Home Blog Page 4808

WAPCo raises capacity to 140mmscf per day

December 19, 2017

Natural gas transporter West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) has doubled its capacity from an initial 70mmscf per day to 140mmscf per day.

According to management, the infrastructural expansion works – which cost some US$3.5million – will enable the company to transport higher volumes of natural gas to VRA, aside from repositioning WAPCo to play its critical function as a fuel supplier within the power generation sector.

“This investment places the company in a better position to play its role as a gas transporter by facilitating access to the essential commodity in places where it is most needed,” General Manager Corporate Affairs, Harriet Wereko-Brobby, told journalists after a tour of the company’s Tema Regulating and Metering (R&M) facility.

“There is demand and interest for gas, just as there is need for access to reliable and cheap fuel for power,” she said.

A growing demand for natural gas in the country as a whole, and the Tema enclave in particular, as a result of a massive expansion of the country’s power infrastructure required of WAPCo to deliver the entire foundation volume requirement of 130 mmscf/d of natural gas to the VRA in Tema.

WAPCo is a joint venture between public and private sector companies from Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, with the mandate to transport natural gas from Nigeria to customers in partner countries in a safe, responsible and reliable manner – at prices competitive with other fuel alternatives.

Currently, the company is in negotiations with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and ENI to connect the pipeline to local sources of gas to enable the reverse flow of gas from the oil and gas enclave at Takoradi in the Western Region to Tema in the Greater Accra Region.

The pipeline was originally constructed to transport gas in a one-way direction – from Nigeria to Tema and then to Takoradi.

“Talks are far advanced with the GNPC to reverse the flow of gas from Takoradi; with such an arrangement, stranded gas in the west could be transported for use by power generating plants within the Tema enclave.”

Counting on the gas interconnection programme, WAPCo plans an additional expansion that will move its total capacity to 245mmscf per day to be able to accommodate stranded gas in the system.

Mrs. Wereko-Brobby indicated: “Should Ghana decide to export gas, the company will be well-placed to facilitate that process”.

She added that WAPCo, with such investments, is ready to help the country meet its energy needs.

“In response to recent developments, WAPCo has made a number of adjustments to remain relevant in fulfilling the sub-regional dream of making clean fuel available for generating energy to support development in the participating countries, including Ghana.”

BoG to tighten supervision on holding companies

December 19, 2017

The central bank has said it intends to expand its supervisory scope to cover holding companies in the financial services space, including those which have subsidiaries in the insurance, pensions and capital market sub-sectors.

Speaking at the official launch of The Beige Bank, central bank Governor, Ernest Yedu Addison, said the decision had become necessary due to co-mingling of transactions across various subsidiaries of holding groups in the financial services industry.

The central bank, he said, will have to identify and assess the group-wide risks which are incorporated into ongoing supervisory work, in compliance with the Core Basel Principles of Effective Banking Supervision.

“We are aware that banks are now driven by the surge for synergy and the desire to provide customers the full spectrum of financial services – including capital market and insurance products and services under one umbrella, in addition to the increase in cross-border and cross-pillar provision of financial services.

“The Bank of Ghana, under the Banks and Special Deposit Taking Institutions Act, Act 930, has the mandate to enforce consolidated supervision of financial holding companies. This will be stepped up in the coming year, to ensure that we can quickly access and mitigate spill-over and spill-back risk within the holding company,” he said.

Since turn of the decade, the financial services industry has seen a surge in financial holding firms offering the full bouquet of financial services: including banking, insurance, microfinance, asset management, brokerage, investment banking and advisory among others.

But Dr. Addison noted that as the banking sector becomes more diversified, it needs strong supervisory regimes that will effectively identify threats and ensure the system’s safety, soundness and stability.

“As a result, the central bank will begin implementing key pillars of the Basel II and III framework for banking supervision next year. These key pillars, together, will enhance the quality of capital and reposition the banks to withstand volatilities and unexpected losses associated with operational risks. The Bank of Ghana will also ensure good corporate governance structures in all banks going forward,” he said.

Apart from capital deficiency and a weak risk management system, he said, weak corporate governance structures also contributed to the failure of some banks.

“Some examples of the poor practices included the co-mingling of the banks’ activities with their holding companies; very high executive compensation schemes; non-executive directors of the bank compromised their independence; interference by non-executive directors in the day to day administration of banks and weakened management oversight by the executive directors; and non-adherence to credit management principles.”

He also mentioned insider and related party deals and transactions, and diversion of funds to holding companies and their related parties, as worrisome practices that must be curtailed.

Contractor could absorb majority of workers – Goldfields …Meanwhile GMWU sue

December 18, 2017

Goldfields Ghana Limited has said its decision to change from owner mining to contract mining at its Tarkwa mine does not mean an automatic dismissal of the over 2000 workers who are in court to seek relief.

The company’s Vice President and Head of HR for West Africa, Francis Eduku, told the B&FT that a greater number of the workers could be engaged by the contractor taking over operations of the mine.

“We have done a similar exercise with the Damang Mine, where over eighty percent of the retrenched workers were actually absorbed by the contractor. So, it’s not the case that you leave your employees and that is the end of the story. We actually engaged the contractors to ensure that as many people as possible are re-engaged,” he said.

More than 2000 workers of Goldfields Ghana Limited have, through the Ghana Mine Workers Union (GMWU), initiated court action against the mining company in respect of the security of their jobs, following its decision to sublet the operations of the Tarkwa mine to a contractor.

According to the number four best company in the country on the Club 100 list, it notified the GMWU initially of some planned laid off in March 2017 and begun consultations in that regard.

“When it comes to notification, we notified the union when we initially thought we were just going to cut down the staff numbers but with the change in plan, I personally sent them another notification and we have been consulting till date. I do not understand what all this noise is about,” Francis Eduku said.

The GMWU has sued Goldfields Ghana Limited as first defendant and the Attorney General as second defendant at the Labour Division of the Accra High Court over the matter.

The writ containing the statement of claim from the GMWU, which has been served on Goldfields Ghana Limited, the mine workers are praying the court to make “A declaration that the reasons given by the 1st Defendant Company in its notice dated 23 / 10 / 17 viz the aging of its fleet and the short mine life of the Tarkwa Mine do not give rise to a redundancy as same do not meet the requirements, conditions, ingredients or grounds for redundancy as provided by Section 65 of the Labour Act 2013 Act 651 and hence the intended redundancy is unlawful.”

The GMWU is also praying the court to declare that the decision by the 1st Defendant Company per its letters to the Plaintiff’s members to the effect that the 1st Defendant will serve termination letters to the Plaintiff’s members starting from 13th December, 2017 falls short of the mandatory three months’ notice period, and contravenes both Section 65 of Act 651 and article 10.08 of the Collective Agreement between the parties and hence illegal, unlawfull and null and void.

Goldfields Ghana, at a press conference, confirmed that it will be asking some of its employees to go home in a retrenchment exercise expected to affect the majority of its miners at the Tarkwa mine.

Alfred Baku, who confirmed the retrenchment exercise, explained that the company has decided to change its business model to contract mining in view of the aging fleet of its machinery and the short mines span of the Tarkwa Mine.

“As of now, our mining fleet is old and we need to replace it. Now, looking at the types of mines that we have, which have five to six years of active mining, we cannot pump huge money into fleet replacement, which we will not actually be able to recoup because we are talking about a huge capital investment here,” Alfred Baku said.

“So, now we have to look at our options. We have seen that a contract miner who has fleet already, and that is new and can be more efficient, is the best option. I can tell you that we then can free the bottom line. So that has actually influenced the decision,” he added.

1...4,8074,8084,809...4,906 Page 4,808 of 4,906

Recent Posts

Most Popular