Poultry Day Exhibitors Push Local Chicken Amid US$400M Import Bill

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Poultry Day Exhibitors Push Local Chicken Amid US$400M Import Bill

Exhibitors at Ghana’s sixth annual Poultry Day called for stronger support for local producers as the country continues to spend about 400 million dollars a year importing chicken.

The event, held July 1 at the forecourt of the State House in Accra, was organised by Agrihouse Foundation in partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Chefs Association of Ghana. It forms part of an annual push to promote local poultry consumption, expand market access for farmers and agribusinesses, and reduce Ghana’s reliance on imported chicken.

Atakwe Okine, Customer Insight Officer at Premier Poultry, said the event gave his company a platform to raise awareness of its products and engage stakeholders on expanding domestic production. Premier Poultry, which hatches and distributes day old chicks, serves customers across all 16 regions, he said, and increasing farmers’ access to quality inputs remains central to reducing import dependence.

Okine said turnout at this year’s event fell below expectations because of rainfall and flooding in parts of Accra, along with the timing of the programme, and suggested future editions be scheduled on public holidays to draw bigger crowds.

Andrea Akl, Deputy General Manager of Qualiplast Limited, one of the event’s sponsors, said the company used the platform to showcase its locally manufactured plastic packaging for poultry businesses and build new industry relationships. “We are here to support the farmers,” she said, adding that boosting local production remained essential to improving food security.

Abigail Osei, a poultry farmer based at Sawmill in Amasaman, said exhibitions of this kind help connect producers directly with consumers and potential business partners, and commended the organisers for the event’s coordination.

The exhibitors’ calls come against a backdrop of a poultry sector still dominated by imports. Agriculture Minister Eric Opoku said in November that more than 95 percent of the chicken consumed in Ghana is imported, at a cost of roughly 400 million dollars a year. The government’s Feed Ghana Programme has set yearly self sufficiency targets starting at 12 percent in 2025 and rising to 104 percent by 2029.

Stakeholders at the event said sustained public patronage of local chicken, combined with stronger investment across the value chain, would be needed to narrow that gap while creating jobs in the sector.

PSP Fraud Cases Jump 98% Since 2022, BoG Says

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PSP Fraud Cases Jump 98% Since 2022, BoG Says

Fraud cases at Ghana’s payment service providers rose 98% between 2022 and 2025, a Bank of Ghana report found, with PSPs now driving 97% of reported financial fraud.

The Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) 2025 Fraud Report recorded a 48% jump in total fraud cases across banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions (SDIs) and payment service providers (PSPs), rising from 16,733 cases in 2024 to 24,778 in 2025. Nearly all of that growth came from PSPs, the mobile money operators and fintechs that now serve as the main gateway to financial services for millions of Ghanaians, where cases climbed 54% to 24,124.

The financial exposure tied to PSP fraud nearly doubled, rising 95% from GH¢19 million to GH¢37 million, even as the sector’s overall value at risk grew only modestly, from GH¢99 million to GH¢101 million.

The shift is not new but accelerating. In 2022, the regulated financial sector recorded 15,164 fraud cases worth about GH¢82 million. By 2025 that had grown to 24,778 cases worth GH¢101 million, with almost the entire increase concentrated in digital payment platforms rather than traditional banking.

Banks moved in the opposite direction, recording 472 fraud cases in 2025, down 34% from 716 the year before, with value at risk falling 24% to GH¢57 million. Cash suppression, where staff withhold or misappropriate funds, remained the costliest category for banks at GH¢40.7 million, a figure the BoG said was driven largely by a single GH¢36 million case.

Fewer bank and SDI employees were implicated in fraud overall, falling 40% to 219 from 365, though institutions dismissed fewer staff in response, letting go 75 employees compared with 155 the previous year. Of those dismissed, 59% were tied to cash theft.

SDIs recorded 182 fraud cases in 2025, down 47% from 344, but their value at risk rose 77% to about GH¢8 million, driven mainly by forgery and document manipulation.

Recovery remains limited across the sector. Banks and SDIs recovered only about GH¢3.7 million of GH¢68.2 million in reported fraud value in 2025, leaving roughly GH¢64.5 million unrecovered.

The BoG said containing the shift toward digital fraud will require coordinated action between financial institutions, regulators, law enforcement and the public as more Ghanaians move their transactions online.

Ghana Opens 5G Auction After Wholesale Plan Fails

Roger A. Agana
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Ghana Opens 5G Auction After Wholesale Plan Fails

Ghana is opening its 5G market to competitive bidding after its wholesale operator missed rollout targets, leaving the country projected to trail regional peers on coverage.

MTN Ghana Chief Executive Officer Stephen Blewett and Telecel Group Chief Executive Officer Moh Damush told Bloomberg their companies plan to bid in a 5G licence auction expected to open within weeks. The auction follows the government’s decision to end the exclusive concession held by Next Gen Infraco (NGIC), which had been due to run until 2034.

NGIC had only 49 operational sites as of March, far short of the government’s target of 1,200 sites by 2027, and had fallen behind on a large share of its 125 million dollar licence fee. The National Communications Authority (NCA) issued a notice in February stripping the company of its exclusivity to open the market to competition.

Damush said the government needs to guard against letting the auction favour whichever bidder pays most. “The auction is not conducted on the basis of the highest bidder,” he said, warning that outcome would deepen the advantage of already dominant players.

Communications Minister Sam George, who took office in 2025, had already signalled plans to open the licensing process because of the slow rollout. Both George and NCA Director-General Edmund Fianko declined to comment further when contacted by Bloomberg.

NGIC launched in 2024 as a shared wholesale network backed by Radisys Corp, a unit of Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliance Industries, alongside international investors Vinci and Brookfield through Ono Global, who put in roughly 850 million dollars. Ghana’s previous communications minister, Ursula Owusu Ekuful, had championed the partnership as a way to fast track nationwide coverage.

The stakes are regional as much as domestic. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that if Ghana launches commercial 5G soon, population coverage will reach only about 7 percent by year end, compared with 22 percent in Nigeria, 38 percent in Kenya and more than 60 percent in South Africa.

Ghana’s mobile market of roughly 35 million subscribers remains dominated by MTN, which holds about 80 percent of data subscribers, with Telecel, which bought Vodafone Group’s local operations, as the main rival. State owned AT Ghana can also bid. Officials have pointed to Ghana’s 2015 4G auction, when spectrum priced at about 67.5 million dollars per block left only MTN able to buy in, as a pricing mistake they want to avoid repeating.

The government is targeting 70 percent 5G population coverage by March 2027, when Ghana marks its 70th year of independence, with spectrum auctions for the 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands expected before the end of 2026.

Cardi B Okoye Photo Sparks Paris Dating Buzz

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Cardi B Okoye Photo Sparks Paris Dating Buzz

Nigerian goalkeeper Maduka Okoye and rapper Cardi B were filmed seated together at a Paris Fashion Week show this week, fuelling online dating speculation neither has confirmed.

A widely shared video shows Okoye helping Cardi B into her seat before the pair watched the runway together. Several outlets place the moment at the Jean Paul Gaultier Fall/Winter 2026 Haute Couture show, while others tracing the original clip identify it as the Robert Wun Haute Couture show earlier in the week. Cardi B attended both shows during Paris Haute Couture Week, according to fashion press coverage of her appearances.

Okoye, 26, plays goalkeeper for Italian Serie A club Udinese and Nigeria’s Super Eagles. Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, he stands about 1.98 metres, or six feet six inches, and became a regular for the national team after his 2019 debut.

Neither Okoye nor Cardi B has addressed the speculation publicly, and no independent source has confirmed a relationship between them. Cardi B’s most recent public relationship was with NFL player Stefon Diggs.

The clip surfaced during a busy week for Cardi B in Paris, where she also attended a Rahul Mistry show and stepped out for dinner in the city, days after performing songs from her new album, “Am I the Drama?”, at the BET Awards in Los Angeles.

UN Finds New Evidence Of Genocide In Sudan

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UN Finds New Evidence Of Genocide In Sudan

A United Nations mission said Wednesday it found new evidence that Rapid Support Forces atrocities in El Fasher amounted to genocide, warning a similar campaign is emerging in El Obeid.

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan said the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed more than 6,000 people in three days when it captured El Fasher in October 2025 after an 18 month siege. The mission’s new report adds evidence of systematic mass rape, abductions of women and girls, and forced starvation, saying the RSF besieged the North Darfur capital, blocked relief supplies and destroyed food production systems as part of a deliberate policy. Survivors described being raped in rooms where the bodies of recently killed relatives still lay on the ground.

“El Obeid must not become the next crime scene,” mission expert Mona Rishmawi said.

The RSF, which is fighting Sudan’s army in a civil war now in its fourth year, has denied committing abuses throughout the conflict, saying accounts of atrocities are fabricated by its adversaries.

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution Monday ordering an urgent inquiry into El Obeid, the North Kordofan state capital, after UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned the city faces the same warning signs, including encirclement and attacks on infrastructure, that preceded El Fasher’s fall. Türk said El Obeid has endured siege like conditions for 18 months, with drone strikes on power stations cutting electricity, disrupting water supplies and hampering hospitals. The city holds roughly half a million residents, including more than 83,000 people displaced from other fighting.

Türk called for UN Security Council action, a pause in hostilities to allow humanitarian aid, and cooperation with the International Criminal Court to prevent a repeat of El Fasher.

A February report from the same mission first found that RSF killings targeted the Zaghawa and Fur ethnic communities specifically, concluding the pattern bore the hallmarks of genocide. Mission chair Mohamed Chande Othman said the UN had repeatedly warned of atrocity risks in El Fasher before the city fell without those warnings being heeded, a failure he said the international community cannot afford to repeat in El Obeid.

GhIPSS Pushes GHQR Beyond Transport After Slow Start

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GhIPSS Pushes GHQR Beyond Transport After Slow Start

GhIPSS is urging MTN to extend the Ride with MoMo model to other sectors, five years after its underlying GHQR payment system struggled to gain wide adoption.

Chief Business Officer Akosua Blay told the Ride with MoMo launch in Accra that drivers registering for an MTN MoMo merchant wallet are not restricted to payments from MTN customers alone. Because the wallet connects to the Ghana Quick Response (GHQR) network, drivers can also collect from bank account holders, fintech wallet users and savings and loans customers on the same code.

“You are not going to receive money from only MTN customers,” Blay told the drivers gathered at the launch.

Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) and MobileMoney Fintech Limited plan to publish a list of participating financial institutions so drivers can show passengers which payment options work with their code, according to Blay.

Blay described the transport campaign as a template GhIPSS wants replicated elsewhere, telling attendees that many other sectors remain underserved by digital payment tools and urging MTN and other stakeholders to widen similar campaigns beyond transport.

That ambition follows a slower run for GHQR itself. GhIPSS launched the national QR standard in 2020 to let a single code accept payments from any bank, mobile money or fintech account. Independent industry reviews as recently as 2025 found uptake outside mobile money has lagged, citing thin public awareness, limited promotion by merchants and the added cost of Ghana’s electronic transfer levy as headwinds, even as mobile money transactions themselves passed GH¢3 trillion that year.

Blay also urged drivers to move their daily earnings into digital form rather than hold cash, pointing to the risk of theft, fire and flood damage that comes with carrying large sums. She closed by pledging GhIPSS’ continued support for the campaign and pressed drivers to register for a merchant wallet before leaving the launch.

MoMo Urges Drivers To Switch For Lower Fees

Roger A. Agana
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MoMo Urges Drivers To Switch For Lower Fees

MobileMoney Fintech Limited is urging Ghanaian commercial drivers to switch from personal to merchant MoMo wallets, saying merchant accounts carry lower transaction fees and free registration.

Chief Commercial Operations Officer Abdul Razak Issaka Ali said many drivers currently collect fares through personal wallets, which attract higher charges than the dedicated merchant platform built for businesses. He said the fee gap makes migrating to a merchant wallet more profitable for drivers over time, even though digital transactions inevitably carry some cost to run.

Registering costs nothing, according to Issaka Ali. Applicants need only a Ghana Card, and a business registration certificate where one exists, and can sign up at any MTN office or through MoMo ambassadors stationed around the country. The SIM required for the merchant wallet is also issued free.

Asked about rising digital fraud, Issaka Ali said trust underpins the company’s operations. “We are in the business of trust,” he said, adding that MobileMoney Fintech Limited continues to invest in fraud prevention, customer education and cooperation with law enforcement to track down offenders.

Those assurances come as fraud tied to mobile money and other digital payment providers climbs nationally. The Bank of Ghana’s Financial Stability Department found that fraud cases at payment service providers, the category covering mobile money operators and fintechs, rose 54 percent year on year to 24,124 cases in 2025, accounting for 97 percent of all fraud cases reported across the financial sector. The figures are industry wide and are not specific to MobileMoney Fintech Limited or the Ride with MoMo campaign.

Issaka Ali said the shift to digital fares also benefits passengers, who often face delays when drivers cannot provide change for cash payments. He said scanning a QR code removes that friction and makes the payment moment quicker for both sides.

The Ride with MoMo campaign, which pairs the fee and fraud pitch with a three month pilot period announced at its Accra launch, is part of MobileMoney Fintech Limited’s push to bring more of Ghana’s transport sector onto digital rails.

Appeals Court Clears Release Of Carroll’s US$5.8M

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Appeals Court Clears Release Of Carroll’s US$5.8M

A federal appeals court denied Donald Trump’s bid to block payment to E. Jean Carroll late Wednesday, clearing release of nearly $5.8 million a judge had ordered hours earlier.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the underlying order Wednesday, directing the court to disburse the funds to the former Elle magazine columnist to satisfy a May 2023 civil jury verdict that found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. Kaplan wrote that Trump had used delay tactics throughout the case.

“It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment,” Kaplan wrote in his ruling.

Trump’s lawyers had asked Kaplan to hold the money until the Supreme Court rules on a rehearing request, arguing Carroll would suffer only a temporary, interest compensated delay while Trump would face unrecoverable harm because Carroll has said she plans to give the money away. Kaplan rejected that argument, saying Trump could sue to recover the funds in the unlikely event the Supreme Court later overturned the verdict. Trump’s team filed notice minutes later that it would appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and asked that court to pause the disbursement. The appeals court denied the stay request Wednesday night without ruling on the underlying appeal.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team called the case part of a politically motivated campaign against the president and said he would continue fighting it.

The nearly $5.8 million reflects the original $5 million judgment plus about $800,000 in interest that accrued after Trump deposited $5.55 million into a federal court escrow account three years ago while he appealed. The Supreme Court declined without dissent on June 29 to hear that appeal.

The judgment stems from Carroll’s claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid 1990s and defamed her in 2022 by denying it. A separate jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in 2024 over statements Trump made denying the allegation in 2019, while he was president. Trump has said he will ask the Supreme Court to review that verdict by the end of the month, arguing presidential immunity should have barred the evidence used against him in both cases.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a court filing that after four years of litigation across the federal court system, it was time for the case to end. Carroll, 82, first went public with the assault allegation in 2019.

MoMo Fare Payment Drive Set As Three Month Trial

Roger A. Agana
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MoMo Fare Payment Drive Set As Three Month Trial

MobileMoney Fintech Limited will run its new Ride with MoMo cashless payment campaign as a three month pilot before deciding on a wider rollout, the company said in Accra.

Chief Commercial Operations Officer Abdul Razak Issaka Ali said registration for the required MTN MoMo merchant wallet is free, with no charge for the SIM card needed to run it. Drivers need only a Ghana Card, and where available a business registration certificate, to sign up at any MTN office or through MoMo ambassadors stationed around the country.

Manager for Mobile Money Channel Development Faisal Ali said drivers who record 20 or more transactions worth at least GH¢1,000 in a week will earn a 1GB data bundle. The top 10 performers in each region each week get GH¢500 and a data bundle, while the strongest monthly performers receive GH¢1,000.

Chief Executive Officer Shaibu Haruna told the launch event that cash handling, not driving, is the daily struggle for commercial operators, recounting how a driver once took ten minutes searching for change after his niece paid a GH¢42 fare with a GH¢100 note. “Madam, the driving is the easy part. It is the money that is hard,” the driver told her.

The payments run through the Ghana Quick Response (GHQR) system, a national standard built by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) that links banks, mobile money operators and fintech wallets through a shared switch. Chief Business Officer Akosua Blay said customers without smartphones can pay by dialling a USSD code, entering the merchant code and confirming the transaction.

The campaign also brings in the Digital Transport Workers Union, which is working with MobileMoney Fintech Limited and GhIPSS to encourage adoption among taxi drivers, ride hailing operators on platforms including Yango, Bolt and Uber, trotro operators, tricycle riders and truck drivers.

Blay said the transport sector is one of several still underserved by digital payments and called on MTN and other stakeholders to extend similar campaigns beyond transport once the pilot concludes. MobileMoney Fintech Limited said it will review the programme’s performance at the end of the three months before deciding whether to extend it.

Ceasefire Unravels As Iran And US Trade Strikes

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Ceasefire Unravels As Iran And US Trade Strikes

Iran and the United States traded strikes into Thursday, with Tehran’s health ministry reporting 14 dead and 78 injured after Washington hit roughly 90 targets inside Iran.

The exchange began Wednesday when the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) launched strikes on Iranian air defenses, radar systems and more than 60 small boats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). CENTCOM said the strikes responded to attacks on three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, including a Qatari vessel and a liquefied natural gas carrier that caught fire off Oman. Washington also revoked a license that had allowed Iran to sell oil openly on international markets.

The IRGC said it retaliated with a joint missile and drone operation against United States military sites in Kuwait, including Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base, and in Bahrain, including Sheikh Isa Air Base and the naval facility housing the United States Fifth Fleet. The Guard also said it shot down a US MQ9 drone during the operation, a claim CENTCOM has not addressed directly.

Kuwaiti and Bahraini air defenses intercepted most of the incoming fire, according to both governments. Bahrain said one residential building near its international airport was damaged and no one was killed. Kuwait reported no casualties or damage.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he considered the ceasefire “over” but left room for further talks, warning strikes would escalate if Iran hit ships in the strait again.

Iranian parliament speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf accused Washington of breaking the truce through the new strikes, the revoked oil license and Israeli action in Lebanon. “If you strike, you will be struck,” he wrote on social media platform X.

Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan condemned the Iranian strikes as violations of their sovereignty. Oman called for restraint from both sides. In Washington, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna said the strikes breach the War Powers Resolution Congress passed this week and threatened legal action to halt them.

The clashes mark the most serious test yet of the ceasefire the United States brokered between Israel, Iran and the US last month, which had paused a war that erupted after US and Israeli strikes across Iran earlier this year. The Strait of Hormuz carries about a fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas.

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