Ghana Trade Road Show organised by Afriexim Bank and Oakwood Green Africa, an African trade finance group and the AfCFTA Secretariat in Accra on Wednesday, Mr. Mene indicated that intra-African business investment presently is less than five percent, while intra-Africa trade stood at around 17 to 18 percent.
Other partners of the event were the Ghana Investments Promotion Centre (GIPC), Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), the Ghana Freezones Board as well as the GCB and the Consolidated Banks.
Themed, “Supporting the Africa Trade Agenda – Ensuring the Last Mile”, the event attracted representatives from the business community, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as exporters of handicraft products, financial institutions among others.
The three-day event seeks to promote Afriexim mandate in Ghana by forging collaborations with the business community and the SME sectors to increase their competitiveness under the AfCFTA agreement.
The Graphic also reports that armed robbers made away with gold with a value of approximately US$350,000 when they raided the Homase site of gold ore mining company, GoldStone Resources Limited near Akrokeri in the Ashanti region on June 10, 2022.
GoldStone Resources in a statement issued today said no one was hurt during the dastardly heist and the loss was not expected to have an impact on the financial performance of the company.
The company, which is traded on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market for small and medium-size growth companies said its ordinary shares were temporarily suspended from trading pending the announcement of the robbery.
“The Board can now confirm that an armed robbery took place at its Homase site, which, whilst no one was hurt, resulted in a loss of gold with a value of approximately US$350k,” the statement said.
“Whilst this loss is not expected to have a material impact on the financial performance of the business, the Company was not in a position to make an announcement that was compliant with the AIM Rules, which led to a suspension in the trading of its ordinary shares on AIM whilst an investigation was launched by the authorities in Ghana,” it added.
The Ghanaian Times says that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has advised government not to seek an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to address the economic challenges facing the country.
Rather, it said, the government should engage social partners and stakeholders to come out with home-grown solutions to the problems facing the country.
General Secretary of the TUC, Dr Yaw Baah, who gave the advice in an interview before the 3rd Bi-annual Council Meeting of the Union said “IMF is not the solution to the country’s socio-economic challenges.”
The two-day meeting, which among others, was to review the half-year activities of the Union, was on the theme “The Impact of High Interest Rates on EconomicGrowth and Employment Creation.”
Dr Baah said “Ghana has gone to the IMF 16 times and there is nothing to show for that.”
According to him, the socio-economic ramifications of an IMF programme would be dire than the current challenges facing the country.
Dr Baah said the country had experts and social partners who could come out with solutions to address the challenges facing the economy.
“We will be surprised if the government goes for an IMF programme because we have advised against that and those in government know the consequence of an IMF programme,” the TUC boss said.
Dr Baah called on the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to review its inflation targeting monetary policy it was currently implementing since it had not achieved the desired results.
The newspaper reports that the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has presented 95 signed mining licences to members of the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners (GNASSM).
The mining licences was to enable the miners explore gold from their concessions.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor, who presented the licences in Accra on Tuesday, explained that the issuance of the licences was in line with government’s commitment to the growth of the small-scale mining sector.
He said it was the vision of the government to create a complete value chain which would result in value retention in the sector.
The Minister disclosed that the government was in the process of building a completely new small-scale mining sector characterised by responsible mining, employment and improved living conditions for miners and mining communities.
He added that the government had adopted two approaches, reformation and law enforcement in transforming the sector and warned that the government would be ruthless in its fight against illegal mining and other illegalities in the sector.
“Those who will not come under the umbrella of the responsible small scale mining should know that the Ministry will come after them ruthlessly. All measures will be thoroughly enforced with no apologies,” he said.
GIK/APA