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Govt will provide strong policy support to firm up growth, economic revitalization – Akufo-Addo

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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has reiterated the government’s commitment to provide strong policy support to firm up growth recovery and economic revitalization.

Speaking at the 11TH Ghana Economic Forum on Tuesday, October 25, 2022, the president further observed that the policy support will reposition and improve business competitiveness for future growth and enable businesses to leverage emerging opportunities such as those introduced by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“These supportive policy measures and regulations will also position Ghana as a competitive destination for other African businesses and investors. I am sure the seasoned panelists gathered here will delve into some of these issues on business competitiveness, regulatory policies, and financial innovation during the sessions,” he stated in a speech delivered on his behalf by Public Enterprises Minister, Joseph Cudjoe.

Need for resilience and innovative strategies

Acknowledging the country’s current economic challenges, the president made a passionate appeal to businesses to take action to develop resilience and innovative strategies to achieve long-term value and sustainability.

He said the varying risks triggered by global economic issues have called into question how businesses operate, signalling that it cannot be business as usual in a post-pandemic era and building business resilience and sustainability will be key and critical to the recovery process.

“…businesses must recognize and anticipate the changing operating environment; they must develop strategies within the context of the changes; they must allocate resources and create values to chart a path toward future growth.

“They need to redefine strategies that would reposition them for future growth by adhering to good governance practices, efficiently deploying scarce capital, improving supply chains (from product design to raw material procurement, to processing and distribution), and, finally, adopting technology-driven skills for business development and operations,” the president said.

All hands required to tackle economic hardship – Dr. Acquaye

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The current economic challenges cannot be solved by the government and private sector alone, all stakeholders must play proactive roles to rescue it, the Chief Executive Officer of Business and Financial Times, Dr. Godwin Acquaye has said.

He added that stakeholders and respective authorities championing discussions in that regard also ought to be intentional, and purposeful in their deliberations.

“First, we must know these challenges cannot be solved by the government alone or by the private sector or civil society. We need collaborative efforts,” he said.

“We need to be optimistic and have hope even as the country is going through these challenges, the future does not just happen, it is dependent on our collective actions today. Let us be intentional and purposed through our discussions for collaboration, and stakeholder responsibilities and come out with impact-related actions,” he added.

He made these remarks at the B&FT annual Ghana Economic Forum held in Accra on the theme “Building a robust and resilient economy through technology, finance, investment, trade, and entrepreneurship”.

The programme will focus on key areas of the theme and will address the issue of high inflation, High-interest rates, unsustainable debt levels and low economic growth.

Dr. Acquaye further stressed the need to support young entrepreneurs in the country by providing them access to innovative finance, market and business development services to expand their enterprises and create work opportunities for them and their peers.

This he said is critical to the country’s development and an extent the economy’s recovery.

SMEs don’t transform economy without deliberate investment – Prof Bokpin

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Professor of Finance at the University of Ghana, Godfred A. Bokpin has argued that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) cannot contribute to the country’s economic transformation until there is a deliberate investment into that space.

He holds that until there is a conscious effort in growing some of the SMEs to become global regional businesses, their efforts would not yield much.

“In this country, it has never been our goal to grow and nurture domestic capital the same way we like foreign capital. Where did we sit with the domestic Ghanaian private sector and say this is what we have, how can we assist you?

We are always here deceiving ourselves with SMEs. SMEs don’t transform an economy.  SMEs do not produce complex things. The world thrives on margins and margins come by adding value.  Until we are conscious of growing some of our SMEs for some of them to become global regional businesses, we are not going anywhere. Pick the lucrative sectors of this economy and Ghana is visibly absent,” he said.

He made a strong case that our leaders who are mostly politicians failed to grow the private sector and SMEs for that matter because they are “afraid of a powerful domestic private sector”.

“Right from independence, the average Ghanaian politician has been afraid of a powerful domestic private sector because of the role money plays in politics. So we are more open to facilitating foreign capital because we think they will not play a role in politics. If we have done this level of injustice to ourselves, how do you turn around and cry for going to IMF 17 times,” he lamented.

“As a country, we have not been able to put in place the right measures and institutions that will ensure the necessary fiscal restraint and drive efficiencies. Therefore anytime there are these challenges, we needed an external anchor. Data supports that anytime we go to the IMF, we get some level of macroeconomic stability but we are not able to sustain that. However, macroeconomic stability is not an end in itself but a means to an end. That is why nobody should expect the IMF to come and transform their economy,” he added.

He added that: “The best-helping hand that the country can find lies with itself” and that there is the need to sit “and conceptualize where we want Ghana to be and how we want to get there and how to track that.”

Professor Bokpin further indicated that the blueprint Dr. Kwame Nkrumah took to the IMF is similar to that of subsequent Presidents, which shows that our issues and challenges such as high expenditure, low revenue, and so on are predictable, hence, called for proactive efforts, intentional and pragmatic measures to salvage the situations.

Breast Cancer: Let’s stop the stigma

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The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has urged the populace to shun any form of stigma associated with breast cancer to encourage people to report abnormalities in the breast early.

Dr Efua Commeh, Acting Programme Manager for Non Communicable Diseases (NCD), said this was important because statistics indicated that breast cancer cases were going up and would continue to go up with people shying from routine chec ups due to stigma.

She said: “Even though some noise is being made about the disease, a lot of people, especially those in the rural communities still don’t think it is dangerous enough when they notice some signs. Some also resort to herbal medicines at the early stage due to stigma, so we are getting most of the cases quite late.”

Dr Commeh was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) when the Ghana Health Service (GHS) organised a breast screening exercise for its staff and the public to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The Acting Programme Manager said breast cancer remained the commonest cancer among women in Ghana with over 2.3 million women being diagnosed with the disease and a total of 680,000 deaths recorded globally in 2020.

Ghana also recorded an estimated 4,400 cases of breast cancers with 2,055 deaths in 2020, she said, adding that there were still some cases not reported, which was disturbing.

She said most breast cancer deaths could had been avoided if cases were diagnosed early, adding that over 70 per cent of the cases reported were already in their advanced stages.

“Cancer is from stage one to stage four, we are getting about 70 to 75 per cent at stage three and stage four when it is very difficult to do something about it but when it is detected early in stage one, it can totally be treated so we want more people to come early.

“Once you notice any abnormality, don’t sit and wait. You should come to the health facility for an examination..,” she said.

Dr Commeh said the GHS in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) was training primary health care providers at Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds and health centres, so they could add breast examination to the services already being offered.

She said: “We want to make screening regular just as you can walk into any health facility and say I want to check my blood pressure.

“ Once there is a health personnel, the person should be able to conduct a clinical breast examination and this can be very routine regardless of where you are. Once you have a CHPS compound, you can just walk in and request for a clinical breast examination.”

 

New anti-abuse features on Instagram include DM ‘kindness reminders.’

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You’ll also see expanded blocking and filtering.

Instagram is ramping up its anti-abuse efforts, including a not-so-subtle reminder to stay civil. When you message a creator, the company will send you “kindness reminders” asking you to “keep Instagram a supportive place.” This is unlikely to deter committed trolls when it launches in the “coming weeks,” but the social network clearly hopes it will give people pause before hurling insults in a fit of rage. When responding to potentially offensive comments, you’ll see similar prompts.

Filters should also be more useful. Instagram is testing an approach that would enable Hidden Words comment and DM filtering by default for creator accounts. You wouldn’t have to switch it on to keep toxic language out of discussions. All users can now use Hidden Words to screen Story replies (they’ll sit in the Hidden Requests folder), and the company will soon begin filtering English DM requests involving scams and spam.

You may also have an easier time blocking elusive abusers. On top of the existing power to automatically block new accounts someone creates, you can now auto-block accounts that user already has. A harasser can’t just switch to an alternate account to make your life miserable.

The additions come as Instagram faces pressure from the Senate, UK regulators and others to curb abuse and privacy violations, particularly for teens. That’s in addition to the continued fallout from whistleblower Frances Haugen’s allegations that parent company Meta knowingly pushes anger-inducing content. Updates like this theoretically show that Instagram wants to calm things down.

 

Google Messages updates include iOS reactions and YouTube embeds.

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The tech giant has detailed the new and upcoming features for its Messages app.

Google has detailed the new, recent, and upcoming changes to its Messages app in an effort to advocate for greater RCS messaging protocol adoption. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently stated that the company has no immediate plans to fix the ‘green bubbles’ texting experience, but Google’s feature additions improve messaging interoperability between iOS and Android. It released an update to the Messages app earlier this year that allowed it to display iMessage reactions as emoji. It recently added the ability to respond to SMS texts from iPhone users with emoji reactions.

To make navigating busy group chats easier, the app will soon let users respond to individual messages when RCS is enabled — they simply have to swipe on a particular message to reply. This will begin rolling out in the coming weeks. Google has expanded access to the Voice Message Transcription feature, as well, giving people who own a Pixel 6, Pixel 6A, Pixel 6 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy Fold 4 the option to read the contents of a voice message instead. The feature auto-transcribes voice messages using machine learning and was only previously available for the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.

Another new feature is the ability to add reminders from right within the Messages app. Users who set reminders for birthdays and anniversaries will even get a notification when they open the application. In addition, the app will now suggest “starring” a message to keep track of important information or scheduling Meet calls and creating Calendar events when appropriate.

Google has also given Messages an in-app YouTube player, so that users won’t have to leave the application when someone sends them a link to a video on the platform. It’s testing the capability that would allow users to chat with businesses on Search and Maps from within the application in some countries, as well. And for those flying United, take note that the tech giant has struck a deal with the airline to offer free messaging for passengers using United WiFi starting this fall.

Finally, Google is updating its Messages, Phone and Contacts icons to “to better reflect today’s modern messaging experience” and to better blend in with Google’s other apps.

 

Snapchat users can choose when their stories expire.

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It’s also launching custom notifications sounds, camera borders and more on Snapchat+

Snap has updated its Snapchat+ subscription app with a new “Story Expiration” feature, as well as custom notification sounds, camera borders, and other enhancements. The Story feature appears to be designed to entice hardcore users to sign up for the $4 per month service.

Subscribers can choose to let their stories expire for periods ranging from one hour to one week using story expiration. This could allow creators to, for example, draw attention with a short story or allow one to stay for a longer period of time to attract more eyeballs. As of now, all stories expire after 24 hours and must be saved or they will be lost forever.

Snapchat introduces custom story expiration, but only for subscribers
Snap

Paid users are also getting access to custom notification sounds, letting them set different tones for different friends so they tell who Snapped them without checking their phone. And the new custom camera color borders option allows users to just what it says, using different hues while capturing content. And finally, Snapchat is bringing custom “exclusive, seasonal and spooky Bitmoji backgrounds” that they can use in their profiles for Halloween.

Snapchat+ made a strong start, with the company boasting a million subscribers just a couple of months after it debuted. At the time, Snap described it as a service for “passionate” users, and though that’s a fraction of its 347 million daily users, it’s a significant injection of additional revenue. Snapchat also sells hardware like glasses and recently came out with the Pixy Drone, though Snap had reportedly given up on that product.

 

Google’s News Showcase program is now available in France.

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Google has launched News Showcase in France, and the company has partnered with over 65 publishers representing over 130 publications to expand the program in the country. When users in France navigate to the News tab on Android, iOS, or the web, as well as Discover on mobile platforms, they will now see panels populated by articles from participating publications. According to the tech giant, its partners include not only national publications, but also regional and local publications such as 20 minutes, L’Equipe, L’Express, Le Figaro, La Provence, Le Monde, Les Echos, Groupe EBRA, and Le Parisien.

In addition to showing a curated selection of headlines from partner outlets, Google is also making “a limited amount” of their paywalled content available to readers for free. The company is paying them for those paywalled articles as part of their licensing agreement. And since the deal would put the publications’ content in front of more people, it could gain them more potential subscribers.

While Google’s program partners praised News Showcase for helping them disseminate good and truthful information, the company didn’t always have a great relationship with the media in France. In 2020, French regulators forced the tech giant to pay publishers for showing snippers their articles in search results after the company implemented the EU’s new “Copyright Directive” law. Authorities said back then that the company “caused a serious and immediate harm to the press sector.” Google initially removed news previews as a response, but it backtracked and started working with publishers instead. Earlier this year, the tech giant inked deals with over 300 publications across Europe to publish snippets of their stories in search.

 

‘Nunez is a goal machine,’ says Liverpool manager Tsimikas of the £64 million striker.

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Darwin Nunez is a “goal machine”, according to Kostas Tsimikas, with everybody inside the Liverpool camp confident the Uruguayan will flourish.

  • Big money splashed out on South American
  • Endured a slow start with the Reds
  • Form and confidence has been found

WHAT HAPPENED? The Reds invested heavily in the South American frontman when prising him away from Benfica in a £64 million ($72m) deal, and the 23-year-old endured a testing start to life at Anfield as questions were asked of him during pre-season and a red card was collected in his first Premier League outing on home soil. Jurgen Klopp has admitted that Nunez feels a little homesick, but a match-winning goal against West Ham has taken him to five for the season and three through his last four appearances in all competitions.

WHAT THEY SAID: Liverpool are confident that Nunez will deliver on expectations, with Greek full-back Tsimikas telling LFC TV of a talented team-mate: “He’s always there. He can score with the left, with the right, with the head, he’s a goal machine. He needs confidence, it is coming and I hope for him he scores a lot more goals and gives us more wins, because for us he is a very, very important player. I’m very, very happy for him also because I know he’s been wanting to score. Obviously he will score more, but hopefully he will keep his energy and goals for the next games.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE: Nunez’s effort against West Ham was his first at Anfield, with another all-action performance – before being replaced as no risks were taken on his fitness – hinting at more to come from a man that brings similar levels of attitude and goal threat to Merseyside as fellow countryman Luis Suarez once did.

IN THREE PHOTOS:

Darwin Nunez Liverpool 2022Getty

 

Darwin Nunez Liverpool West Ham 2022-23Getty

 

DID YOU KNOW? Nunez’s header, which is his second goal in his last two Premier League starts, was Liverpool’s 100th against West Ham, the fourth side they’ve reached a century against in the competition, with no side having more (Man Utd also four).

WHAT NEXT FOR NUNEZ? Liverpool, who are now up to seventh in the Premier League table after enduring a slow start to the 2022-23 campaign, will be back in action on Saturday when taking in a trip to Nottingham Forest.

 

Flooding at Buipe as Black Volta River overflows its banks

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The Black Volta River at Buipe in the Savannah Region has overflown its banks, causing floods in the Buipe township and displacing hundreds of residents.

The situation is reportedly caused by the spillage of the Bui Dam into the Black Volta River.

Within two weeks, the flood has cut off areas, including Buipe Zongo and Ali complex from other parts of the town, forcing residents to pay for canoes to commute to and from flooded areas.

It has also taken over the Buipe Bridge and livestock market area halting most economic activities as well as leading to temporary closure of some schools in the affected areas.

Buipewura Abdulai Jinapor II, Paramount Chief of Buipe Traditional Area, who addressed the press on the situation at Buipe on Wednesday, appealed to government as well as the Bui Dam Authority to come to the aid of the community.

He said, “the Buipe Bridge is the economic hub of Buipe. Economic activities had halted because businesses had evacuated the area,” adding that schools were closed due to the incident.

He said although there were no casualties, the situation needed urgent attention to prevent the worst from happening.

Mr Sumaila Tahiru, Director in-charge of National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in the Central Gonja District, said, per situational reports, more than 500 people were displaced by the flood with more expected to be affected as the water rose.

He said NADMO anticipated the floods and had been working with stakeholders to relocate some schools and victims.

Mr Mohammed Mubarik, Headmaster of Buipe Bridge Bright Beginning Academy, told the Ghana News Agency that the flood had almost submerged the school, compelling Management to relocate to an uncompleted building, which eventually got affected too.

He said the school had to continue renting buildings to keep running, adding  that the situation was draining the school financially.

Madam Amina Sulley, a Baker, whose house was affected, said the flood had prevented her from baking for days as she was focused on moving out to a safer place.

She noted that she had lost some valuable items as the water kept rising by the day.

Mr Mumin Abdulai, owner of one of the affected houses, said the water had displaced 10 people, who formed his household.

He said the situation did not only cause financial loss and instability to residents, it also posed health and sanitation threats to the community.

Meanwhile, Mr Iddrisu Salia Kamara, Central Gonja District Chief Executive, presented life jackets, on behalf of the district Assembly, to ensure the safety of residents, who used boats to school and work.

He said the Black Volta River flooded every 10 years, adding a lot of money was needed to curb the menace.

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