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The Market Place with Daryl Kwawu on JoyNews (21-7-23)
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi, good afternoon, welcome to the Marketplace.
00:02 Coming up as the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Ghana concludes its meetings,
00:06 Institute for Economic Affairs insists the over-reliance on the policy rate in addressing
00:11 high inflation would yield no positive results.
00:14 The inflation is also determined to a large extent by supply and cost factors.
00:23 So you cannot use the Bank of Ghana policy rate alone to just manage demand.
00:31 You have to address the supply factors also.
00:35 Also coming up, Data Protection Commission to clamp down on institutions failing to enforce
00:40 its laws.
00:41 We hear more about the enforcement exercise set for August 14.
00:46 Plus, Ghana has no strategic petroleum reserves for crisis moments.
00:52 Managing Director of the Bok Oil Storage and Transportation Company confirms with assurance
00:57 there is no cause for alarm now.
01:00 We know we don't have money to buy the strategic reserves.
01:03 We know that.
01:04 But what we do is we make sure we have enough inventory to keep the country running.
01:11 The nation needs to have a certain conversation and that conversation should lead to how we're
01:17 going to finance our strategic reserves.
01:20 My name is Daryl Paul.
01:25 Thanks for being with us.
01:26 Details coming up.
01:27 Thanks for joining us.
01:57 Thanks for staying with us everyone.
01:58 And we begin with news that the media budget presentation has been pushed back to Thursday
02:03 the 27th of July.
02:05 Parliamentary correspondent Kwaku Asante joins me on Zoom with more on this.
02:09 Good afternoon to you Kwaku.
02:10 Are you able to confirm this information for us and any reason for the change in date?
02:16 Well yes Daryl.
02:18 Initially, government plan was to hold this media budget review on the 27th.
02:23 In fact, that was the date that the majority leadership announced to the House.
02:27 But subsequently, the Speaker of Parliament himself came to the floor and said that because
02:32 Parliament is set to adjourn by the 10th of August, he believes that that date must be
02:36 moved forward.
02:37 And then subsequently, the majority leadership changed that date to the 25th of February.
02:42 And so that was the tentative date we had been working with and the expectation was
02:46 that as soon as next week Tuesday, the finance minister will come before the House and present
02:51 the media budget review.
02:52 But today in the business statement, government has decided to go back to the original date
02:58 of the 27th.
02:59 That is the date that the finance minister expected to come to the House and present
03:03 this media budget review.
03:04 So government has, if you want to put it that way, snubbed the Speaker of Parliament and
03:09 his concerns about the 27th date and have affirmed the 27th, next week Thursday, as
03:15 the date to present the media budget review.
03:18 What is now set to be clarified is whether or not the finance minister will ask for further
03:22 estimates whether he will review the projections he made in the 2023 budget presented in November
03:28 last year.
03:29 But as of now, we can confirm, as per the business statement presented today, that California
03:34 will deliver the media budget review next week Thursday to Parliament.
03:38 Well, the presentation itself has been described as very critical.
03:41 The first since we clinched the IMF deal.
03:45 Do you have any idea what to expect?
03:46 I mean, you are hinting at that when the finance minister makes a presentation.
03:50 I bet there are high expectations, especially amongst the minority.
03:54 Definitely.
03:55 What they want to find out is how exactly the deal with the IMF is impacting government's
04:02 fiscal policies that were announced in the budget itself of 2023.
04:07 Initially, some of the minority MPs have been pushing, for instance, that the finance minister
04:13 come before Parliament and put the final details of that IMF deal to MPs.
04:18 They have not been able to succeed in doing so.
04:20 And the argument from the majority at the time was that the minister will be presenting
04:24 the media budget review and all those details will be inculcated next.
04:28 So a large part of the media budget review next week Thursday will be to, in terms of
04:33 opening up the IMF deal and how it has affected government's plans for this year and the next
04:39 few years.
04:40 Also, government, some of the minority MPs want to know the domestic debt exchange program.
04:46 What is the success rate?
04:47 How is it impacting Ghana's debt level as we speak now?
04:51 All those questions are set to come.
04:53 But really the best question is the matter of revenue.
04:56 Government have been saying a lot of things about how the revenue measures they've been
04:59 putting in have not been successful so far.
05:02 We know that eLevy has not given government the amount of money they wanted.
05:07 And so we don't know yet if government has any firm plans to probably introduce new taxes,
05:12 new revenue measures, expand others, probably delete others.
05:16 Those are the best questions and our ears are on the ground to find out whether or not
05:21 the minister will be bringing those details next week Thursday.
05:24 And finally, we've had a bit of a situation in parliament this week.
05:28 The house has not been able to sit because they've not been able to form a quorum and
05:32 that has affected government business.
05:35 Give us a background to that and what the impact will be if this goes on for a while.
05:41 Right, so as of today we'll probably have this situation having been resolved a little
05:45 bit more today.
05:46 And my count in the chamber, there's no quorum but no one has raised the issue of quorum
05:51 so the business will progress.
05:52 But the whole of this week the house has suffered several adjournments because both sides have
05:57 not been able to bring in enough numbers.
06:00 For the minority side it's intentional because they've decided that they're going to bring
06:03 in very little number of MPs so that they can raise matters of quorum and sabotage the
06:08 business of government on the floor.
06:10 The government side knows that the number of MPs have been, I've been with Dr. Bamiya
06:14 campaigning ahead of that MPP primaries.
06:16 So a number of key businesses have suffered, particularly matters having to do with bills.
06:22 There's the constitutional review amendment bill, there's a death penalty amendment, the
06:27 bill that is seeking to repeal the death penalty.
06:31 All those bills have been suffering for some time now.
06:33 There have been a number of referrals that have been made to the committees as regards
06:37 to tax waivers, import acceptance among other things.
06:41 All that has not been able to be dealt with.
06:44 But today business has progressed quite good so far and matters having to do with quorum
06:49 has not been raised.
06:50 It is expected that from today through to the weekend and Monday leadership on both
06:54 sides will try and work to have some sort of agreement so that some of these issues
07:00 will be dealt with.
07:01 And so we expect that from next week, head of parliament going on break on the 3rd of
07:04 August, these matters will be dealt with so that key issues, particularly the media budget
07:09 to deal, can be dealt with and deleted.
07:11 All right, thank you so much, Gokwa Asante, for updating us.
07:15 Now we know that the media budget will be presented on Thursday, the 27th of July.
07:20 Let's move on now.
07:21 The Institute of Economic Affairs has indicated that the over-reliance on monetary policy
07:26 in addressing the hikes in inflation would yield no results.
07:30 The Institute is entreating government to address the supply-side factors driving inflation.
07:34 According to Director of Research, Dr John Kwachi, more collaboration is needed between
07:39 the government and the Bank of Ghana to address the country's high inflation in the media
07:44 budget scheduled for next week.
07:46 We are speaking at a media interface on Ghana's IMF bailout organised by the Economic Governance
07:52 Platform.
07:53 We rely on a monetary policy framework that essentially focuses on controlling demand,
08:03 demand pressures in the economy.
08:05 But what we have come to realise is that our inflation is also determined, you know, to
08:13 a large extent by supply and cost factors.
08:16 And this, we've been talking about food, fuel, the importance of fuel in driving our inflation,
08:24 transportation, and then of course the exchange rate.
08:28 So you cannot use the Bank of Ghana policy rate alone, you know, to just manage demand.
08:35 You have to address the supply factors also.
08:38 And this is what we have been calling for, you know, for a long time.
08:43 And we're just asking both Bank of Ghana and government to, you know, cooperate, work together
08:50 so that they can also be addressing the supply and cost factors that drive inflation.
08:57 We are happy to note that when it comes to demand pressures, the programme contains a
09:05 provision for reducing what they call monetary financing of the budget by Bank of Ghana.
09:11 In fact, government and the Bank of Ghana have signed a memorandum of understanding
09:15 now for Bank of Ghana not to lend to government at all, you know, under their programme.
09:21 So that will help to reduce the demand pressures.
09:24 But we think that they should do something about their supply and cost factors as well.
09:29 Well, economist Dr Patrick Esuming joins me on Zoom with a reaction to this.
09:37 Good afternoon to you, great to have you on the programme.
09:40 So the Monetary Policy Committee has been meeting this week to review the economy, so
09:43 we expect an announcement of the policy rate next week.
09:46 Now, the IEA raising concern about policy rate hikes as a means to tackle inflation.
09:52 In their view, it is not effective.
09:54 Your thoughts?
09:55 Good afternoon, good afternoon to the viewers.
09:59 Thanks for having me.
10:00 I think that, I mean, I agree with the sentiment that we should combine demand management measures
10:09 with also measures to address the supply side constraints.
10:13 So, but not to say that the current monetary policy framework has not been, or the current
10:20 rate hikes has not been effective.
10:23 I think it's clear from what we have learned that last year the Bank of Ghana probably,
10:29 you know, extended more overdraft to the government than anticipated.
10:35 So in some sense, you should think that there should be some excess liquidity in the system.
10:39 So on that score, I think trying to make more reforms to cut the extent of financing, the
10:47 deficit financing by the Bank of Ghana will help.
10:49 But I think at the same time, we really need to address the problems with food production.
10:55 We've seen that the current battle of inflation is really driven by food inflation.
11:00 So it's important that in addition to the monetary policy measures, we should see real
11:07 action to try and expand and then invest more into food production.
11:13 Would you expect a hike in the policy rate?
11:17 Do you advise that following the increase in inflation rate we've seen in the last couple
11:21 of months after the meeting this week by the MPC?
11:25 I wouldn't be surprised to see a further hike of the rate.
11:34 I think, you know, back in January, February and March, we were all beginning to think
11:40 that we are on the path to this inflation.
11:44 But the last few meetings that we've seen have seen that there's been a stalling of
11:49 the disinflation path.
11:51 So I wouldn't be surprised, given the push of the current MPC and their aversion towards
12:00 inflationary pressures, I wouldn't be surprised to see that they will raise the policy rate
12:07 again.
12:09 And a World Bank report this week revealed about 850,000 Ghanaians were pushed into poverty
12:16 as a result of rising inflation last year.
12:20 How worrying is this?
12:21 Very worrying.
12:24 I think that, you know, in some sense not very surprising, because like I just mentioned,
12:31 much of the inflation you have been experiencing is driven by food, food inflation.
12:37 And the poor spend a higher fraction of their incomes on food.
12:42 So when food prices are rising, you know, it becomes a concern.
12:46 So, you know, at the same time, you have seen wage rises keep up with the rise in the food,
12:53 rising in overall inflation.
12:55 So I think this is very concerning.
12:58 And we really need to take measures to address the, you know, not just to say we should,
13:06 you know, raise salaries across the world, because much of, I mean, a big portion of
13:12 the labor force are in the informal sector, who will not necessarily benefit from
13:16 public sector wage adjustment.
13:19 But we have to address the root cause of the food production problems that we have,
13:24 the food inflation that we have.
13:26 We have to address that.
13:27 So Dr. John Kwachin, in his presentation, called for collaboration between the government
13:32 and the central bank to tackle inflation.
13:35 How can they collaborate on this?
13:36 What should the government be doing, especially as they look to present the media budget next
13:41 week?
13:41 I think, you know, as it's been well articulated, at the moment, we've had some fiscal dominance
13:51 of the, over the monetary policy.
13:53 So it appears that monetary policy has been, or the central bank has been making adjustment
14:00 to accommodate the fiscal problems that we've had.
14:03 And I think that's where we really need that to stop.
14:05 So I think that is why the IMF program contain, contain measures to, to contain that aspect.
14:12 But, I mean, coming to what, what we are going to do with the media budget, I'll be surprised
14:18 to see if the government introduced any new tax handles.
14:21 I think we've seen a lot of new taxes recently, some of which we haven't really fully implemented
14:28 to see what they will do for our revenue side.
14:31 But we also need to see more measures on the exemptions that were passed.
14:38 I think it's widely acknowledged that we lose a lot of revenue through the exemptions.
14:42 And if you're able to plug the holes from there, you'll be able to raise a lot more
14:47 revenue.
14:47 And then it wouldn't be necessary to impose any new tax handles.
14:51 On the expenditure side, I would like to see the government should cut the expenditure.
14:56 But at the same time, I think this government has not been very amenable to cutting expenditure.
15:02 So as much as we want to see that happen, I don't really see that happening.
15:06 All right.
15:08 Dr. Patrick Esuming, I appreciate your time with us.
15:11 Certainly good to speak with you.
15:13 Dr. Patrick Esuming, there are an economist sharing his thoughts about rising inflation
15:18 and the media budget.
15:19 Well, let's move on now to another story we're following for you.
15:22 The Data Protection Commission is scaling up enforcement of the Data Protection Act
15:27 2012, Act 843, which, among other things, requires data controllers to register with
15:33 the Data Protection Commission and renew registration every two years.
15:38 The exercise is expected to be carried out from the 14th of August.
15:41 Patricia Eduse Poku is executive director of the Data Protection Commission, and she
15:46 joins me on Zoom with more on this.
15:50 Good afternoon to you, ma'am.
15:51 So first of all, enlighten us about the Data Protection Act 2012, Act 843, and why enforcement
15:58 is important.
15:59 Can you hear me, ma'am?
16:15 Good afternoon to you.
16:18 Can you hear me?
16:20 I couldn't hear you just before this, so please repeat your question.
16:22 Yeah, so I was asking you to enlighten us about the Data Protection Act 2012, Act 843,
16:28 and why enforcement is important.
16:30 Okay, so the Act powers individuals with certain rights under the law, and we are mandated
16:41 as the regulator to explain this empowerment to people and to help them assert themselves
16:49 by the law.
16:50 At the same time, the Act also puts some principles out there that those who collect and use personal
16:57 data must implement these requirements and comply with it, and to demonstrate accountability,
17:06 to ask the public, the data subjects.
17:08 And so our duty is to hold them accountable to what the law expects them to do, and also
17:14 the reasonable expectation of us, the data subjects.
17:18 We stand in the stead of the people of Ghana to hold institutions accountable, and that
17:24 is the enforcement that we are talking about, to check what they have said they will do
17:29 with the data, to ensure that they are doing exactly that and not abusing the data.
17:35 When I say abusing, it could be that they haven't implemented the relevant organizational
17:41 measures that protect the data and ensure that there's continuous safeguarding of the
17:47 data in their hands.
17:49 You know now, data has a lot of value.
17:51 It is what gives business their profitability, or what ensures that the business is effective
17:57 and efficient, and makes one business better than the other.
18:00 The quality of your data depends on the worth of the institution or the company.
18:06 And so if businesses are making themselves profitable based on the information they hold
18:12 on us, then we the public have the right to also ensure that they are acting appropriately
18:18 with the data.
18:19 This is why enforcement is very critical to the successful delivery of our work.
18:24 Yes, and so what efforts have been made in the past to enforce the act, and are institutions
18:28 compliant?
18:29 To date, we have been cooperating a lot with institutions, building awareness, building
18:36 capacity, ensuring that businesses understand the interpretation of the act, that they can
18:42 put the legal requirement into business speak.
18:45 That is our mandate to do, to ensure that the businesses have fully understood what
18:49 we expect of them.
18:51 We have been holding hands a lot, helping businesses to build their internal privacy
18:57 programs.
18:58 Many institutions, almost a thousand institutions so far, have trained professionals to the
19:03 certification level who have been placed in these institutions to implement the requirements
19:09 of our privacy program, the nationwide legislative requirement.
19:15 So we now want to check whether what they have agreed to do is what they are actually
19:21 doing.
19:22 And so what would the enforcement exercise entail, and what sanctions are applicable
19:28 to corporates?
19:30 So in the Ghana Act, we need to prosecute in order to apply fines and sanctions.
19:37 But we will also be naming and shaming and bringing negligent leaders to order, those
19:44 who are not enabling their institutions to follow the path that they're not directed
19:49 to.
19:49 Because if the topmost positions and roles in the organization are not making the appropriate
19:55 decisions to implement the requirements of data protection, you will find that the whole
19:59 institution is voting from the front line to senior management.
20:04 They are not implementing the reasonable expectation of us, the public.
20:07 When you go into hospitals, you will expect some sort of effective management of the data
20:13 and the information you give to them.
20:16 Same in education, same in other institutions.
20:19 And so we expect that the institution will be waking up to the fact that they have some
20:24 responsibility to implement the requirements of the Data Protection Act.
20:28 So we'll be attending some premises, doing spot checks on the clearly published areas
20:37 of the Act, first checking if they are registered in the commission, whether they've trained
20:42 their professional, whether they are using appropriate technology, whether they are implementing
20:47 security measures and additional organizational measures that educate the staff, for example,
20:53 that tells staff exactly what they can and cannot do in the institution.
20:56 This is the kind of thing we'll be looking for in our spot checks.
21:00 And those who are defaulting on this will be arrested by the police.
21:04 So that's set to start on the 14th of August.
21:07 I want to ask you about a warning you issued last month, a public warning on data breaches
21:14 by operators of online apps.
21:16 How far has that gone?
21:18 Has the situation improved?
21:21 So we first, you remember that on 12th June, the DPC published the challenge we are having
21:28 with a lot of complaints with those who have applied for these loan apps.
21:31 For that whole week, we're telling the public about, warning them about these loan apps
21:37 and challenging the Bank of Ghana and Cyber Security Authority, our peer regulators, to
21:43 wake up and take action.
21:45 Following our action, 14th Bank of Ghana then published a long list of these known non-compliant
21:53 loan app developers and users and loan companies.
21:59 Following this, on 12th July, the Cyber Security Authority also held a press conference following
22:05 a day of arresting a lot of these loan operators.
22:11 422 of them, first days, were arrested.
22:14 419 being Ghanaians and three being of Chinese, Pakistani and Indian origin were arrested
22:22 as a result of this joint effort, collaborative effort of these multiple agencies.
22:27 Yeah, that's some headway we've made.
22:30 But something else developing, and I would like for the Director to show this letter
22:35 that has been going around, some first days deciding to use a letter from the DPC.
22:41 To fraud loan app victims, they paid 30 to 50 CD's a year for this letter to send to
22:46 their contacts to exonerate themselves from their debt streaming situation.
22:51 Thank you for bringing this up.
22:54 I would like to bring this to the attention of the general public.
22:57 The Data Protection Commission do not collect personal data of any member of the public
23:03 in this way.
23:05 Our letter has not gone out to ask people to bring their personal data to us to help
23:10 them resolve loan applications.
23:12 This is clearly a fraudulent approach by these loan companies as an opportunistic ecosystem.
23:20 We have also reported this to the cyber security authorities to hunt down these guys and bring
23:27 them to order.
23:28 Final message for people watching, I don't know, about this and also about the exercise
23:33 you intend to take.
23:35 So the final message is especially to data protection compliant authorities and institutions
23:41 across the nation to wake up and do the needful, comply with the requirements of the Data
23:47 Protection Act, take action now and contact the commission, get yourself registered, commence
23:55 the implementation of your internal privacy program because we are aligning the data protection
24:00 requirements with the digitization of the economy.
24:03 It is critical to the success of our digitized economy.
24:06 We have to jointly enable an unlocking of the potential of data in the Ghana economy
24:12 and enable appropriate access and sharing to data and to increase innovation and to
24:18 promote the use of digitized information appropriately in the national ecosystem.
24:23 And so we are taking this enforcement, we are triggering the enforcement date and enforcing
24:31 the law actively from 14 August and will not be dealing lightly with those who are
24:39 ignoring the requirements of this law and not registering with the commission and taking
24:45 action.
24:45 Thank you so much for speaking to us, Patricia Adusse-Opoku, Executive Director of the Data
24:51 Protection Commission.
24:52 Thank you for your time.
24:54 Well, finally, Ghana has not got any strategic petroleum reserves now for crisis moments.
24:59 This has been confirmed by Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation
25:03 Company, Edwin Povinsau, to join business.
25:06 But he insists there's no cause for alarm for now.
25:09 He has been speaking on PM Express Business Edition.
25:12 We know we don't have money to buy the strategic reserves, we know that.
25:18 But what we do is we make sure we have enough inventory to keep the country running.
25:24 The nation needs to have a certain conversation, and that conversation should lead to how we
25:31 are going to finance our strategic reserves.
25:34 It's a very critical information.
25:36 If you ask me whether does Ghana need strategic reserves, I say yes, Ghana needs strategic
25:42 reserves.
25:42 If you ask me whether a for-profit company like Bost should be the one going to take
25:48 a loan from the bank to keep petroleum products for the nation, I would say no.
25:54 We can't do that, because the strategic reserve, like I said, is like an insurance
25:57 policy, and you and I who benefit from the insurance policy, we need to finance that
26:03 reserve.
26:04 How to finance it is a discussion that needs to be had by the policyholder and various
26:11 stakeholders to find an optimal way of financing those reserves.
26:16 Is the Bost margin not enough to take care of all these operational costs of yours?
26:21 No, Bost margin is strictly for maintenance and operations of the network assets.
26:26 I mean, it used to be about 37% of our income.
26:40 2022, it moved to, or 2021 used to be about 47% of our income.
26:48 2022, 2021, it got to 37%.
26:53 2022, as I speak to you, it's about 11% of our income.
27:01 It's nothing to write home about.
27:03 Certainly, there's much to talk about on that story, but that's our programme this
27:10 afternoon.
27:10 Thanks for watching everyone.
27:11 But there is plenty to read this weekend on our website, myjoyonline.com/business,
27:16 including Ghana Stock Exchange to boost liquidity access to commercial paper market
27:21 establishment.
27:22 You can read more about that.
27:23 Can we do one more story before we go?
27:26 Yeah, 34% of Ghanaians believe GDP growth to exceed IMF forecast for 2023.
27:33 That's according to a report you can read on myjoyonline.com/business.
27:39 My name is Daryl Kwawa.
27:40 Thanks for watching The Marketplace.
27:42 We will be back same time next week.
27:53 Bye.
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