The black, weathered, plastic wallet found on the Italian island of Lampedusa had been carried 3,500km (2,200 miles) from Ghana and then seemingly discarded. Opening it up, Richard Opoku’s face stared back at me from the corner of his driver’s licence. It was one of a cache of personal documents, belonging to various people, that had been gleaned over time from a site where small boats used by migrants to cross the Mediterranean had been dumped. It had been recovered several years ago and my curiosity was piqued – I wanted to know the story behind the licence. What had…
Author: herbert
The tanker Theseus offloaded its cargo of Russian crude into storage tanks at Ghana’s Tema oil refinery over the weekend, after being anchored full off the port since Feb. 24 as it awaited permission to dock. Vessel-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg show the ship left its initial anchorage Thursday morning and moored at the single-point mooring on Friday afternoon. The SPM is connected to storage tanks at the refinery by a sub-sea pipeline. The tanker left the SPM on Monday morning, with its draft indicating it had discharged its cargo. It loaded about 600,000 barrels of crude from the Black…
Seth Asafo Clinical psychologist A clinical psychologist says a lot of people confuse mental health with mental illness but there is a vast difference between the two. Seth Asafo said mental illness is an extreme depletion of the mind where an individual exhausts all their resources to keep surviving. “Mental health is not a mental illness and perhaps that’s the reason the field is so stigmatised because when people hear mental health, all they hear is mental illness. “Mental illness will normally look at falling below 0, so if I had a speedometer, it starts at 0 and that’s neutral because…
Mr Musk has been looking for ways to cut costs and make money in different ways from the platform Elon Musk has said running Twitter has been “quite painful” and “a rollercoaster”, in a last-minute interview with the BBC. The multi-billionaire entrepreneur also said that he would sell the company if the right person came along. The interview, aired live from Twitter HQ, also covered the mass lay-offs, misinformation and his work habits.https://www.youtube.com/embed/SKSsnsAEcn8 Mr Musk, who also runs car maker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, bought Twitter for $44bn (£35.4bn) in October. In the conversation – in which Mr Musk…
Laeticia Amihere, a Canadian basketball player with West African heritage has been selected eighth overall in the WNBA draft. Amihere was selected by Atlanta Dream, making her the second South Carolina to be drafted and the first Ghanaian to enter the franchise. In 2017 at the Boo Williams Invitational, she became the first Canadian woman to dunk in a competitive game – she was 15 at the time and already 6’4. She stole headlines across the world, seized social media trends, while also attracting comments from high-profile personalities like four-time NBA champion, Shaquille O’Neal and rapper, Drake. “Coming out with…
Credit transactions, which increase liabilities or equity or decrease assets, are denoted by a set of standard abbreviations. In the context of accounts receivable, “AR” is used to signify the amount that customers owe to a business, which will eventually be credited to the company’s account upon payment. Similarly, “AP” stands for accounts payable, representing the obligations of a business to pay off short-term debts to its creditors or suppliers. These credits will be settled by a decrease in the company’s cash or an increase in its liabilities. In the case of revenue, “REV” is often used to denote the…
Kristalina Georgieva The International Monetary Fund has raised concerns over a potential wave of debt restructuring requests and its handling at a time current restructuring cases are facing costly delays, adding “Zambia being the most recent example”. According to its Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, about 15% of low-income countries are already in debt distress and another 45% face high debt vulnerabilities. Ghana is one of these countries and is presently seeking an IMF-support programme, but facing a hurdle to secure agreement with its bilateral creditors for a debt restructuring. Speaking ahead of the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, Madam Georgieva said…
Abena Amoah The Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange, Abena Amoah, has expressed worry about the same old policies by present and past governments that have resulted in perennial economic challenges. According to her, these challenges have impacted negatively on the growth and development of the country. Speaking at the 75th Public Lecture on Ghana’s Economy organised by the University of Ghana, Ms Amoah added the economy should have been better off than it is currently. “The Ghanaian economy has indeed faced a lot of challenges and in recent years we’ve seen high inflation, low productivity, low unemployment rate,…
Taxes The government has introduced more than 10 new and amended taxes since assuming office in 2017. Notably among them is the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-Levy) introduced in 2022 that generated huge controversy. The Electronic Transfer Levy Act, 2022 (Act 1075) imposes a levy of 1% on all electronic transfers. Majority of these taxes were introduced post Covid-19 pandemic to shore up the revenue base of the country. However, they have increased the cost of living and cost of operations of businesses. Some businesses, Joy Business understands are spending more than 50% of their revenue on taxes. Some old taxes have also been amended to what government describes…
Inflation will average 16.0% in 2024, Fitch Solutions has projected. However, it is forecasting inflation to average 37.6% in 2023, higher than the 31.5% recorded in 2022. “As such, we believe that policymakers will remain focused on controlling price growth in the near term as they aim for a more substantial disinflation trajectory before concluding the tightening cycle” it stated in its latest assessment of Ghana. It said under an expected International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the Bank of Ghana will likely be encouraged to keep the policy rate elevated to “strengthen its monetary policy framework”. “We forecast inflation will…
