Day: March 16, 2023

Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, a contender for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flag bearer, says he is an affable and open-hearted person despite being known to be confident, passionate, and having strong views on many subjects. ‘Watching my father’s commitment to the public service both as a traditional leader and a modern political leader at the time, defined key moments in my life as I grew up. ‘He instilled in me the passion for service and to serve my motherland Ghana, with all that is within me even if it cost me an arm or a leg,’ he said. Dr Akoto, the immediate past Minister for Food and Agriculture, made the remarks when he delivered a lecture on the topic, ‘Future of The Economy of Ghana – Transforming Agriculture for the Prosperity of All’, at the University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA). He said having joined politics in Ghana with the formation of the United Kingdom Branch of the Danquah-Busia Club in 1990, ‘I never knew there were so many who have quietly followed my progress in politics over the years and continue to believe in me.’ He expressed gratitude to citizens for the immense support he had received since resigning from his post to contest the flag bearer race and called on students to develop their intellect, talents, and skills so they could make meaningful contributions to solve the Nation’s most difficult problems. ‘Dear Students, what you are learning in your various academic pursuits today will determine whether we, as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future,’ he said. Dr Akoto was born on October 19, 1949, to Baffour Osei Akoto, a Chief Linguist at Manhyia and a member of the National Liberation Movement. The two term Member of Parliament for the Kwadaso Constituency from 2009 to 2016 started his tertiary education at the University of Ghana, Legon where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture. He then moved to Cambridge University to obtain a Masters of Science in Agricultural Economics and later a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the same institution. He has worked with the International Coffee Organisation in London and consulted extensively for the World Bank on soft commodities such as cocoa, coffee and sugar. He was in 2017 appointed the Minister of Food and Agriculture, a post he resigned from early this year to pursue the dream of becoming President of Ghana on the ticket of the NPP.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Women entrepreneurs have been urged to embrace the use of modern technological tools to strengthen their business integrity and increase revenue generation. Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), who made the call, said business digitization and use of appropriate technology were necessary tools in an effort to promote transparency and bridge the corruption gap in the business transaction space. Mrs Yankey-Ayeh was speaking at the launch of the GEA Business Integrity Project ‘PEPEYE’ in Kumasi. The project, which is being funded by the German Development Cooperation GIZ) in partnership with the Alliance for Integrity and the GEA aimed at promoting inclusive, responsible and clean business environment. It is also to help entrepreneurs, especially those in the small and medium-sized business supply chains navigate issues relating to gender, negotiations and regulatory, while strengthening compliance capacities in their daily business operations. Again, the project seeks to increase knowledge and awareness in the field of integrity promotion and corruption prevention, bring sanity and direction to business operations to help increase access to markets and grow businesses. Mrs Yankey-Ayeh said the project which had already been launched in Accra was being piloted in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions for the next six months, and was targeting about 40 women entrepreneurs in the Ashanti region. She said stakeholders were finding sustainable ways to bridge the gap and increase revenues of women entrepreneurs, adding that, the government was keen in promoting female-led business. Mrs Yankey-Ayeh said in the last few years, over GHS 600 million had been pumped into supporting businesses, and more than 60 percent of the beneficiaries were women-owned businesses. Mr. Abdul Rauf, GIZ Advisor for Alliance for Integrity, said in a broader business ecosystem, integrity was an essential tool. However, this tool had been neglected in most businesses and paved the way for corruption in the business, adding that the growing insanity must be tackled head-on.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) branch executives in the Wassa Amenfi East constituency, of the Western Region, have threatened to stage a demonstration against their leaders if they prevent any aspirant from contesting in the forthcoming constituency elections. Mr. Derick Awuku, Branch Chairman of Teku, who announced the group’s decision at a press conference in Japa, said the constituency elections director should also be expelled. On February 17, 2023, Mr Awuku said the group petitioned the National Chairman, General Secretary, Council of Elders and the Western Regional Secretariat of the NDC on the issues they raised but had not received any feedback. He noted that ‘We the branch executives met to decide on a rumour that, both national and regional executives of the party have met to pronounce an oral interim constituency executives in the coming weeks. We are pleading with them to stop because anytime such executives are instructed to work on behalf of substantive positions there are no elections ‘In 2018 an acting chairman was appointed to assume office as a democratically elected one. ‘This time, we want all aspirants that filed to occupy constituency executive positions be voted for’ Mr Awuku further explained. The group described the move by the national and regional executives as unfair, stressed that,’we will continue to register our displeasure through demonstration if our leaders fail to address the issue’.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Dr. Willard Mugadza, the International Consultant on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) at the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) has lauded the country for the legal frameworks and policies to guard the operations of State-Owned Enterprises. He said, ‘what we have so far identified is that, since our engagement in Accra with state owned enterprises, is in terms of the legal frameworks and policies, the legal framework is there, the policies are there, but there is more work that needs to be done in terms of implementation of the existing legal framework.’ Dr. Mugadza disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview during a Stakeholders engagement to review Ghana’s Corporate Governance under the theme:’ Corporate Governance as Catalyst for the Implementations of the AFCFTA in the Republic of Ghana in 2023.’ The targeted review would identify governance gaps to improve upon corporate governance standards and practices in the country to harness the benefits of the AFCFTA. He said there was also the need for capacity building for SOEs since without robust and good corporate governance, especially through your SOEs, which were the implementing agencies of AFCFTA it would be difficult for the private sector, informal sector, small to medium enterprises to quickly engage for full participation of the opportunities AFCFTA presented to growing individual economy under the African programme. The International Consultant added that issues of Rules of Origin in Trade Area were also a critical subject for access to the market, which behooved on Ghana to promote total compliance…for Ghanaian companies to comply with the requirements of Rules of Origin, it will require ethical good transparency, competent and effective leadership, some of the core principles of corporate governance. Dr. Mugadza stated, ‘two things coming up which are very critical, and these are cross-cutting issues across the regions number one, there is lack of appreciation, even at regional level by implementing agencies.’ You may find some officers from GRA who have attended our meetings, some of them only understand a few principles of AFCFTA, a few principles of corporate governance’ This is why we need to bridge the governance gap between them and people who are supposed to benefit under AFCFTA or institutions or businesses that are meant to benefit. He mentioned that the stakeholder’s consultation and engagement had become the pivot to craft some recommendations that would be able to assist the Ghanaian government to move forward particularly the private sector. The informal sector contributes about 70% of Ghana’s economy and must be assisted through access to market and finance to participate. He said Ghana was already trading under the guided trade principles and having the AFCFTA Secretariat in Ghana with 54 African countries participating should be a plus adding that, ‘Ghana is strategically positioned to be the best beneficiary in terms of her positioning and the capacity.’ The Mission Head, Ambassador Abdoulie Janneh was grateful to the President of Ghana for voluntarily inviting the team to carry out such a critical national level exercise and tasked the institutions to effectively work with the government towards enhancing good governance practices to give the country an edge in the trade zone. He said, ‘we need a collective approach on how we can all contribute to improve our local economies as a people…we all need to do our part for the society we all dream of as state actors’. Lawyer and Researcher, Bachir Salifou Oumarou, Country Coordinator for Ghana-APRM called for a more structures informal sector that could take advantage in the trade and was excited that Ghana had taken the lead to be reviewed. Mr Charles Cobbinah, the Political Assistant to the Western Regional Minister tasked the Team to deploy innovative means and strategies to get more youthful participation in the project.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Zipline has unveiled its new platform that provides quiet, fast and precise autonomous delivery directly to homes in cities and suburbs. The company’s next generation home delivery platform is practically silent (designed to sound like wind rustling leaves), and is expected to deliver up to 7 times as fast as traditional automobile delivery, completing 10-mile deliveries in about 10 minutes. A statement issued in Accra said Zipline had spent the last several years building and fine tuning its next generation technology, Platform 2 (P2), to provide an optimal customer experience at scale. It said unlike other drone delivery services, Zipline’s drones (Zips) fly more than 300 feet above the ground and nearly inaudible. The statement said when the Zip arrived at its destination, it would hover safely and quietly at that altitude, while its fully autonomous delivery droid maneuvers down a tether, steers to the correct location, and gently drops off its package to areas as small as a patio table or the front steps of a home. ‘This is all made possible through major innovations in aircraft and propeller design,’ it added. The statement said several businesses across the healthcare and restaurant sectors had already signed on to use Zipline’s new home delivery service. It said Sweetgreen was partnering with Zipline to further its mission of connecting people to real food in the U.S., while moving a step closer to its pledge to be carbon-neutral by 2027. ‘By ordering through Zipline’s marketplace, Sweetgreen customers can get their orders using 97 per cent less energy than traditional automotive methods,’ it said. Mr Jonathan Neman, Co-Founder and CEO of Sweetgreen said, ‘The future of delivery is faster, more sustainable and creates broader access, all of which provides improved value for our customers.’ He said they could not be more excited to work with Zipline to complement their delivery strategy. ‘Zipline’s sustainable technology and ability to reach customers quickly, with a great delivery experience, will help us give our customers what they want, when they want it,’ he said. It said Michigan Medicine would use Zipline’s new service to more than double the number of prescriptions it fills each year through its in-house pharmacy. The statement said intermountain Health would use it to deliver prescriptions to patients’ homes in the Salt Lake City metro area. Meanwhile, MultiCare Health System planned to use the new platform to expedite diagnostics and deliver prescriptions and medical devices throughout MultiCare’s network of facilities, including hospitals, laboratories and doctors’ offices. It said Zipline’s first customer, the Government of Rwanda, would use the company’s new home delivery service to enable urban aerial last-mile delivery to homes, hotels and health facilities in Kigali and elsewhere in the country. Zipline’s end-to-end solution seamlessly integrates with a business’s current operations. This includes its dual-use docking and charging hardware, software that easily works with third-party inventory management and ordering systems, an intuitive app that allows order tracking down to the second, and an autonomy system that has already guided the flight paths of 40 million commercial miles. Zipline designed its docking and charging hardware to have a light footprint that can be attached to any building or set up as a freestanding structure. Mr Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, co-founder and CEO of Zipline, said, ‘Over the last decade, global demand for instant delivery has skyrocketed, but the technology we are using to deliver is 100 years old.’ He said they were still using the same 3,000-pound, gas combustion vehicles, driven by humans, to make billions of deliveries that usually weigh less than five pounds and it was slow, expensive, and terrible for the planet. ‘Our new service is changing that and will finally make deliveries work for you and around your schedule. We have built the closest thing to teleportation ever created – a smooth, ultrafast, convenient, and truly magical autonomous logistics system that serves all people equally, wherever they are,’ he added. He said Zipline planned to conduct high-volume flight tests this year involving more than 10,000 test flights using about 100 aircraft. Mr Cliffton said Zipline’s record for safety had been proven over the past seven years of operations and over more than 500,000 commercial flights. He said its long-range platform, P1, has autonomously flown 40 million miles worth of commercial deliveries through all kinds of weather without a safety incident – the vast majority of which were flights flown beyond visual line of sight. The Co-founder said Zipline had received Part 135 certification and was authorized to complete the longest-range, on-demand commercial drone flights in America, and recently received FAA approval to enable its onboard autonomous detect and avoid system. Zipline completed more deliveries in 2022 than in all previous years combined, and is planning to complete about 1 million deliveries by the end of 2023. By 2025, Zipline expects to operate more flights annually than most airlines.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Dr Daniel Kasser Tee, the National President of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) has called for the enactment of comprehensive consumer protection legislation to guarantee the fundamental rights of consumers. He said it was important for the central government and businesses to respect and acknowledge the right of consumers to safety, information, and choice and be heard and have a pollution-free environment. Speaking at an event to mark World Consumer Rights Day, Mr Tee noted that by respecting and protecting consumer rights, businesses and institutions could build trust and credibility with the public. ‘The success of businesses depends on prioritising the needs and interests of their customers and engaging in ethical and responsible practices. ‘As a society, if we can get to this point, where we always put the total interest of the consumer first, Ghana will be a better place to live.,’ he said. Professor Stephen Adei, a patron of CIMG pointed out that guaranteeing the rights of consumers against unscrupulous producers of goods and services would ‘go a long way to boost local consumption of quality goods and services that will create the needed wealth to grow the country.’ He said most consumers don’t have the wherewithal to protect themselves, and thus urged the CIMG to advocate the protection of their rights. ‘The nation must take the marking of World Consumers Day very seriously because the wealth of nations is ultimately determined by its consumption pattern as you can see the developed nations consume what they produce and export to us,’ he said. Mr Kwame Wiafe, General Manager of Wilmar Africa Limited said the legitimate expectation of acceptable products and services must be put in the framework to provide consumers with the mechanism to seek redress for bad services or poor goods. He said a weak strategic orientation on providing goods and services to the citizenry and a poor protection mechanism by already established safety institutions had allowed for the importation of substandard goods into the country. ‘The reason why shops would tell you goods sold are not returnable is that most of the goods shop owners sell are not produced in Ghana and so if they should take them back, they do not have any recourse to the supplier,’ he said. March 15 of every year was set aside as World Consumer Rights Day by Consumers International, a membership organisation for consumer groups around the world to create awareness of the rights of consumers. The theme for this year’s event was ‘Empowering consumers through clean energy transitions.’

Source: Ghana News Agency

Mrs Yvonne Dzotsi, Founder and CEO of Think3ice LBG, an NGO fighting for social parity, has challenged tertiary students to widen their scope and learn new skills to set them apart from their contemporaries. She noted that the modern job market which demanded special abilities was extremely competitive and therefore, it was not ideal for students to graduate before they obtained the necessary hard and soft skills. ‘You can attain various skills online and by attending workshops. Employers are not looking for certificates now; that is old school. ‘There are millions of students who are just as intelligent as you are and some even more. But what is going to make you stand out is the skill you have ,’ she advised. Mrs Dzotsi was addressing a forum at the second edition of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) Engagement Series of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) School of Business on the theme: ‘Skills for Jobs, Skills for Development’. The initiative which was introduced last year, brings CEOs and other top management of corporate entities including professional bodies to discuss issues of relevance to the training and development of students. It is an integral part of the school’s agenda to equip students with the relevant skills needed for the 21st-Century industry. Narrating her experience, Mrs Dzotsi noted that developing new skills could lead people into their true profession and help them find their purpose. She said while it was significant to acquire spreadsheet and other data-related skills as business students for instance, it was also important to build their communication, teambuilding, teamwork, presentational, human relations skills and time management. ‘It gives you the confidence. There is nothing better knowing you know a better way of doing things, and so this is the time to get the skills,’ she noted. The Think3ice LBG CEO expressed disquiet over Ghanaian media narratives which painted ‘a negative image’ about education and the quality of human resource in Ghana to the Western world. Contrary to such narratives, she said students and labour in Ghana were extremely intelligent and skillful and must be projected in a positive light. Prof John Gatsi, the Dean of the UCC School of Business indicated that the programme was designed to develop the skills of students and build their capacity for the job market. He added that the school also placed premium on internships to give students real work experiences and therefore appealed to industry stakeholders to support the school with internship opportunities for the students to sharpen their skills in their fields of endeavour.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Mr Farouk Alhassan, the Project Officer at Right to Play, an international NGO, has advised parents to provide equal education opportunities for girls and boys, to attain their potentials. At a forum at Bognaayili in the Kumbungu District to mark this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) Mr Farouk Alhassan, also expressed need for inclusive education to ensure that all children, no matter their learning needs and abilities, would have access to quality basic education. The forum, held on the theme: ‘Embracing Equity and Inclusive Education for all’, was attended by parents from the Bognaayili community, and all patrons and girls’ clubs’ members from basic schools in the Kumbungu District in the Northern Region where Right to Play is implementing its Partners in Play project. The Partners in Play Project, funded by LEGO Foundation, is being implemented in 60 direct schools in Kumbungu, Savelugu and Tolon Districts, and seeks to empower children to become creative, engaged, and dedicated to life-long learning. The participants are expected to replicate similar fora in their various communities to share the messages with their people. The IWD is marked in March, every year, to amongst others recognise the socio-economic contribution of women to society as well as highlight their challenges for actions against gender inequality. Mr Alhassan said every child was unique saying ‘Parents, caregivers and guardians should not extend the same treatment to their children as though they were all the same. They should be treated in an equitable manner; treating them according to their differentiated needs and demands such as reproductive health needs of girls (menstruation, body anatomy, hormonal changes) which differ from boys.’ He expressed need for Parent-Teacher Associations to step up their roles and duties by ensuring that classrooms and school environment were physically friendly, play-based sessions were inclusive and children felt safe adding ‘They can do this by committing resources and mobilising support from parents, teachers, and community leadership.’ Madam Mariama Sulemana, Kumbungu District Girls Education Coordinator urged parents to promote equality for both girls and boys in terms of household chores and education saying, ‘Build ideal homes, where boys should be able to do what the girls can do.’ She also expressed need for parents to encourage girls to venture into male-dominated fields to ensure job opportunities for them. Some of the patrons urged parents to develop relations with their children to enable them to be willing to share their concerns with them instead of falling on peers for influences. They also expressed need for parents to provide educational needs of their children and give them food when going to school. Some of the parents lauded the forum saying it had enlightened them on how to guide their children especially girls to reach higher heights.

Source: Ghana News Agency