Ghana

By Emmanuel Bruce ACCRA, Dec. 18 - Ghana’s parliament approved amendments to Bank of Ghana Act on Thursday, imposing stricter limitations on central bank funding of the government in order to safeguard its independence. The Bank?of Ghana Amendment?Bill 2025 bars the central banks from purchasing government securities on the secondary market. It also redefines the emergency provisions which previously allowed officials bypass a 5% loan cap tied to?revenues of the previous year. Emergency situations are limited to those that involve force majeure, such as natural disasters, crises declared by the president or public health emergencies. The reforms come after criticism...

Ghana has banned mining within forest reserves as part of environmental protections to protect water bodies and stop deforestation. Africa's leading gold producer, which is also the world's largest, is fighting a rise in small-scale mining, which is degrading forests, rivers and cocoa farms. It is also increasing sustainability risks to its mining industry, resulting in protests. Industrial miners have reported frequent incursions of illegal operators on concessions. This has forced key operators such as Gold Fields AngloGold Ashanti Newmont Asante Gold and Newmont to increase their investments in surveillance drones and community engagement programs. According to data from the...

Ghana has banned mining within forest reserves, as part of an environmental protection program aimed at protecting water bodies and halting the deforestation. Africa's leading gold producer, which is also the world's largest, is fighting a "surge" in?poorly-regulated small-scale mining, which is destroying cacao farms, degrading rivers and forests, and increasing sustainability risks for its mining industry, sparking protests. Industrial miners have reported frequent incursions of illegal operators on concessions. This has forced key operators such as Gold Fields AngloGold Ashanti Newmont and Asante Gold, to increase their investments in surveillance drones, security systems, and community engagement programmes. According to...

Ivory Coast is the top cocoa producing country in the world. The presidential elections will be held on October 25, with Alassane ouattara expected to win a fourth term. Investors are focused on the following key issues. Who is running? Ouattara faces four opponents: Laurent Gbagbo’s ex-wife Simone Gbagbo and two former ministers. The race is notable because neither Laurent Gbagbo nor Tidjane Thiam - a former Credit Suisse CEO - have received the support of a major party. Thiam was found to have French nationality, which is illegal under Ivorian law. Ouattara is the only candidate who has a...

According to a study backed by the government, an increase in artisanal mining of gold in Ghana has led to mercury contamination in host communities reaching dangerous levels. In some areas, soil readings reached 134 times what is considered safe. The report, by New York's environmental group Pure Earth, and Ghana's Environmental Protection Authority, is based upon a year's worth of samples collected from soil, water and crops in six of Ghana’s 13 mining areas. The rapid growth of the artisanal gold mining sector, which is poorly regulated and includes small-scale miners, has been attributed to the soaring bullion price....

Ghana's cocoa regulator stated on Tuesday that prolonged rain and lack of sunlight can lead to an increase in disease incidence, which could cause a moderate decline in production. This comes after farmers asked for government intervention to reduce the impact of bad weather. The West African nation, the second largest cocoa producer in the world, saw its output drop in previous seasons because of diseases, bad weather and illegal gold mining. These factors destroyed cocoa plantations, reducing yields. Last week, an association of Ghanaian farmer warned that the cooler temperatures and excessive rain combined with the lack of sunlight...

Ghana has ordered that foreigners leave its gold market by the end the month. A new government agency announced this on Monday. The West African nation is looking to streamline the gold purchasing from small-scale mines, increase earnings, and reduce smuggling. Africa's largest gold producer is moving away from a model where local and foreign companies that have export licenses could buy and export gold produced by artisanal and small-scale mining. In the new system, only the newly formed GoldBod, also known as the Gold Board, is allowed to purchase, sell, assay, and export artisanal artisanal, according to a statement...

Ghana prepares to introduce a Gold Board to streamline gold purchases from smallscale miners, increase incomes and decrease smuggling, the west African nation's newly designated finance minister Cassiel Ato Forson stated on Monday. The Gold Board will allow Africa's leading gold manufacturer to increase its take advantage of the precious metal's sales and aid preserve the national currency's stability. Data from Ghana's reserve bank showed that total gold exports for 2024 stood at $11.64 billion, a 53.2% year-on-year increase which helped almost double Ghana's trade surplus to $ 4.98 billion in 2024. The minister said almost $5 billion worth of...

A United Nations trade company is releasing an online platform this month to help little farmers in establishing nations maintain access to Europe as soon as brand-new deforestation rules start. The rules, which will bar exports of products to Europe connected to deforestation, have actually currently seen a reduction in orders to some little farmers in the developing world. The European Commission recently proposed delaying the guidelines for a year, phasing in from 2025 to 2026. Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Centre, told Reuters that the platform was part of a broader effort by her organisation to...

A lot of the world's. poorest nations are having to cut other investment in order to. service debts, United Nations Advancement Program. administrator Achim Steiner said on Monday. Speaking at an occasion in Hamburg, Steiner included that the. monetary crunch indicated nations around the world were struggling to. fulfill their sustainable advancement goals. For many, least developed nations, they have literally. been evaluated of the monetary markets. They can not borrow any. more money, Steiner told the Hamburg Sustainability Conference,. including that they should draw down other investing to prevent financial obligation. default. It's a really severe scenario. Countries like...

Ghana on Monday briefly banned the export of grains consisting of maize, rice and soybean to guarantee domestic supply as the West African country comes to grips with neardrought conditions that have actually interrupted crop production, the farming ministry stated on Monday. Rainfall in north Ghana has actually been irregular over the past 2 months and low compared to in 2015. The dry weather condition has impeded crop production worldwide's. 2nd cocoa producer after Ivory Coast. Around 1.8 million. hectares (4.45 million acres) of land are at threat, with farmers. growing food on around half that area already affected. Maize,....

Insurance broker Howden Group stated it has actually helped develop the world's first guarantee and indemnity policy for carbon credits as part of efforts to improve rely on the marketplace. Carbon credits, which are created by jobs which get rid of or prevent carbon emissions, are viewed as an essential tool for assisting business meet their net-zero dedications and deliver finance to preservation and carbon decrease projects. Yet development has actually been held back by quality concerns, consisting of over whether the declared ecological benefits of a project in fact taken place, something Howden's policy aims to repair. The very...

The volume of cocoa in Ivory Coast and Ghana that can be completely traced did not increase last year, a major UNbacked report has discovered, raising concerns about how the world's leading 2 cocoa growers will comply with a. brand-new EU law prohibiting the import of products connected to. logging. The brand-new law next year will need importers of commodities. and associated items to show their items weren't grown on. deforested land by, amongst other procedures, tracing their supply. chains down to the plot where their raw materials were grown. The report, released by the Cocoa and Forests Initiative. (...