Twenty-five banks in the country will have to race against time to meet the new capital requirement announced by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) as their current capital is less than 50 percent of the 400 million cedis quoted by the central bank, a Credit Risk Consultant and Banker, Emmanuel Akrong has said.

According to him, even though all 35 banks in the country are required to present their restoration plans, 3 will easily meet it while seven are in a position to meet it but for the payment of dividends and exclusion of unaudited accounts for the first half of 2017, among others.

The Bank of Ghana recently increased the capital requirement of banks from 120 million cedis to 400 million cedis to strengthen the financial system of the country.

Speaking to Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Akrong stated that banks in the country have to present their capital restoration plans within 45 days after the announcement by the Bank of Ghana.

“Twenty-five banks have below 50 percent of the 400 million cedis. They all have up to December 2018 to meet it but this is the status quo as at now. Section 105[of the Banking Act] says you have 45 days to present a capital restoration plan”.

After the 45 days, Mr. Akrong explained that banks in the country will have 180 days to meet the requirement by presenting the capital requirement to the bank of Ghana.

“So if by April 2018 you have not meet it and the time is exhausted, then you have missed section 105. Missing section 105, you can’t lend, you can’t open branches you can’t do so many things,” he noted.

He added that the law provides some allowance of days to give banks some more time to meet the requirement.

“After that you have another 90 days grace period and another 180 days. If you add all up, it gets you to December 2018. If after that you don’t meet it then section 107 kicks in, then BoG may in January 2019 appoint an official administrator if the bank is deemed to be insolvent by virtue of section 123”.

Source: citibusinessnews.com

Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG) and Actors have impressed on government through Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to save the dying Ghana movie industry.

The group is worried about the influx of Telenovelas on national TV stations which, according to them, is affecting the progress of the local movie industry.

The association together with other stakeholders walked through some principal streets of Kumasi in what they call ‘Yegey Y’adee’ peace march and petitioned the Asantehene.

They said localising foreign programmes into Twi and other local languages through voice-over was an insult to the Ghanaian movies and pose serious negative effect on the socio-cultural and economic fabric of Ghana.

Bantamahene, Baffour Owusu Amankwaatia VI, received the petition on behalf of Asantehene.

The petition also indicated that if nothing was done to mitigate the rise of these foreign folktales, drama and love series which use the native language to sell their contents to viewers, in few years to come, will die out.

Board Member of Audio Visual Rights Society of Ghana (ARSOG), Abeiku Sagoe, said the local movie industry employs more than 3,000 people including actors, producers among others. According to him, the situation has rendered the majority of these people jobless.

The association and other stakeholders are also calling on Parliament and authorities to intensify efforts to pass the broadcasting bill into an Act and enforce the Film Act with a Legislative Instrument.

The Film Act, for instance, will allow for a Film Fund which will help facilitate activities of the industry, they said.

In the petition, it is stated that effective implementation of the 70/30 policy in favour of local content, would go a long way to protect the local movie industry.

Assistant Secretary for FIPAG, Eugene Moratt, believes their call holds the potential to ensure the industry bounce back to life again.

The petition said public sexual acts and plays in foreign Telenovelas, like kissing and fondling with the opposite sex, should not be entertained, especially when such programs are shown at a time when kids and children are home.

Meanwhile, another demonstration has been planned for the Greater Accra Region to target Parliament and other policymakers.

Source: Myjoyonline.com

The amount involved in the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) scandal has reportedly hit over $81 million.

DAILY GUIDE learnt that preliminary information being gathered by the security agencies is showing that the total amount involved in the troubled SSNIT biometric project dubbed, ‘Operation Business Suite,’ popularly called (OBS), may even go higher.

The head of the OBS Project, John Hagan Mensah, a confidant of the immediate past SSNIT Director-General, Ernest Thompson, is reportedly in the grips of the security agencies assisting in the investigation.

Public outrage

The scandal sparked public outrage when it emerged that about $72 million was used for the OBS project, which has now reached $81 million as investigations continue.

Some of the faces behind the scandal are also beginning to unravel.

In what can be seen as a clear case of conflict of interest, a source has told DAILY GUIDE that the head of the troubled OBS is allegedly in a relationship with the vendor, whose company was contracted to install the OBS software.

Bidding cost

The contract had been awarded to Perfect Business System/ Silver Lake Consortium, whose CEO is Juliet Kramah, in 2011 during the Mills/Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration. There was an initial bidding cost of $27,610,791, but by 2016 the total cost had ballooned to $66 million, later $72 million and now $81 million – and still counting, perhaps.

The cost, according to SSNIT sources, may go up further after the audit by PriceWater House.

Bizarrely, after its installation, the OBS software is not running as expected, although the whopping amount was paid for it. SSNIT sometimes resorts to manual registration instead of electronic because of reported deficiencies in the OBS system.

According to sources, the biometric features which are unique to every individual had been compromised, allowing access to biometric data of another person.

Perfect Business System was one of the highest bidders but SSNIT settled on it, apparently looking down on lower bidders with potential value for money indicators.

Unconfirmed sources say the Perfect Business System boss is believed to have strong links with the powerful former first family; and it is alleged that invoices emanating from the private firm appeared to have gone through without any serious queries at the Trust.

Last gap payments

According to the sources, Ernest Thompson, on December 9, last year, allegedly ordered the payment of $9 million to Perfect Business Systems after the NDC had lost the election in 2016 and was on its way out of power.

It was alleged that SSNIT agreed to pay $4 per card that was to be issued to pensioners in the contract but the amount increased miraculously to $7 and the Trust ended up paying the private company $7.1 million for one million cards.

DAILY GUIDE learned that the whole project was not based on SSNIT’s requirement and that the vendor reportedly came in with an already-prepared provident fund system in order to modify it for SSNIT, which runs social security.

Fund modification

The provident fund modification was not SSNIT’s idea but the decision of the project manager and the private firm.

The source said when SSNIT requested for thumb print devices that could scan all the ten fingers at once, the vendor provided a single finger device and therefore, a contributor registering needed to put the fingers on the device one at a time thereby wasting productive hours.

“When staff complained, it was never provided. Meanwhile, SSNIT paid for the ten devices at a whopping cost,” he told this paper.

Batch system

The source said the vendor could not provide the OBS software but rather brought a batch system where a client could only see his/her data reflecting after a day, saying, “SSNIT staff cannot work 24 hours because every staff is asked to sign out of the system after 5pm else the whole SSNIT or that SSNIT branch cannot work the following day,” he added.

There were several outstanding issues according to the source, that needed to be sorted out regarding the OBS project and anytime the company was asked to correct a defect they allegedly asked the Trust to pay hefty bills.

This paper gathered that SSNIT caused the transfer of the well-qualified staff who had deep insight into the OBS project, and brought in the Director-General’s alleged lackeys, including the head of IT, Caleb K. Afaglo – who has been caught allegedly using fake degrees.

Inflated cost

It turned out that SSNIT paid a whopping $500,000 for a product that costs $16,000 on the world market under the OBS Project.

Legal objection

It even emerged that SSNIT’s senior corporate law officer, Jaezel Orleans-Lindsay, wrote to warn the Trust’s management against certain aspects of the contract that was being exploited by the private company.

“What it means is that SSNIT will have to pay the annual SLA fee of $2,000,000 immediately upon signing the agreement (to cover for September 2014 to September 2015) and pay another $2,000,000 in September this year, when in effect it would have just received 9 months of service under the SLA instead of the contractual 2 years. This is objectionable!” the lawyer said in a letter to his bosses on January 16, 2016.

Source: dailyguideafrica.com

It has emerged that the previous administration led by John Mahama directed the Finance Ministry not to pay for the delivery of 30 defective ambulances procured in 2014.

According to National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Tamale Central, Alhassan Fuseini Inusah, the government then, had identified that the vehicles were not fit for the purpose.

The revelation has provided fresh information for further probe into why the government single-sourced the contract to one Richard Dzakpa, a former aide of former National Security Coordinator, Joseph Nuno Mensah.

Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid indicated earlier on Newsfile on Joy FM, Saturday, that the contract which was entered between the government and Dzakpa@Business in 2010, did not go through any competitive bidding process.

“Richard Dzakpa of Dzakpa@Business, was just asked to supply these ambulances to the Ministry of Health,” Mr. Hamid disclosed.

The company then approached a foreign dealer, Big Sea, which then chose Dzakpa@Business as its local agents.

He added further, soon after the arrival of the vehicles into the country, a report on a technical examination conducted on the vehicles in 2015 by global automobile manufacturers, Mercedes Benz, detected as many as 18 different defects on all the vehicles.

The technical report dated February 10, 2016, advised that the government is better off using the vehicles as 13-seater mini-buses because they were not suitable for conversion into ambulances.

The report by the German automobile company also described the electronic gadgets fitted in the vehicles as dangerous and “are of very poor quality”.

Another report dated February 15, 2015, from a similar examination by technical officers from the National Ambulance Service produced virtually same outcomes.

The Information Minister said, Big Sea later shipped the remaining equipment to be fitted in the vehicles but a legal tussle between Big Sea and Dzakpa@Business further stalled the installation process.

Interestingly, however, the government had on August 12, 2014, issued letters of credit for the payment 50% of the cost of the vehicles totaling almost 4million Euros, a year before the technical report reached the government.

The government approved the payment of bank charges in excess of GHȻ806,000.

The non-payment order

A member of the previous administration, Inusah Fuseini was surprised as to how the payments were made because the President then, John Mahama had ordered the “payment should not be effected” because “they were substantially not fit for purpose”.

Charging the state to retrieve payments made for the letters of credit, the former Roads and Highways Minister conceded that, “This transaction has more questions than answers”.

His colleague, Alex Segbefia who took over from Benjamin Kumbuor at the Health Ministry during the Mahama administration told Joy FM earlier in the week that the fear of judgement prevented him from abrogating the deal.

But Mr. Fuseini was dissatisfied with that reasoning indicating, Alex Segbefia should “have sought the advice from the Attorney-General” when he found himself in two minds.

“What judgement debt are you going to suffer?” when you ordered for rice but you are supplied maize?, he analysed.

He also criticised current Health Minister, Kweku Agyemang Manu making unfounded claims that vehicles had been paid for while he could not provide any documentation to support that claim

Veteran actor Akwesi Boadi, popularly known as Akrobeto, has rubbished claims that Kumawood movies are mostly brimful of insults.

He noted with resentment that, Kumawood movies are a true reflection of the Ghanaian society of which insults are a part.

For some time now, movies produced by local language practitioners, particularly Twi, have come under a lot flak and public scrutiny for their incessant use of offensive words.

Some critics and industry professionals have called for a system to control and curb the development before it gets out of hand.

But Akrobeto doesn’t agree.

Speaking in an interview on Personality Profile on Drive Time on Joy FM with Lexis Bill, the actor noted that Kumawood movies only portray happenings in Ghanaian society.

He said “movie, is all about acting” and the things that happen around us are the same things that go into movies.

He observed that even a child, who does not watch movies, learns to utter insults first when he or she tries to speak.

The veteran actor stressed that they don’t just insult “but we are teaching you something.”

Akrobeto faulted practitioners who are into the English movies for trying to use the insults tag to “pull them down” but they did not succeed.

Asked if the practitioners in the English movie space respect them, he said there is a general societal problem where people who don’t have any formal education are looked down upon.

He cautioned against looking down on people who do not have formal education because, some of these people are very smart and own some big businesses in the country.

The ‘Owuo Nti’ was quick to deny rumours that some Kumawood producers ask for sex or sleep with female actors before they give them roles to play in movies.

Source: Myjoyonline.com