In the midst of an intense hurricane season, numerous states have followed the lead of the IRS by offering administrative tax relief for taxpayers adversely impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. As the states that suffered the brunt of the damage, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and Georgia have announced significant state and local tax relief measures, including extensions of time to file income, franchise and sales and use tax returns, and in some cases, special exemptions from the sales and use tax for certain hurricane-related costs.
I believe that as a part of good governance, all agencies should be reviewing regulations and cleaning up those that may be outdated, redundant, or unnecessary. Seth Moulton
Every country is ruled by regulations and laws, among others. The objective is simple – to ensure that individuals and institutions that flout the laws are brought to book. But basically, it is also to ensure that the lives of the citizenry are protected.
By definition, a regulatory agency is a governmental body that is created by a legislature to implement and enforce specific laws, according to Study. These agencies may have quasi-legislative functions, executive functions and judicial functions.
Basically, the activities of every business is in one way or the other, subject to a cornucopia of laws. Business is subject to laws that govern social and economic matters, including income taxation, payroll taxation, environmental laws, occupational health and safety laws, real estate law, employment laws, criminal laws and laws that are specifically related to ones, particular industry, such as insurance, transportation and so on.
It is important to note every function in agency serves two primary functions in government. First, agencies implement laws and they enforce laws. For instance, in its quest to ensure sanity in the banking sector, the industry regulator, Bank of Ghana, recently showed its teeth and collapsed five banks for their inability to live up to expectation. That has caused a stir but that is the law and the role of the regulator.
Second, regulations are the means by which a regulatory agency implements laws enacted by the legislature. By that, regulations can be thought as formal rules based upon the laws enacted by a legislature that govern specific social or economic activities.
Regulatory agencies use a specific procedure to create and implement regulations. This is necessary to ensure that the businesses or individuals do not suffer unduly or are taken unawares. There are some basic steps meant for them to follow and these are international standard practice.
It is necessary for an agency that is about to start drafting new regulations to publish advance notice of its proposed rules in the appropriate quarters. In the United States, for instance, this is done with the Federal Registrar, which is available to the public and usually monitored by industry experts to be informed about proposed changes in regulations or proposed new regulations.
The regulatory agency will draft the proposed regulations to fulfil the requirements of the law upon which the regulation is based. For example, if a new law is passed by Parliament that limits water pollution by illegal miners, the agency will develop regulations that carefully outline the limits of pollution, how the limits are measured, reporting requirements, enforcement powers vested in the agency and penalties the agency is entitled to impose under the law.
The proposed regulations are published and the public is invited to comment. It's not unusual for industry leaders and interest groups to comment in an attempt to modify the rules to advance their particular interests.
The completed regulation is published and will eventually be added to the Code of Federal Regulations, which is essentially a list of all the federal regulations, broken into titles and chapters.
Laws without enforcement become pieces of sentences not even fit to be read. And therefore, regulatory enforcement is the other primary role filled by regulatory agencies. Agencies have a responsibility to monitor businesses to ensure they are complying with regulations. Agencies vary on how they perform their enforcement responsibilities, but we can take a look at a generalised process:
If the agency has reason to believe that a business has violated its regulations, the agency will commence an investigation. The investigation may include interviewing relevant witnesses and reviewing documents. Some investigations may utilise scientific testing, such as environmental investigations, to determine the level of pollution spewing out of a factory's smokestack. The agency will give the business a chance to respond to the allegations. The response is usually presented in writing with any supporting documentation.
The agency will make a decision, demand any corrective action if necessary, and impose any penalty that it deems appropriate that it is authorised to impose by law.
Much as the regulatory authority is bound to sanction any business according to law, it is also bound to hear appeals. That means that, businesses have the right to appeal decision taken against them by the regulator.
Regulatory agencies are usually a part of the executive branch of the government, and they have statutory authority to perform their functions with oversight from the legislative branch. Regulatory authorities are commonly set up to enforce standards and safety or to oversee the use of public goods and regulate commerce. Unfortunately, the role of the many regulatory institutions in the country has been compromised either advertently or inadvertently.
It has become clear in recent times that due to the political influence, many of the regulators are unable to enforce the law. They are made to either sit aloof to watch things go bad or are manipulated to allow the status quo to satisfy a few at the expense of many.
To use the banking sector as a typical example, it is clear that the Bank of Ghana, for many years, has reneged on its responsibility to whip into line, the players under its jurisdiction. As a result, many owners and boards of some financial institutions have had their way and blatantly in broad daylight, abused the system to satisfy their selfish interest. Thankfully, the present Governor in realising the rot and the extent to which it is affecting the economy, has acted. Call it a bit too late. But the fact is that it is better late than never.
While it has managed to crack the whip in the banking sector, it is unfortunate that the same central bank is unable to rein in MenzGold, a private company whose activities is not clearly defined.
One would have expected that the central bank would act to bring the owners of the company to book if, it has truly gone beyond its regulatory mandate. Rather, the owners of the company are calling the bluff of the central bank using in many instances, unprintable words on social media to make a case while the regulator looks on. For the public, this is not just unacceptable but unfortunate and one wonders the size of the force preventing the BoG from acting.
According to an international investment consultant, Dr Sam Ankrah, the latest developments in the banking sector should be a wake-up call for the central bank to critically sanitise the entire financial services sector to prevent a collapse of the system.
He maintained that after dealing with the universal banks, the central bank must also move swiftly to deal with the mess in the savings and loans, as well as the microfinance businesses because that is another area with a lot of rot.
For many decades, the commission has also been unable to act as such. It has rather played its role as a revenue collector and allowed a lot of rot within the sector, a phenomenon which is eating the country up today. The commission has in the past licensed many small-scale miners but has seldom checked their activities. Today that inaction has caused a national catastrophe because many of our water bodies are now drying up.
Again with the issue around MenzGold, the commission has issued warnings many times without acting while the purported illegality persists. The company has also called the bluff of the commission and yet, nothing concrete has been done except to issue faint and lame news releases.
There is a simple “Spare the rod and spoil the child” saying. This simple and age old quote may sound useless but it is what we have never taken seriously. The regulators in the country have lived up to expectation to stop the rot and abuse in the system.
The so-called influential people who find themselves in high places and use their selfish interest to manipulate the system at the expense of the majority must be exposed if the country is to restore its lost glory and shame.
At a time when the government is touting a Ghana Beyond Aid, it is imperative to understand that the lackadaisical attitude of the regulators in the country cannot get us to achieve that. When the Finance Minister worked hard to find us a Ghc2 billion loan from sale of bonds, hell broke lose. Little did we know that we can raise four times that amount to fix a mess caused by a few people because the industry regulator sat aloof. Regulators in the country owe Ghanaians a duty to crack the whip as soon as the alarm bells start sounding. They must note that their failures can create more grievous challenges with the potency to crack an economy into pieces.
Creating different graphics in Photoshop can highly improve your designing creativity. Poster designs in Photoshop is an excellent branch in graphic design that demands a lot of creative output. A creatively designed poster, even if it is simple, can easily grab the attention of a reader attention and keep him/her thinking something in particular.
In this post, I provide a vibrant poster with a mushroom graphic that can instantly grab your attention. The poster design comes in all-layered .PSD file for free download. In addition to the poster, I have separated the graphic PSD file and made it into an icon in different sizes. The 512x512px icon has the .PSD file also. The other icon sizes are 256x256px, 128x128px, 64x64px. Please scroll down and go through the screenshots below and download the poster and icon .PSD source file. Please share this post with your friends.
The poster design comes in all-layered .PSD file for free download. The graphic is also made into an icon in sizes 512x512px, 256x256px, 128x128px, 64x64px. Download now.
In this four-part article I explore low-cost cow calf ranching strategies to help you join that elite group of low-cost cattle producers that remain profitable regardless of what the markets and the weather are doing.
On the previous page I covered the calving strategies that low-cost beef producers use to improve calf survival, reduce the need to assist during calving, and reduce disease pressure on the newborn calves.
On this page I will dive into cattle genetics as well as the selection, culling, and breeding choices that allow low-cost cow calf producers to consistently produce highly fertile low-maintenance cattle.
Picking the right cattle breed for your cow calf program can often tip the balance between being a low-cost or a high-cost beef producer.
Pick the wrong breed and your cattle will struggle with the environmental challenges that are specific to your climate. For example, put tropical cattle breeds into cold climates and your feed costs go up. They just aren't built to stay warm. By contrast, many European and British cattle breeds aren't built to expel heat, so their health and weight gains will suffer in hot climates because of heat stress. They also don't have the parasite resistance that tropical cattle breeds are known for.
On the other hand, if you pick the cattle breed that suits your climate, your cattle's weight gains will be higher, your feed costs will be lower, and your veterinary bills will shrink substantially.
Low cost cow calf producers match the subtle and unique environmental adaptations of their cattle breed to their specific climate, grazing strategies, and marketing goals. The little details matter. And finding the right match goes far beyond just heat (or cold) tolerance and parasites. It's also about matching mature finished body weights to the desired finishing time frame, matching feet to soils, mothering instincts to predation pressures, eye pigment to UV exposure, hooves to soil types, and more.
My article about beef cattle breeds explains the step-by-step selection process to find the perfect cattle breed (or breed combination) to suit your climate and ranching strategy. And my article about purebred vs crossbred vs mixed breed cattle explains the advantages and disadvantages of using a combination of multiple breeds.
The right breed choice gives your cow-calf program a big advantage in the quest to become a low-cost beef producer.
But while your breed choice matters, no two cattle are identical. There is as much genetic variety within any single herd as there is between breeds. Getting your herd's genetics to work in your favor is also about learning how to sift through a herd to sort the good genetics from the bad.
That is why low-cost beef production also depends on learning how to select only the most fertile and the most low-maintenance cows and bulls for your breeding program while systematically culling all others that don't make the cut.
Your cattle selection and culling skills will determine whether your cows will calve unassisted. They make the difference between fantastically high or abysmally low conception rates in your cow-calf herd. They will determine whether your 1st-calf heifers will re-breed easily or suffer disastrous open-rates in their second breeding season. Your selection and culling skills even affect the longevity of your bulls (and consequent bull replacement costs) as well as your cow-to-bull ratio during your breeding season and the number of injuries that your bulls sustain as they struggle to establish their dominance hierarchies.
The length of your breeding season also matters. Short breeding seasons are the key to maintaining a highly fertile low-maintenance herd. Long breeding seasons erode the quality of your herd genetics over time and will increase production costs. That's why low-cost cow-calf producers stick to using the highly advantageous 42-day breeding season, never longer.
Low-cost cattle producers also understand how cattle nutrition during adolescence will affect the future reproductive development of their cattle. Understanding this relationship can significantly reduce breeding stock replacement costs by improving conception rates, increasing bull fertility, and extending the reproductive lives of your brood cows, thus reducing the number of replacement heifers required to maintain a stable herd size.
Imagine being able to boost the fertility of your heifers and bull calves - for their entire lives - simply by making sure that the young calves are gaining weight (or not gaining weight) at key stages of their adolescent sexual development. This technique is explained in detail in my article about lifelong beef cattle fertility.