Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

A SMALL and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Fair aimed at breaking down the barriers that inhibit growth of the enterprises has been launched in Accra. The two-day event is scheduled to take place at the Accra International Conference Centre on March 16 and 17, 2016 and seeks to make known to SME entrepreneurs various government and private sector initiatives, institutions, funding and financial solutions that they could tap into. Branded the SME Financing Fair and Exhibition, the event is also expected to serve as a platform for the meeting of SME owners and the financial community to deliberate on issues of finance for the sector. At the launch, the Minister of State in charge of Private Sector Development, Mr Rashid Pelpuo, said the country could only succeed in its economic transformation agenda and job creation if SMEs succeeded. According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) statistics, SMEs comprised more than 160,000 registered limited liability companies and more than 3...

Two experts on security and political science have expressed fear that Ghana’s decision to accept two Guantanamo Bay detainees could pose a threat to the country’s security. According to them, the granting of  temporary asylum in the country to Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, both from Yemen, could put the country on the radar of extremists. A security expert, Mr Emmanuel Sowatey, and a Senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Education, Winneba, Mr Awaisu I Braimah, were reacting to reports that Ghana would be home to the two extremists from the Cuban island.  But the United States Embassy in Ghana says due diligence has been done before resettling the prisoners in Ghana. A press statement issued by the embassy said a Guantanamo Review Task Force (comprising six departments and agencies) that conducted a comprehensive review of the Guantanamo Bay detainees cases and examined a number of factors, includin...

The curtain goes down on 2015 at midnight today. The year will go down in history as one of the most dramatic years in Ghana’s history. The year was filled with scandals, energy crisis, disasters, political party crisis, ‘tsunami’ in party primaries and infrastructure development for a country struggling to reduce its budget deficit and development gap. The year began with a spillover of the scandals of 2014. First, Ruby Adu-Gyamfi a Ghanaian-Austrian, cocaine baroness, popularly known as Nayele Ametefe was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, on January 7, by a United Kingdom court after her arrest at the Heathrow Airport on November 14, 2014. She was reported to have carried 12kilogrammes of cocaine through the VIP lounge of the Kotoka International Airport; an act that stirred public debate in Ghana. Then came a police invitation to HIV/AIDS ambassador, Ms Joyce Dzidzor Mensah, who revealed late in 2014 that she has never been infected with the virus, despite parading as a carr...

THOUSANDS of workers yesterday thronged certain streets of Accra to protest against hikes in utility tariffs and fuel prices. The usually busy commercial centre and lorry station, the Obra Spot at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, the point of convergence of the demonstrators, witnessed the sounds of vuvuzelas and the sight of red attire worn by members of organised labour unions. By 9 a.m., thousands of workers had already taken over the Obra Spot. Those arriving in buses were welcomed by the deafening sounds of cheers and vuvuzelas by their colleagues who were already waiting at the spot. While they waited to begin the march, some chanted, sang and danced around to demonstrate their disgust at utility price hikes and increases in fuel prices, as well as general harsh economic conditions. The workers demonstrated against the upward review of electricity and water tariffs by 59.2 per cent and 67.2 per cent, respectively, by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) and called f...