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Jan 14, 2025 | 
modernghana.com | Bright Simons
If you are of a certain age and know Accra a bit, you must know Shangri-La. A cute, low-rise, hotel along the northern stretch of the Liberation road, and on the doorstep of what later became the Israeli-built Tetteh Quarshie Interchange and, a few years later, the Accra Mall. If you are middle-class enough, you may even remember the legendary “pizza by the pool”.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
modernghana.com | Bright Simons
The Minister of Finance designate of Ghana’s new government was very supportive of the positions of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) in some of our advocacy campaigns when he led the parliamentary opposition. On the issue of SML, one of the most wasteful decisions taken by the previous government, for instance, CSOs and the parliamentary opposition literally sang from the same hymn sheet.
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Jan 12, 2025 | 
modernghana.com | Bright Simons
Ghana's new president has reduced the number of government ministries to 23 from the previous 30 in line with his campaign promises. When it comes to clustering subsectors to create ministries, every wise person you meet would have different opinions. In the 2000s, the Kufuor government decided that “youth and sports” belonged with “education.” The Mills government disagreed.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
todaygh.com | Bright Simons
During their term, they totally sidelined and emasculated all centres of dissent in the country. They rendered all critical voices redundant. Should the NDC now embark on large-scale power consolidation by pruning the public sector and the “commanding heights” of the economy to support their own patronage networks, they will be riding on highways paved by the NPP and they will encounter very few obstacles and roadblocks ahead. Roadblocks systematically removed by the NPP.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
theghanareport.com | Bright Simons |Philipina Badu
Ghana’s most prominent development finance institution (DFI), the aptly named Development Bank Ghana (DBG), has issued a flurry of statements and reports in the last few days (example) about a range of governance issues. The country’s major media houses, ever so supportive of big corporates, have dutifully reported each glowing self-exoneration and self-tribute with remarkable consistency (example).
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Nov 13, 2024 | 
theghanareport.com | Bright Simons |Sandra Adei Djanie
Ghana’s oil production is collapsing not rising On November 13, 2024, 8:00 AM It was very puzzling to see a flurry of press reports all over claiming that Ghana is seeing an uptick in oil production for the first time in 5 years, and, even worse, to see this claim attributed to PIAC, Ghana’s multistakeholder watchdog in the oil and gas sector. Everyone who follows petroleum issues in Ghana knows that the contrary is true. Oil production has been collapsing precipitously when the full picture...
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
modernghana.com | Bright Simons
There are fierce battles raging in the plush hallways of Ghana’s newly minted Development Bank Ghana (DBG). On one side is a plucky internal audit unit. On the other side are arrayed the well-heeled executives and board members supervising over the disbursement of tens of millions of dollars invested in DBG. To understand this fight, the reader must bear with me as I take a long detour to chronicle the journey of DBG. Impatient readers may skip to the concluding sections.
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Nov 9, 2024 | 
modernghana.com | Bright Simons
It was very puzzling to see a flurry of press reports all over claiming that Ghana is seeing an uptick in oil production for the first time in 5 years, and, even worse, to see this claim attributed to PIAC, Ghana's multistakeholder watchdog in the oil and gas sector. Everyone who follows petroleum issues in Ghana know that the contrary is true. Oil production has been collapsing precipitously, when the full picture is taken into account.
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
theafricareport.com | Bright Simons
Another Donald Trump term might not bring drastic shifts in US-Africa relations compared to his first. The real impact, however, could come from the economic tremors of a trade war, should Trump’s tariff-heavy approach ignite global conflicts. In terms of Africa, the results would likely be indirect but consequential. One stark difference, though, would be in tone.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
theghanareport.com | Bright Simons |Sandra Adei Djanie
Going bananas about plantain records in global trade databases The annoying thing about analysing Africa’s international plantain trade is that the customs (HS) code for plantains – 080310 – is very often also used for bananas in many records. This is despite there being another code for bananas that excludes plantains – 080390.
