Accountants Mark 40 Years With Health Walk

News Ghana
-
0
Accountants Mark 40 Years With Health Walk

More than 111 chartered accountants walked through Kumasi this month as part of a health walk marking the 40th anniversary of the profession’s Kumasi District Society, one leg of a longer anniversary programme built around the theme of professional integrity.

Participants gathered at the Officers’ Mess before walking past Bekwai Roundabout, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Pampaso, Adum and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly. The event also included aerobics, free medical screening, indoor games and networking sessions for members of the Kumasi District Society, known as KDS-ICAG, a branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana.

Professor Kingsley Opoku Appiah, an ICAG council member elect and accounting professor at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, took part in the walk and the aerobics session and used the event to press members to treat their own health as part of professional duty. As Chartered Accountants, we are custodians of public trust, he told participants, arguing that accountants who neglect their health put their ability to serve clients and the public at risk.

The health walk builds on a broader 40th anniversary campaign the society launched in March under the theme 40 Years of Upholding Integrity, Celebrating Our Past and Empowering the Next Generation of Accountants. At that launch, ICAG national president Augustine Addo told members the profession must enforce its authority against accountants who flout the law, and KDS-ICAG leaders said the society would keep disciplining chartered accountants found in violation of professional rules, a response in part to what they described as a rising number of unqualified people working as accountants. The society has also flagged declining interest in accounting among pre-tertiary students as a concern and said it is expanding outreach in basic schools to build future interest in the field.

KDS-ICAG’s current leadership, including chairman David Abbam, vice chairman Edward Opoku, treasurer David Gbedzo and secretary Emmanuel Osei Bonsu, attended the health walk alongside past leaders including founding member Dr Owusu Afriyie. The society said the walk was among the most well attended events in its four decade history and plans further anniversary activities, including a public lecture and industry forum, in the coming months.

Cataract Outreach Restores Sight For 517

Godfred Aaneamenga Polkuu
-
0
Cataract Outreach Restores Sight For 517

A week long free cataract surgery outreach in Bolgatanga restored sight to 517 people this month, beating its target of 500 in a region where cataract blindness remains difficult to treat.

The outreach ran from July 3 at the Upper East Regional Hospital, drawing mostly elderly residents who travelled from across the region for surgery they could not otherwise afford. It was funded by the Cure Blindness Project, a United States based nonprofit that has run cataract programs in Ghana since 2008, working with the Ghana Health Service through the National Eye Care Secretariat.

The scale of the need explains why outreach events like this matter. Ghana has only around 100 ophthalmologists for a population of more than 30 million, according to figures from the Cure Blindness Project, and cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness in the country, affecting an estimated 230,000 people nationwide. Half of the country’s ophthalmologists work in Greater Accra, leaving many regions reliant on periodic outreach campaigns rather than year round specialist care. The Upper East region has hosted similar events before, including a 2018 outreach that performed 484 surgeries and a later one that reached 851.

Moro Sandah Issahaku, the region’s eye care coordinator, said cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide and told residents the condition is mostly age related, striking people 65 and older, though high blood pressure and diabetes can accelerate it. He urged people to eat more fruit and vegetables and to protect their eyes from prolonged sun exposure as preventive steps.

For beneficiaries, the outreach’s impact showed up in small, immediate ways. Nbabila Adaberi, a resident of Tindonmoligo, described her first moments of clear vision after surgery. “I can see you clearly and even the white shirt you are wearing,” she told hospital staff. Another patient, an amputee named Ayibayeya Amoah, said he had lost sight in his left eye before the surgery restored it.

Upper East Regional Hospital’s management credited the outreach’s surgical and support teams, including ophthalmologists, nurses, anaesthetists, optometrists and counsellors, for delivering the campaign, and said the partnership with the Cure Blindness Project reflected what coordinated investment in eye care can achieve in underserved regions.

Writer Says Local Voices Improve Conservation Policy

News Ghana
-
0
Writer Says Local Voices Improve Conservation Policy

African Liberty writing fellow Rodrigue Ishimwe Mugabo argues that environmental policy across Africa works better when the communities most affected help design it, pointing to land conflicts in northern Tanzania as a warning of what happens when they are left out.

In a column, Mugabo writes that governments and international organisations increasingly set environmental rules to match global climate goals without meaningful input from local communities. He points to Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where he says Maasai herders faced grazing restrictions tied to conservation and carbon credit projects that limited their say over land use. Independent reporting on the same area describes a more severe situation than restrictions alone, including forced evictions, home demolitions and, according to human rights researchers, the displacement of tens of thousands of Maasai from Loliondo and Ngorongoro since 2022 under government backed conservation and carbon offset deals, a dispute that has drawn criticism from groups including Greenpeace Africa and Catholic aid organisation CIDSE.

Mugabo’s broader argument is that policies fail when outside authorities do not account for how people actually live off the land. He cites research on Uganda’s Mount Elgon National Park linking earlier enforcement heavy conservation approaches there to livelihood pressure and land disputes, and argues that communities denied realistic alternatives sometimes turn to the kind of informal activity that damages the environment further.

He sets out examples he says work better. In parts of Kenya, he writes, community conservancies run rotational grazing systems that let pastoralists open and close grazing areas as conditions change, easing pressure on land and water during drought. In Niger, he points to farmer managed natural regeneration, in which farmers protected and regrew trees on their own land rather than relying on state reforestation programmes, a approach he credits with improving soil quality and food security and restoring millions of trees. In Kenya and Rwanda, he cites conservancies that link wildlife protection to tourism revenue, ranger jobs and shared income, arguing that when residents earn money from conservation directly, they have a stronger incentive to sustain it.

Mugabo concludes that community led monitoring, local cooperatives and voluntary conservation partnerships tend to outperform uniform, externally designed rules, arguing that policy works best when it builds on the environmental knowledge communities already use to manage land, water and grazing.

Environmental Policies in Africa Will Work Better When Communities Shape Them

News Ghana
-
0
Environmental Policies in Africa Will Work Better When Communities Shape Them

By Rodrigue Ishimwe Mugabo

Across Africa, governments and international organizations increasingly shape environmental policies in line with global climate goals. Yet they still make many decisions without significant input from the communities most affected. In Loliondo and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania, Maasai communities faced restrictions on grazing land linked to conservation and carbon-credit projects. Herders in the region claimed the restrictions threatened their livelihoods and limited their role in decisions affecting their land. Meanwhile, several African communities already face droughts, floods, rising heat, and drying rivers, which affect farming, grazing, health, and daily survival. Environmental policies in Africa will become more effective when they support local knowledge, community responsibility, and environmental solutions that allow communities to sustain themselves.

Environmental policies can fail when external organizations or authorities cannot account for how people live and survive. Restrictions on land use leave farmers and herders without a stable income or practical alternatives. In Uganda, research on Mount Elgon National Park linked earlier conservation enforcement approaches to livelihood pressures and land disputes, highlighting the importance of stronger community participation in environmental governance. Without realistic alternatives, some communities may turn to informal activities that further damage the environment. Ignoring local environmental knowledge and livelihood realities may weaken conservation efforts and make it harder for communities to adapt to growing climate pressures such as drought and shrinking water sources.

Community cooperatives, conservation partnerships, and local businesses can address many environmental challenges through shared economic interest, local knowledge, and voluntary cooperation. Several African communities currently employ indigenous environmental understanding as a method of community science, facilitating the management of natural resources and practical responses to climatic challenges. In parts of Kenya, community conservancies organize rotational grazing systems in which pastoralist communities coordinate livestock movement, temporarily open or close grazing areas, and adjust grazing access during drought periods to reduce pressure on land and water resources.

Community cooperatives, conservation partnerships, and local land users can contribute significantly to protecting forests, grazing land, rivers, and wildlife resources across Africa. Communities are more likely to support environmental protection when they help shape decisions affecting their livelihoods and directly benefit from conservation efforts.

In the Niger Republic, farmers restored portions of degraded land through farmer-managed natural regeneration by protecting and regrowing trees on farmland, rather than relying mainly on state-led reforestation programs. The approach improved soil quality, strengthened food security, and restored millions of trees because local farmers directly benefited from protecting the land.

Environmental protection will become more sustainable when communities benefit directly from conserving natural resources through locally designed initiatives. In many rural areas, people depend on land and natural resources for survival, so conservation efforts are more effective when they also support livelihoods rather than limit them.

In Kenya and Rwanda, community conservancies link wildlife protection to local economic activity through tourism partnerships, ranger employment, and shared revenue systems. These arrangements allow residents to earn income from protecting wildlife while maintaining grazing systems and land-use practices that fit local conditions.

When people benefit directly from conservation, they will eventually have stronger reasons to protect forests, water sources, and wildlife habitats. Local groups can also form cooperatives or partnerships to invest in small-scale restoration activities such as tree regeneration, soil recovery, and sustainable grazing management, depending on local needs. This approach will strengthen environmental outcomes while keeping decision-making and responsibility closer to the communities that depend on these resources every day.

African communities already hold practical environmental knowledge and use it every day to manage land, water, forests, and grazing areas. Environmental policies will work better when they build on local experience instead of replacing it with one-size-fits-all approaches. Strengthening community-led monitoring, local cooperatives, and voluntary conservation partnerships can improve natural resource management while supporting livelihoods.

Rodrigue Ishimwe Mugabo is an African Liberty Writing Fellow.

Ex Union Leader Now Fronts Tinubu Campaign Group

News Ghana
-
0
Ex Union Leader Now Fronts Tinubu Campaign Group

Williams Akporeha, who led Nigeria’s oil workers union for eight years, now heads Working People United, a coalition mobilising support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid.

Akporeha rose through the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers from branch secretary to national treasurer before becoming president in April 2018. During his two terms, the union completed its national headquarters, NUPENG Towers, in December 2024, expanded health and life insurance coverage for members and negotiated wage and welfare gains that Nigeria’s labour minister later credited with helping keep industrial relations stable across the oil and gas sector. He also served as a state and national officer of the Nigeria Labour Congress. He handed over to Comrade Salimon Akanni Oladiti at NUPENG’s delegates conference in Lagos in late April 2026, after Oladiti was elected unopposed alongside a new executive team.

What the union did not have a hand in is Akporeha’s next role. Working People United was launched in Abuja in March 2026, while Akporeha was still NUPENG president, with an explicit political mission distinct from union work. The group describes itself as a coalition of labour leaders, professionals, artisans and workers organising to back Tinubu’s second term, and Akporeha has served as its coordinator since its founding. By May, WoPU said it had recorded more than a million digital registrations and was rolling out chapters across all 36 states to campaign for the president ahead of the 2027 vote. Akporeha has argued that the administration’s reforms, though painful for many Nigerians, are necessary. Reforms are painful, he said at one WoPU event, but avoiding a reform would be more dangerous.

That argument sits inside a live national debate rather than a settled one. Nigeria’s inflation rate climbed above 30 percent in 2024 and remained near 15 percent in early 2026, the World Bank has estimated that roughly 60 percent of Nigerians now live in poverty, and Tinubu himself has acknowledged that many citizens are still struggling with the cost of living even as he defends the reforms WoPU is campaigning on. Supporters of the administration point to rebuilt foreign reserves and other fiscal gains as evidence the reforms are working; critics point to the inflation and poverty figures as evidence the pain has outpaced the payoff.

Akporeha’s move from union leadership into a group organising explicitly for a president’s re-election is not unusual in Nigerian labour politics, where former union officials frequently take on political roles after leaving office, though it marks a shift from the more neutral posture NUPENG maintained toward government policy during his tenure.

Air Cargo Rates Stay High As Volumes Slip

Roger A. Agana
-
0
Air Cargo Rates Stay High As Volumes Slip

Global air cargo rates remained about a third higher than a year ago in late June, even as shipment volumes fell for a second straight week, according to weekly market data from WorldACD.

The worldwide average rate stood at $3.19 per kilogram for the week of June 22 to 28, against $2.43 for the same week last year, a gain of roughly 31 percent that tracks a broader pattern WorldACD has recorded through the second quarter, with full market rates running about 33 percent above year ago levels. Chargeable weight, the industry’s measure of cargo volume, fell 1 percent over the most recent two weeks compared with the two weeks before that, reversing gains recorded earlier in June, even though volumes remained 5 percent above where they stood a year ago. Worldwide capacity grew 3 percent both over the last two weeks and compared with a year earlier.

The elevated pricing traces back to disruption in the Middle East that began in late February, when attacks on Iran triggered sharp capacity cuts across Gulf carriers and airports. Rates from the Middle East and South Asia origin region, the corridor hit hardest, spiked as high as 89 percent above year earlier levels in April. By the week covered in this report, that gain had eased to 50 percent year on year, still the largest increase of any origin region and evidence that pricing has not returned to anything close to pre conflict levels even as capacity has partly recovered. Chargeable weight from the region was up 11 percent year on year, while capacity there grew just 1 percent, a gap that helps explain why rates have stayed so elevated even as volumes normalise.

Africa showed a similar pattern in miniature. Rates out of the region were up 36 percent year on year even though chargeable weight actually fell 4 percent over the same period, pointing to tighter capacity and higher costs rather than stronger demand as the driver of pricing there. Asia Pacific and Europe posted more moderate rate increases of 35 percent and 29 percent year on year respectively, with steadier volume growth behind those gains.

A preliminary de-escalation agreement between the United States and Iran earlier this year raised hopes that Gulf air cargo capacity could stabilise further, though WorldACD has cautioned that the situation in the region remains fluid and that a full return to pre conflict flows is not expected soon. Jet fuel costs tied to the conflict have also weighed on pricing across the industry, adding pressure that extends beyond the routes most directly affected by the disruption.

Scholar Urges Digital Wisdom For Longevity

News Ghana
-
0
Scholar Urges Digital Wisdom For Longevity

Cybersecurity scholar Ojo Emmanuel Ademola argues that living well in the digital age depends less on new technology and more on the discipline to use it wisely, in a column urging individuals and institutions to treat digital habits as a matter of long term health.

Ademola, described as the first African professor of cybersecurity and information technology management, wrote that people today are more connected than earlier generations but often less rested, more informed but less discerning, a gap he said only deliberate habits can close. His central argument is that technology should function as a servant rather than a master, and that people who let devices and notifications dictate their behaviour risk disrupted sleep, shortened attention and rising stress.

He pointed to several specific habits he said protect health in a screen heavy environment. On the body, he called for regular movement to offset the effects of prolonged screen use, citing walking meetings, standing workstations and scheduled breaks as ways to counter sedentary routines. On sleep, he argued that removing screens and notifications from the bedroom protects the body’s natural rhythms and supports recovery and mental performance. On mental health, he said the volume of news, opinion and social media people encounter daily can produce anxiety and fatigue unless people deliberately filter what they consume rather than absorb everything available.

Ademola also linked digital habits to relationships and security. He argued that technology should be used to strengthen in person connection rather than substitute for it, citing research linking strong social ties to longer, healthier lives. He treated cybersecurity as part of personal wellbeing rather than a separate technical concern, arguing that protecting personal data and using strong authentication reduces the stress associated with fraud and identity theft.

On healthcare, Ademola pointed to wearable devices, telemedicine and predictive health tools as a growing source of early detection and prevention, while cautioning that the data those tools produce only helps people who act on it. He predicted continued growth in personalised and predictive health technology but argued the basic determinants of a long life, nutrition, exercise, sleep, relationships and stress management, will stay the same regardless of how advanced the tools become.

He closed the column by framing digital wisdom as a daily practice rather than an occasional goal, arguing that individuals, educators, businesses and governments all have a role in promoting healthy technology use alongside continued innovation. Wisdom remains the most important technology of all, he wrote.

Ghana’s Envoy Presents Credentials, Pushes Trade Ties

News Ghana
-
0
Ghana’s Envoy Presents Credentials, Pushes Trade Ties

Ghana’s new ambassador to Egypt, Justice Solomon Korantwi-Barimah, presented his credentials to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in Cairo this month, one of 17 new envoys Egypt’s presidency formally received in the same batch of accreditations.

The group included ambassadors from Qatar, Peru, Guatemala, Cambodia, Mauritius, Mali, Namibia, Indonesia, the Republic of Congo, South Korea, the Philippines, Malta, Mongolia, Portugal, Moldova and Paraguay, according to Egyptian presidency records, placing Ghana’s diplomatic reset with Cairo inside a wider round of accreditations rather than a standalone gesture.

At the ceremony, Korantwi-Barimah carried a concrete set of asks beyond the customary exchange of goodwill. He conveyed an invitation from President John Dramani Mahama for Al-Sisi to make an official state visit to Ghana, proposed a reciprocal visa waiver agreement for diplomatic and service passport holders between the two countries, and called for Egypt to facilitate work permits and residence visas for Ghanaian staff at the Cairo embassy. He also pushed for the Ghana-Egypt Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation to be reactivated to coordinate work across trade, investment, agriculture, infrastructure, education, tourism and technology.

Korantwi-Barimah linked the visit to Ghana-Egypt ties dating to the 1950s under Kwame Nkrumah and Gamal Abdel Nasser, and said the two countries’ presidents are expected to meet again on the sidelines of the African Union’s 8th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting in El Alamein in October. He raised Ghana’s support for Egypt’s positions on Palestinian recovery and reconstruction, and congratulated Cairo on Khaled El-Enany’s election as UNESCO Director-General, the first Egyptian and first Arab to hold the post.

The credentials ceremony was followed by a separate reception in Cairo where Korantwi-Barimah set out a more commercial pitch to an audience that included Egyptian business leaders and representatives of the Egyptian African Businessmen Association, AFREXIM Bank and the Confederation of African Football. There, he framed his tenure around economic diplomacy specifically, telling attendees he wants to expand commercial exchanges and educational and cultural cooperation alongside the government to government agenda he raised with Al-Sisi.

Korantwi-Barimah, who is also accredited to Lebanon, Palestine and Sudan, had raised some of the same proposals in an earlier meeting in January with Egypt’s Chief of Protocol, Ambassador El Dessouki Youssef, who indicated Cairo had already done preliminary work on the visa waiver idea and would forward Ghana’s proposal to the relevant authorities.

Ghana Workshop Tackles Farmer Herder Conflict

Roger A. Agana
-
0
Ghana Workshop Tackles Farmer Herder Conflict

Stakeholders from Ghana’s Savannah and Upper West regions met in Damongo this week to draft an action plan aimed at curbing violence over land, water and cattle routes that has strained relations between farming and herding communities over the past year.

The two day consultation, held on June 23 and 24, was organised by the NGO Promediation and the Ghana National Association of Cattle Farmers, with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It brought together 53 participants, including officials from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Presidential Initiatives in Agriculture and Agribusiness, the National Security Council, Immigration Services and the National Transhumance Committee, alongside District Chief Executives, traditional authorities, herders and NGOs including Save Ghana, the Peace Council, SNV and Women in Livestock Value Chain.

This is not the first such intervention in the area. A similar workshop convened by WANEP Ghana and partners addressed the same conflict pattern in Tatale, Zabzugu and Damongo roughly a year earlier, underscoring how persistent the tensions have become despite repeated mediation efforts. Researchers who study the region describe farmer herder conflict as one of the most entrenched security patterns in West Africa’s drylands, with clashes growing more frequent and violent since the early 1990s as competition for grazing land and water has intensified alongside population growth and climate pressure.

Participants at the Damongo consultation described a shared goal of peaceful coexistence between farmers, herders and local communities, built on clearer rules, more transparent administration and stronger security coordination. They linked progress on that front directly to economic outcomes, arguing that reduced conflict would support higher food production and stronger local livelihoods.

The workshop produced four priority actions: strengthening the policy framework that governs coexistence between farmers and herders, building stronger conflict prevention and early response systems, improving dispute resolution and mediation mechanisms, and expanding trust and inclusive participation across the groups affected. The gap those priorities point to is a familiar one in the region. Existing regional tools such as the ECOWAS International Transhumance Certificate grant herders access across borders but not to the grazing fields and water sources those herders actually need, leaving much of the day to day friction over land use unresolved at the local level.

Organisers said Ghana’s long tradition of peace has coexisted with a rise in local security incidents in recent years, and called for renewed support from national institutions and international partners to prevent further escalation. They said continued dialogue, consultation and mediation should remain central to efforts to stabilise the region and support economic development in northern Ghana.

Ghana Startup Claims Spare Parts Marketplace Growth

Roger A. Agana
-
0
Ghana Startup Claims Spare Parts Marketplace Growth

A Ghana based startup called VOOM says it has signed up 359 verified auto parts vendors in Accra and is raising a $400,000 pre-seed round to expand its online marketplace for vehicle spare parts.

The company, which operates as voomparts.com, says it lets buyers search a catalog of parts by vehicle make, model, year and part type, a structured search feature it says existing classifieds sites in the region do not offer. VOOM says its team verifies vendors through in person operations in Accra rather than relying only on online listings.

According to figures the company shared, VOOM has 880 listings live across its platform, with an average of 5.55 parts per vendor, up from 2.4 in March. The company also says it recorded 2,127 monthly searches from 189 unique buyers and 394 buyer to vendor conversations initiated over WhatsApp in the past month. None of these figures have been independently verified.

VOOM is run by Jim Stephen, described as a Gabonese-Canadian entrepreneur with more than eight years in enterprise software sales, and Justice Ayiah, who the company says heads its Ghana operations and previously ran a car sales and rental business in Accra. The company says it uses a set of automated software agents to handle tasks including vendor outreach, listing drafts and investor communications, which it says lets a two person team run at the scale of a much larger operations department.

The company says payments currently run through Remitly into a United States business account, with mobile money integration through PawaPay in development to support in app billing. VOOM has also published what it calls a Ghana Demand Brief, a record of buyer search activity in Accra and Kumasi that it is sharing with import partners, and says the data could become a revenue line worth between five thousand and fifty thousand dollars per contract per year once fully launched.

On funding, VOOM says it is raising the pre-seed round through a SAFE with a two million dollar valuation cap and a 20 percent discount, and that it is part of the Renew Capital EmFi startup cohort. The company is incorporated in Delaware and says it plans to expand into francophone West African markets including Ivory Coast, Senegal, Cameroon and Togo.

The figures in this story come from VOOM’s own release and have not been independently confirmed. The African auto parts trade the company is targeting remains largely informal, and no other funded, technology focused vertical marketplace for spare parts is known to be operating in West Africa at this scale.

1...111213...49,551Page 12 of 49,551