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Ghana joins other W/A states to curb movement of fake medicines …..across ECOWAS borders

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Harmonization of medical products is taking place in the regional economic bloc, [ECOWAS] to ensure that processes, quality of work is standardized across the ECOWAS sub region including Ghana, in a bid to check fake drugs or medical products cutting across the borders.

Addressing the press during the opening of the 3rd Biennial Scientific Conference on Medical Products Regulation in Africa being organized by NEPAD in partnership with Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), CEO of the Food and Drugs Authority, Delese Darko, explained that countries in the ECOWAS bloc comprising Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and others are moving to adopt best practices in regulating medical products in their countries, so Ghana belonging to ECOWAS and all the countries in the ECOWAS sub region are trying to harmonise.

“What we are trying to do is to harmonise our regulatory systems so Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, we are harmonizing the way we all do our work, so now if you want to register a product in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia or in the Gambia, everything will be same, so you will not be able to take any product in Sierra Leone or Gambia or Ghana and find that you have a different standard, we want all our standards to be the same.

Therefore the medicines that you get in Ghana will be the same across the ECOWAS sub region, so we will not get quality of medicines being different depending on where you go in ECOWAS that is what we are trying to do, so people will not be moving fake medicines or substandard medicines across the sub region”

She also added that individual countries are working to harmonise systems, procedures, processes, through capacity building and mentorship programmes in order to achieve the objective of doing the same thing together.

“So all our processes will be the same and the quality and standards of medicines would be the same across the sub region as they have done in the Sadec region and the East African community region, so that is what we have done in the ECOWAS region.

By the time we have done all the regional blocs, we then come together and the whole of Africa will be harmonized.

There is no timeline, we are doing it in blocs and we are giving ourselves up to a certain time, so some have moved ahead and some are following”.

Minister for Health, Kweku Agyeman Manu bemoaned the transfer of diseases, fake medicines through the country’s borders.

“We travel across to funerals and come back home, some come to school here and they go back, we have several other routes that go to Cote D’Ivoire, in that respect whatever disease that we are carrying cross our borders so easily, apart from that whatever treatment and medications that have been given us cross our borders closely, those who are trading in medicines between Ghana and Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire and everywhere would just cut across each other, so people doing medicine scientifically  and interested in health issues like Belinda Gates, WHO and government are worried about what type of medicines the people are taking.

Some are fake, smuggled, some should not be produced at all, so this type of conference is geared towards how they can harmonise policies, efforts  to try to make sure that medicines that we are taking in our countries are the best that anybody would want to take so we stop falsified and fake drugs cutting across our countries, so we only go by WHO standards, so that drug agencies like FDA and other authorities can combine efforts and knowledge to try and fight the cancer in a very harmonious manner” he added.

According to the WHO representative in Ghana, Dr.Owen Laws Kaluwa, commitment to assure quality of medical products should not remain a regulator’s business only, as community engagement is another key to make substantial progress, particularly in the fight against substandard and falsified medicines.

“This challenge is not exclusive for our region but the toll it takes in our countries on the healthcare systems, strained public finances and most importantly, people’s lives is incomparably heavier than in any other more prosperous region”.

ECOWAS launches Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Project

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West African countries have launched the Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Project (MRHP) that ensure smooth and standard registration of medicines produced in the sub-region.

Speaking at the launch of the project in Accra on Monday, the Deputy Health Minister for Health, Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu, stated that, “The intent of all these efforts in the sub region is to ensure that regulatory oversight on medicines imported and produced locally are stringently monitored and the high incident of substandard falsified medicines circulating in our markets are reduced to the bearest limit.

The quality of life of the population is very important to the public and it depends equally on the type of medicines they take, we therefore look forward to seeing that the capacities of the regulatory authorities on the continent are developed to mitigate challenges and risk associated with healthcare”.”

The Project is meant to ensure rapid access to safe and effective medicines of good quality to treat priority diseases and fast track registration of such products.

Hitherto, health professionals and stakeholders from ECOWAS had emphasized the need to adopt best practices in regulating medical products in their countries during the opening of the 3rd Biennial Scientific Conference on Medical Products Regulation in Africa being organized by NEPAD in partnership with Food and Drugs Authority (FDA).

The officials will adopt a common standard that will allow each country the power to register medicines that can be used across the sub-region.

Health officials have been working on developing the common registration procedure for close to five years.

Led by the NEPAD Agency through the Technical Working Group on Medicines Policy and Regulatory Reforms and in collaboration with African Union Commission (AUC), Regional Economic Communities (RECs), Pan African Parliament as well as partners such as World Health Organisation, United Nations Development Programme, World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates, the gathering would also be a platform to discuss the African Union model law and other documents developed so far.

HFC Bank named best in custody services

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HFC Bank Ghana, a subsidiary of Republic Financial Holdings Limited, has been recognised as the Best Pension Custodian Bank at the Ghana Accountancy & Finance Awards held on the 3rd of November 2017, at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel, Accra.

The award is in recognition of the bank’s enormous contributions in Custody Services, including Trade Settlements, investments collections, cash collection services, detailed valuation reporting, and twenty-four hours turnaround time of customer complaints and enquiries.

Commenting on the recognition, Acting Managing Director of HFC Bank Ghana Mr. Anthony Jordan said that the bank appreciates the delicate nature of pensions business, and has as such invested heavily in state of the art IT infrastructure to help run its Custody operations.

Mr. Jordan also believes that beyond the state of the art infrastructure, the professional, tailor-made and unparalleled customer service offered by the Custody Services department contributed to the bank’s recognition.

He therefore took the opportunity to recognise the work by the Custody Services Unit led by Elias Augustine Dey. “Since setup of the Custody Services Unit five years ago, the team has worked very hard to significantly grow their assets base to become a leading investment and pension custodian in Ghana, serving Blue-Chip companies in the country,’’ he noted. The acting-Managing Director thanked the individual and institutional customers for their continuous trust and custodial relationship with the bank.

HFC Bank is the most diversified bank in the country, with services ranging from Retail Banking, Mortgage Banking, Commercial Banking, Corporate Banking, Investment Banking, Custody Services, Brokerage and Microfinance. HFC Bank, as one of the leading mortgage service providers in the country, is also leading the way in providing pension-backed mortgages to meet the burgeoning demand for mortgages within the pension space.

HFC Custody Services was set up in 2012 under the Ghana Stock Exchange and also licenced by the National Pension and Regulatory Authority as Pension Custodial Services. Over the last five years, the Custody Services Unit has grown to become a leading investment and pension custodian in Ghana – serving some of the country’s Blue-Chip companies and a number of leading Public Institutions.

 

Danish Foreign Minister engages young entrepreneurs

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A group picture of the Young Entrepreneurs with the Danish Foreign Minister and his team

The Danish Foreign Minister, Anders Samuelsen, has engaged a group of young entrepreneurs in Ghana at the Institute of Economic Affairs in Accra.

The meeting, which was attended by the minister and officials from the Danish Embassy in Ghana, sought to create a platform for promising young entrepreneurs to share knowledge on the prospects and challenges of entrepreneurship in Ghana.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Samuelsen stated that it was inspiring to meet promising young entrepreneurs with great spirits to change things around them, as well as to create businesses that meet the needs of society.

“The future belongs to you. You are your country’s young population and entrepreneurship is in you. Entrepreneurship creates unique opportunities to create something special that can lead to economic growth, job-creation and solve problems of your country. You are those creating the future. It takes a lot of resilience,” he said.

He also noted that Ghana’s quest to develop its economy beyond aid depends highly on empowering its entrepreneurs to grow and expand their businesses, adding that an expanded economy built on the back of entrepreneurs will create more jobs for unemployed young people.

Mr. Anders Samuelsen, delivering remarks at the IEA

Drawing inference from a country considered to be highly business-friendly, Mr. Samuelsen said: “What we have been able to do in Denmark is make it very easy to start a new business. We have more or less everything online, such that you can easily register your businesses without difficulties,” he added.

The minister also re-echoed Denmark’s readiness to push for a shift in the paradigm of its economic ties with Ghana from aid to trade, which according to him translates into new businesses for both Ghanaian and Danish investors.

Dr. Charles Mensa, Board Chairman of the IEA, in his remarks at the meeting also observed that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision of ‘Africa Beyond Aid’ ties in with Denmark’s policy of ‘aid to trade’.

He was upbeat that this can fully be realised if Ghanaian manufacturers commit to adding value to their produce.

He said: “In our humble view, this vision of ours and the Danish policy can be very successful if Ghana is able to trade value-added products or manufactured goods and services, using our abundant labour. With proper guidance and support for technical partnerships, these young people can create the new Africa that we all aspire to see. The Africa that adds value to its resources creates more jobs for its young people”.

During the hour-long discussion, participants shared their challenges which included the lack of skilled personnel, financial support, training – and a current educational system that is disconnected from the needs of industry.

Ms. Israella Mansu, Founder and CEO of Mansuki Ghana Limited – a cosmetic company, in making a case for capacity-building for young entrepreneurs stated that a training programme she once attended in the United States changed the fortunes of her GH₵300 start-up to one worth more than GH₵1million today.

For his part, Mr. Alex Adjei Bram, co-founder and CEO of Hubtel Limited – a mobile and Internet value-added service (VAS) provider, said the way forward to growing entrepreneurship in Ghana is to provide an enabling environment, one whose taxes do not stifle growth.

Also in attendance were young entrepreneurs who cut across various sectors: including technology, cosmetics, food and beverages, cloth-designs, shoe-making, furniture, water provision and lifestyle products.

In Denmark, business incubator Innovation Fund Denmark annually selects young entrepreneurs whose business ideas receive coaching and funding to become growth companies.

The Fund invests in the development of new research-based knowledge and technology creating growth and employment in Denmark; and provides risk capital that enables innovation and partnerships wherein companies, universities and public authorities work together on challenges facing society today.

Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation visits Ghana

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The Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Ms Sigrid Kaag visited Ghana on Monday, November 27,2017. Since her assumption of office some weeks ago, Ghana is the first African country she has visited.

The purpose of her visit was to  reaffirm and further strengthen the excellent relations between the two countries whose shared history dates back centuries.

Gradually, the focus has shifted from development cooperation to trade and investments, initiated by the Dutch “From Aid to Trade” Agenda. This aligns strongly with the Ghana beyond Aid Agenda, of the government of Ghana.  Empowerment of the private sector and entrepreneurship are considered to be the main engine for economic growth.  Minister Kaag emphasized that this focus is “Not only good for Ghana, but also provides opportunities for Dutch companies and investors” .

Minister Kaag was received by H.E. Vice President Bawumia. In the economic domain, opportunities for mutual trade and investments will be high on the agenda. Other elements of her visit include a meeting with some leading women in Ghana and Dutch entrepreneurs, and visits to the recently launched Safisana from waste to energy plant and the Blue Skies fruit processing plant, which both have benefitted from Dutch financial support.

Minister Kaag will continue her trip to Ivory Coast, where she will join Prime Minister Rutte and Minister Zijlstra (Foreign Affairs) to take part in the AU/EU Summit.

For more information, please contact the Netherlands embassy, Gladys Ofei at 050 1423688. #NLinGhana

Technical universities advised to resolve outstanding transitional issues

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Dr. Matthew Opoku-Prempeh (Minister for Education)

The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has reminded all technical universities of the need to resolve all the outstanding transitional issues to make the conversion process complete.

Most polytechnics in the country were converted into technical universities through the promulgation of the Technical Universities Act, 2016, ACT 922, to better align the mission of higher education institutions to industry needs and requirements.

It is also to provide a clear pathway for academic and professional progression for students opting for skills-based technical and vocational education and training.

Dr Prempeh, at the 2nd Congregation of the Takoradi Technical University (TTU), lauded the progress made so far by the university and encouraged the completion and submission of harmonised statutes and scheme of service to facilitate governance.

He said outstanding issues of concern included the appointment of substantive officers using prescribed processes, comprehensive staff audit, development of programmes in the core mandated areas, and the identification of niche areas or flagship programmes that would define the TTU as an institution.

He said the government was committed to making Ghana a world class centre of skills development and a leading country in technical and vocational training in Africa.

“A TVET strategic policy document leading to TVET Bill and the creation of a TVET service has been developed and submitted to cabinet for approval,” he said.

Dr Prempeh said the government had plans to equip and position technical universities to play meaningful roles in developing the needed manpower to facilitate socio-economic development of the country.

“The ministry will, therefore, work through COTVET and GETFUND to ensure that funding is provided for the construction of lecture halls, laboratories and workshops, among others,” he said.

In all, 1,913 students, comprising 168 Bachelor of Technology, 1,657 Higher National Diplomas and 88 Civil Engineering, received competency based training certificates from the National Board for Professional and Technician Examinations.

Vice Chancellor of the TTU, Reverend Prof. John Frank Eshun, expressed deep appreciation to the interim University Council for the good foundation laid in terms of strategic direction during the transitional period.

“I will further like to report that the university is doing well with respect to teaching, learning, research and consultancy,” he said.

He said from the 2017/2018 enrolment statistics, 37 per cent were in business and social science related programmes, with 63 per cent being in Engineering and Applied Science and Technology related programmes, which were clearly in line with the National Council on Technical Education norms.

The Vice Chancellor said the involvement of industry in the training of students had been strengthened with the introduction of the Faculty Advisory Board systems, adding: “This is where industry practitioners are involved in decision making at the faculty level.’’

The university, he said, would be launching the research innovation and development fund to promote quality applied research that would spur the socio-economic development of the country and also contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

Reverend Prof. Eshun noted that plans were underway to offer scholarships to needy but brilliant students from less-privileged communities in the school’s catchment area and in the Region as a whole.

Dr Mrs Henrietta Abane, the Chairperson of the University Council, said the Governing Council would collaborate with all stakeholders to ensure the transformation of the institutional set-up and governance systems to reflect the attributes envisaged for technical universities.

She appealed to the government to release counterpart funding for the completion of projects and procurement of equipment to enhance teaching and learning.

Dr Abane said one major challenge facing the school was the constant harassment from the Electricity Company of Ghana over unpaid bills and urged the Government to honour its promise to pay such bills on time.

Mrs Eugenia Gifty Kusi, the Deputy Western Regional Minister, said science, technology and engineering continued to be the basic requirement for socio-economic growth and, hence, the need to pay more attention to technical and vocational training.

“I understand that most of the courses at the University are run on competency-based training. I strongly believe these hands-on-skills training is the best way to impart the knowledge capable of transforming and making life meaningful to make an impact on society”.

 

Gov’t to increase installed power generation

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Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has said government will increase the installed generation capacity by about 487MW through Cenpower (340MW), Early Power Phase 1 (147MW), this year to meet the growing demand for electricity.

Presenting the budget, he said the country’s installed generation capacity was increased from 4,132 MW in 2016 to 4,577MW in 2017, adding that under the Transmission System Improvement Projects, GRIDCo had been carrying out the Transmission System Reinforcement Project to improve operational reliability, security and control, among others.

Key among these include the Kpando-Kadjebi 161kV Transmission Line, which has been completed; the Aboadze-Prestea and Prestea-Kumasi 330kV Transmission Lines, which are about 70 percent complete and billed to complete in 2018; and the Kumasi-Bolgatanga 330kV Transmission Line which is about 50 percent complete.

This year, he said, a total of 1,796 communities will be connected to the national grid.

“Under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation programme, the Ministry will distribute 12 million LED Lamps under a cost recovery programme. Street lights will be replaced with better efficiency lamps under the Regional Capitals Street Lighting Project.”

He also disclosed that under the Rural Electrification Programme, 289 out of a targeted 2,185 communities, were connected to the national grid, with other projects at various stages of completion.

To enhance development of a competitive power market, government approved the restructuring of Volta River Authority (VRA) to include an entity to manage the hydroelectric facilities separately and the sale to the private sector of the state-funded thermal power plants, which government assigned to VRA to manage and operate.

The restructuring of VRA is expected to enable the use of cheap electricity from legacy hydro to support government subsidy objectives to a targeted category of consumers in a transparent manner.

Furthermore, he said to align the ECG Private Sector Participation (PSP) Programme with the concerns raised, government secured key amendments to the ECG PSP arrangements.

“The concession period has been reduced from 25 to 20 years, and  Ghanaian shareholding threshold was increased from 20 percent to 51 percent.”

Ghana economic reforms needed: Rocket science

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It was with unexpected confidence that Ghanaian Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, presented his latest budget to parliament last week.

His bold claims to have “turned the economy around” and brought “relief to Ghanaians” raised more than a few eyebrows on the floor – not least due to the paucity of economists, financial institutions and international investors that shared his optimism.

One such figure was Professor Yifu Lin, a former senior vice president at the World Bank. He warned that Ghana – which recently dropped 12 places in the latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business report – needed drastic economic reforms or faced losing out on major investments. 

Ghana: debt management

PWC Ghana, meanwhile, noted that “government revenue projections have tended to be over-optimistic, creating the risk of fiscal illusion by providing Government the latitude to over-spend”.

Much of the difference in opinion was down to a recent disastrous attempt to inject some life back into the stuttering economy through a 10-year bond sale. And this was an important sale to get right: Ghana’s five major energy utilities are drowning in debt; blackouts and factory closures are commonplace; foreign investment and economic growth are imperiled.

The banks, their loans unpaid, now lack the liquidity needed to continue lending. “If banks don’t lend,” Courage Martey, an Accra-based economist at Databank Group told Bloomberg, “the real sectors of the economy will be starved”.

To repay the loans, the government put on offer some $820 million of local currency debt, with an enticing yield of 19.5%. Yet the bonds spectacularly undersold – even after the government was forced to extend the offer by a week.

Ofori-Atta might have been forgiven his surprise. After all, why wasn’t a sovereign-guaranteed bond at such mouthwatering rates flying off the shelves? In the current climate of suppressed interest rates, yield-hungry investors should have been snapping them up.

The answer is disarmingly simple: they weren’t – in fact – sovereign-guaranteed.

The government, in desperate need of more time to meet debt management and economic reforms targets, had recently extended a credit facility agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

As part of this aid agreement, the government pledged to lower Ghana’s already untenable public debt. The release of yet more sovereign-backed bonds would have prevented this. A creative solution was conceived.

Special purpose body

The government established a special purpose body, the ESLA to issue the so-called energy bonds backed by energy sector levies. It could then claim that as the bonds were not sovereign-guaranteed, that they did not constitute public debt.

The IMF disagrees, and is reportedly less than delighted with this jiggery-pokery. Foreign investors steered clear of the unusual structure.

The Minority Caucus in Parliament are understandably infuriated by the debacle. Foreign investment is critical to Ghana’s precariously oil-reliant economy.

Minority spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, lamented that the “government delegation had woefully caused financial loss to the state as a result of their gross incompetence”. Meanwhile PWC Ghana suggested that government should not substitute improving the management of State Owned Enterprises with debt issuances.

Government responded to criticism in a predictable manner– by flatly denying everything.

Against all the evidence to the contrary, they insisted that over time appetite for the bond would increase. Optimism, really does seem to be one of Ofori-Atta’s most prominent qualities, and possibly his most redeeming.

Ultimately the Minister’s troubles all boil down to one unavoidable and some might say obvious truth: you can’t court international investors for their hard-earned money if you are unable to offer any indication that you are going to pay it back.

It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that – nor a finance minister for that matter. 

About the author

Sebastien Laye is a New York-based economist and businessman. He is founder of financing & credit arrangement firm, Laye Holdings, a provider of private debt to corporate and middle market borrowers in the USA, Canada, France, UK, and other parts of Europe. Prior to founding Laye Holdings, Sebastien worked as a leveraged finance banker and a senior analyst for a multi-billion dollar hedge fund/private equity. He is a specialist in corporate valuation, debt markets, alternative financing, macro-economics and public policies analysis.

 

‘No individual is now allowed to lift contaminated oil’

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Boakye Agyarko, Minister of Energy

Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko, has said that no individual is now allowed to lift contaminated oil from Ghana’s Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company (BOST).

This, he said, is part of interim measures to prevent the supply of contaminated fuel onto the Market following the BOST scandal where some five million liters of substandard fuel was reportedly brought onto the market by Movenpinna Energy and Zup Oil.

Responding to questions on the floor of Parliament, Boakye Agyarko said the Ministerial Committee charged with investigating the scandal had not completed its work, but their report would be submitted to the Mines and Energy Committee of the House when ready, after which a white paper will be issued on it.

“One of the interim measures is that no longer will individuals be allowed to lift contaminated products out of BOST,” he said.

Boakye Agyarko explained that they have taken this decision because it usually becomes difficult to track the whereabouts of products lifted from BOST.

“We also noted that as soon as products were lifted out of BOST, you lost control of its track. As an interim measure, it is only BOST with its BVRs that can lift products to designated end-use consumers under the care and control of BOST.

No longer are private companies allowed to lift products to unknown destinations. This became obvious during the preliminary investigation conducted by FDA itself whose preliminary results were released to the public. So we are taking the obvious which can remediate some of these deficiencies and shortfalls,” he added.

Golden Star Bogoso/Prestea wins Mining Company of the Year Awards

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Golden Star Bogoso/Prestea has won the 2017 Mining Company of the Year Awards at the Ghana Mining Industry Awards, organised by the Chamber of Mines.

The company was awarded for its good mining practices as well as investing in its host communities.

Apart from winning the coveted Mining Company of the Year, Golden Star Bogoso-Prestea was also adjudged the best performer in corporate social investment for investing in breast cancer awareness programmes.

The Mining Personality of the year also went to Mr. Daniel Owiredu, who is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of Golden Star.

The Best Female Miner of the Year went to Mrs Mary Anita Appianin of AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mine.

AngloGold Iduapriem Mine also won the Best Performer in Innovation while Zen Petroleum won Best performer in Mine supplies and support services.

Newmont Golden Ridge Limited in Akyem won the Best in Environmental Management while best performer in exploration went to Asanko Gold Limited. Life Time achivement award went to  Mr Ferdinand Ohene-Kena, Former Minister in the PNDC/NDC regime and former Chairman of the Minerals Commission.

Citi FM’s Kojo Agyemang was the first runner up for Mining Reporter of the year, for a report on how galamsey activities was destroying the Brim River.

Barbara Oteng Gyasi, Deputy Minister says government’s commitment to create the necessary linkages with the non-mineral sectors.

President of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Kwame Addo-Kufuor stated that the Chamber’s quest to support local manufactures to take advantage of the opportunities in the value chain of mining.

He commended all the winners and urged them to reach out for the highest standards of responsible mining in the country.

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