ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
As noted by Warren Buffet, the American Business Magnate, “In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy.
And if the people don't have the first, the other two will kill you.”
That is, if a potential employee, which I believe you all currently are, has intelligence and enthusiasm /energy, without integrity, they are likely to become liabilities to the employer .
So, having integrity as a core value is critical in any environment, it helps build trust and dependability, and in this age of social media and quick fixes, you must be ready to stay true to your word, no matter what.
That will certainly help you attain higher heights in society.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you are the emerging leaders that Ghana is waiting for, and leadership is about confidence, trust, and character .
You cannot conquer the current 8 challenges with yesterday’s attitude and character.
So, as you graduate today and embark on the journey to the future, let hard work guide the path you will take, persevere no matter what, and finally, let integrity be your core value.
Climbing the ladder in life will require these three core values and I urge you to take it as the CURRENCY OF LIFE.
Y ou will need it as you move through the next phase of your life.
I challenge you to utilize the skills acquired during your years of study to good use and keep stretching yourself to the maximum limit.
G o out from this place with passion; with a driven determination to use your knowledge and skills as fresh minds to make a difference in the world.
I know you are all in a hurry to walk out of here, throw those hats off, and go celebrate with friends and family.
I will not keep you much longer, but if there is something from this brief remarks to take home, it is this catchphrase, ‘Work hard, persevere at all times, and always maintain your integrity’’.
At this point let me congratulate you all , the Bsc Administration class of 2023.
GOD BLESS YO U ALL AND GO D B LESS OUR HOMELAND GHANA.
LAUNCH OF AFFIRMATIVE FINANCE ACTION FOR WOMEN IN AFRICA (AFAWA) FINANCE SERIES KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY DR.
ERNEST ADDISON GOVERNOR, BANK OF GHANA READ ON HIS BEHALF BY MRS.
ELSIE ADDO AWADZI SECOND DEPUTY GOVERNOR, BANK OF GHANA KEMPINSKI HOTEL, GOLD COAST CITY, ACCRA 28TH FEBRUARY, 2023 1 Representative of the Honourable Minister for Finance Representative of the Honourable Minister for Gender, Children, and Social Protection Ms.
Eyerusalem Fasika, Country Manager for Ghana, African Development Bank Ms.
Esther Dassanou and other officials of the AfDB Group Mr.
Jules Ngankam, Group Chief Executive Officer, African Guarantee Fund Chief Executive Officers and other officials of banks and other financial institutions Mr.
John Awuah, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Association of Banks Invited Guests Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen 1.
On behalf of Governor Ernest Addison, it is a great pleasure to join you today to launch the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) Finance Series, a three -day event aimed at introducing to stakeholders in Ghana key interventions to promote gender inclusive finance in Africa.
I congratulate the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), the African Guarantee Fund , and the Ghana Association of Banks for their successful collaboration leading to today’s launch event.
This occasion provides a unique platform to discuss pertinent issues regarding access to finance for women entrepreneurs in Africa, a key socio-economic challenge in these times.
I applaud the efforts of the AfDB to promote more access to finance for women- owned businesses through a number of interventions including the AFAWA initiative that seeks to close the US $42 billion access to finance gap for women -empowered businesses in Africa over the next five to six years by working with partner financial institutions and through innovative financing instruments to provide capacity building and policy dialogue to support appropriate legal and regulatory reforms.
I note also that the AfDB’s Risk -Sharing Agreement with the African Guarantee Fund since 2021 seeks to unlock some US$2 billion in financing for women -owned and women-targeted small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa, which facility is in turn supported by a US$25 million technical assistance grant to enhance the capacity of financial institutions in Africa to better address the needs of women -owned and women-targeted SMEs.
Ladies and Gentlemen, a lot has taken place since 2020 , and the global economy continues to reel under the lingering effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine .
Global growth has remained moderated, having come under additional shocks including, elevated geopolitical tensions with spill overs on the commodities markets, and consequential inflationary pressures.
Inflation has spiked above targets in advanced economies as well as in emerging and developing economies , resulting in monetary policy tightening by central banks.
In turn, global financing conditions have significantly tightened especially for emerging markets and developing economies , amid portfolio reversals on the back of rising interest rates and a strong US dollar.
In Africa , such adverse shocks have constrained access to finance , not only for governments, but also for firms particularly SMEs majority of which tend to be owned by women.
Access to finance for all economic actors remains a key policy challenge in Africa, including women and the youth, and policy makers continue to explore new interventions to address existing gaps.
Indeed, the World Bank estimate s that between 2011 and 2021, about 250 million individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa gained access to formal financial services through mobile money and other financial technology (Fintech) innovations facilitated by the widespread use of mobile devices.
Against this background, eleven countries in Sub- Saharan Africa are noted to now have a greater share of adults with mobile money accounts, rather than a bank or other financial institution account.
The spread of mobile money has undeniably created opportunities to better serve the vulnerable and financially excluded segments of society, including women-owned businesses.
Notwithstanding the progress made in promoting inclusive finance in Sub -Saharan Africa, the gender gap in access to finance remains entrenched.
The World Bank ’s Global Findex Report 2021 revealed that 61 percent of the adult male population has access to finance, compared with 49 percent of female in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Although for the first tim e in the developing world since 2011, the gender gap in access to finance reduced from 9 percent to 6 percent in 2021, some 745 million women are still left without access to financial services in the developing world.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the gender gap in access to finance, according to the World Bank Findex report of 2021, is at 12 percent, higher than the average of 6 percent for 3 the developing world.
In Ghana, the gap as of 2021 had widened to 11 percent, compared with 9 percent that had persisted since 2017 , although the percentage of women accessing finance had increased from 27 percent in 2011 to 63 percent in 2021.
Despite the critical role of women in economic development, access to finance has been a major c onstraint for women -owned businesses.
With an estimated US$42 billion financing shortfall for African women -owned businesses as estimated by the AfDB across all value chains, women entrepreneurs encounter various obstacles when accessing finance.
This translates into constrained overall economic growth and resilience, and lost opportunities for all.
Indeed, it is well -established by existing literature that improving women access to finance positively impacts consumption levels, increases economic growth and socio- economic development, promotes financial stability, and improves overall resilience of economies.
Broadly speaking, promoting gender inclusive finance serves as a catalyst for rapid, sustainable, and resilient economic growth and socio-economic development.
The market for finance for women empowered businesses in Africa therefore remains untapped, and holds significant promise for financial institutions and Governments need to tap into.
Ghana’s efforts in this regard have been noteworthy, although much remains to be done.
The Government of Ghana’s National Financial Inclusion and Development Strategy (2017-2022) set out to increase access to finance for women as part of a comprehensive strateg y to increase financial inclusion to underpin inclusive macroeconomic growth and development.
Other Government interventions such as credit lines to SMEs through the Ghana Enterprises Agency, the Ghana Women Fund, and others continue to provide a lifeline to women empowered businesses.
On the part of the Bank of Ghana, in addition to providing the enabling regulatory environment to promote financial stability, we are fully committed to promoting inclusive finance and gender inclusive finance particularly.
As a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the Bank of Ghana has made commitments under the Denarau Action Plan on Gender Inclusive Finance , to a dvance gender inclusive finance with emphasis on promoting women’s access, usage and quality of financial services and products.
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In November 2019, the Ba nk of Ghana launched G hana’s Sustainable Banking Principles – a set of seven ESG–related principles, which enjoins banks to among other things promote financial inclusion and gender equity in their internal operations and in r elation to their delivery of products and services to clients.
Banks are currently reporting to the Bank of Ghana on a quarterly ba sis, in compliance with these principles, and we expect to see higher levels of compliance.
We believe that the AFAWA initiative will be critical in supporting the banks with the necessary capacity building and sources of funding to support their efforts at improving more gender inclusive finance.
The Bank of Ghana has also recently implemented a new online reporting and analytics supervisory tool by which our regulated financial institutions submit their prudential returns to us on a monthly basis on a sex-disaggregated basis.
As a result, financial institutions report not only aggregate numbers in terms of financial products and services, but also the gender dynamics of their customer base and product and service offerings.
This should help address curr ent data constraints and provide critical data for evidence-based design of policy mak ing, regulation, and supervisory measures as well as financial products and services.
We continue to strengthen critical credit market infrastructure such us our credit bureau-based credit repor ting system and our Collateral R egistry to help facilitate lending to MSMEs and women-owned businesses.
We also continue to ensure that our regulation of the payments space is supportive of innovation and inclusion by allowing fintechs and other payments system service providers to partner with banks and other licensed financial institutions to provide innovative financial services that are convenient, cost effective , and responsive to the unique needs of women entrepreneurs.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me emphasize that the financial sector has an important role in advancing access to finance for women-owned businesses.
We expect that financial services take up this challenge and see the business opportunities that remain untapped in the women market, in order to build a stronger and more resilient financial sector.
This partnership between AFAWA, the AGF, and the Ghana Association of Banks is therefore very timely and urgent, as part of efforts to help our economy recover from the current macroeconomic challenges, and make it more resilient going forward.
The partnership also holds great potential to equip women -owned b usinesses to spearhead the development of the single Africa market under the African Continental Free Trade Ag reement to help expand our economy and create more jobs for our youthful population.
I therefore call on all stakeholders to get on board to support this initiative, for our common good.
The Bank of Ghana stands ready to continue to lend its support to ensure the realization of the objectives of this partnership.
Thank you again for having me here, and I wish us all fruitful deliberations.
60TH ANNIVERSARY LAUNCH OF THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS, GHANA THANKSGIVING SERVICE REMARKS BY DR ERNEST ADDISON GOVERNOR, BANK OF GHANA ACCRA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE (AICC) 27TH JANUARY 2023 1 | P a g e Mr.
Chairman The Chief Executive Officer, ICAG Council Members and Management of ICAG Members of ICAG Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen 1.
It is a pleasure to join in the 60th Anniversary launch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana.
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Institute on this achievement of this milestone.
If this Institute were to be a person, this anniversary would have marked the end of an illustrious career.
But, 60 years in the life of an institution like the ICAG , rather calls for the promotion of sustainability, deepening trust , and nurturing partnerships as aptly captured by the theme for the Anniversary.
Indeed, ICAG has been resilient in the training of accountants and regulating the practise of accountancy and auditing firms , w ith a total membership in excess of ten thousand individuals and firms.
Over the years, the Institute has produced highly qualified accountants and auditors who are serving in various roles in the economy, including the provision of technical support for the Government’s annual budget and tax policies, as well as the publication of other technical papers, which have been very instructive in policy making.
Chairman, this new year provides us with an opportunity to reset the economy, as well as the institutions that operate within.
Collectively, we managed the challenging economic landscape in 2022, characterised by the lingering effects of the pandemic, tightening of global financing conditions, and spill overs from the Russia-Ukraine war.
These severe shocks transited into a global growth downturn and rising inflationary pressures, which prompted aggressive monetary policy tightening to contain the elevated inflation levels.
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These global developments, coupled with inherent domestic vulnerabilities including increasing public debt levels, culminated into Ghana’s credit ratings, which spiralled into an economic crisis.
The tight global financing conditions and loss of market access in particular set off intense volatility on t he foreign exchange market.
Headline inflation rose to historical highs, the Ghana cedi depreciated sharply against the major trading currencies, amid significant loss of international reserves and widened financing gap s. Faced with these economic headwinds, the government resorted to the IMF for financial support to unwind the imbalances and achieve debt sustainability.
Significant progress has been made on this front in the last quarter, with a staff level agreement in December 2022.
Additionally, the 2023 Budget Statement has committed to reset fiscal policy towards fiscal consolidation .
In this regard, new revenue measures and expenditure rationalization have been announced by Government.
Chairman, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, the key anchors of the expected 3 -year IMF Extended Credit Facility will, among others, help restore debt sustainability over the medium term by moving the country’s current high risk of debt distress to a moderate risk by 2028.
The key reform priorities to help achieve this include large and frontloaded fiscal adjustment underpinned by fiscal structural reforms, pursui t of tight monetary policies to move inflation back to the medium -term target band of 8±2 percent, implementation of policies to ensure exchange rate flexibility to allow for the rebuilding external buffers , and additional r eforms to build resilience for stronger and more equitable growth.
On top of these, Mr.
Chairman, structural reforms under the programme have been designed to entrench fiscal discipline and bolster transparency.
These will be driven by tighter public financial management, enhanc ed r evenue administration and tax policies, and reform s of State-Owned Enterprises to 3 | P a g e ensure efficient management and monitoring processes to safeguard the public finances.
With inflation currently at 54.1 percent, tight monetary policies are expected to contain the persistent price shocks in the economy and ease inflationary pressures.
Monetary financing of the government deficit, which was pursued to prevent domestic defaults arising from systemic auction failures during 2022 will end under the programme.
To achieve this, the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance will commit to zero financing of the budget in 2023 and beyond.
The implementation of these prudent macroeconomic policies is expected to trigger a disinflation path and downward trends in the policy rate, as well as restore the country’s reserve buffers to at least 3 months of imports cover by end-2025.
When inflation decelerates to single digits, we expect real interest rate of between 3 -4 percent and nominal interest rates to range between 11-12 percent over the entire course of the programme.
Chairman, Distinguish Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, all these projections hinge strongly on the successful attainment of an IMF programme.
The staff level agreement was just the first step in the process.
The most critical step that will draw the country closer to approval of the proposed ECF programm e by the IMF Board is to undertake a debt restructuring programme.
Consequently, t he Government announced a Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) which seeks to guarantee Ghana’s debt sustainability over the medium term .
The core objective of the DDEP is to harness the fiscal consolidation agenda and its successful implementation is expected to improve the debt metrics, complement the current monetary policy stance , and reset the economy to macroeconomic stability.
In anticipation of some adverse effects of the programme on the financial sector, the Bank of Ghana has issued some regulatory interventions to complement the announced Financial Stability Fund, to mitigate the potential impact on regulated financial institutions.
Let me use this opportu nity to reassure the Institute that the Bank of Ghana will 4 | P a g e engage all stakeholders, and make policy interventions where necessary, to ensure the impact on the banking industry is minimal.
Chairman, in line with your theme, specifically, “Nurturing Partnership”, I wish to commend the Institute for the key role it played in the processes leading to the implementation of the Domestic Debt Exchange Program me.
Your commitment and critical inputs to the entire process has helped to navigate this unchartered path and contributed to the implementation of the DDEP.
Such collaborative efforts are critical for national development, and I am hopeful that in the near future, the Bank of Ghana will formally engage the Institute to help institutionalise and “nurture our partnership” to influence policy direction.
As gatekeepers of the accountancy profession in the country , users of the financial statements of Regulated Financial Institutions expect the Ins titute to ensure that Audited Financial Statements are free from material misstatements.
This will help deepen investor confidence in the banking industry.
The success of the DDEP is critical for the economy and also for the health of the banking sector.
In this perspective, we understand that losses have to be recorded with accuracy, in order for the banking sector to recover on a strong footing and for the integrity of banks’ reporting to be preserved.
Chairman, the accountancy profession has change d significantly from the days when accountants were referred to as “bean counters” to more of strategic partnership.
Accountants are now viewed as strategic advisers, helping to develop and apply data sets and analytical tools to provide real -time insights on how to create and sustain long -term value.
No longer record -keepers or assurers of historical data, the accountant is now a business partner and assurer of information.
The accounting industry is also fast evolving with the continued usage and dependency on technology.
For instance , automation, minibots, machine learning, and adaptive intelligence are increasingly becoming part of the profession, with the deployment of basic automated 5 | P a g e accounting processes by several i nstitutions.
These technological changes, including instant access to resources, such as cloud data and computing capabilities, calls for continued upgrade of skills and competencies.
Chairman, these changes in the accountancy profession must be fully captured in the Institute’s curricula and programmes to ensure that accountants are ‘fit for purpose’ in the new working environment.
Mr Chairman, on top of equipping accountants, t he Institute will need to position itself at the forefront of current major developments in the country.
Hence, there is need to identify the unique value proposition that the accountancy profession can offer to policy making and national development in the years ahead.
Chairman, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, the accountancy profession is changing and the 60th Anniversary offers a unique opportunity to reset and adapt to the changing times to churn out accountants that fit international standards.
On this note, let me o nce again congratulate you and the Institute for this 60th anniversary.
Thank you, God bless the Institute and God bless our homeland Ghana.
GHANA FINTECH AWARDS 2022 REMARKS BY DR.
ERNEST ADDISON GOVERNOR, BANK OF GHANA LABADI BEACH HOTEL, ACCRA 27TH JANUARY 2023 1 Your Excellency, the British High Commissioner to Ghana Honourable Ministers of State present Chief Executives of Banks Chief Executives of Other Financial Institutions, FinTech Chambers and Associations Captains of Industry Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen Good Evening 1.
It is my pleasure to join you this evening at the 2 nd edition of the Ghana FinTech Awards.
I am reliably informed that the Governing Council of the Ghana FinTech Association will be inaugurated at this event and so, congratulations to the team for accepting the challenge to lead the Association.
Before proceeding, I would like to thank the organisers for the invitation to Chair this function as well as share a few thoughts on “Leveraging Financial Technologies: an opportunity to achieve economic empowerment and financial inclusion.”
The chosen topic for this occasion resonates with the Bank of Ghana’s policy of using digital technology to promote financial inclusion as a means of improving the economic well-being of the Ghanaian.
Ladies and gentlemen, the importance of financial inclusion for growth and development cannot be overemphasized.
It is generally accepted that financial inclusion (or deepening) increases a country’s resilience and boosts economic growth through several sources, including enhancing savings mobilisation, promoting information sharing, improving resource allocation, facilitating diversification and, overall, serving as an effective tool for poverty alleviation .
These huge benefits have put financial inclusion at the centre of the global economic policy agenda.
More recently, the rapid advancement in technology and high mobile phone penetration in several African countries have paved the way for innovative products and expansion of access to financial services.
Back home, financial inclusion is seen as catalytic to social inclusion in the development process as it taps into the large informal sector.
Various attempts have been made to target policies toward the vulnerable and economically excluded segments of the population.
The government and, for that matter, Bank of Ghana, has consistently pursued policies in this direction in the past, including policies focused on directing credit to specific sectors of the economy and vulnerable groups in society.
The regulatory environment was also revamped, and new guidelines were introduced to ensure efficient financial intermediation in the economy.