Today's Ghana Business, Banking and Economic news

Young Ghanaian entrepreneur Bright Simons has been named one of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune®. The 34-year old Simons made the list, published in Fortune® Magazine, 24th March 2016, alongside eminent persons including Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon; Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor; Pope Francis, and Christine Largarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

 

The World's 50 Greatest Leaders are men and women selected from business, government, philanthropy and the arts and all over the globe who are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same. The 2016 edition is the third publication of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders list.

Bright Simons, President and Founder of mPedigree is named on the coveted list of The Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders, for his innovation to fight medications counterfeiting in Africa and elsewhere in the world.

Consumers could check the authenticity of medications simply by sending a text message with 12 digit code marked on their medicine packets to mPedigree and get confirmation almost instantly.

It is proving to be an efficient solution to fighting counterfeit medicines in Africa where one estimate pegs the chances of purchasing and, in fact, consuming one at 30%. Over 120,000 African Children are reported to have died because of fake anti-malarial medications in 2013 alone.

AstraZeneca and Sanofi are some of the manufactures who have signed on to mPedigre now have its Goldkey labels on over 500 million packets.

Beyond the pharmaceutical industry, TextStyles, the African print cloth manufacture in Ghana has signed on, in a bid to fight counterfeiting of its prestigious GTP Cloth products.

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Ghana's debt stock rose to US$25.6 billion or GH¢97.2 billion in December last year, equivalent to 72.9 per cent of the year's total economic output, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), it has been reported.

The Ghanaian banking industry recorded negative 5.4 percent growth in the year 2015 signaling a difficult financial year, according to the latest Bank of Ghana’s Financial Stability report.

Traders who were affected by the fire which ravaged a section of the Kumasi Central Market Friday say they are fed up with the numerous fire outbreaks in the market.

During the turn of 19th century Gold was the only mineral mined and exported from Gold Coast (Ghana). Thomas Hughes, a wealthy Fante entrepreneur, advisor to the Cape Coast and the British Colonial authorities at Gold Coast, was the first man to order modern heavy machinery to start mining at Wassa areas. In no time, Hughes struck a rich vein of gold in 1861.

Cassava has become a potential industrial crop, which could reduce imports, increase exports, create employment and increase smallholder farmers’ incomes along the value chain.

The Aflao Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), on Tuesday, intercepted a Nigerian-registered articulated truck carrying large quantities of un-cleared imported goods near Dabala, on the Accra Aflao Highway.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive for the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Kojo Bonsu has revealed that the phase one of the Kumasi Kejetia-Central market reconstruction project is about 60% complete. Mr. Bonsu said this when he inspected the project with market queens from the Kumasi Central market.

Africa has 23 billionaires this year 2016, with aggregate net worth exceeding $80billion.Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, 58, is first on the list of Africa's richest. Dangote's net worth is estimated at $15.4billion. Sixty-two-year-old Mike Adenuga, another Nigerian comes second with a net worth of $10billion dollars. They are on the Forbes 2016 Ranking of the World's Billionaires, published March 1, 2016.

Some aggrieved staff of KLM Airline in Accra have dragged the company to the High Court (Labour Division) over salary increment.

The plaintiffs, who are members of the KLM Staff Association of Ghana, comprising workers of various departments of the company, claim the company had failed to fulfill its obligation to the workers with regards to salaries and other benefits due them.

Three institutions have secured Bank of Ghana’s approval to operate as a commercial bank in the country. They include Sovereign Bank, an institution made up some Ghanaian investors and foreign partners, Union Savings and Loans and Heritage Bank.

The Royal Bank (TRB) Limited-Ghana, has since its establishment three years ago, provided training and employment to more than 200 fresh graduates from the country’s universities, to help create employment and bridge the widening gap between the academia and corporate world.

The Chief Executive Officer of Joy Industries Ltd, Dr Manfred Takyi, has appealed to the government to provide tax holidays to indigenous Ghanaian companies to assist them to grow. He has also advocated for the establishment of a special fund to support local industries which are performing well and which seek to expand beyond the frontiers of the country.

The Private Enterprises Federation (PEF) has urged government to decentralize the application process in acquiring licenses and permits through the use of an electronic platform with complementary bank accounts to reduce delays and save time.