Africa

Ghana is arranging for additional reserves to intervene sooner than planned in order to prop the local cedi currency which has weakened to new lows this week, two Central Bank sources said on Thursday.

The cedi has been under pressure since early February .

This was so after the new government announced it had uncovered contract arrears of $1.6 billion and a budget deficit close to double digits, compared to the 2016 target of 5.25 per cent of gross domestic product.

Ghana is likely to receive an extension of its three year deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The lender said that if the West African nation requests for an extension, they will continue assisting it in case of protracted balance of payments problems.

Currently, Ghana has an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) supported by the IMF. The lending agreement provides sustained program engagement over the medium to long term.

The arrangement is of about 900 million US dollars signed in April 2015 which the the government has already utilized more than half.

The King of the Kingdom of Morocco, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, accompanied by some members of his government and business leaders have arrived in Ghana for a three-day visit.

This comes a few days after his country was accepted into the African Union.

King Mohammed VI was due in Accra last month but the visit was later postponed. . . .

After two weeks of legal tussle between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) yesterday set the end of September 2017 as the date to deliver judgment on the maritime boundary between two countries.

The tribunal set the date after Cote d’Ivoire concluded its final round of oral arguments at its sitting in Hamburg, Germany yesterday.

The President of the Special Chamber constituted to hear the case, Judge Boualem Bouguetaia, told the parties that the tribunal would deliver its judgement at the end of September 2017.

President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stated the resolve of the government to make Ghana a leader in democracy and the rule of law in Africa.

“We are determined to get Ghana once again to lead our continent on two fronts: entrenching democracy and the rule of law and transforming the structure of the African economy into a modern, manufacturing kind that has the capacity to generate jobs for our people and create and spread wealth across the length and breadth of our vast continent,” he said.

Ghana's new government is trying to track down more than 200 cars missing from the president's office, a government spokesman has said.

The ruling party counted the cars a month after taking power following victory in December's elections.

After previous transfers of power, state-owned cars have been seized from officials who did not return them.

A minister in the former government said the implied allegation of wrongdoing by his colleagues was false.

Confronting the 4 billion dollars loss to corruption should create enough buffers to meet the infrastructure development agenda of the NPP government, Finance Minister Nominee, Ken Ofori Atta has said.

According to him, reducing the high incidences of corruption if not eradicating the canker completely should assist government address the infrastructure deficit facing the country.

Mr. Ofori Atta made the remarks when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Friday.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano congratulated Ghana on the nuclear regulatory framework and legal infrastructure which it put in place earlier this year. “An independent regulatory authority is essential for the safe and secure use of nuclear technology,” Mr Amano told Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama in Accra last week, adding that the IAEA will support Ghana if it decides to embark on a nuclear power programme.

An IAEA team of experts has started an Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review (INIR) mission in Ghana. The mission will last eight days and it will evaluate the status of major infrastructure issues against the Agency’s Milestones Approach for the introduction of nuclear power. These issues include legal and regulatory frameworks, nuclear safety and security, radioactive waste management, human resource development, stakeholder involvement, the capacity of the electrical grid and several others.

Finance Minister Nominee, Ken Ofori Atta has told Citi Business News, Government will have to undertake a careful analysis of its tax cuts promise before it implements it anytime soon.

According to him, modalities for implementing the NPP’s promise to cut down taxes will largely be outlined in the 2017 budget.