MAINTAIN FISCAL DISCIPLINE — VEEP (SPREAD)

THE Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has urged local industries to maintain fiscal discipline in their expenditure to ensure a stable and predictable environment for the private sector to thrive.
He said the government's strategies for accelerated national development were based on living within current predictable revenues, which would be enhanced on a continuous basis.
The Vice-President made the appeal when he addressed the 20th Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) performance awards in Accra last Saturday.
He said expected revenues from the production of oil and gas, scheduled to come on stream in 2010, would be a windfall and gave the assurance that the government would administer the resources equitably to accelerate infrastructural development and eliminate poverty nationwide.
Mr Mahama said in spite of the discovery, the country was not “yet out of the woods”, since no amount of donor support would yield tangible results if not utilised in an atmosphere of transparency and backed by the will of Ghanaians to build the nation into a model.
He said very often “we focus on credit as the only bottleneck in the growth of our businesses but we have serious problems with entrepreneurial skill development, with uptake of technology, as well as problems with research into consumer behaviour and market trends”.
He said in view of the problems with entrepreneurial skills development and research into consumer behaviour, marketing research was a useful tool, especially in the current global financial environment where consumers were hanging on to their precious income and spending only on what they considered the most important purchases.
The Vice-President said the government was dedicated towards directing the affairs of the nation along a path that could withstand the current global economic turmoil.
He explained that for Ghana to avoid corporate failures of national magnitude, as had happened elsewhere, corporate Ghana ought to desist from thinking about marketing in terms of advertising and sales.
He said successful marketers and managers who did not have insights into deep fluency in marketing metrics, as well as competency in numeracy, might find it difficult to reach the senior executive levels because corporate enterprises would increasingly wish to entrust their businesses into safe hands.
Mr Mahama said he was glad to observe that the CIMG was responsive to the environment of its operation and had, therefore, chosen “The Global Economic Downturn — A Case for Marketing Metrics” as the theme for this year’s awards, noting that the theme sought to raise the consciousness of marketers and corporate Ghana.
He explained that the global downturn was as a result of corporate greed, avarice and reckless administration, lack of adequate regulation of capital markets and the financial sector which had thrown the whole world into apprehension and despair.
The Vice-President said as of now, the country had not been directly hit by the hardest effects of the downturn, such as the dramatic collapse of banks and other corporate institutions.
The National President of the CIMG, Mrs Josephine Okutu, said the turbulent world economy required that nations adopt appropriate policies that would protect their economies against the shocks being experienced all over the world.
She stated that an economic upturn would require the active participation of marketers and gave the assurance that as partners the CIMG was ready to offer advice to the government to ensure rapid socio-economic development.
Twenty four organisations and four individuals were honoured at the event for their performances and contributions to the marketing business.
The Managing Director of Lowe Lintas, Mrs Norkor Duah, was adjudged the Marketing Woman of the Year, while the Chairman of the GLICO Group of Companies, Mr Kwame Acheampong Kyei, emerged as the Marketing Man of the Year.
The Chief Operating Officer of MTN, Mr George Andah, won the Marketing Practitioner of the Year award, while the Head of External Marketing of the Ghana Commercial Bank, Mr Cedric McAddy, won the Marketing Student of the Year award.
The organisations which received awards were Toyota Ghana Limited, Melcom, State Insurance Company Limited, World Vision, Ghana and Kasapreko Cocoa Liqueur.
The rest were Healthlife Premium Juice, Asanka Locals, Akate Farms, Cal Bank, Japan Motors Trading Company, Ghana Oil Company, Vanguard Assurance, Close Up Salsa, Unilever Ghana Limited, TV Africa, Joy FM and Kasapa.

See page 45 for more pictures

SECOND PHASE OF INTERNET PROJECT COMMENCES (SPREAD)

The Government is carrying out the second phase of the National Communication Backbone Network to extend Internet connectivity to all districts in the country.
This is to position the country to become the preferred destination in Africa to access one billion dollars of the global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) which is forecasted to be a $191.3 billion market by 2010.
Presently 20 companies have registered in the country and have created 3,000 jobs for people with basic Information Technology skills.
The Ministry of Communications and the Ghana Association of Software and IT Services Companies (GASSCOM) are determined to increase the number of jobs from BPO to 40,000 by the next four years.
The Vice-President, Mr John Mahama, made this known at the first GASSCOM international BPO conference in Accra yesterday.
Mr Mahama urged players in the communication industry to ensure sanity in the business environment by improving their services to meet international standards.
He explained that the potential in the service sector in this information age, when harnessed properly, could replace the commodities sector as the largest foreign exchange earner.
The speech of the Vice-President was read on his behalf by the Deputy Minister of Communications, Mr Gideon Quarcoo.
The Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said his ministry had taken advantage of the competitive telecommunications market to develop a collaborative robust ICT infrastructure backbone that would enable the private sector to have access to high speed Internet connectivity broadband at an affordable rate.
He said the government was facilitating the linking of Internet points of presence to all district capitals under the ICT backbone development programme being undertaken with support from Huawei Technologies of China.
Mr Iddrisu said the government had completed discussions for a grant of 150 million euros for the modernisation of equipment under the e-Ghana project that would promote the country as an attractive destination for both domestic entrepreneurs and foreign investors
Mr Iddrisu said the development of technology parks in free zone enclave was on course to aid the process of business incubation in the IT Enabled Services sectors (ITES).
He warned mobile phone service providers that they owed their customers a standard of care to protect their privacy and confidentiality of the information they shared or received by being part of their network.
He said the ministry would soon submit to the Cabinet a Data Protection and Privacy legislation for the regulation and protection of information.
Mr Iddrisu said the Ministry of Communications was also facilitating the development of additional legislation in the area of Data Protection and Intellectual Property so that investors in the area of data capturing and management would operate within the confines of international guidelines and rules.

GHANA PROPERTY AWARDS HELD IN ACCRA (PAGE 32)

The Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing is revising the legislation on the operations of estate developers in the country.
The revision is to protect the interests of home buyers and the environment.
This is to address the challenges in the real estate sector, especially the failure of estate developers to meet their contractual obligations to home buyers.
Dr Louisa Hanna Bisiw, Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, who announced this, said another problem identified with real estates had been inadequate infrastructure and services, resulting in the estates degenerating into slums.
Dr Bisiw, who delivered the keynote address at Ghana Property Awards night in Accra last Friday, said the recent devastating floods in Accra were due to the lack of efficient drainage system and other infrastructure.
She explained that the government was reviewing the housing sector to provide sustainable solutions to the acute shortage of houses for ordinary Ghanaians.
The deputy minister said the government had adopted a two-pronged approach to mobilise funds both domestically and internationally to support the housing industry.
Dr Bisiw reminded estate developers that the focus of the government was to make housing affordable to low-income workers, and to achieve this, developers ought to adopt cost- saving technologies and techniques of construction as well as innovative mortgage financing instruments.
She noted that the government was anticipating that in the coming years, the services of good property managing companies would become more in demand as they partnered government to deliver affordable estates houses nationwide.
She said estates houses would have to be managed professionally as a well-functioning communities with efficient social services in a clean and safe environment.
Dr Bisiw congratulated the award winners and advised them not to rest on their laurels, but to persevere to reach higher heights in the construction and building industry.
Mr Robert Wegbe, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Property Awards, said the Ghana Property Awards was instituted by Ghana Real Estates Developers Association (GREDA), in collaboration with Property Express since 2007 to consolidate the gains of developers in the building construction and the hospitality industries.
The aim of the awards, he explained, was to bring healthy competition among developers and operators through recognition, appreciation and encouragement of excellence and innovative real estate solutions, thereby enhancing standards and competitive pricing.
Some of the award winners included Landscaper of the Year which was snatched by Munisco Gardens; Architectural Firm of the Year was taken by Akuffo and Associates, while Property Entrepreneur of the Year went to Mr Seth Adu of Devtraco Ltd.
In all, about 30 awards were won, with the most-coveted award, Property Personality of the Year,offered to Mr Emmanuel Botchway of Regimanuel Gray Ltd.

POLYTECHNIC STUDENTS QUIZZED OVER EXAMS FRAUD (PAGE 11)

Thirty-one students of the Accra Polytechnic have appeared before the Examination Malpractice Committee of the institution for their alleged involvement in various forms of examination malpractice.
A member of the committee, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the Daily Graphic that the polytechnic authorities had taken a serious view of the social canker in the school and was bent on uprooting it completely.
The posting of the names of the 31 students on the polytechnic notice board this week became the topical issue on campus, with students congregating around the notice board to check whether their names or those of friends were included.
Some of the students committed serious examination malpractice such as sending notes and scripts into the examination halls from which they copied.
Others were found with mobile phones which contained text messages related to the papers they were writing.
Others were also found with more than two phones and calculators from which they copied graphs and other calculations in mathematics related to the examinations they were writing.
In one incident, a student who was found with notes in an exercise book related to the examination but who chewed and swallowed the notes before the invigilators could seize them from him had also been requested to appear before the committee.
According to a member of the committee, some students asked permission to visit the urinals, only to be found, after a long time had elapsed, in the urinal reading notes in connection with the examination they were writing.
He urged students to avoid short cuts to pass their examinations, since they were liable to be exposed in the future in their chosen professions when they could not perform efficiently
Some of the students who congregated around the notice board to discuss the list accused some of the school authorities of leaking examination questions to some students.
They were also of the view that the list could have contained more than 31 students because the number of students caught was more than the 31.
One student told the Daily Graphic that in her class more than seven students were apprehended by the invigilators for engaging in examination irregularities but because they had “connections their names have been left out and only seven names appeared as those caught engaged in the malpractice”.

14,257 BAGS OF RICE STOLEN, DESTROYED (PAGE 3, JULY 17)

A total of 14,257 out of 300,000 bags of rice imported from India into the country early this year have either been destroyed or stolen from the Tema Harbour.
This came to light when the Chief Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Ambassador John Aggrey, led newsmen to inspect the imported rice, valued at $10.26 million, at a warehouse in Tema yesterday.
Mr E. K. Agyepong, a customs officer, who briefed the chief director, said 143 bags were stolen when the cargo was being offloaded from the Tema Port to the warehouse, while 12,713 bags were destroyed and would have to be re-bagged.
He said 594 bags were caked and had to be destroyed in the presence of officials of the Food and Drugs Board.
He explained, therefore, that the number of sound bags left at the warehouses was 297,003
Giving a background to the importation, Mr Aggrey explained that last year when food prices where escalating, the government appealed to the Indian government to supply the country with rice to stockpile as a food security measure.
He said when the Indian government shipped the rice into the country, it was consigned to the MFA but the ministry transferred the consignment and the letters of credit to the National Investment Bank (NIB) to open them.
He explained that when the rice arrived in the country this year there had been a change of government and as a result a controversy arose over the importation by the ministry, which delayed the distribution of the rice.
Mr Aggrey said Cabinet had now decided that the ministry should inspect the rice, after which it would be sold by the NIB to the public.
The 300,000 bags, which were shipped into the country by the State Trading Corporation of India in February this year, aroused the suspicion of the government and the public, as the MFA is not the government institution that imports food commodities.
That led to the seizure of the passport of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Akwasi Osei-Adjei, by the state for investigations to be carried out.
Mr Aggrey told newsmen later that as part of efforts at ascertaining whether the rice had all arrived or not, Cabinet directed that the MFA should inspect the warehouse where the rice had been kept in the presence of newsmen.
He explained that now that the inspection of the consignment had been completed, a report would be made to Cabinet, after which it would issue a release for the sale of the rice to the public.
Mr Aggrey said considering the state of the rice at the warehouse, an expeditious action had to be taken to dispose of it to avoid the situation where most of it would be declared unwholesome for lying idle for a long time at the warehouses.

G-PAK JOB WINS COMMENDATION (BACK PAGE)

THE Managing Director of Accra Brewery Limited (ABL), Mr Gregory Metcalf, has expressed satisfaction with the quality of work and the equipment at the G-Pak, a subsidiary of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL).
He noted that the state-of-the-art equipment at G-Pak had positioned the company to be competitive in the commercial printing industry.
Mr Metcalf said this during a tour of the facilities at G-Pak yesterday to acquaint himself with the company’s operations.
He expressed ABL’s preparedness to print its labels and other products at the G-Pak.
Mr Charles Obeng Antwi, the General Manager of G-Pak, stated that the company had a high speed flexo printing equipment that used wetstrength to print high quality labels that were cheaper and more durable.
He expressed G-Pak’s determination to acquire equipment for the printing of plastic labels.
Earlier, the ABL managing director and his team had paid a courtesy call on the Managing Director of GCGL, Mr Ibrahim Awal, to introduce himself and also to acquaint himself with the operations of GCGL.
Mr Awal lauded the relationship between GCGL and ABL and expressed the need for the relationship to be moved to a higher pedestal.
He noted that through eight newspaper titles, the activities of ABL could be given a better visibility.
Presently, the G-Pak, Mr Awal said, was printing two million sets of labels for one of the products of ABL, Castle Milk Stout.
The Managing Director of GCGL said as part of its corporate social responsibility, the company was promoting local languages through community newspapers in the country.
He revealed that GCGL was planning to come out with five community newspapers to serve the Northern, Volta and other parts of the country.
Presently, the Graphic Nsempa is serving the Ashanti and the Brong Ahafo regions.
Mr Awal said GCGL had been collaborating with ABL to discharge some of their corporate social responsibilities such as the recent health-walk that was organised by the two companies pooling resources together.
Mr Metcalf, for his part, assured management of GCGL that the collaboration in the area of social responsibility programmes would be sustained and moved to a higher level alongside the business co-operation.
He explained that the ABL was shifting emphasis from paper labels to glossy plastic and metallic labels, because they were resistant to water.
The team from ABL who were on the tour of the GCGL and the G-Pak offices and the flexo printing press included Ms N. Adjoba Kyiamah, Corporate/Legal Affairs Manager, and Chris Wulff-Caesar, Marketing Director.

5-YEAR VR DEV PLAN LAUNCHED (1B, JULY 2)

A $250-million five-year Economic Development Plan for the Volta Region to upgrade educational facilities, as well as create job opportunities, in the region has been launched in Accra.
The project, which was initiated by the traditional authorities in the region, is to mobilise the chiefs and people for a collective assault on poverty and deprivation.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Vice- President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, said sustained economic development was a potent weapon against poverty.
He said the government and traditional leaders had a shared responsibility for the great strides the country was making and commended the chiefs of the Volta Region for fashioning out the first regional plan for poverty alleviation.
Mr Mahama announced that the government had secured a $300 million Economic Governance and Poverty Reduction Credit facility for immediate disbursement to kick-start the economy.
The World Bank, which granted the concessionary credit facility, was also supporting the budget with an additional $1.5 million, he added.
He assured the chiefs and people of the Volta Region that the government believed in the principles of social justice and equity in the distribution of the fruits of economic growth.
Mr Mahama said the five-year development plan was bound to stem the tide of migration of the youth from the region to elsewhere in search of greener pastures.
The Agbogbomefia of the Asogli Traditional Area, Togbe Afede XIV, who initiated the programme, said in his address that the plan was inspired by the belief that the development of the nation was a shared responsibility in which the chiefs, who were closest to the people, had an important role to play.
He said the aim of the chiefs and the people of the region was to contribute to the enhancement of the region's socio-economic infrastructure and facilitate the country's attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
The occasion also witnessed the launch of the fifth anniversary of Togbe Afede’s reign as the Agbogbomefia of Asogli.

ECG TO EXPAND CAPACITY (PAGE 19, JULY 1)

THE Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has reiterated its commitment to expand its capacity to extend its operations to all households in the country in a reasonable time frame as mandated by the Constitution.
Squadron Leader Clend Sowu (retd), the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ECG, reiterated the vision and mission of the company at the board’s maiden meeting in Accra.
Currently the three northern regions receive their electricity supply from the Northern Electricity Department (NED).
The board chairman expressed concern over the activities of some individuals who connived with electricians to tamper with the credit meters of the company to cheat the system.
He said those anti-social and criminal activities were a big drain on the coffers of the company and, therefore, it had decided to change all the credit meters to prepaid meters to avoid waste in its service delivery.
Squadron Leader Sowu, therefore, appealed to the general public to acquire the prepaid meters, since the credit meters would soon be phased out of the system.
He warned that any person found tampering with the meters of the company would be arrested to face the law.
He also appealed to the general public to report electrical faults to the company to ensure prompt attention to safeguard the equipment of the company, as well as household appliances of its customers, from damage in the event of general power failure.
Mr Cephas Gakpo, the acting Managing Director of the company, said there had been a phenomenal growth in demand for electricity which far outweighed supply and gave the assurance that the ECG had put in motion an expansion programme to meet the demand for electricity in the country.
He said the company was also in the process of replacing obsolete equipment with state-of-the-art equipment to ensure that power failures, especially nationwide power failures, were eliminated through new equipment and improved services.

SURVEY BEGINS ON SAFETY OF CHILDREN (PAGE 23, JULY 1)

A 13-month survey to find out the number of children killed while attempting to cross some selected highways as pedestrians in Accra and its environs has started in Nima and Ashaiman.
The outcome of the survey will help inform policy makers and authorities of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) on measures to put in place to control the carnage on the roads in built-up areas in the city.
Mr Jeffrey Witte, Executive Director of Amend.Org, one of the organisations undertaking the exercise, announced this at a press conference in Accra.
The other partner of the survey is Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) of the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies based in Geneva.
Mr Witte said the survey would also find out whether the current statistics of four children killed every day attempting to cross roads in Accra and its environs was accurate.
He said a new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in New York revealed that road traffic accidents were a more leading cause of death, especially in Africa, than HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
The Executive Director of Amend.Org said the objective of the organisation was to advocate improvement in road infrastructure and change in attitude to save thousands of lives, especially of children, lost through road crashes which could be prevented.
Mr Kingsley Ohene Amoako, Programme Manager of Amend.Org, said preliminary results of an ongoing study of major tarred roads close to primary schools in parts of Accra showed worrying events.
He said some of the pedestrian crossings at the 42 streets close to 132 public and private primary schools were faded, while some had no pedestrian crossing, putting the lives of school children in jeopardy.
Mr Amoako said to make matters worse, some of the streets had been invaded by hawkers who obstruct pedestrian movement on the pavements.
He said at some avenues one could count 2,870 vehicles per hour between 6.45 and 7.45a.m. and over 1,000 pedestrians, who included schoolchildren, making their way to school.
He noted that this hustle and bustle sometimes resulted in the loss of lives of pedestrians, especially schoolchildren, because of the absence of speed calming devices such as speed humps and rumble strips on roads near schools.
Mr Amoako, therefore, appealed to the Departments of Urban Roads and the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) to provide more pedestrian crossing facilities near schools.
The Technical Director of Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) of Ghana, Mr Cecil Garbrah, said the GRSP was forging partnerships with all the key groups in society who had vested interest in improving road safety to reduce the carnage on the roads, especially those involving pedestrians.