APA – Accra (Ghana)
The appeal by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to Ghanaians to guard the country’s unity and peaceful coexistence is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stressed the need for Ghanaians to guard the country’s unity and peaceful-coexistence.
He said Ghanaians cannot afford to allow individuals who seek to divide the country along the lines of ethnicity and religion to succeed.
Speaking at the 66th Independence Day celebration in the Volta Regional capital, Ho, on Monday, March 6, 2023, President Akufo-Addo said “the greatest achievement of our independence is the fact that we have welded different ethnic entities into one nation.”
He added, although the “Gold Coast was the precursor to our independent Ghana, it was a collection of disparate groups. It was the attainment of independence that gave us our common identity as Ghanaians.”
He said the country’s forefathers were united and strengthened in realising one common purpose — the attainment of independence.
The 66th Independence Day celebration was held on the theme: “Our unity, our strength, our purpose.”
For him, Ghana’s forefathers were able to gain independence due to the fact that they were united in spirit and did not care about ethnicity or religion.
“It did not matter where they came from; it did not matter which tribe they belonged to; it did not matter which religious persuasion they subscribed to; and their standing in society certainly did not matter. They recognised the fact that colonialism did not inure to our nation’s collective benefit, and they were determined to end it. And, indeed, they did,” President Akufo-Addo explained.
The newspaper says that President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) to Parliament on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution.
Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution imposes an obligation on Members of Parliament (MPs), the Speaker and the Judiciary to receive the President’s Message on the State of the Nation.
The Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, announced on Friday on the floor of the House when he presented the Business Statement for the fifth week ending Friday, March 10.
He urged MPs to be punctual and seated in the Chamber latest by 9.15 a.m. for the SONA and advised them not to enter the Chamber with their guests.
He said a motion to thank the President for the Message on the State of the Nation would be moved on Thursday, March 9, and the debate would last for six days; Thursday, March 9, to Friday, March 17.
In that regard, mover and seconder of motion would be given 25 minutes to speak; chairpersons, ranking members and ministers would have 15 minutes; other members, 10 minutes and winding up by leadership will take 30 minutes.
Mr Afenyo Markin said the allotment of time was to ensure that many members as possible were given the opportunity to contribute to the President’s message.
The Ghanaian Times reports that Develop¬ment Bank Ghana (DBG) is to support four value chains in the agricultural sector to promote food security in the country.
They are poultry, rice, maize and soyabean.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of DBG, Michael Mensah Baah, disclosed this in an inter¬action with the media in Accra yesterday.
The programme was to brief the media on the DBG Value Chain Dialogue Series meant to engage stakeholders in the four value chains on how the Bank could partner government and provide finance to private sector players in those value chains to boost their production.
Mr Baah explained that the four value chains were critical to promoting food security in the country.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic, which had disrupted global supply chains and the Russian-Ukraine war, had necessi¬tated the need for the country to increase production in those value chains.
The Deputy DBG CEO, for instance, said the country annu¬ally spent about $600 million to import poultry products and $1 billion on rice imports.
Mr Baah said the country could save those monies for other development projects if those products were produced locally.
The DBG Deputy CEO said the DBG had initiated the Value Chain Dialogue Series to interact with players in the four value chains to help increase local pro¬duction and reduce the importa¬tion of poultry and cereals.
In view of the programme, Mr Baah said the DBG would orga¬nise four workshops, beginning from March 8.
He said the workshop would start from Sunyani and extend¬ed to Kumasi and Sogakope to interact with farmers and actors in those value chains to collate the challenges facing them.
He said DBG already knew some of the challenges facing the four value chains, but it was important to meet and dialogue with the stakeholders in the sector and know their challenges.
He said a lot of initiatives had been done in the past, but the results were not what were expected, saying that DBG had to do things differently.
He said DBG had about $700 million to lend to support the private sector.
The newspaper says that the Registrar of Compa¬nies, Mrs Jemima Oware, has called on businesses to disclose their beneficiary owners in line with the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992) to promote transparency and provide a level playing field for the business community in Ghana.
A beneficiary owner is an in¬dividual (a natural person and not a company) who directly or indi¬rectly, ultimately owns or exercises substantial control over a person, company or economic interest.
Speaking during the UK-Gha¬na Chamber of Commerce (UKG¬CC)’s Mandatory Regulatory Com¬pliance for Businesses in Ghana webinar series on “The Mandate and Beneficial Ownership of the Office of the Registrar of Compa¬nies (ORC)”, reported by My¬jononline, Mrs Oware remarked that companies are required to provide information on beneficial owners during the incorporation of a business.
She added that during incor¬poration of businesses, compa¬nies have within 28 days to make amendments on their beneficial owners.
Companies may also provide information on beneficial owners when filing annual returns and as an update to the Office of the Registrar. Furthermore, Compa¬nies Limited by Shares, Companies Limited by Guarantee, Unlimited Liability Companies, and External Companies are also mandated by the law to submit information of beneficial ownership to the Registrar.
During the webinar, the Reg¬istrar of Companies, whose office was created out of the Registrar General’s Department, observed that most companies fail to present the mandatory company and member registers when filing beneficial ownership documents. Others also state the Office of the Registrar as their beneficial owner.
She indicated that this was not the right practice. To rectify it, she remarked that “the office of the Registrar of Companies will com¬pile registers online for businesses to purchase at a fee”. The Office will also ensure that a company has a designated officer (company secretary) who will ensure that their business is compliant.
Mrs Oware advised businesses to appoint people from recognised professional bodies, such as the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana and a Barrister or Solicitor in the Republic.
Mrs Oware revealed that her office is currently working on its digital platforms, which will be ready by November this year, and is aimed at optimising processes in compliance with the Companies Act, (Act 992).
“If you go into the Companies Act, after it was passed in 2019, it said 5 years after that we should go fully online and so we are pushing for that.”
The new platform will enhance ease of doing business, such as granting persons the opportunity to register their businesses from their phones.
The Office is also working to establish a VVIP unit in service centres to reduce the turnaround time for document processing at a fee.
GIK/APA