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The Bank of Ghana has recently instructed banks in Ghana not to pay dividends to shareholders for the 2019 and 2020 financial years because of the
Coronavirus ( COVID-19 ) pandemic and its effects. Banks in Ghana would have, normally, declared and paid dividends, as approved by their shareholders at the Annual General Meetings (AGMs), around this time of the year in Ghana, but that is not to be because of such instructions from the central bank - the Bank of Ghana, given reasons for such a decision as how the banks would be negatively impacted if they (the banks) should dole out such monies.

The Volta Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Trade and Industry has unveiled eight development projects under government’s One-District-One Factory (1D1F) with two of such projects already existing. Mrs Josephine Dzotsi, the Volta Regional Director of Ministry of Trade and Industry, disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Ho. She said Caltech Ventures Limited, which is into the production and processing of cassava into ethanol and carbon dioxide and the Volta Forest Products Company (VFPC), a wood processor, were receiving financial re-engineering and facilitation from government through the Exim Bank to bolster their businesses. She said six new projects had emerged under the flagship programme and sited at various locations in the Volta and Oti regions, namely, KOP Farms Consultancy Limited, which are into the cultivation and processing of grains at Volo, in the North Tongu District.

The Government of Ghana is constructing 80 warehouses with the capacity to store up to 80,000 metric tonnes (MT) of food items aimed at ensuring food security in the country. Each warehouse would have the capacity to store up to 1,000 MT of food items and expected to be ready by June, this year. Speaking at a media briefing to update the public on food security situation, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, said Government had targeted to construct a total of 200,000 warehousing capacity to safeguard the country’s food security efforts.

Producer inflation for March 2020 has declined for the second consecutive month to 6.8 percent, from 11.8 percent recorded in February, 2020, according to data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS). This represents a 3.7 percentage point decrease in producer inflation relative to the rate recorded in February 2020. The Producer Price Index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services. From the data, the decline emanated largely from the manufacturing sector, which constitutes more than two-thirds of the total industry, as well as the mining and quarrying sector.

Remittances to sub-Saharan Africa are projected to fall from US$48 billion last year to US$37 billion in 2020 – a drop of 23.1 percent – because of the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank. It said that the continent would, however, register an expected recovery of four per cent next year. The Bank explained: “The anticipated decline can be attributed to a combination of factors driven by the coronavirus outbreak in key destinations where African migrants reside, including in the EU area, the US, the Middle East and China.

Ghana will need US$5bn or more to put the economy on the road to recovery after the coronavirus pandemic, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu has suggested. Ghana’s legislature last week approved the US$1billion Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) from the International Monetary Fun3d (IMF) to support the country’s efforts to tackle the pandemic and its economic repercussions. The purpose of the IMF’s RCF is to provide rapid and concessional financial assistance to low-income countries facing an urgent balance of payments need, without ex-post conditionality.

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