Category: Business

Ride-hailing services provider, Yango, has marked this year’s International Women’s Day with a reception for partners female drivers and workers of the company.? It was an interactive and empowering session with inspiring talks from top women celebrities and influencers on how they overcame biases and challenges to become successful in their respective professions. Ms. Sophia Silvey, Partner Success Manager for Yango Ghana, told journalists in an interview that the gesture was to appreciate and honour its cherished women drivers on the app for their dedication and hard work.? On the occasion of this year’s International Women’s Day on the theme ‘Embrace Equity’, she added that the session was also to highlight the company’s commitment to gender equity and an inclusive work culture. She further shared her personal experience as a woman working with Yango, which she described as wonderful and inspiring. ‘I joined Yango from a male-dominated industry where it was difficult to find women taking decisions and so I was excited to see women in leadership positions here. We have a country manager in Zambia and Senegal who are women. It is inspiring to know that Yango embraces equity and that as a brand it is open to inclusivity and women empowerment,’ she indicated. Ms. Victoria Addison, a participant also narrated how she entered the ride-hailing scene as a driver. ‘I became a driver after convincing a man who had a fleet of car and needed drivers to give me a car on work and pay basis. Initially, he was hesitant because I’m a woman but he later agreed. Out of the five cars he had under same arrangements, I was one of the three persons who were able to finish paying for the car on time,’ she said. According to her, the decision to drive with Yango has been very rewarding as she now has a reliable source of income and livelihood. She added: ‘It’s been a wonderful experience working as a Yango partner driver and I’m enjoying it. I now have a reliable source of livelihood and the bonuses are very good.’ Broadcast journalist and influencer, Anita Akuffo, encouraged the women drivers on the Yango app to strive to achieve greatness in their chosen profession. ‘You’re better off and doing way better because you’re helping people all through the journey. I encourage you to take it a day at a time, be the best of yourselves and enjoy every bit of what you do,’ she advised.

Source: Ghana News Agency

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says Government’s decision to prioritise tourism as a key policy for economic diversification, job creation and growth, is paying off.? He said both domestic and international tourism were rebounding significantly from the severely disruptive impact of COVID-19 on the travel and tour industry with international arrivals hitting three times the figures in 2020. The President said this during the State of the Nation Address (SONA), on the floor of Parliament, Wednesday, March 8. He said: ‘International arrivals nearly trebled last year, from a low of three hundred and fifty-five thousand, one hundred and eight (355,108) in 2020, to over nine hundred and fifteen thousand (915,000).’? President Akufo-Addo said domestic visits to tourist sites had also gone up by over 55.7 per cent during the same period, attributing such progress to the deliberate marketing initiatives and upgrades of tourist infrastructure by the Tourism Ministry and the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) ‘World Economic Forum Report 2021 Travel Index, ranks Ghana as the number one tourism destination in West Africa. The potential contribution of tourism and the arts to GDP is, therefore, one that we must nurture and emphasise,’ he said.? The President said the ‘Beyond The Return’ initiative he launched in 2019 as a sequel to the ‘Year of Return’, had reignited excitement about Ghana as the ‘hub and a Mecca for the Global pan-African’.? ‘A home every person of African descent must visit at least once in their lifetime,’ he said.? President Akufo-Addo said a Ghanaian citizenship was conferred on Madam Viola Fletcher (108 years) and her brother Uncle Red (102 years) a few days ago at a historic ceremony in Washington DC.? The new Ghanaian citizens are the two of the only three living survivors of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. The President said he would be chairing a tourism stakeholder Retreat on ‘Rethinking Tourism for National Development and Job Creation,’ and had tasked the Ministry and GTA to work on the modalities to bring together all the stakeholders.? ‘Over the next couple of years, my government will deepen even further our efforts to make tourism a strong primary source of growth for the economy,’ he said.?

Source: Ghana News Agency

Ms. Felicia Attipoe, Airside Operations Officer, has called on players in the aviation industry to leverage technology as a catalyst for innovation. ‘We need to be innovative in our work, and technology must be the catalyst in this direction,’ she said. Ms. Attipoe made the call when the Ladies of the Airside Operations Section of Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) marked this year’s International Women’s Day in Accra. The event was on the theme: ‘DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,’ with focus on ‘the Role of Women in Advancing the Growth of GACL – The case of Airside Operations; Achievements and Challenges.’ Ms. Attipoe, who is a Representative of Airside Ladies Group, highlighted the many contributions of women within the aviation space despite challenges these women faced on the job and appealed for management’s support. Mr. Charles Hanson Adu, Group Executive, Airports Management Department, highlighted the importance of the airside within the aviation architecture and the invaluable contribution of women over the years. Mrs. Pamela Djamson-Tetteh, the Managing Director GACL, indicated that ‘the celebration aims at making the case for gender equality and globally advocating a change in attitude toward women.’ ?She said it was also aimed at highlighting the diverse aspects of a woman’s existence in male-dominated roles, including Aircraft Marshalling in the aviation industry.? She commended the Ladies of the Airside Operations Section of Airports Management Department for taking the bold step to observe this special day. The Airside Officer’s role is quite unique and involves overseeing and coordinating airfield operations at an airport, ensuring the safe and efficient operation of aircraft on the airfield and taxiways, including aircraft arrivals, departures, and ground movements, managing the airfield lighting and marking systems to ensure safe and efficient aircraft operations, including setting up cones and barriers as necessary. Other responsibilities include: overseeing the airfield inspection programme and ensuring that all areas of the airfield meet required safety standards and regulatory requirements, coordinating with air traffic control, ground handling agencies, and other airport stakeholders to ensure seamless airfield operations. The rest are responding to emergency situations, such as aircraft incidents or airfield closures, coordinating with emergency services as needed, monitoring weather conditions, and providing up-to-date information to airlines and other stakeholders as necessary etc The International Women’s Day is a global event organized on March 8 every year to celebrate and recognize women’s accomplishments in various disciplines.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has accomplished extraordinary achievement in exceeding the authority’s revenue objectives throughout a three-year period under the direction of Commissioner-General Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah.

With a combined target of GH¢171.66 billion, the GRA was able to generate GH¢ 178.16 billion between 2020 and 2022, including revised targets of GH¢42.7 billion, GH¢57.02 billion and GH¢71.94 billion for 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. The GRA exceeded its target by GH¢6.5 billion, representing 3.79 percent in excess.

This outstanding performance can be attributed to the GRA’s commitment to applying technological initiatives, which improved transparency and efficiency in tax administration. Despite the challenges faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Customs Management System played a significant role in contributing to exceeding revenue targets in 2020.

The dedication of the GRA’s staff, along with the cooperation of taxpayers, has also been instrumental in the success achieved. The authority is poised to double its efforts in 2023 and the Commissioner-General has assured that his outfit will continue to enforce tax compliance to improve tax collection.

Taxpayers are urged to voluntarily comply with tax obligations, which will help the nation acquire sufficient funds for national development.

Prior to the 2020 pandemic year, the GRA was able to exceed its revenue targets in 2016 and 2018, while falling short in 2017 and 2019.

Key Policy Measures

In 2020, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) implemented the Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) to replace the previous system for customs clearance. The new system aimed to improve efficiency, enhance revenue collection, and reduce revenue leakages in the customs process. The Authority has been making efforts to digitize its processes to improve efficiency and reduce corruption. For instance, in 2020, the GRA launched a digital platform for taxpayers to access its services, including filing tax returns and making payments.

During the 2021 fiscal year, the GRA introduced several initiatives to improve voluntary compliance in the filing of returns, payment of taxes and to ensure maximum revenue collection. These initiatives included the TIN/GhanaCard Policy, Prosecution Policy and Cashless Policy. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the GRA exceeded its target, and IT systems like ICUMS and ITaPS minimized tax evasion and avoidance by making it

convenient for taxpayers to honour their tax obligations.

The GRA also intensified tax education and sensitization programs, implemented a digital tax stamp system, and expanded the Large Taxpayer Office (LTO) in 2021 to improve compliance and revenue mobilization from large taxpayers. The Authority further strengthened its tax audit and investigation units to improve tax compliance and reduce revenue leakages.

In 2022, the GRA outlined new tax strategies to achieve the government’s revenue target, including taxing e-commerce, online filing of taxes by large taxpayers, and taxing the online gaming and betting industries from April 2022. The Authority also intends to increase the value-added tax (“VAT”) penetration on online services and products. Additionally, the GRA plans to expand the pay-as-you-earn (“PAYE”) data by adding a minimum of 2 million new taxpayers to the database, widening the tax net to about 3 million by the end of December 2022, and leverage on property tax to increase rent tax by December 2022. Finally, the Authority intends

to intensify auditing and taxing of the extractive industry and introduce a debt collection ratio of five percent (5%) or less by the close of December 2022.

Annual Performances

In 2020, the Ghana Revenue Authority exceeded its revised revenue target by 6%, collecting GH¢45.338 billion compared to the revised target of GH¢42.7 billion. This was an increase of 3.3% over the same period in the previous year. Initially, the Authority had set a target of GH¢47.25 billion, which was later revised due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Customs Division of the Authority performed well, exceeding its target of GH¢10.9 billion by collecting GH¢12.6 billion, representing a 4.5% year-on-year increase.

Moving to 2021, the GRA achieved its revenue target of GH¢57.02 billion, collecting a little over GH¢57.32 billion, which was a growth rate of 26.3% over the 2020 revenue, the highest annual growth in the last decade. The Domestic Tax Revenue Division performed exceptionally well, collecting GH?41.23

billion, which was a 25.6% improvement over the 2020 revenue performance. The Customs Division also performed impressively, collecting ¢16.08 billion, representing a 26.8% increase over the 2020 performance.

In 2022, the GRA mobilized GH¢75.5 billion in domestic revenue, exceeding its target by GH¢3.60 billion, representing a 5% increase over the previous year’s target of GH¢71.94 billion. This feat also meant that the GRA collected 31.5% more domestic revenue than in 2021.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Council has adopted an agreement to improve forest governance and help combat illegal logging in Guyana. The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), which the EU and Guyana signed in Montreal on 15 December 2022, aims to strengthen law enforcement in the forestry sector and ensure that timber products exported to the EU have been legally produced.

The agreement with Guyana came about as a result of the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan, which the EU adopted in 2003 to tackle deforestation and trade in illegal timber. One of Guyana’s commitments under the VPA is to develop a timber legality assurance system to assess timber products and issue FLEGT licences attesting that they have been produced in line with national laws.

Guyana is the first country in the Amazon region to sign a VPA with the EU. Forests cover 84% of the country’s territory and play a key role in its economy, not only in the timber trade but also in areas such as tourism and ecosystem services. Maintaining Guyana’s forests also contributes to the EU’s wider goals of combatting climate change and preserving biodiversity.

Next steps

The Council’s adoption of the VPA completes the ratification process for the EU. The agreement will enter into force once both parties have notified each other that they have completed their respective ratification processes.

Background

In 2003, the EU adopted the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan. The aim of the plan was to address illegal logging and trade in associated products by:

strengthening sustainable and legal forest management

improving governance in the forestry sector

promoting trade in legally produced timber

In December 2005, the Council gave the Commission a mandate to negotiate Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with countries that export timber to the EU. It also adopted Regulation 2173/2005 establishing a FLEGT licencing scheme to ensure that timber imports from these countries were legally produced.

So far, the EU has concluded eight VPAs with timber-producing countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Liberia, the Republic of Congo and Vietnam). The VPA with Côte d’Ivoire has recently been initialled and negotiations are ongoing with five other countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand).

The negotiations between the EU and Guyana lasted for nearly four years and were successfully concluded with the initialling of the agreement on 23 November 2018. The Council adopted the Decision on the signing of the VPA with Guyana on 13 October 2022. The final signing of the agreement took place at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Montreal on 15 December 2022. The EU was represented by the European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, and the Czech Deputy Minister of the Environment, Jan Dusík. Vickram Bharrat, Minister for Natural Resources, signed the agreement on behalf of Guyana.

Source: European Council Council of the European Union

The cereal supply and demand balances included in this report present a subset of data from the FAO/GIEWS Country Cereal Balance System (CCBS). The CCBS is a is a unique database created and continuously kept up to date by the Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture (GIEWS) and Basic Foodstuffs teams of the Markets and Trade Division, with data since 1980. It contains annual supply and utilization balances for the main cereals produced and consumed for over 220 countries/areas, from which (sub) regional and global aggregates are drawn. This report is based on information available as of February 2023.

Note for readers

All supply and demand figures are FAO forecasts and estimates based on official and unofficial sources.

Cereals include: wheat, rice and coarse grains. Coarse grains include: maize, barley, sorghum, millet, rye, oats and NES (not elsewhere specified).

All elements of utilization for wheat and coarse grains are expressed in grain equivalent.

For rice, all elements are expressed in milled terms.

Non-food use includes post-harvest losses, seed use, feed use and industrial use for all cereals.

‘-‘ means nil or negligible.

The source of the population figures is the 2022 Revision of World Population Prospects prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Two men, who allegedly took GH? 720,000.00 from the Managing Director of DBS Industry under the pretext of assisting him to purchase three tipper trucks and one backhoe machine but failed, have been granted bail by an Accra Circuit Court. The accused persons are said to have also taken a cheque with a face value of GH? 20,000.00 under the pretext of transferring a contract to build a hospital awarded by the government to Obenewaa and Son’s Limited from the Managing Director of DBS. The accused persons are Mr Ebenezer Kwame Boadi, a self-styled businessman and Mr Frank A-Ugidimah-Ananvura Aborigo. They were jointly held for conspiracy to commit a crime and two counts of defrauding by false pretence. The plea of the accused person was not taken as the prosecution led by Police Chief Inspector Samuel Ahiabor informed the Court, presided over by Mrs Afia Owusuaa Appiah, that investigation was not complete. The Court, therefore, admitted the accused persons to bail in the sum of GH? 800,000.00 each with three sureties each. It directed that one of the sureties be justified with landed property, meanwhile, their accomplice Mike is currently at large. The matter has been adjourned to March 15, 2023. The prosecution said the complainant Mr Daniel Boateng was the Managing Director of DBS Industries Limited, Accra, while the accused persons were residents of Achimota Mile -7 and El-Wak respectively. It said in April 2021, Boadi led Aborigo to the complainant and they convinced him that they had been awarded Government’s Agenda 111 project contract and that they were selling the said contract. The prosecution said the accused persons presented a purported contract document in the name of Obenewaa and Sons Limited. It said the complainant developed interest in the contract but requested the accused persons to legally transfer the contract into his company’s name. The prosecution said the accused persons promised they could do the changes and, therefore, collected GH?20.000.00 from him to facilitate the changes. It said the complainant allegedly issued an Absa bank cheque with a face value of GH?381,465.00 to the accused persons. The prosecution said Boadi again convinced the complainant that he and Mike (currently at large) were tasked by national security operatives to look for prospective buyers for three tipper trucks and one backhoe machine at Tema Habour for auction at GH?720,000.00. It said Boadi convinced the complainant by sending him pictures of the purported trucks and the backhoe machines via Whatsapp messages. The prosecution said Boadi, therefore, requested for the said amount to be given to him to pay it into the auction sales account in advance before the real auction day. It said a week later, Boadi went back to the complainant to collect the money and the complainant issued an Ecobank cheque with the face value of GH?720,000.00 for the equipment. The prosecution said the accused persons after cashing out the money allegedly issued receipts to the complainant and had promised to deliver the vehicles within one week. It said the accused persons after taking the money, failed to fulfil their promises and went into hiding and that efforts made by the complainant to get the accused persons proved futile. The prosecution said on February 14, 2023, the case was reported to the police, leading to the arrest of Boadi on February 17, 2023, while Aborigo reported himself to the Police on February 20, 2023.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Ghana has committed up to 100 per cent transparency in industrial fishing in its waters effective 2023 through an Electronic Monitoring System (EMS).

This is the first of its kind in the West African Sub-region.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, copied to the Ghana News Agency said Madam Hawa Koomson, the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, disclosed this when she led Ghana’s delegation to participate in the Eighth Edition of Our Ocean Conference, which was held from March 2- 3 March, in Panamá City, Panamá on the theme, “Our Ocean Our Connection”.

Madam Koomson indicated that video cameras, remote sensors, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and hard drives installed on fishing boats, jointly known as Electronic Monitoring Systems (EMS), would facilitate the monitoring of fishing activities as well as the collection of important data including catch, quantity, labour activities which would help improve oversight and management of its seas.

In addition, the information gathered would be useful to the fisheries value chain and pipelines, which would enable the country to adhere to international regulations governing ocean and marine conservation.

According to the Minister, the EMS seeks to discourage, counter, and eradicate illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in Ghana, while providing employment avenues for Ghanaians within the fisheries sector.

She hoped that with this commitment, Ghana was on course towards managing its ocean better, galvanise support from neighbouring fishing nations as well as demonstrating to the European Commission and other development partners of improvements being made to ensure better management of its fisheries.

Ghana’s commitment to 100 per cent transparency in industrial fishing through an EMS marks a significant step towards sustainable fisheries management in the West African Sub-region.

By investing in EMS, Ghana is positioning itself as a leader in fisheries management and is sending a message to the world of its commitment to the conservation of its fisheries.

Source: Ghana Web