Economist, Adu Owusu Sakodie, has suggested that the Bank of Ghana extends its interventions introduced three months ago to support businesses in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The central bank reduced its policy rate which triggered a drop in interest rate among commercial banks to cushion businesses.

In March this year, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Ghana reduced its policy rate by 150 basis points; from 16 to 14.5%.

Among the reasons that triggered this reduction was the fact that the coronavirus pandemic has impacted economic growth, leaving economic managers uncertain about the future.

This move subsequently led to about 2% drop in interest rate for most commercial banks.

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Data released by the International Monetary Fund, IMF, in a revised Regional Economic Outlook (REO) forecast for 2020 indicates that countries within Sub Saharan Africa will suffer a significant shrink due to depressed economic activity, a negative outcome of the novel Coronavirus pandemic.

According to the IMF, earlier anticipated impact could worsen in Sub Saharan Africa as the regional economy is projected to contract by 3.2 percent in 2020, which is 1.6 percentage points deeper than projected in April, 2020.

A statement issued by the IMF explains that the deepening recession also mirrors a weaker external outlook as global growth is also projected at –4.9 percent in 2020, 1.9 percentage points below the April 2020 World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecast.

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The embattled former management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund has said all training, contracts and rehabilitation it carried out received the approvals of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the National Assembly.

Ngige suspended the NSITF Managing Director, Adebayo Somefun and some members of his executive for allegedly lavishing “N3.4bn on non-existent staff training split into about 196 different consultancy contracts in order to evade the Ministerial Tenders Board and Federal Executive Council approvals.

The NSITF management, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, while responding to the allegations, insisted that the training referred to by the minister was budgeted for in 2017, 2018 and 2019 appropriations for over 5,000 staff nationwide.

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The Federal Government has carried out some changes in the top management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

It made new appointments and redeployments at the corporation and confirmed the resignation of NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer, Ventures and New Business Directorate, Roland Ewubare.

The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Kennie Obateru announcing the changes at the corporation in a statement issued on Sunday, the oil firm said the move would reposition the corporation for greater efficiency.

It said the Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division, Adokiye Tombomieye, was appointed the new Chief Operating Officer, Upstream among other appointments.

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The Joint House of Representatives committees on finance; banking and currency will begin an investigative hearing into an alleged forex racketeering on Monday.

According to a notice and schedule of the event, the panel has summoned 24 banks and 14 oil companies.

According to the House, the alleged racketeering is responsible for an annual loss of over $30bn in revenue.

Those appearing before the committees are to explain their roles in the alleged over $30bn revenue leakages from foreign currency dominated contracts in engineering, procurement, construction, installation and marine transportations.

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The total domestic debts for the 36 states of federation and the Federal Capital Territory stood at N4.1tn as of the end of March, 2020, the Debt Management Office has disclosed.

According to the DMO, Lagos led with a debt profile of N444.22bn followed by Rivers that had a debt of N266.93bn.

Niger, Ogun, Ondo and Osun had N59.83bn, N143.53bn, N65.29bn and N137.3bn, while Oyo, Plateau, Sokoto and Taraba had N100.59bn, N130.73bn, N47.74bn and N81.26bn respectively.

The DMO disclosed that Yobe’s domestic debt profile was N29.29bn, while Zamfara and the FCT had N70.84bn and N106.8bn respectively.

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General Motors Co’s vehicle sales in China dropped 5.3% between April and June from the corresponding period last year, underperforming the industry average amid a recovery from the coronavirus fallout on the world’s biggest auto market.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM)China’s said overall figure, which includes passenger and commercial vehicles, rose 4.4% in April and 14.5% in May, adding that it expected auto sales to grow 11% in June.

The company in a statement said GM, China’s second-biggest foreign automaker after Volkswagen, delivered 713,600 vehicles in the country in the second quarter, after reporting a drop of 43% in sales in the first quarter, due to the pandemic.

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The head of Ubisoft has promised a structural shift to eliminate toxic behaviour following allegations of sexual assault and harassment by managers at the French video game publisher.

Ubisoft, whose games portfolio includes Assassin’s Creed, Tom Clancy’s, Far Cry and Watch Dogs, and is one of the world’s top gaming companies, apologised last week and launched an investigation after the claims were made on social media.

Guillemot acknowledged that employees were eager for the probes to wrap up, but said it was important they are conducted with rigour.

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Social media platform Twitter is dropping the terms master, slave and blacklist in favour of more inclusive language.

The terms are frequently used in programming codes which originated decades ago.

US bank JPMorgan has also announced a similar move as more companies address racism following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

Replacing the terms could cost millions and take months, according to experts.

On Thursday, Twitter's engineering division tweeted out a set of words that it wants to move away from using in favour of more inclusive language. The list includes replacing whitelist with allowlist and master/slave with leader/follower.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has welcomed a decision by the African Development Bank to re-examine a probe into the AfDB's president that ignited a dispute between America and Nigeria.

In a statement, Mnuchin said the international financial institutions must adhere to the highest standards of governance and transparency, and the decision to pursue an independent review demonstrates the strength of the African Development Bank. According to him, “Undertaking an independent review is fully consistent with a presumption of innocence.”

Former Irish President, Mary Robinson, will head a panel that includes a top ex-South African prosecutor and Gambia’s chief justice to review an ethics committee report that found no evidence of wrongdoing by AfDB President Akinwunmi Adesina.

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