The first half had just a handful of chances to cheer for the handful
of supporters who trooped to the national stadium to watch the early
kick off.
Ghana had chances to take the lead in the second half but squandered
those moments. Coach Maxwell Konadu made a magical substitution when he
replaced Richmond Lamptey with in-form Thomas Abbey and the latter, from
a beautiful through ball from Zakaria Mumuni, looped the ball over the
onrushing goalkeeper Modou Jobe into the yawning net.
The Gambians nearly equalised through an own goal but the follow-up corner kick was wasted as well.
The West African neighbours mounted more pressure in search for the
equaliser and it paid off as Lamin Jallow from 20 yards hit a low shot
to equalise for The Gambia.
Ghana immediately went into restoring the lead but missed a couple of
more chances. In the 77th minute Ghana were awarded a penalty after
Joseph Paintsil was brought down.
Goalkeeper Razak Abalora elected to effect the kick and did well to
restore Ghana’s lead from the spot as he sent fellow goalkeeper Modou
Jobe the wrong way.
Ghana held on to victory after 90 minutes.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has corrected National Democratic
Congress (NDC) Parliamentarians who are under the impression that global
investment firm Franklin Templeton, is a person.
The correction came on the floor of parliament Wednesday, where he
explained the raising of $2.5bn on the international market last April.
The Finance Minister said, contrary to accusations by some NDC MPs that
"government is selling all our bonds to one person", Franklin Templeton
is one of the world's largest asset management firms with over $850m in
assets.
Some NDC MPs led by the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, claimed Franklin Templeton was a person.
But "for the avoidance of doubt, Franklin Templeton is not a person"
the investment banker-turned politician said in parliament. He also
explained that the 95% of the bonds bought by Franklin Templeton is not
odd as claimed by the Minority.
This is because, in 2016 under the NDC government now a Minority in
Parliament, Franklin Templeton bought heavily into Ghana's bonds. The
Minority had also claimed there could be conflict of interest in the
deal because Templeton Group has a position on the Board of Enterprise
Group Limited, a company co-founded by the Finance Minister.
The Finance Minister was at pains to stress, the rules surrounding bond
issuance make it highly unlikely for government officials to have any
direct relationship with investors. He said this is because the bonds
are bought by individuals only through licensed financial institutions.
Rejecting claims after claims, the Finance minister said there was "no
inherent insider dealing" in issuing the bond because it is only through
transparency that foreign investors can express interest in the
long-term financial instrument.Ken Ofori-Atta also spent time to eventually dismiss claims raised by
the Minority that the bond was denominated in dollars which weakens the
cedi. The Minister said, the Minority may have had that impression
because "the high participation of foreign investors created false
impression that it was a US dollar denominated bond".
He stated "categorically that the bonds were denominated and issued in
Ghana cedis...they were not dollar bonds" and expressed delight that
using melting dollars to buy cedis will strengthen the local currency.He indicated that the query from the Minority is much ado about nothing
because, the process used by the previous administration to raise money
on the international market is the same process adopted by the new
government. The only difference is that the results are better and
investor confidence in Ghana is greater.
He tried to give the NDC MPs the benefit of the doubt saying it could
be that their concerns were "genuinely borne out of a lack understanding
of the actual process".
Nonetheless this view "may be deemed too charitable because the CVs of some of the persons involved are very, very strong".
Why government raised the bond
Laying down his facts, the Finance Minister said government is saddled
with the payment of 10 billion cedis as its annual interest payment on
past loans.
Breaking it down, government needs to cough up 1bn cedis on a weekly
basis to service domestic debts. This amount is a 100% increase from
what used to be the case in 2014. One billion cedis chews off one-third
of the monthly tax revenue collected by the Ghana Revenue Authority.
Ghana once with a total debt of 36bn cedis in 2012, had a debt burden
of 122bn cedis in 2016. He said for the past NDC government, the plan to
deal with this debt is to "borrow more, tax more" which had " the
obvious consequence of worsening the debt burden".
The depressing economic situation affected the purchasing power of
Ghanaians, triggered job losses in an atmosphere of austerity and
weakened the currency, he said.
This burden also leaves government with "very little cash" for essential social services.
The new NPP government, he said, "had no choice" but to "think outside
the box" by designing a financial instruments which he said, do not
raise the debt burden in any way.
Five persons, including a brother and two sisters, were killed in two separate road accidents in Yamunanagar district.
Pankaj (18) along with his sisters Asha (20) and Mona (15), of Harthan
village, were going to a relative’s house in a nearby village to attend a
birthday party.
Their motorcycle was hit by a tractor-trolley at about 9 pm on Tuesday
when they reached near Ramnagar village on Sarasvati road. They were rushed to primary health centre, Sarasvati Nagar, where Pankaj and Mona were declared brought dead.
Deceased’s uncle, Jai Kumar, said the doctors referred Asha to Trauma
Centre, Yamunanagar, due to her critical condition. She was brought to
PGI, Chandigarh, where she succumbed.
A pall of gloom descended the village after the death of three young persons from a family. In another road accident, Rajpal Singh and Sanjay Kumar of Bhiwani
district were killed in a head-on collision between their canter and a
truck on Yamunanagar-Kurukshetra road near Ishopur village on Wednesday. The police said that Rajpal was the driver of the canter and Sanjay was his assistant.
The accident took place at about 6 am. Rajpal and Sanjay were rushed to
Trauma Centre, Yamunanagar, where Sanjay died after a few hours.
However, Rajpal was referred to PGI, Chandigarh, and he died on the way.
