Akuafo Cheque fraud…Police quiz three over 102mC
2000 budget…IMF pledges tie government's hands
Government shifts from medium-term budget 1999-2001 targets
Race for NDC Vice not yet over
Peprah axed!
NDC congress, April 14
Akuafo Cheque fraud…Police quiz three over 102mC
The Daily Graphic reports that three persons believed to be members of a syndicate, which allegedly defrauded banks by presenting fake Akuafo Cheques, have been arrested by police at Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The Graphic in a top story, says that the culprit were caught in the act as they attempted to cash two of such cheques for a total of 102 million cedis from the Sunyani branch of the Barclays Bank. One of them, 63-year-old Nana Kofi Antwi, is said to have used the same method to cash 32 million cedis two weeks earlier, from a bank (name withheld) at Berekum, also in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The story says that in another attempt with his "friends", Kwadwo Nketiah, 51 and Kofi Amoah, 50, luck run out for them and they were arrested. The Graphic says that Nana Antwi and Nketia, who claimed to come from New Edubiase and Bekwai respectively, in the Ashanti Region, were arrested at the office of the branch manager of the Barclays Bank after which they mentioned Amoah as an accomplice. Amoah was consequently arrested at Sefwi Esam in the Western Region.
The three have been placed in police custody and upon the request of the Produce Buying Company (PBC), they would be sent to the Police Headquarters in Accra today for further investigations.
The story says that two employees of the PBC, Messrs Baah Achamfour, marketing clerk and Anthony Osei Kofi, an accounting officer, who were earlier arrested in connection with the first deal at Berekum, have been released after the police found no wrong-doing on their part.
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2000 budget…IMF pledges tie government's hands
In its lead story, the Public Agenda says that the Ghana government could not take alternative suggestions from various quarters about economic direction in the 2000 budget because the Minister of Finance, Mr Kwame Peprah, had his hands tied by pledges to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made last October.
The paper says that the pledges made in letters to the IMF, although formally sent by the Ghana government, were the result of a process where the IMF makes it clearly known to the government what is acceptable or unacceptable. According to the Public Agenda, in a letter to the IMF last October, Mr Peprah pledged to "review tax system and make adjustments to ensure that the revenue-to-GDP ratio does not decline in the medium-term".
He is said to have also promised to "improve domestic revenue mobilisation and strengthen administration". The paper says that other pledges were, "to increase the rate of VAT, withdraw licences of banks that do not meet capital adequacy ratio", "improve efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure through improved allocation and management of public resources".
Mr Peprah is reported to have further pledged to implement budget and public expenditure management system to targeted ministries and spending units among others.
The Public Agenda says that the letter, which was titled: "Timing and Implementation of Macroeconomics and Structural Adjustment Framework Paper", also promised to submit to Parliament draft legislation to establish Local Government Service, as well as implement the Gateway project, aimed at removing constraints in trade.
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Government shifts from medium-term budget 1999-2001 targets
The High Street Journal observes in a front-page story that there is a clear departure from the three-year fiscal estimates, which the government launched in January 1999, covering the period 2001. The paper says that the first ever multi-year budget introduced by the government as part of last year's fiscal policy framework projected to spend 26.47 trillion cedis over the three years to 2001.
The High Street journal notes, however, that this year's budget announced last Wednesday, estimates that the three-year expenditure to 2001, will amount to 23.086 trillion cedis. This according to the paper, involves 11.68 per cent rise in the three-year projections launched last year.
The story says that Mr Kwame Peprah, the Finance Minister, did not say why the departure from the three-year budget targets announced last year, especially at a time he admitted that the period will suffer revenue decline.
Mr Peprah is quoted as saying last year that the government was to spend 6.744 trillion cedis, 6.972 trillion cedis and 6.954 trillion cedis in 1999, 2000 and 2001 respectively, but the figures announced last week show that estimated expenditure for the three-year period will be 6.063 trillion cedis for 1999, 8.633 trillion cedis for 2000 and 8.390 trillion cedis for 2001. The High Street Journal says that it is also not clear the basis for the 22% upward revision in the revenue estimates for the three year-period.
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Race for NDC Vice not yet over
The Ghanaian Voice reports that in spite of speculations that the NDC had already narrowed the search for Prof. Atta Mills' running mate to two, an insider of the party has confided in the paper that the choice race has not started at all. The Voice quoting the source says the choice will surprise Ghanaians as the choice of Prof. Mills did.
The paper recalls that before the NDC congress at Sunyani, names such as Dr George Benneh of Legon, Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu, Mr Justice D.F. Annan and Mr Harry Sawyerr, were among others that were "flying like kites". It says that but as a surprise of the times, President jerry Rawlings choice fell on the then boss of the Internal Revenue Service, adding that choice of Prof. Mills signalled the prospect that the government was going to be tough on tax evaders. According to the Voice, further indications were that technocrats were going to dominate the government.
The paper says that the Mills choice really stunned not only NDC adherents but also the opposition. The paper says that it is reliably informed that Prof. Mills is studying the various options available to him and just as it happened in 1996, his choice may be a bombshell.
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Peprah axed!
In a front-page story, the Ghanaian Chronicle says that the announcement of the resignation of Mr Richard Kwame Peprah, the Finance Minister, as chairman of the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) board of directors, hit the airwaves before he knew of it.
According to the Chronicle, Mr Peprah literally had a gun to his head. Some of the senior staffers and directors of AGC are said to have stated that they had not even heard the announcement of his resignation and were hearing it from the paper for the first time when it called for confirmation from the company.
The story says that Mr Peprah's resignation means that he will not be available to chair the Friday March 3 extraordinary general meeting of AGC at Obuasi in the Ashanti Region as ordered by an Accra High Court. The paper says that AGC is expected to find a chairman before the meeting and the government expects to garner enough votes to change the composition of the board and pack it.
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NDC congress, April 14
The Ghanaian Democrat says if anybody wants to know who will lead the ruling NDC to victory in December's presidential and parliamentary elections, then April 14 will offer the answer. In a front-page story, the Democrat says that the venue will b e Ho, the Volta Regional capital, where the NDC Congress will be held on that day to elect the party's presidential candidate for election 2000.
The paper says that as expected, April 14 and Ho will put to rest various speculations as to who will be the next President of Ghana as from January 7, 2001 and who will also be his running running-mate.
The Democrat notes that ever since President Jerry Rawlings declared at the NDC national rally at Agona Swedru in the Central Region on June 6, 1998 that he had absolute confidence in the Vice-President, Prof. J.E.A. Mills, and that if the time comes for the party to elect its presidential candidate for the 2000 elections, he would throw his weight behind him various interpretations have been given to this "declaration of confidence".
The paper says while some argued that President Rawlings was imposing Prof. Mills on the NDC and, therefore, was not trying to be democratic, others believed that the President was only trying to put dust into the eyes of the people and that at the end of the day, he would support his wife, Nana Konadu, the First Lad, to succeed him.
The Democrat says, however, that President Rawlings' pronouncements about who takes over from him in recent times, have left no doubt in people's minds that Prof. Mills will get the nod from the NDC.
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