Audit Exposes Fuel Safety Gaps at NPA

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Audit Exposes Fuel Safety Gaps at NPA

Ghana’s Auditor-General found that millions of litres of petrol reached pumps nationwide without mandatory quality checks between 2023 and 2026, weaknesses the fuel regulator disputes calling a scandal.

The Performance Audit Report on the Operations of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), dated June 24, 2026, found that 87.3 million litres of petrol moved through the market between January 2023 and May 2026 without going through the mandatory fuel marking process that verifies authenticity and quality. Auditors said the gap meant they could not confirm the fuel met required standards once it reached consumers, and warned it also left the state unable to verify whether it collected the taxes and Uniform Petroleum Pricing Fund (UPPF) margins owed on those volumes.

The NPA has pushed back on how the findings have been characterized. In a statement issued Monday, the Authority’s Corporate Affairs Directorate said the audit does not establish any financial or revenue loss and rejected media reports describing the findings as evidence of corruption or “rot.” The Authority said it would keep working with the Audit Service to implement the report’s recommendations.

The audit also found gaps in the technology meant to catch contamination at the pump. Of roughly 4,000 retail fuel stations nationwide, 557 lacked an Automatic Tank Gauging System (ATGS), the equipment used to continuously monitor underground tanks for water, leaks and abnormal fuel levels. Among the 3,443 stations that had one installed, only 1,813 were fully automated, while 1,630 ran only partially, limiting how much contamination the systems could actually catch.

Physical inspections fell over the same period even as the retail network grew. The NPA’s inspections dropped 19.82% between 2023 and 2025, from 32,012 to 25,598, while the number of licensed filling stations rose from 3,950 to 4,000.

Those gaps showed up in specific cases the audit documented. At a GOIL station in Zuarungu, Bolgatanga, fuel passed a marker test in August 2023, but a customer complained six days later that the petrol contained water, and a follow-up inspection found roughly 180 litres of water in the underground tank. At Nasona Oil Outlet in Kanvili, Northern Region, the audit found the station sold 36,000 litres of diesel over three months before a water-contamination complaint reached the NPA, by which point all the fuel had already been sold. A separate case involving Mobik Service Station’s Fijai and Nkroful Junction branches ended with a customer’s vehicle developing engine damage; NPA lab tests later confirmed the fuel from both branches was substandard.

The audit found similar strain in fuel transport oversight. As of April 9, 2026, only 2,514 of the country’s 4,904 registered Bulk Road Vehicles, about 51%, held valid operating licences. NPA management told auditors it had not deactivated the remaining tankers because doing so risked disrupting fuel distribution, an explanation the Auditor-General rejected, warning that unlicensed tankers offered no assurance they met safety or technical standards.

The Auditor-General’s recommendations call on the NPA to strengthen fuel marking, enforce functioning ATGS at every station, properly license and monitor transport vehicles, and move toward real-time surveillance of retail outlets.

BoG Launches Student Program Amid Inflation Concerns

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BoG Launches Student Program Amid Inflation Concerns

The Bank of Ghana let university students observe its rate-setting committee for the first time this week, as policymakers confront a third straight month of rising inflation.

Governor Dr Johnson Asiama announced the Monetary Policy Committee Educational Observership Programme (MPC EOP) at the opening of the Committee’s 131st meeting on Monday. A first cohort from the University of Ghana is sitting in on this week’s sessions and will also attend the press briefing where the Committee’s rate decision is announced, giving students a view the Bank previously reserved for communiqués and media statements. The Bank plans to extend the programme to other universities at future meetings, aiming to build stronger academic ties and reinforce confidence in how its decisions are made.

Asiama framed the move as part of a wider push to make policy understandable, arguing that monetary policy works best when the public grasps not just what the Committee decides but why. He said that goal carries added weight now, with the economy facing both domestic and external pressure.

That pressure centres on four issues the Committee is weighing this week: the inflation outlook, how well the cash reserve reforms adopted in May are working, shifting domestic liquidity after the Bank halted pre-financing of GoldBod’s gold purchases on July 1, and risks from volatile global oil prices.

The inflation picture explains the urgency. Headline inflation climbed for three straight months, from 3.2% in March to 5.3% in June, driven largely by higher transport and haulage costs, though it remains within the Bank’s target band of 8%, plus or minus two percentage points. Asiama also pointed to broader signs of resilience: the economy grew 6.4% in the first quarter, up from 6.2% a year earlier, private sector credit expanded 34.1% against a 4.5% contraction the previous year, and the exchange rate held broadly stable through the first half of July, even as elevated non-performing loans continue to weigh on an otherwise sound banking sector.

Asiama said the Committee’s job this week goes beyond reading the latest data, and turns on whether the policy framework it strengthened in May still fits current conditions well enough to protect the Bank’s medium-term credibility.

Tesla’s Record Deliveries Mask Revenue Slide

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Tesla’s Record Deliveries Mask Revenue Slide

Tesla reports second-quarter earnings after markets close Wednesday, and analysts expect revenue to fall even after the company delivered 25% more vehicles than a year earlier.

The company sold 480,126 vehicles in the quarter, its strongest second quarter on record and roughly 74,000 units ahead of consensus estimates, with the Model 3 and Model Y making up 467,762 of that total. Yet Wall Street still expects revenue near $26.4 billion to $27.58 billion, a decline of about 3% from a year ago. Selling far more cars for less total revenue points to one explanation: average prices fell faster than volume rose, likely through financing incentives and changes to Full Self-Driving software pricing.

Profitability will draw the closest scrutiny. Analysts expect automotive gross margin, excluding regulatory credits, near 18.1%, down from 19.2% in the first quarter. That follows a first-quarter operating margin of 4.2%, itself down from 5.7% in the previous quarter, when net income came in at $477 million.

The bigger question is what Tesla’s spending buys. The company is on pace to spend roughly $25 billion on capital expenditure this year, nearly triple the $8.5 billion it spent in 2025, largely to build out AI and autonomous-driving infrastructure. Analysts project negative free cash flow of about $3.25 billion for the quarter, which would mark Tesla’s first cash burn in more than two years, even with cash reserves holding near $41 billion.

Tesla shares have fallen about 16% this year and roughly 10% this month, a slide that has tracked a steep post-IPO drop at Musk’s SpaceX, now down nearly 40% from its peak. Trading at close to 177 times forward earnings, the highest multiple among the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks, Tesla has little room for a disappointing outlook.

That outlook will hinge on autonomy. Tesla’s robotaxi service, running a limited fleet of an estimated 30 to 50 vehicles across Austin, Dallas and Houston, has logged 14 crashes over roughly 800,000 paid miles since its June 2025 launch, a rate above Tesla’s own benchmark for average human drivers. Musk has pushed unsupervised driving back to the release of FSD Version 15, which he calls a full software redesign, not expected before late 2026. Production of the purpose-built Cybercab has begun at Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory, though large-scale rollout still depends on regulatory sign-off. Tesla also remains behind China’s BYD, which delivered 557,090 fully electric vehicles in the same quarter.

Mahama, Wisconsin Governor Discuss Deeper Trade Ties

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Mahama, Wisconsin Governor Discuss Deeper Trade Ties

President John Dramani Mahama met Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers in Accra on Tuesday, as the state pushed to expand agricultural and trade partnerships already anchored by Ghana’s cocoa industry.

The two economies already share a working example of that relationship. Niche Cocoa Industry Ltd, Ghana’s largest cocoa processor, runs a North American manufacturing plant in Franklin, Wisconsin, a project Wisconsin officials describe as the largest African foreign direct investment in the United States food and beverage sector. That link gave weight to Tuesday’s talks, which Evers is leading as part of a business delegation organized with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC).

The Ghana stop marks Evers’ fourth international trade mission since taking office in 2018 and continues on to South Africa, according to the WEDC. Wisconsin companies already trade with both countries across agriculture, manufacturing and healthcare, sectors the delegation wants to expand.

Mahama used the meeting to pitch Ghana’s economic standing, pointing to the country’s completed International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme as evidence it is ready for new investment. He cited the government’s 24-Hour Economy programme and a newly formed Accelerated Export Development Advisory Committee as tools meant to boost production and exports, and said Ghana wants to build specifically on agricultural cooperation with Wisconsin.

Evers said the mission builds on the state’s global partnerships and its pitch to companies looking to grow. Ghana’s Senior Legal Advisor to the President, Marietta Agyeiwaa Brew, Ambassador to the United States Victor Smith, and Foreign Affairs Chief Director Khadija Iddrisu also attended.

Google Limits New Cybersecurity AI to Governments

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Google Limits New Cybersecurity AI to Governments

Google restricted its newest cybersecurity AI model to governments and vetted partners on Tuesday, even as it opened two faster, cheaper Gemini models to every developer, a split that reflects the growing tension between speed and safety in the AI race.

The restricted model, Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber, hunts, verifies, and patches software flaws inside Google’s CodeMender tool. In tests on the V8 JavaScript engine, it found 55 confirmed vulnerabilities, ten more than Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 caught in the same codebase. Google said the model’s ability to find and exploit weaknesses cuts both ways, so it will reach only governments and select partners through a pilot program for now, rather than the open developer access it gave the other two launches.

Those two, Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, went live Tuesday in the Gemini app, Google Search, and Google’s developer platforms. Google said 3.6 Flash cuts output-token use by 17% against its predecessor while improving coding and document-analysis performance, and priced it at $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens.

The releases land as Chinese developers push hard on price and scale. Moonshot AI paused new subscriptions to its 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3 model last week after demand outran its computing capacity. “Kimi K3 has received far more love than we expected,” the company said in a social media post announcing the pause. Alibaba, which holds a stake in Moonshot, has separately previewed a 2.4-trillion-parameter model called Qwen 3.8 Max that it says ranks just behind Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 in overall capability, a claim Alibaba has not backed with published benchmarks or independent testing.

Google’s flagship Gemini 3.5 Pro model remains unreleased, months after the company had targeted a June launch, with Google saying it will ship only once fully ready. The company has meanwhile begun pre-training its next model, Gemini 4, according to reporting on the announcement.

Parliament Presses GoldBod On Traceability, Reserve Targets

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Parliament Presses GoldBod On Traceability, Reserve Targets

Ghana’s Gold Board has told Parliament it will roll out a nationwide gold-tracing system by the end of August, as lawmakers pressed the buyer on its role in rebuilding reserves.

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Economy and Development visited the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) this week as part of its oversight of gold trading, foreign exchange mobilisation and reserve accumulation. Committee chairman Eric Afful said the visit was meant to gauge GoldBod’s contribution to the country’s economic recovery.

GoldBod’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sammy Gyamfi told the committee the Board will procure a comprehensive traceability system by the end of August, letting it track every ounce of gold from the mine site through to export and tightening the net on smuggling. GoldBod had already begun the procurement process for the system in April, describing it as a way to build a secure chain of custody for artisanal gold, now the fastest-growing source of the country’s foreign exchange.

GoldBod bought 54 metric tonnes of gold from artisanal and small-scale miners in the first half of 2026, putting the year on pace to match or beat 2025’s total of 104 tonnes, when small-scale output first overtook Ghana’s large-scale mining production. The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector earned Ghana nearly $11 billion in 2025, ahead of the roughly $9 billion generated by large-scale miners.

Between January 2025 and May 2026, GoldBod bought and exported gold worth $16.11 billion, with artisanal and small-scale mining accounting for all but a fraction of the 135.843 metric tonnes purchased. The Board has licensed 1,184 gold buyers as of May 31, including 379 Tier One and 736 Tier Two buyers, all required to source only from licensed miners before selling to GoldBod.

GoldBod’s 2026 plan had assumed gold averaging about $5,000 an ounce and weekly purchases near 2.5 metric tonnes. Bullion prices have since slipped below that assumption, though they remain above 2025 levels, meaning export earnings should still climb this year even if they fall short of the original target.

The purchases also feed the government’s Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Programme, which aims to lift import cover to 15 months by the end of 2028 from about 5.7 months now. Reaching that goal requires building reserves by roughly $9.5 billion a year, and the programme has set a weekly gold-buying target of 3.02 metric tonnes, which officials estimate could bring in about $25.3 billion annually if it holds.

Whether GoldBod can sustain that pace through softer gold prices, and still deliver the traceability system on schedule, will show how much weight the reserve programme can rest on a single commodity.

Reps Push National Policy For Drone Manufacturing

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Reps Push National Policy For Drone Manufacturing

Nigeria’s House of Representatives has called for a National Drone Industrialisation Policy to boost local defence manufacturing and sharpen the country’s response to terrorism, banditry and insurgency.

Lawmakers adopted the resolution during plenary on Wednesday, following a motion sponsored by Hon. Ademorin Kuye, a Lagos lawmaker.

The House urged the Federal Government to give structured financial backing to named indigenous drone makers, including Beirech UAS, Terra Industries, Elites Group, Pro-force and the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), through the Bank of Industry, the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) and other financing platforms. Lawmakers said the support would let local manufacturers scale up and meet the procurement standards the military requires.

Kuye pointed to worsening security threats, including terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, insurgency and pipeline vandalism, that continue to strain the Armed Forces and other security agencies. He said unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become essential for intelligence gathering, surveillance and counter-insurgency operations, while warning that Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have used commercial drones against Nigerian troops. He described the country’s drone sector as one that “remains largely private sector-driven, lightly capitalised.”

Kuye cited the Tsaigumi UAV, developed by AFIT in 2018, as evidence that Nigeria already has a technical foundation to build on, alongside its engineering talent, its growing technology entrepreneurship base and its position as Africa’s largest economy.

The House mandated its Committees on Defence, National Security and Intelligence, Science and Technology, and Industry and Commerce to draft the policy and turn the sector into a structured, state-backed industry. Lawmakers also directed the Committees on Defence and National Security and Intelligence to pursue technology-transfer agreements with international drone manufacturers, with the aim of cutting reliance on imported components and training Nigerian engineers.

The resolution further calls for dedicated Defence Industrial Zones for drone manufacturing, research and maintenance, supported by incentives, infrastructure and regulatory backing to draw investment. A separate group of committees was tasked with reviewing procurement, local content, aviation and investment laws to build in tax incentives and stronger intellectual property protection for local developers.

The committees have four weeks to submit their reports, a deadline that will show whether the resolution becomes a binding policy framework or stays a recommendation the government can act on at its own pace.

Epstein-Linked Model Recruiter Daniel Siad Found Dead

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Epstein-Linked Model Recruiter Daniel Siad Found Dead

Daniel Siad, the French model recruiter who spent more than a decade introducing young women to Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead at his home outside Paris on Monday, French prosecutors said, with the cause of death still under investigation.

Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, confirmed the death on Wednesday and said an inquiry opened the evening the body was discovered. Siad, 69, was found at his home in Colombes, a Paris suburb. An autopsy has been ordered.

Siad acknowledged arranging meetings between Epstein and multiple aspiring models over more than ten years, and said he believed at the time that Epstein worked as a casting director for Victoria’s Secret and a major modelling agency. He continued the association after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on sex offences, saying Epstein had convinced him he had changed. Two women have since alleged that Siad introduced them to Epstein, who they say went on to abuse them.

Siad’s name appears in nearly 2,000 documents among the Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice, including emails in which he sent Epstein photographs of young women he described as potential assistants. He was separately facing a French legal proceeding over an alleged 1990 rape, which he denied, and French media have reported accusations from several other women involving rape and trafficking, all of which he disputed. Authorities have not said whether his death is connected to any of the pending matters.

Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators in the French probe. His lawyer, Menya Arab-Tigrine, told AFP that “he died an innocent man.”

The death follows a similar case in France in 2022, when modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was also accused of procuring women for Epstein, killed himself in a French prison cell while awaiting trial. Siad’s death leaves investigators without another figure who had direct knowledge of Epstein’s recruitment network in Europe.

The cause of Siad’s death has not been established, and French authorities have given no timeline for the autopsy results.

CBN Says Lower Naira Notes Still Legal Tender

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CBN Says Lower Naira Notes Still Legal Tender

Nigeria’s central bank has told traders to keep accepting N100 and N200 notes, saying the scarce naira denominations remain legal tender even as digital payments erode demand for cash.

Governor Olayemi Cardoso made the clarification on Tuesday in Abuja, at the briefing that followed the 306th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, where the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) held its benchmark rate at 26.5 percent for a second straight meeting.

Asked whether the smaller notes had been phased out, Cardoso said the CBN had issued no such directive and urged Nigerians to keep using them. “Please assume they are legal tender,” he said.

Cardoso attributed the thinner circulation to shifting demand rather than any withdrawal, pointing to Nigerians’ growing use of digital payment channels as a reason banks and merchants need fewer physical notes in the lower denominations. He said the naira’s depreciation had also worn down the purchasing power of smaller bills, making them less practical for everyday transactions.

The MPC’s decision to hold rates came against a backdrop of easing but still elevated price pressure, with inflation at 15.91 percent in June, and fresh global risks from renewed tension in the Middle East. Nigeria’s external reserves stood at $52.52 billion as of July 17, the highest level in about 17 years and enough to cover roughly 11 months of imports.

Responding to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessment that the naira is undervalued, Cardoso said the exchange rate should track market forces rather than an administrative target, and noted that daily foreign exchange turnover has topped $1 billion on some trading days.

Whether that tight policy stance holds through the next MPC meeting may depend on how far the Middle East standoff pushes global energy prices, a risk Cardoso flagged as the committee’s chief external concern.

Bad Loan Write-Offs Surge As BoG Tightens Rules

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Bad Loan Write-Offs Surge As BoG Tightens Rules

Ghanaian banks accelerated loan write-offs by 35 percent in early 2026, wiping out GH¢883.7 million (roughly $72 million) in bad debt as the Bank of Ghana pushes lenders toward tighter non-performing loan targets.

The write-off total, covering the four months to April 2026, compares with GH¢654.2 million in the same period last year, according to the central bank’s Domestic Money Banks Income Statement. The Bank of Ghana said the figure combined loan losses, depreciation and other related charges banks incur when they clear defaulted credit off their books.

The surge follows a directive the central bank issued in August 2025 requiring all regulated banks to bring their non-performing loan ratios below 10 percent, with immediate restrictions on dividend and bonus payments for any bank above 15 percent. Governor Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama had told commercial bank executives the rules were meant to “restore asset quality and safeguard Ghana’s financial resilience.” Fitch Ratings has said write-offs, rather than a turnaround in repayments, will drive most of the industry’s compliance before the rule takes full effect at the end of 2026.

The push is already showing results industry-wide. The sector’s NPL ratio fell to 18 percent in April 2026, from 23.6 percent a year earlier, while the ratio adjusted for fully provisioned bad loans dropped to 5.6 percent from 9 percent. The total stock of non-performing loans eased to GH¢20.7 billion, from GH¢21.7 billion.

Private borrowers carried almost all of that bad debt. Their share of total NPLs rose to 98.2 percent in April 2026, from 96.5 percent a year earlier, while the public sector’s share fell to 1.8 percent from 3.5 percent, a reflection of how much of banks’ lending now sits with private businesses and households.

Agriculture moved against the broader trend. The sector’s NPL ratio climbed to 66.1 percent in April 2026, from 62.1 percent a year earlier, making it the industry’s weakest segment and a growing constraint on credit for farmers and agribusinesses.

Heavier write-offs cut directly into banks’ interest income, and analysts expect the pressure on profitability to persist as lenders work through both the regulatory deadline and a stubborn pool of distressed agricultural credit.

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