Scancom Limited, the operator of MTN, is set to increase the total number of shares allocated under its employee share scheme from 4.4 per cent to 5 per cent of its issued share capital.
The move, which was approved as a special resolution at the firm’s 4th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Accra – and serves as a key component as MTN seeks to further deepen the localisation process of its ownership, will see the employee allocation jump to approximately 615 million shares of the telco’s outstanding 12.3 billion shares.
MTN introduced the scheme at Extraordinary General Meeting in December 2020, in line with regulatory requirements, with an initial 12.5 per cent of shares floated on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) at its Initial Public Offering (IPO) and a subsequent agreement with the government to sell another 12.5 per cent to Ghanaians, bringing the minimum local shareholding to 25 per cent.
The telco has subsequently committed to further increasing the slice of its local ownership to 30 per cent, with its first-quarter results indicating that it had reached 23.7 per cent – with the 30 per cent target set for year-end 2022.
Ghana loses its position as the top gold producer in Africa after output fell nearly 30 per cent in 2021.
The volume of Gold declined to 2.818 million ounces in 2021 from 4.022 million ounces in 2020, the lowest level of output since 2008. Mr Joshua Mortoti, the President of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, said the drop in production followed concurrent reductions in the output of large and small-scale gold producers.
The large-scale sub-sector’s contribution to national gold production fell to 2.720 million ounces in 2021 compared with 2.847 million ounces in 2020. Mr Mortoti said the decline in the sub-sector’s contribution was due to a broad fall in output in most of the large mines.
Also, the production of small-scale producers plummeted by 91.66 per cent to 0.098 million ounces in 2021 from 1.175 million ounces in 2020.
The total value of foreign investment or capital importation into Nigeria declined on a quarter-on-quarter basis by 28.1 per cent to $1.6 billion in the first quarter of (Q1) of 2022 from $2.2 billion in Q4 of last year, according to the latest Capital Importation report.
The report published by the National Bureau of Statistics today, also showed that on a year-on-year basis, it declined by 17.5 per cent from $1.9 billion in Q1 2021. “The largest amount of capital importation by type was received through Portfolio Investment, which accounted for 60.9 per cent ($957.6 million).
This was followed by Other Investment with 29.3 per cent ($460.6 million) and Foreign Direct Investment accounted for 9.9 per cent ($154.9 million) of total capital imported in Q1 2022,” the report stated.
Ari Aisen, IMF resident representative to Nigeria has said that Sub-Saharan Africa was in the recovery process from the Covid pandemic when they suffered a second shock from the Russian-Ukraine war.
This has reduced the pace of the region’s growth, and elevated debts. Aisen made this known during an interview on Arise TV monitored by business day.
He said that “according to the Economic Outlook by the IMF, growth for the region is expected to be much slower at 3.8 per cent compared to an estimated growth of 4.5 per cent in 2021. Oil and agricultural commodities importers in this region are suffering the negative effects of the war, coupled with inflationary pressures”.