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GLOA Confirms the Market Dominance of KGL: Urges Stakeholders Not to Compare GLOA’s GHS 44.9m to KGL’s GHS 173m to NLA

Prosper Kay
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GLOA Confirms the Market Dominance of KGL: Urges Stakeholders Not to Compare GLOA’s GHS 44.9m to KGL’s GHS 173m to NLA

A press statement by the Ghana Lotto Operators Association (GLOA) is urging stakeholders, media, and the general public not to compare the GHS 44.9 million paid by some 29 licensed Private Lotto Operators to the NLA to the over GHS 173 million paid by KGL to the same institution. GLOA also confirmed that KGL is the largest contributor to NLA in terms of revenue generation for the Republic.

According to Section 2(1) of the National Lotto Act, 2006(Act 722), “National Lotto shall be conducted for the purpose of RAISING REVENUE for the NATION and for other purposes stated in this Act.” Therefore, per Section 2(1) of Act 722, KGL has proven its worth in salt by helping the National Lottery Authority(NLA) to fulfil its number one(1) objective for which the Authority was established.

The primary purpose of establishing NLA is RAISING REVENUE for the NATION not principally employment creation or engaging in grassroot economic activity. However, generating revenue automatically leads to jobs creation and grassroots economic activity whether via its USSD platform or point of sale terminals or paper-based coupons.

Different Business Models

KGL operates as a collaborator under the same National Lotto Act, specifically Section 2(4) of the National Lotto Act, 2006(Act 722).

It is a fact that the Private Lotto Operators are not duly recognized under Act 722 since they are neither Lotto Marketing Companies or Collaborators. Therefore, members of GLOA and all other Private Lotto Operators are supposed to be licensed and regulated by the National Lottery Authority(NLA) under Section 22(1) of the Veterans Administration, Ghana Act, 2012(Act 844).

It is not inherently flawed to compare GLOA’s 44.9 million cedis to KGL’s 173 million cedis because GLOA and its members still control 70-80% of the market share in the lottery industry, therefore, it is expected that GLOA would do better than making GHS 44.9 million payments to the Republic through NLA.

Exclusive Market Do NOT Automatically Create An Advantage

Staking of lottery by a Ghanaian citizen is an Optional duty, not mandatory like payment of taxes to GRA. It takes extremely huge investments into modern I.T. infrastructure, software systems integrations, ISO Certifications, and marketing to achieve the needed results in the mobile-based transactions. Also attaining competitive advantage in that space is not by mouth but an expensive capital investment of about $500 million to $1billion to have the kind of Infrastructure architecture that KGL is currently operating in partnership with the Mobile Network Companies.

It is a LIE for anyone to say that access to a dedicated USSD platform substantially expands transaction volumes while reducing operational complexity. If that is the case then NLA would have been successful with the MOBI GAME 2 SURE in 2008, and MOBILE 5/90 between 2015-2017.

NLA through a collaborator started the operation of MOBILE 5/90 in 2015 and the revenues generated for 2015, 2016, and 2017 are respectively GHS 517, 967.50, GHS 1, 259, 185.10, and GHS 367, 812.30.

Due to the poor performance of the MOBILE 5/90, the National Lottery Authority(NLA) ceased its operations in 2017.

Again, the revenue generated by USSD/MOBILE *890# VAG Lottery Intake, USSD/MOBILE *890# NLA 5/90 VAG lotto intake respectively for 2020 were GHS 31, 786.85, and GHS 938, 005.14. Also, the poor performance of the *890# short code forced NLA and Tekstart Afrika Limited to cease operations. These historical failures of the aforementioned digitalization projects by NLA and previous Collaborators cement and confirm that the success story of KGL did not come easy or cheap, but through tremendous work, dedication and investments into the operations of the company to ensure its success.

KGL Carries Heavy Burden of Infrastructure Costs Far more than Costs Incurred by Private Lotto Operators

Which member of GLOA or can the combined resources of GLOA match up to the unprecedent financial investments that KGL has poured into the sustainability of its operations at no financial cost or risk to NLA? Investments into systems upgrade to align with the telecos come at financial costs running into millions of United State dollars, and system maintenance as well as creating fire walls around the project in order to control and prevent cyber fraud and attacks come at greater financial costs running into millions of United State dollars. Payments of winning tickets to the winners of national lotto, and investments into Marketing and CSR equally come at costs running into millions of dollars.

KGL Remains the Largest Contributor to NLA’s Revenue

KGL, apart from its statutory payments to NLA, also pays GHS 3 million annually to the NLA Stabilization Fund which was created by the Authority. This fund is aimed at cushioning the Lotto Marketing Companies in the kiosks. In addition to that, KGL also pays GHS 2 million annually to support NLA’s Good Causes Foundation. Each of the aforementioned payments by KGL is higher than the individual license fees of GHS 1.5 million paid by a Private Lotto Operator.

KGL Supports More than One Million Livelihoods too

Apart from the commitments to CSR and CSI Investments, KGL Group has provided jobs to millions of Ghanaians across the Country directly and indirectly.

MTN, Telecel, AirtelTigo, banks, advertising companies, media houses, and several companies are beneficiaries of KGL’s existence.

Wider Economic Impact

The marketing & sustainability invetments undertaken by KGL also helps business in the economic ecosystem of Ghana to survive and expand, thereby retaining and employing more workers. Through the KGL Foundation, the livelihood of millions of household have been significantly improved especially the youth population.

The contribution of KGL to the wider ecosystem of Ghana is over GHS 1 billion annually from payment of taxes, and investments into education, healthcare delivery and sports development.

Call for Holistic Evaluation

The lottery market space is still underdeveloped, and the space is big enough to accommodate KGL, Private Lotto Operators, and other Collaborators. Industrial harmony is key for each company licensed by NLA to realize its full potential.

Absolutely no one is against Private Lotto Operators and Agents. In several countries, the retail is over 60-70%, and the digital is 30-40%. What the Private Lotto Operators need to do is to deploy modern Point of Sale Terminals or paper coupon with enhanced security features coupled with the right marketing strategies.

The REPUBLIC needs KGL to RAISE REVENUE in accordance with Section 2(1) of Act 722.

The REPUBLIC also needs the Private Lotto Operators, Lotto Marketing Companies, and Collaborators to create jobs for a number of people in the Kiosks across the Country.

Therefore, the REPUBLIC needs the services of all stakeholders in the lottery industry. Instead of fighting and undermining each other, the stakeholders duly recognized by the National Lottery Authority(NLA) should learn to peacefully co-exist in the lottery industry, raising revenue and creating jobs.

Source: Razak Kojo Opoku

GLOA Confirms the Market Dominance of KGL: Urges Stakeholders Not to Compare GLOA’s GHS 44.9 million to KGL’s GHS 173 million to NLA

Attractive Mustapha
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0
GLOA Confirms the Market Dominance of KGL: Urges Stakeholders Not to Compare GLOA’s GHS 44.9 million to KGL’s GHS 173 million to NLA

A press statement by the Ghana Lotto Operators Association (GLOA) is urging stakeholders, media, and the general public not to compare the GHS 44.9 million paid by some 29 licensed Private Lotto Operators to the NLA to the over GHS 173 million paid by KGL to the same institution. GLOA also confirmed that KGL is the largest contributor to NLA in terms of revenue generation for the Republic.

According to Section 2(1) of the National Lotto Act, 2006(Act 722), “National Lotto shall be conducted for the purpose of RAISING REVENUE for the NATION and for other purposes stated in this Act.” Therefore, per Section 2(1) of Act 722, KGL has proven its worth in salt by helping the National Lottery Authority(NLA) to fulfil its number one(1) objective for which the Authority was established.

The primary purpose of establishing NLA is RAISING REVENUE for the NATION not principally employment creation or engaging in grassroot economic activity. However, generating revenue automatically leads to jobs creation and grassroots economic activity whether via its USSD platform or point of sale terminals or paper-based coupons.

Different Business Models

KGL operates as a collaborator under the same National Lotto Act, specifically Section 2(4) of the National Lotto Act, 2006(Act 722).

It is a fact that the Private Lotto Operators are not duly recognized under Act 722 since they are neither Lotto Marketing Companies or Collaborators. Therefore, members of GLOA and all other Private Lotto Operators are supposed to be licensed and regulated by the National Lottery Authority(NLA) under Section 22(1) of the Veterans Administration, Ghana Act, 2012(Act 844).

It is not inherently flawed to compare GLOA’s 44.9 million cedis to KGL’s 173 million cedis because GLOA and its members still control 70-80% of the market share in the lottery industry, therefore, it is expected that GLOA would do better than making GHS 44.9 million payments to the Republic through NLA.

Exclusive Market Do NOT Automatically Create An Advantage

Staking of lottery by a Ghanaian citizen is an Optional duty, not mandatory like payment of taxes to GRA. It takes extremely huge investments into modern I.T. infrastructure, software systems integrations, ISO Certifications, and marketing to achieve the needed results in the mobile-based transactions. Also attaining competitive advantage in that space is not by mouth but an expensive capital investment of about $500 million to $1billion to have the kind of Infrastructure architecture that KGL is currently operating in partnership with the Mobile Network Companies.

It is a LIE for anyone to say that access to a dedicated USSD platform substantially expands transaction volumes while reducing operational complexity. If that is the case then NLA would have been successful with the MOBI GAME 2 SURE in 2008, and MOBILE 5/90 between 2015-2017.

NLA through a collaborator started the operation of MOBILE 5/90 in 2015 and the revenues generated for 2015, 2016, and 2017 are respectively GHS 517, 967.50, GHS 1, 259, 185.10, and GHS 367, 812.30.

Due to the poor performance of the MOBILE 5/90, the National Lottery Authority(NLA) ceased its operations in 2017.

Again, the revenue generated by USSD/MOBILE *890# VAG Lottery Intake, USSD/MOBILE *890# NLA 5/90 VAG lotto intake respectively for 2020 were GHS 31, 786.85, and GHS 938, 005.14. Also, the poor performance of the *890# short code forced NLA and Tekstart Afrika Limited to cease operations. These historical failures of the aforementioned digitalization projects by NLA and previous Collaborators cement and confirm that the success story of KGL did not come easy or cheap, but through tremendous work, dedication and investments into the operations of the company to ensure its success.

KGL Carries Heavy Burden of Infrastructure Costs Far more than Costs Incurred by Private Lotto Operators

Which member of GLOA or can the combined resources of GLOA match up to the unprecedent financial investments that KGL has poured into the sustainability of its operations at no financial cost or risk to NLA? Investments into systems upgrade to align with the telecos come at financial costs running into millions of United State dollars, and system maintenance as well as creating fire walls around the project in order to control and prevent cyber fraud and attacks come at greater financial costs running into millions of United State dollars. Payments of winning tickets to the winners of national lotto, and investments into Marketing and CSR equally come at costs running into millions of dollars.

KGL Remains the Largest Contributor to NLA’s Revenue

KGL, apart from its statutory payments to NLA, also pays GHS 3 million annually to the NLA Stabilization Fund which was created by the Authority. This fund is aimed at cushioning the Lotto Marketing Companies in the kiosks. In addition to that, KGL also pays GHS 2 million annually to support NLA’s Good Causes Foundation. Each of the aforementioned payments by KGL is higher than the individual license fees of GHS 1.5 million paid by a Private Lotto Operator.

KGL Supports More than One Million Livelihoods too

Apart from the commitments to CSR and CSI Investments, KGL Group has provided jobs to millions of Ghanaians across the Country directly and indirectly.

MTN, Telecel, AirtelTigo, banks, advertising companies, media houses, and several companies are beneficiaries of KGL’s existence.

Wider Economic Impact

The marketing & sustainability invetments undertaken by KGL also helps business in the economic ecosystem of Ghana to survive and expand, thereby retaining and employing more workers. Through the KGL Foundation, the livelihood of millions of household have been significantly improved especially the youth population.

The contribution of KGL to the wider ecosystem of Ghana is over GHS 1 billion annually from payment of taxes, and investments into education, healthcare delivery and sports development.

Call for Holistic Evaluation

The lottery market space is still underdeveloped, and the space is big enough to accommodate KGL, Private Lotto Operators, and other Collaborators. Industrial harmony is key for each company licensed by NLA to realize its full potential.

Absolutely no one is against Private Lotto Operators and Agents. In several countries, the retail is over 60-70%, and the digital is 30-40%. What the Private Lotto Operators need to do is to deploy modern Point of Sale Terminals or paper coupon with enhanced security features coupled with the right marketing strategies.

The REPUBLIC needs KGL to RAISE REVENUE in accordance with Section 2(1) of Act 722.

The REPUBLIC also needs the Private Lotto Operators, Lotto Marketing Companies, and Collaborators to create jobs for a number of people in the Kiosks across the Country.

Therefore, the REPUBLIC needs the services of all stakeholders in the lottery industry. Instead of fighting and undermining each other, the stakeholders duly recognized by the National Lottery Authority(NLA) should learn to peacefully co-exist in the lottery industry, raising revenue and creating jobs.

Source: Razak Kojo Opoku

Germany Crush Curaçao 7-1 But Debutants Exit With Historic Goal and Head Held High

Samuel Kwame Boadu
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Germany Crush Curaçao 7-1 But Debutants Exit With Historic Goal and Head Held High

Livano Comenencia scored Curaçao’s first-ever World Cup goal and Dick Advocaat became the oldest manager in tournament history at 78, but Germany’s firepower proved relentless in Houston.

Germany opened their World Cup campaign with a devastating 7-1 victory over Curaçao at NRG Stadium in Houston, but the tournament debutants left with their heads held high after scoring their first-ever goal at the finals and creating a moment that will live forever in the island nation’s football history.

Germany needed just six minutes to break through. Felix Nmecha slotted calmly beyond Eloy Room after a slick passing move, handing the four-time champions an early lead. The Germans looked in complete control, but Curaçao stunned the stadium in the 21st minute. After a defensive mistake, Livano Comenencia reacted quickest to fire past Manuel Neuer and score the first World Cup goal in his country’s history, sparking unforgettable celebrations among players and supporters.

For a brief moment, Curaçao dared to dream. The underdogs held firm for much of the first half, but Germany’s quality eventually told. Nico Schlotterbeck rose highest to meet Nathaniel Brown’s corner just before the break, restoring the lead. Moments later, Riechedly Bazoer brought down Nmecha inside the area, and Kai Havertz converted the resulting penalty to send Germany into half-time with a 3-1 advantage.

Any hopes of a Curaçao comeback disappeared almost immediately after the restart. Jamal Musiala raced onto a perfectly weighted Joshua Kimmich pass and finished clinically to make it 4-1 after only a minute of the second half. Brown capped an impressive performance with a superb volley, substitute Deniz Undav added another, and Havertz grabbed his second of the night with a delicate finish to complete the 7-1 rout.

Germany dominated possession with 65 percent and registered 26 shots, 11 on target, while limiting Curaçao to just six attempts. German passing accuracy stood at 89 percent compared to Curaçao’s 84 percent.

Beyond the scoreline, the match carried historic significance. Curaçao were making their World Cup debut, and head coach Dick Advocaat, at 78, became the oldest manager ever to take charge of a team at the tournament. The 7-1 scoreline also represented a historic recurring result for Germany, mirroring their famous 2014 semi-final triumph over Brazil.

According to a report by Accra Street Journal, Julian Nagelsmann’s side began their campaign in devastating fashion, moving to the top of Group E with three points and a commanding goal difference. Curaçao leave with a heavy defeat, but also with a place in the history books thanks to Comenencia’s goal and Advocaat’s record—moments that no result can erase.

WhatsApp Has Become Ghana’s Default Storefront

News Ghana
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WhatsApp Has Become Ghana’s Default Storefront

For millions of small businesses in Ghana, WhatsApp has become the storefront that websites and formal online shops never managed to be: cheap, trusted, and already on every customer’s phone.

The pattern is everywhere. A food vendor takes orders by voice note. A mechanic collects a deposit over mobile money. A fashion trader clears stock through a broadcast list. All of it runs on the app people already use to message family.

The ground for this is wide. By late 2025 Ghana had 41.8 million mobile connections, more than its population, and 26.3 million internet users, about three quarters of the country, according to DataReportal. Most of those users come online through a phone, which doubles as workplace and marketplace at once.

WhatsApp suits how trade already worked here. Buyers ask questions before they pay, haggle in conversation, and return to sellers they know. In a country where many people send voice notes rather than type, the app carries that back and forth without pushing anyone onto a website. Traders in markets like Makola, along with fashion and textile sellers, have been among the quickest to adapt.

The barrier to entry is close to nothing. A seller needs a phone, some data, and a customer’s trust, not hosting fees, site maintenance, or an advertising budget. That lets a trader reach past the few streets around a stall. The messages also get read: marketers report WhatsApp open rates well above 90 percent, far higher than email, though those figures are industry estimates rather than audited numbers.

The shift is global. Juniper Research projected that spending through conversational channels, messaging, chatbots, and voice, would reach about $290 billion worldwide by 2025, up from $41 billion in 2021. African markets are among the faster growing, and Ghana’s fashion, beauty, and textile trade shows what that looks like at street level.

The catch is that almost none of it is visible to the state. Many of these sellers build real customer bases and steady takings on WhatsApp while staying outside formal finance, credit, and the tax net. The country’s revenue system cannot yet see, measure, or lend against activity that lives inside private chats.

Closing that gap is the open question. Simple digital business registration, tax tools tied to mobile money, and credit scored on a seller’s transaction history could turn this parallel trade into something documented and bankable. Without them, WhatsApp commerce stays large, useful, and almost entirely off the books.

Why Ghana’s Men Struggle To Ask For Help

News Ghana
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Why Ghana’s Men Struggle To Ask For Help

June is observed in many places as Men’s Mental Health Month, and in Ghana the timing is sharp. The men expected to hold up households and much of the economy are among those most at risk of suicide and least likely to ask for help.

The World Health Organization puts Ghana’s age standardised suicide rate among men at 20 per 100,000, above the African regional average of 18. That is a modelled estimate and runs well above the country’s reported death counts, but researchers agree on the pattern: suicide in Ghana is largely a male problem, shaped by financial strain and the shame attached to a man seen to be failing as a provider.

The Acting Chief Executive of the Mental Health Authority, Dr Eugene Dordoye, has called the trend both a health emergency and an economic one, since many of those who die are young. “For every life lost, three to five times more people attempt suicide,” he has said, and each attempt touches up to ten others.

The pressure behind that is concrete. Ghanaian men are cast, by custom and by circumstance, as the earners who cover school fees, rent, and the parents and relatives who lean on them. Ghanaian research on male suicide has traced how the loss of a job or income, and the sense of failing in that provider role, can push men toward crisis across ages and income levels.

The harder barrier is cultural. Boys here grow up with a short script: be strong, fix problems, carry your troubles quietly, and read distress as weakness. Research points to heavy psychological distress in Ghana, affecting close to a fifth of adults, yet the road from distress to help runs far shorter for women than for men, because male vulnerability is rarely given social permission. The result is a generation of men who solve everyone else’s problems and have nowhere to bring their own.

There has been progress. Ghana decriminalised attempted suicide in 2023, removing a law that had treated people in crisis as criminals and kept many from coming forward.

What advocates are asking for is modest. That men feel free to rest, to speak, and to seek help from professionals, trusted elders, or family, and to know that the strength the country reads into them is not lost by admitting a limit. Dordoye has pressed for stronger policy, more investment in services, and community campaigns to cut stigma. A country that leans on its men to build its economy and hold its homes together owes them the means to do it without breaking, in silence and alone.

If you or someone you know is struggling, the Mental Health Authority runs a free national helpline on 0800 678 678.

Ghana Processes Under A Fifth Of Its Cashews

News Ghana
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Ghana Processes Under A Fifth Of Its Cashews

Ghana processes less than a fifth of the cashew it grows, and its processors are pressing the government for support to keep more of that value at home.

The Association of Cashew Processors Ghana (ACPG) wants buffer stocks of raw nuts, cheaper financing, and tax and energy relief to help its members scale up. The need is plain in the numbers. Ghana harvested about 252,000 tonnes of raw cashew in 2024, but local factories processed only 45,360 tonnes of it, roughly 18 percent, according to figures from the African Cashew Alliance.

The association has set a target of processing 85,000 tonnes a year by 2026. Its president, Antonio Manuel Caramelo Raposo, says reaching that would create thousands of jobs, many of them for the young women who make up most of the processing workforce. Processing generates roughly 80 to 200 jobs for every 1,000 tonnes, depending on how mechanised a plant is.

The wider prize is larger. The Tree Crops Development Authority estimates Ghana’s cashew sector could earn more than $660 million a year with stronger regulation, more processing, and added value. Its chief executive, Andy Osei Okrah, set out that projection at a stakeholder forum in the Bono Region.

The sticking point is raw material. Processors say they cannot secure enough nuts at workable prices because exporters of raw cashew compete for the same supply. The authority is drawing up a national pricing framework meant to steady farm gate prices and balance the interests of farmers, exporters, and processors.

Raposo has cast the push as a search for balance rather than a barrier to trade. “Our processors are operating under intense pressure,” he said.

Ghana has built one of Africa’s larger cashew industries over two decades, with more than 300,000 farmers growing the crop, and has drawn on partners including GIZ and the World Bank to build processing capacity. Much of that capacity now sits idle for want of raw nuts. Across West Africa, the share of cashew processed locally has climbed from about 8 percent to 25 percent in recent years, though the region still trails processors in Asia.

Meta’s New AI Unit Nears Revolt Over Forced Transfers

News Ghana
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Meta’s New AI Unit Nears Revolt Over Forced Transfers

Meta’s Applied AI unit is in near revolt, with reassigned engineers calling themselves draftees and an employee disrupting a livestreamed meeting to abuse a senior executive, Wired reported.

The disruption hit a staff meeting open to thousands this week. Someone broke in with an expletive aimed at a senior AI executive, and one presenter covered their face, according to Wired.

Meta set up the Applied AI group in March to support its Superintelligence Labs, staffing it with roughly 6,500 engineers and product managers. Many were moved in without a real choice, told to accept the switch or leave, and now call themselves draftees. Their job is generating coding puzzles and problems to train the company’s artificial intelligence models, work several of them described to Wired as soul-crushing.

Business Insider reported earlier that many learned of the move through a surprise email. An internal note it reviewed said Meta’s models still could not match humans on technical tasks such as writing software, so the company wanted more real world examples to learn from.

In a leaked recording, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg defended using staff rather than outside contractors. He pointed to Alexandr Wang, the Scale AI founder Meta brought in as chief AI officer after buying his data labeling firm for $14.3 billion, and argued employees would produce better training data. By one account of the recording, he said they were far more capable than contract workers.

The discontent runs wider than one team. More than 1,600 staff have signed a petition against a system that logs their clicks and keystrokes for AI training, and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox addressed what he called a brutal mood on a company call this week.

The unit reports to Maher Saba, a former Reality Labs executive, under Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth. The reporting describes a top heavy structure, with some supervisors said to oversee as many as 50 people.

In a memo on Friday seen by Reuters, Zuckerberg conceded the restructuring had caused distress and that the company had “made mistakes and will almost certainly make more.” He said Meta was working to address the concerns. The company did not otherwise comment publicly.

Ghana Has A Planning Problem, Not A Rain Problem

News Ghana
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Ghana Has A Planning Problem, Not A Rain Problem

Every year the rains arrive, the roads vanish, cars turn amphibious, politicians put on reflective jackets, engineers turn up on television, and the cameras find the same scene: residents standing waist deep in water, wondering how this could possibly happen again.

By now, flooding in Ghana is less a natural disaster than a seasonal tradition. And the hard truth is that Ghana does not have a rain problem. It has a planning problem.

Nature drew the map first

Long before surveyors, developers, politicians, and land guards turned up, nature had already finished a national engineering survey. Over thousands of years, rainfall cut rivers, streams, wetlands, and flood plains into the land, and water kept to the path of least resistance, leaving a blueprint of exactly where it wanted to go.

Many of us looked at that blueprint and said, “Lovely stream. Let us put a house on it.” Or, “That flood plain would make a fine gated community.” Then, years later, when the water returns to the route it has followed since our ancestors traded gold for salt, everyone acts shocked.

The water is not trespassing. It is following directions.

Water does not respect land titles

Water has no regard for human paperwork. It does not read site plans, building permits, or indentures. You can own land legally, traditionally, and emotionally, but gravity remains unimpressed. When rain falls, water obeys physics, not the Lands Commission.

The Dutch solved a harder problem

Before deciding floods are inevitable, look at the Netherlands. Much of the country sits below sea level, where the North Sea could reasonably be posting eviction notices. Instead, the Dutch built canals, reservoirs, pumping stations, and flood barriers. They did not defeat nature. They studied it and engineered around it.

That is the difference. Good engineering works with water rather than against it. Elsewhere, one wet weekend can send us straight to debating angry river gods and whether somebody’s grandmother renewed her witchcraft subscription.

So what is Ghana’s excuse?

The obstacle is no longer technology. For the price of a mid range vehicle, an agency could buy mapping drones fitted with laser scanners and produce accurate topographic surveys of whole districts in days. Within weeks, engineers could mark every flood prone dip, blocked watercourse, and vulnerable settlement, then design drainage, culverts, retention ponds, and reservoirs around real data instead of guesswork.

The skills exist. The tools exist. What goes missing is the will to think past the next election.

Floods into water supply

Here is the irony. We treat rainwater as a nuisance when it is one of our most valuable resources. Galamsey keeps poisoning the rivers, water security keeps slipping, and meanwhile millions of litres of clean rain pour through our cities and out to sea. Then the taps run dry a few months later and we act surprised. It is a bit like sending your wife to her mother’s for the weekend and then complaining that the house feels empty.

Now picture Ghana Water treating storms the way the Dutch treat water. Retention lakes around the big cities to catch the surge. Underground reservoirs built into the drainage. Captured stormwater filtered, treated, and fed into the supply. The same works that ease flooding would also shore up water security. One investment, two problems, the kind of sum an accountant enjoys.

Countries spend billions on desalination to pull salt out of seawater. Nature drops fresh water on us for free, and our answer is to rush it into the Atlantic as fast as we can.

Crises in muddy boots

Waste and climate change belong in this story too, but neither has to be a curse. Where we see heaps of rubbish, places like China see fuel: municipal waste burned for power in waste to energy plants. With proper bins and organised collection, yesterday’s litter could help keep tomorrow’s lights on.

Climate change is more mixed than the headlines suggest. Across the Sahel, farmers have clawed back vast stretches of dry land with simple soil and water methods, helped by a partial recovery in rainfall, turning barren ground into farms. Burkina Faso now grows strawberries, and a good share of our onions still comes from that direction.

So perhaps crises are just opportunities wearing muddy boots. Today’s floodwater could be tomorrow’s drinking water, today’s rubbish tomorrow’s electricity.

There is a smaller, sharper example. How often have we watched the Fire Service reach a blaze, only for the engine to run short of the one thing it came to deliver? Channel some of that stormwater and gutter water into underground tanks around the cities, and you have a network of emergency reserves and fire supply. As the elders put it, dirty water self dey quench fire. They were doing systems engineering before we had a name for it.

The drain’s worst predator is us

No honest account of Ghana’s floods can skip the plastic bottle in the drain. Engineers can design the finest drainage system on the continent, model the storms, size the channels, and then someone tips half a household’s waste into it. We complain that the drains are blocked while busily blocking them. Some are so packed with sachet water that future archaeologists may decide we worshipped it. Infrastructure matters, but maintenance and public habits matter just as much.

We keep treating symptoms

After every big flood the routine starts. Meetings are called, committees formed, press conferences held, investigations promised, and a few excavators appear for the cameras. Then we wait for next year’s flood to run it all again.

None of this is a mystery. Poor drainage design, encroachment on waterways, blocked drains, too little stormwater storage, weak enforcement, unplanned sprawl. We do not need a national inquiry to name the causes. We need to act on them.

And the bill is bigger than the wrecked cars and ruined shops. Every flood quietly drains the economy. Businesses shut, workers cannot reach work, roads break up, claims rise, public assets need repair, investors see risk. We pay again and again for the same avoidable problem.

The choice

Rain is not the enemy, and neither is nature. The enemy is decades of poor planning, weak enforcement, neglected drains, and a habit of fixing problems only once they become emergencies.

Water is patient. It does not argue or negotiate or campaign. It waits for gravity, then goes where it has always gone. So the choice is simple. Ghana can use decent engineering to guide that water, store it, and build cities that work with it. Or it can keep holding its annual flood festival, where the roads become rivers and everyone acts astonished when water behaves exactly like water.

Ghana’s Broken Infrastructure Is A Tax On Business

News Ghana
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0
Ghana’s Broken Infrastructure Is A Tax On Business

For a business in Ghana, the country’s broken infrastructure works like a tax. No interest rate cut or company tax break offsets it while the roads, the power supply, and the ports stay as they are. And the smallest firms, the ones least able to absorb the cost, pay the highest rate.

The bill is large. The National Development Planning Commission puts Ghana’s infrastructure financing need at about $37 billion a year for three decades, with another $8 billion a year just to keep what already exists in working order. The cost of leaving that gap open is counted elsewhere too. Weak electricity supply drains between 2 and 4 percent of output a year across sub Saharan Africa, and poor roads add 30 to 40 percent to the cost of trade within the continent.

Those percentages have a physical form. Generators run through the night. Trucks crawl over potholed roads, burning more fuel and arriving late. Goods reach markets and ports behind schedule because the logistics network cannot keep pace with the trade moving through it.

Firms carrying those costs pay a premium their competitors abroad do not. Manufacturers in poorly connected parts of the country report that transport alone can eat up about a fifth of their production costs, against single digits in better served economies. That gap makes competing with imports hard and exporting close to impossible. It grows with every late delivery and every repair bill from a road never built for the traffic it now carries.

The same drag keeps prices high. When global costs ease, local charges for ports, warehousing, and distribution hold firm, which is why shop prices in Ghana rarely fall back once they have risen.

Power sits at the centre of it. The World Bank has flagged rising electricity tariffs and unmet infrastructure financing as a weight on Ghana’s fiscal stability and on household budgets, with the heaviest load on manufacturers and processors who need steady, affordable electricity to make their figures work.

The scale of the deficit shows in the rankings. Ghana scores 47 out of 100 on the Global Infrastructure Hub’s quality measure, ten points below the average for countries at its income level, and spends about 5 percent of national output on infrastructure while its peers spend more. “These figures confirm what citizens feel daily,” Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Nyarko Ampem said.

The government’s answer is the Big Push, a roughly $10 billion programme covering roads, energy, digital networks, and urban development. Its flagship road between Accra and Kumasi is projected to halve the journey and cut transport costs by about 40 percent. The ambition fits the size of the problem.

The risk is the one Ghana knows well. The country has rarely lacked plans, only finished ones. Contractors go unpaid, budget releases slip, and debt service still swallows more than 40 percent of government revenue. If the Big Push moves at the speed of past projects, businesses will keep paying the infrastructure premium long after the launch ceremonies are over.

Ghana Has The Cash For Municipal Bonds, Not The Law

News Ghana
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Ghana Has The Cash For Municipal Bonds, Not The Law

Ghana’s district assemblies are short of money, and much of what could fix that sits a few streets away, parked in government paper by pension and insurance funds with nowhere better to put it.

For decades, local government here has run on handouts. Assemblies lean on the District Assemblies Common Fund and their own thin internally generated funds, both of which tend to arrive late or fall short. Roads stay cratered, drains stay choked, and each rainy season floods the same markets.

The country is not short of long term money, though. Private pension schemes alone held about GH¢63.9 billion at the end of 2024, up from GH¢46.5 billion a year earlier, and the wider pension pool was set to pass GH¢100 billion. Around seven in ten of those cedis sit in government securities. As treasury bill yields slid from roughly 26 percent early last year toward the low teens, that concentration began to look less comfortable, and the pensions regulator now requires funds to move at least 5 percent into alternatives such as private equity.

So there is capital looking for a home and there are assemblies that need capital. The two do not meet. Less than 1 percent of pension money goes anywhere near local government, because assemblies have nothing safe to sell them.

Here is the part bond enthusiasts tend to skip. No Ghanaian assembly can legally issue a municipal bond today. The Public Financial Management Act and the Local Governance Act would have to be amended first, debt limits set, and an approval role written for the Finance Ministry and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The obstacle is legal and structural, not a shortage of cash.

That groundwork would still ask a lot of assemblies. They would need to digitise revenue collection so property rates, permits, and market tolls stop leaking, open their accounts to independent audits, and show they can service debt over five to ten years. Tying a single stream, say commercial property tax from a fast growing district, to a particular bond would give investors something concrete to lean on.

The timing argues for starting the work now. Ghana is closing out its IMF programme, due to exit in August into a lighter monitoring arrangement, and the central budget will stay tight for years. Waiting on Accra to fund every culvert is not a plan.

A municipal bond market would not appear overnight, and it would not suit every assembly in the country. But the raw materials, the savings and the need, are already here. What is missing is the law to join them.

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