The pledge by President Akufo-Addo to make the Pan-African Vaccine Manufacturing Project fit perfectly with Ghana’s roadmap for domestic vaccine development and manufacturing and to make the project work successfully is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, restated his earlier pledge in Marburg that the Pan-African Vaccine Manufacturing Project fits perfectly with Ghana’s roadmap for domestic vaccine development and manufacturing. Ghana is ready to play her role, and I reaffirm, once again, her determination to make the Project work successfully.”
President Akufo-Addo stated this at the groundbreaking ceremony for the commencement of construction of a vaccine manufacturing plant in Kigali, Rwanda, on Thursday, June 23, 2022.
Expressing his gratitude to President Paul Kagame for the invitation to participate in the event, President Akufo-Addo indicated that the commencement of construction “signals to the rest of the world the commencement of this end-to-end vaccine manufacturing facility, involving Rwanda, Senegal and my own country of Ghana.”
In his remarks, the President indicated that the import of the Pan-African Project means that Ghana, Senegal and Rwanda must work together, the reason why the relationship between the Food and Drugs Authorities (FDA) of Ghana and Rwanda is being deepened with the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding on Friday, 24th June.
“Through this, FDA Ghana, which achieved WHO Global Benchmarking Maturity Level Three (3) in 2020, and is working hard to achieve Maturity Level Four (4) by the end of this year, will assist FDA Rwanda to attain WHO Maturity Level Three (3) as soon as possible. Both agencies will collaborate further in vaccine drug product manufacturing, fill, finish and lot release in their respective countries,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo continued, “Again, collaboration between our two countries resulted recently in a team from Rwanda visiting research institutions in Ghana, with the aim of strengthening institutional development and partnership towards vaccine discovery and advancement”.
In addition, the President revealed that Ghana’s research institutions are undergoing capacity-building to be ready for the discovery and development of vaccines and other biologicals, stating that “a consortium of Ghanaian pharmaceutical companies, led by DEKS Vaccines Ltd., is working closely with BioNTech Rwanda, BioNTech Germany and kENUP to fill, finish and package the drug product in Ghana from the plant here in Rwanda.”
He thanked BioNTech of Germany, kENUP Foundation, IFC, EIB and the other financial institutions for working closely together with African countries to enable the continent achieve vaccine self-sufficiency.
The newspaper says that the regulator of financial services firms and financial markets in the UK, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined the Ghana International Bank (GIB) £5.8 million pounds for breaching anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing controls.
The FCA in a decision notice today said the GIB failed to establish and maintain appropriate and risk-sensitive policies and procedures; conduct adequate enhanced due diligence when establishing new business relationships and conduct adequate enhanced ongoing monitoring on transactions.
The FCA said the breaches concerned the GIB’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing controls over its correspondent banking activities in the period between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2016, (the “Relevant Period”).
“During the Relevant Period, the monetary value of funds flowing between GIB and its respondent banking customers, net of transfers between customers’ own accounts and fixed deposits, totalled £9.5 billion,” the decision read.
The notice did not contain the detection of actual money laundering at the bank but indicated that “the breaches created a significant risk that financial crime would be facilitated, occasioned or otherwise occur”.
The FCA added that the GIB had agreed to resolve the matter and qualified for a 30 per cent discount.
“Were it not for this discount, the Authority would have imposed a financial penalty of £8,328,500 on GIB,” the notice said.
“This restriction remains in place. GIB continues to work with the FCA and an independent expert to improve its financial crime controls,” the FCA said.
The Graphic also reports that a 20-MEGAWATT colocation data centre has been inaugurated at Amrahia in the Adentan Municipality in the Greater Accra Region.
Known as the Onix Data Centre Limited, the $48-million investment makes Ghana the host of the only tier-four data centre in West Africa.
It is connected to multiple undersea fibre cables, providing redundancies that can accommodate and satisfy all international community requirements.
Onix also designs, builds, manages and operates the world-class carrier neutral co-location data centre.
It is a facility with world-class infrastructure to host data storage servers of different organisations and companies, keeping them up and running non-stop (optimal uptimes) of up to 99.95 per cent uptime of the tier-four classification.
Owned by African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIM), which is founded by two market giants, Makaraide from Australia and Old Mutual from South Africa, the centre is the only African carrier-neutral co-location data centre outside South Africa.
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who inaugurated the centre at a ceremony at Amrahia, near Accra yesterday, said the tier-four accreditation was a major milestone in Onix’s strategy to create a world-class hub in Ghana to service the local, the greater West African and the international market.
The status, he explained, would satisfy the increasingly stringent requirements laid down by regulated entities such as banks, healthcare providers and certain arms of government which managed sensitive information.
He said that particular investment in Ghana by the South African giant was further proof of the important economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries.
The Ghanaian Times says that the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, has called for increased investments in agriculture and its value chain by African states to help make the continent food sufficient and lift millions out of hunger.
The minister also reiterated the need for the continent to unite in its fight against the “unfair and ‘perceived’ riskiness of investment opportunities on the continent compared to those in the West.”
He said the united front against the unfair perception of risk was needed to augment efforts to increase investment inflows into the continent.
Addressing the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the ATI in Accra, Mr Ofori-Atta said African governments must leverage the wealth of continental bodies such as the Africa Trade Insurance (ATI) and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to increase food production and reduce the reliance on imports as well as remove deliberate doubts placed on investments in the continent.
The minister, who is the Board Chairman of the continental trade insurer, was opening the AGM that is being attended by Finance Ministers and representatives from the 20-member countries, investors, board of directors and staff and key officers in the insurance industry in the continent.
He said the fight to make Africa food sufficient was particularly necessary to curb the imminent rise in hunger levels in the continent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The investment banker and economist said that the two global crises were pushing more than 46 million Africans into hunger.
This, he said required that the attainment of a sustainable food and agricultural sector in Africa must become a primary concern for all.
GIK/APA