Browsing: Agric and Environment

GNPC must explain this financial performance at a time when it also spent GH₵200 million on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’”, Bright Kwashie Dzokoto, a tax expert and a member of Tax Justice Coalition demanded. “This accountability-free regime must end.

The release issued last week and signed by the Managing Director, Edwin Provencal, indicated that, “the revaluation which was a deliberate decision to enhance the reporting of the company led to a deferred tax obligation of GHC292,935,973 compared to the net loss of GHC291,017,758, a difference of GHC1,918,215 (Appendix 1). The increase in the value of the revalued assets also resulted in increased depreciation charges which further reduced the bottom-line or the profit for the year. But, the ‘deferred tax obligation’ aspect beats the financial reporting knowledge of the finance expert. This led him to ask questions in awe.

The finance and energy expert, Alex Mould has, thus, summarised the liabilities of the major SOEs in the country to help in critical scrutiny of the performance of the SOEs. In the summary, it was clear that, most of the SOEs more than doubled their arrears payments or liabilities. The heavily indebted were GNPC, Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). These companies have their liabilities exceeding GHC10.0 billion within a period of four years from 2016 to 2020.

The cost of doing business is high – and most of this is deliberate and orchestrated by the organisations who sometimes deliberately make doing business cumbersome so that the people who work there – together with their middlemen interfacing with the clients – make money by “assisting” the self imposed cumbersome process.

Underlying Business of your company, BOST is PROFITABLE – The report of the GHC400
million losses made by BOST is not accurate. To measure the profitability and operational efficiency of a Business one must determine whether the underlying operations (core business) of the company are profitable.

The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) in collaboration with the Ghana Association of Banks, has arrested four (4) persons engaged in SIM swap fraud.

According to the institute, this will help bring competition amongst the various shipping lines while helping to address the issue of the depreciating cedi due to significant funds that are repatriated out of the country by these international liners.

According to the 2020 State Ownership Report, the SOEs recorded a GH¢2.61 billion loss in 2020, although that was about 50 percent better over the 2019 aggregate loss of ¢5.16 billion. This has pushed the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to call on the managements of the SOEs for more urgent and collective work to address these losses. But, the economist stressed on his advises that, some SOEs over the years have been saddled with debt over issues of mismanagement among others.

According to a Bloomberg report, the Ghana Cedi depreciated by 18.21 percent against the U.S dollar in the first quarter of 2022. This places the Cedi as the worst-performing currency in Africa while the Angolan Kwanza is the best-performing currency in Africa as it currency appreciated by 24 percent against the dollar.

Although the telcos have assured to do their best to ensure the required systems are put in place to collect the E-levy, they say, the right infrastructure must be put in place, and tested to ensure that they are fit for purpose before going live.