Day: May 14, 2024

The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) has strengthened its transformative partnership with Ghana by committing to inject $200 million into the Ghanaian economy.

The facility is being offered by EBID to Ghana through strategic alliances with the Ghana Export-Import Bank (GEXIM) and GCB Bank PLC.

A statement issued by EBID and copied to the Ghana News Agency said this was contained in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Dr George Agyekum Donkor, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EBID, and Dr Mohammed Amin Adam, Minister of Finance of Ghana, at a ceremony held at the EBID headquarters in Lome, Togo.

It said the signing ceremony was attended by key stakeholders, including Mr Lawrence Agyinsam, Chief Executive Officer of GEXIM, and Mr Samuel Aidoo, Executive Director, Wholesale, and Investment Banking at GCB Bank PLC.

It noted that the agreement epitomises EBID’s unwavering dedication to fostering economic growth and shoring up resilience across the ECOWAS Member Sta
tes.

In his opening remarks, Dr Donkor commended Ghana for its steadfast support through the payment of its subscribed share of capital, and other commitments to the bank.

He emphasised that the tripartite alliance between EBID, GEXIM, and GCB Bank PLC exemplifies EBID’s strategic thrust to bolster the recovery and transformation agenda of Member States by channeling vital resources into pivotal sectors of their economies.

According to him, this collaborative involvement underscores EBID’s commitment to forging partnership synergies within the finance and investment domain, serving as a trailblazing model for future regional collaborations and investments.

In his response, Dr Amin Adam highlighted the importance of organisations like EBID in driving sustainable transformation, especially amidst prevailing global challenges.

He lauded the profound impact of EBID under the leadership of Dr Donkor and expressed unwavering optimism regarding the Bank’s continued role in shaping the region’s developmental age
nda.

The $200 million injection was intended to stimulate the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in critical sectors of the economy, foster job creation, innovation, and sustainable development. This injection will bring EBID’s total commitments in Ghana to $600 million.

ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) is the development finance institution of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) comprising 15 Member States namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Based in Lomé, Togolese Republic, the Bank is committed to financing developmental projects and programmes covering diverse initiatives from infrastructure and basic amenities, rural development and environment, industry, and social services sectors, through its private and public sector windows.

EBID intervenes through long, medium, and short-term loans, equity participation, lines of credit, refi
nancing, financial engineering operations, and related services.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Public Utility Workers’ Union (PUWU) has said that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) ICT department has been at the forefront of digitalizing revenue collection for decades.

PUWU said this was contrary to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s accusation that the ECG staff sabotaging the government’s efforts to digitalize power revenue collection.

He said this during the Annual General Meeting of the African Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa on May 9, 2024.

Responding to the accusations, a statement issued by PUWU and signed by Mr. Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi, General Secretary, and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) noted that ‘the ECG ICT department has been at the forefront of digitalizing revenue collection for decades, a fact that seems to have been overlooked.’

It added that the department already spearheaded the digitalization of ECG payment systems with the roll-out of the ECG Power App and USSD (*226#) services dating back to July 2016.

PUWU stressed that the accusations of sabotage a
nd resistance to digitalization are not only unfounded but also damaging to the morale and reputation of their hard-working members.

Responding to the specifics of the sabotage accusation, the union stated that the sophisticated ransomware attack attributed to internal sabotage has been proven to be the work of an international cybercriminal group (Lockbit), which further exonerates our members from such erroneous claims.

It added that in September 2022, the Economic and Organised Crime Office commenced a forensic audit on the ECG Power App and therefore demanded the payment platform architecture, databases, Application Programming Interface (API) documentation, and the power app custom source code, including credentials to the back-end prepayment systems.

‘EOCO did not use its internal staff but had to use third-party IT professionals for the assignment. Consequently, it was not only ECG IT staff who had access to the ICT infrastructure of ECG. Could the sharing of the source code with external parties’ c
ompromise ECG network security in relation to the scale of the September 2022 attack?’ PUWU questioned.

The Union further revealed that ‘the first ransomware attack occurred on September 28, 2022, which took a wide scope, prompting the need to report the incident to the Cyber Security Authority, as required by regulation. The National Security thereafter took over the ECG ICT system as the attack was seen as a threat to national security.’ ?

It added that in the midst of the takeover, the second and most severe of the ransomware attacks occurred on November 11, 2022, when, at the time, the National Security personnel had both full physical access and software administrative rights to all ECG systems, noting that the National Security arrested and detained some ECG ICT staff for days but were later released.

‘We wish to state that it was the ECG ICT staff who used their system recovery strategy and worked tirelessly day and night to restore the systems and even assisted the National Security operatives on h
ow to operate the ECG systems. The ECG ICT staff led the recovery effort with the support of the E-crime Bureau, a cyber security firm, invited by the ECG Board.’

The statement added that during the attack, personnel of the National Investigation Bureau launched an investigation into the incident, but no conclusive report on the matter has yet been heard.

Touching on revenue collection, the union stated that ECG’s financial performance is a matter of public record, as indicated in the company’s 2019 Annual Report, noting that the average monthly revenue for the period 2017 to 2019 was around GHS532.7 million, while in the 2023 SIGA-ECG Performance Contract, the average monthly revenue was GHS631.3 million as of early 2022.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, a former Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, has sued her ex-husband Mr Tony Lithur, for libel over their divorce petition filed on May 2, 2018.

The two were customarily married on April 14, 1991, and the marriage was converted into ordinance marriage by the parties in January 1998.

On May 2, 2018, however, Mr Lithur, a senior legal practitioner, filed a petition for divorce against Nana Oye, which has been heard partly.

Nana Oye said in the divorce petition, Mr Lithur made false averments and caused the defamatory words to be published.

She is, therefore, demanding general damages of US$500,000 and exemplary damages of US$1 million.

She said in Mr Lithur’s response dated July 9, 2018, he again made false averments and caused them to be published to defame her.

Nana Oye said these false statements about her were maliciously and knowingly published by Mr Lithur in his divorce petition and response.

These were severally printed, broadcast and published across the wo
rld wide web, newspapers, broadcast channels, social media and by bloggers.

According to Nana Oye, the words and statements contained in the petition referred her to as an ‘adulterer with loose morals’, a ‘cruel and violent person, a lazy and irresponsible mother’.

It also portrayed her as a person, who though holding herself out as a human rights lawyer, was violating the rights of her household members with acts in direct contradiction to her profession, she stated.

She contended that Mr Lithur’s statement about her intention to purchase an investment property in South Africa soon after leaving office in the sum of US$350,000 to US$500,000.00 inferred that she was not only a corrupt person, but also abused her office to steal public funds to enable her to purchase the alleged property.

Nana Oye said due to the false averments and publications of the acquisition of investment property in South Africa by Mr Lithur, the OSP instituted investigations into corruption and corruption-related offences, money la
undering and illegal acquisition of property in South Africa against her.

She was, subsequently, admitted to bail, while a pending case was published against her by the OSP, making her engage legal services to defend herself.

Nana Oye denied committing any of the acts alleged by Mr Lithur, saying he published the defamatory words knowing very well that they were untrue.

The sole intention was to cause considerable damage to her and to disparage her reputation, she noted.

The former Gender Minister said because of these false statements and publications by the defendant, she had been seriously injured in her reputation and had been shunned and brought to public ridicule, hatred, scandal, odium, and contempt.

She said since the publication, she had been inundated with phone calls, insults, and humiliation.

She also had had to avoid certain public appearances and had to resign from lecturing at a particular tertiary institution.

She stated that she had since been ‘answering embarrassing questions and suff
ering humiliating treatments from different people, including strangers, associates, friends, family members, foreigners, some members of the international community, international acquaintances, and colleague professionals.’

Nana Oye is, therefore, seeking some reliefs -?including a perpetual injunction restraining the defendant jointly and severally, ‘either by himself and or his assign(s) from further making any averments or publishing or causing to be published, the said defamatory words or similar words.’?

She also wants Mr Lithur to retract his statement and apologise and cause the apology to be published on social media, including his Facebook wall, the website of Lithur, Brew and Company, on Twitter?(now X)?and the Instagram handles of the defendant, and all his social media handles.

It should also appear on the website of the Ghanaweb,?together with the website of Joy FM, Peace FM and Citi FM.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Media Coalition Against Open Defecation (M-CODe) has issued a 10-point-demand manifesto to the various political parties in the country to secure their commitments towards eradicating Open Defecation (OD) as soon as practicable.

The 10-point-demand dubbed: ‘M-CODe Election 2024 Open Defecation Free Manifesto’ was launched in Wa alongside the inauguration of the Upper West Regional branch of M-CODe to influence political party manifestos for the 2024 general election.

The manifesto demanded the politicians to: ‘develop a clear roadmap for eradicating OD’; ‘prioritise the Rural Sanitation Model and Strategy and upscale successful projects like GAMA/GKMA SWP to metropolis in other regions’; and ‘support small sanitation businesses and service providers’.

Others are: ‘sustain and intensify the sanitation social norms campaign, make OD a performance indicator for MMDCES, develop a PSI on ending OD by 2030 and provide toilets in all basic, second-cycle schools and healthcare facilities by 2030’.

The rest in
cluded, establish a National Sanitation Authority, provide decent toilets along all major highways led by MMDAs in partnership with private sector and enforce the building code.

The M-CODe, in its ODF manifesto, expressed worry that open defecation was a ‘high-thick human behaviour’ prevalent in many communities across all regions in Ghana.

‘The Coalition believes that it takes a strong political will to confront the challenge of open defecation and that political parties, who in fact form the governments in Ghana, need to be brought strongly into the picture when sharing ideas for a fight against open defecation’, it explained.

It said the 2021 Population and Housing Census report by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) indicated that only one out of every four Ghanaians uses an improved household toilet.

‘The report also revealed that 17.7 per cent of the population practice open defecation for several reasons including the lack of decent household and institutional toilets.

The report further indicates
that open defecation varies widely across the sixteen regions, with the Savanna (68.5), Upper East (68.4%), North East (58.1%), Northern (55.3%) and Upper West (50.5%) reporting the highest proportions (GSS-PHC, 2021)’, the ODF Manifesto explained.

The M-CODe believes that if the government of Ghana, its development partners and any entity or institution mandated or interested in improving the sanitation situation in the country implemented those demands it would put the country on the path of ending open defecation.

It, therefore, expressed commitment to making the demands a central point in its advocacy against open defecation and pursuing the demands through effective partnership and alliance with like-minded institutions.

The M-CODe said it would also sustain action on the demands to achieve institutional and individual change in attitude towards ending Open Defecation in the country.

Source: Ghana News Agency