Category: Daily Guide Network

The Rotary Club of Accra-Odadee AOGA has donated classroom furniture to Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School as part of efforts to improve educational infrastructure and promote quality learning among students.

The donation formed part of the Club’s community service initiatives aimed at creating a more conducive teaching and learning environment in schools. The exercise was undertaken in collaboration with school authorities and brought together Rotarians, students, and members of staff of the school.

The Club presented classroom desks and other furniture to support academic activities on campus. Management and students of PRESEC expressed appreciation for the intervention, describing it as a significant contribution towards improving conditions for effective teaching and learning.

Speaking during the presentation, President of the Club, Mother Teresa Brew, said the Club strongly believes that education remains one of the most important investments any society can make for its future.

She noted that providing students with a comfortable and supportive learning environment contributes greatly to academic excellence, discipline, and personal development.

The event also featured an educational engagement by the Office of the Special Prosecutor under its ‘Youth Against Corruption’ initiative.

Officials from the Office interacted with students on issues relating to corruption, integrity, accountability, whistleblowing, and the mandate of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

The students were encouraged to uphold honesty and reject corrupt practices in their personal and professional lives.

The interactive session generated strong interest among the students, many of whom actively participated in discussions and asked questions on corruption-related issues and ethical leadership.

According to organisers, the programme sought not only to educate students on the dangers of corruption but also to instill strong moral values and civic responsibility at an early stage of their development.

PRESEC Headmaster, David Odjidja, commended both the Rotary Club and the Office of the Special Prosecutor for what they described as a timely and impactful initiative. The school noted that combining educational support with values-based engagement made the programme particularly beneficial to the students.

Several Ghanaian actors and actresses have visited the home of the late actress Beverly Afaglo following her passing.

The popular ‘Playboy’ actress reportedly died on Saturday night at about 11:45pm at the Tema International Maritime Hospital after battling breast cancer for two years.

Since news of her death broke, streams of colleagues from the movie industry have been visiting her family to mourn and offer their condolences.

Among the notable actors and actresses who visited Beverly’s home were Jackie Appiah, Yvonne Nelson, Selassie Ibrahim, Ingrid Alabi, Roselyn Ngissah, Peter Ritchie, James Gardiner, Offeibea, Chichi Neblett, and Martha Ankomah.

Videos circulating online captured emotional moments as some of the actors broke down in tears over Beverly’s death. Actor James Gardiner was seen weeping, while Chichi Neblett, Ingrid Alabi, and Yvonne Nelson were also visibly emotional.

Beverly Afaglo’s death has left the Ghanaian entertainment industry in deep mourning, with many describing her as talented, lively, and full of love.

The Awutu Bereku District Police Command, led by Superintendent Edmond Nyamekye, has arrested a couple over allegations surrounding the death of their newborn child in Awutu Bontrase.

The suspects, identified as 22-year-old Abena Benewa and 26-year-old Bright Ashiao, reportedly delivered the baby at home.

According to reports, neighbours became suspicious after noticing that the newborn had not been seen for several days. Concerns within the community later intensified when the lifeless body of the infant was reportedly discovered at a refuse dump with some body parts missing.

The discovery prompted an investigation by the police, which eventually led to the arrest of the couple.

An eyewitness claimed that when residents initially questioned the father, he allegedly stated that the baby died naturally and had been buried at the refuse site. However, reports indicated that statements he later made during police interrogation reportedly differed from what he had earlier told community members.

Prince Larbie, Assemblyman for the Bontrase Electoral Area, confirmed that the suspects were in police custody.

Superintendent Nyamekye also confirmed that investigations are ongoing, including efforts to determine whether the incident may have involved ritual-related motives.

The Black Maidens produced a sensational performance at the Accra Sports Stadium to dismantle Liberia 6-0 in the first leg of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

In a dominant display from start to finish, the Maidens combined attacking brilliance, tactical discipline, and relentless pressing to put themselves firmly in control ahead of the return leg.

The team opened the scoring in the 31st minute through Daniella Abass, who calmly finished after sustained pressure from the hosts.

After the break, the team returned with even greater intensity and doubled the advantage in the 53rd minute when Seidatu Wahab converted confidently from the penalty spot.

Just four minutes later, Linda Achiaa added the third goal with a composed finish before Jessica Appiah made it 4-0 in the 60th minute after another flowing attacking move.

Priscilla Mensah joined the scoresheet in the 73rd minute to further punish the visitors before Mavis Yeboah sealed the emphatic victory with a sixth goal in the 90th minute, capping off a memorable evening.

The Black Maidens now head into the second leg with a commanding advantage and one foot firmly in the next stage of the qualifiers.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson, has defended the financial sector clean-up undertaken during the administration of former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, insisting that the exercise was necessary despite concerns over its implementation.

Speaking on Accra-based TV3, Mr. Jackson acknowledged that the process was fraught with difficulties but maintained that reforms in the banking and financial sector could not have been avoided.

‘Did we need a clean-up? Yes. Was the process that was undertaken fraught with a lot of issues? The answer there, too, is yes,’ he stated.

According to him, the country’s financial sector continues to undergo major reforms, with institutions being compelled to reassess their operations under a new regulatory framework introduced after the clean-up exercise.

Mr. Jackson’s comments come in the wake of a recent Court of Appeal ruling ordering the restoration of the licence of GN Savings and Loans Company Limited, one of the financial institutions affected during the sector reforms.

Despite the court ruling, the Dalex Finance CEO cautioned that reviving the institution after seven years of inactivity would be an extremely difficult task.

He argued that a banking licence alone could not restore a financial institution without credibility, liquidity, capital, operational systems and public trust.

‘A functioning bank is not a licence. A functioning bank is credibility, trust, capital, liquidity, staff and the premises that are used,’ he said.

Mr. Jackson noted that customers of GN Savings and Loans had long moved on to alternative financial institutions, while former employees had lost their jobs or sought employment elsewhere.

‘What has happened is that a licence has been restored, but the bank has not been resurrected,’ he remarked, describing the restoration as more of a legal victory than an operational revival.

He further stressed that the company would still be required to meet the regulatory requirements of the Bank of Ghana before resuming operations.

‘It has been seven years where customers have moved on and found alternative ways of conducting their financial services, seven years where staff have been out of employment, so resurrecting this institution is a tough one,’ he added.

Meanwhile, Founder of Groupe Nduom, Papa Kwesi Nduom, has welcomed the Court of Appeal decision and expressed optimism that the company’s licence would soon be fully restored.

A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal ruled that the revocation of GN Savings and Loans’ licence was unfair and unreasonable.

The court further directed the receiver to hand over possession, management and control of the company’s assets and operations to its shareholders, while noting that any third-party interests created during the receivership would be determined on a case-by-case basis and in good faith.

The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has entered into a major refinery partnership with Royal Ghana Gold Limited as part of efforts to boost value addition in Ghana’s mining sector.

Under the agreement, GoldBod will provide up to one metric tonne of gold each week for local refining, in line with government’s objective of maximising benefits from the country’s mineral resources before export.

The partnership becomes GoldBod’s second refinery agreement in 2026, after a similar deal with Gold Coast Refinery earlier this year.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, GoldBod Chief Executive Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, reiterated President John Dramani Mahama’s commitment to ensuring that all minerals mined in Ghana are refined locally by 2030 before being exported.

He noted that the agreement would enable Ghana to retain refining revenues, recover valuable by-products, create employment opportunities and strengthen the country’s position as a major gold refining centre in Africa.

He explained that refining gold locally would allow Ghana to retain refining fees that were previously paid to refineries in countries such as Dubai, India and Switzerland.

‘What this means is that the refining fees that used to leave Ghana will now remain in the Ghanaian economy,’ he stated. ‘Jobs will be created here, technical expertise will grow here, and value retention will improve.’

The Ghana Gold Board CEO further indicated that the initiative would support the country’s push toward securing London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) accreditation for local refineries, a move expected to improve Ghana’s competitiveness in the global bullion market.

Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Johnson Asiama, who also addressed the ceremony, described local processing of Ghana’s natural resources as a long-overdue national strategy.

‘It has taken too long for us to get to this stage,’ he said. ‘Not just gold, but cocoa and oil as well. If we process these resources locally, we will experience significant economic transformation.’

Dr. Asiama said the central bank would continue to support efforts aimed at increasing local refining capacity, stressing that greater processing of gold would create jobs, increase state revenue and strengthen oversight across the mineral value chain.

He revealed that the Bank of Ghana still holds a minority stake in the refinery to help monitor and support the process.

Managing Director of Royal Ghana Gold Refinery, Eric Frimpong, assured the government that the refinery is prepared to begin operations immediately.

He said the company’s goal is to refine Ghanaian gold to internationally accepted standards and eventually achieve LBMA accreditation.

‘Ghana has exported raw gold for centuries,’ he said. ‘It is about time we take our destiny into our own hands and add value to what we produce here.’

Mr. Frimpong also pledged the refinery’s support for the government’s proposed 24-hour economy policy, saying the facility would operate continuously to maximise production and employment opportunities for Ghanaian youth.

Officials at the ceremony indicated that the refinery could begin processing gold as early as next week, with the first bullion bars expected to be produced shortly after initial deliveries are made.

The agreement marks the latest attempt by Ghanaian authorities to reposition the country from a raw mineral exporter to a value-added mineral processing hub in West Africa. This is the second gold refinery agreement that has been signed by the GoldBod. The first was with Gold Coast Refinery.

The Bank of Ghana and Royal Ghana Gold Limited also expressed their commitment to supporting Ghana’s industrialisation and economic transformation agenda.

A six-bedroom self-contained house at Atekyem near Universal School in Koforidua, Eastern Region, has been ravaged by a fire, destroying properties worth thousands of cedis.

Officials of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) revealed that the incident occurred on Thursday, May 21, 2026, prompting an emergency response after a distress call was received at approximately 11:14 a.m.

According to the GNFS, a fire crew under the leadership of Assistant Divisional Officer Grade I (ADO I) Sagoe responded to the emergency and arrived at the scene twelve minutes later at 11:26 a.m.

‘Upon arrival, firefighters discovered that the building had already been heavily engulfed in flames, with the fire rapidly spreading from the roof section of the property.

‘Thick smoke and intense heat reportedly made firefighting efforts difficult as officers worked tirelessly to prevent the blaze from extending to nearby structures. The fire was eventually brought under control at 12:21 p.m. and fully extinguished at 12:57 p.m. after an extensive operation by the responding crew,’ a GNFS statement read.

ADO I Sagoe further indicated that although the inferno caused severe destruction to the building and consumed majority of the household belongings, firefighters managed to salvage several items from the wreckage.

Among the recovered items were a tabletop refrigerator, kitchen utensils, a 6kg gas cylinder, plastic storage racks and wash basins.

The GNFS affirmed that no injuries or fatalities were recorded during the incident.

Rev. Bonsu, ex-husband of gospel music star Esther Smith, has strongly denied allegations of using charms or spells to marry the artiste in the early 2000s.

In an interview on Power FM, the man of God vehemently stated that if he had charms he would have used it on ace broadcaster Nana Aba Anamoah, not Esther Smith.

‘If during that time l had charms to pursue women during 2003, 2004, l don’t think it will be Esther Smith. If you look at Esther during that era it won’t be Esther. Because during that time was Nana Aba Anamoah era. So if l had charms to pursue women, it will be Nana Aba not Esther, because she was a humble and upcoming artiste but Nana Aba was at her peak (sic),’ he stated.

He further expressed a desire for a peaceful resolution for the sake of their children.

During the highly publicised 2008 divorce from her ex-husband, Rev. Ahenkan Bonsu, Esther Smith claimed that he used a ‘charm’ (spell) on her.

Smith alleged that after she met the Rev. Bonsu at a performance in Akwatia and he gifted her a piece of gold, she became overly fond of him, which ultimately led to their marriage. She later claimed that this gift was a charm that made her marry him.

According to sources present at the traditional divorce proceedings, she claimed the charm eventually wore off, resulting in the breakdown of the marriage. The two families later officially returned and accepted the traditional dowry and drinks.

Ghanaian singer Gyakie’s ‘Forever’ remix featuring Omah Lay crossed 100 million views on YouTube as of May 24, 2026.

The video was released on March 18, 2021, and has been one of Gyakie’s biggest international breakouts. The song blends her Afrobeats style with Omah Lay’s vocals and went on to hit No. 1 on the TurnTable charts in Nigeria.

Hitting 100 million usually means the song got heavy rotation from fans, playlists, and viral clips on TikTok, Shorts, and Reels. It also puts the song in YouTube’s higher-tier recognition bracket and often boosts royalty earnings and chart eligibility.

Gyakie gained national attention with her 2020 EP ‘Seed’, led by ‘Forever’. The remix with Omah Lay hit No. 1 on the TurnTable charts and went 2x platinum, making her a household name across Africa.

Other early singles include ‘Never Like This’, ‘Sor Mi Mu’ featuring Bisa Kdei, ‘Need Me’, ‘Whine’, and ‘Love Is Pretty’. Gyakie is known for blending Afrobeats, R and B, Soul, and Highlife with soft, emotive vocals.

Gyakie calls After Midnight ‘my first baby’. It’s a deeply personal project that reflects her growth, her Ghanaian heritage, and her push to maintain her ‘human self’ amid fame.

Ghana receives nearly $4.6 billion a year in remittances from its diaspora. It receives this money from people working double shifts in care homes, stacking shelves through the night, driving strangers across cities in the small hours, and cleaning office blocks before the rest of the city wakes.

It is the product not of abundance, opportunity, or a functioning global meritocracy, but of fear and of institutional absence. And until Ghana builds the domestic systems that would make returning home a rational economic decision, that money will keep coming, and those people will keep suffering to send it.

This is not an article about migration. It is an article about governance. Specifically, it is about the institutional gap between what Ghana asks of its citizens abroad and what it offers them in return, both in the countries where they work and in the country they are building towards returning to.

That gap is not accidental. It is the product of decades of political choices, bureaucratic inertia, and a cultural economy of informal transactionalism that has made formal systems expensive to use, unreliable in their outcomes, and structurally hostile to the very middle-class aspiration they are supposed to serve.

Why do the Ghanaian abroad work longer hours than anyone else?

There is a persistent and flattering misreading of the Ghanaian work ethic in the West. It attributes the extraordinary hours that Ghanaians put into low-wage employment to cultural discipline, supervisory pressure, or a desire to integrate. None of these explanations is accurate. The Ghanaian in a warehouse in Wolverhampton, working 60 hours a week, is not responding to managerial oversight.

Their Western-born colleagues, earning the same wage and subject to the same supervisors, work 40 hours and go home. The Ghanaian stays not because the system demands it, but because the alternative to staying in a country with no family compound to return to is a financial crisis with no cushion beneath it.

In Ghana, a worker who loses their income can return to a family home, eat from a communal pot, and rebuild without the existential terror of homelessness. In Leeds, Amsterdam or Toronto, that same person faces a rent payment on the first of the month that does not care about their circumstances.

There is no parents’ house to retreat to, no extended family absorbing the cost, and no community safety net of the kind that Ghana, for all its institutional failures, still provides through family structure. The result is a particular and documented form of financial anxiety that drives working hours far beyond what physical health can sustain. The hours are not a virtue.

They are a response to structural vulnerability, and they are taking a measurable toll.

The physical cost is not theoretical. Back injuries, shoulder and knee damage, wrist and finger problems from repetitive manual tasks, and the cumulative wear of night shifts and rotating patterns are documented throughout African immigrant worker communities across Europe and North America.

Most Ghanaian workers in care, logistics, and cleaning sectors have no workplace injury insurance beyond the statutory minimum, and those working through agencies frequently have fewer protections than direct employees.

In countries with free healthcare, appointment booking systems for non-emergency conditions involve waits of weeks or months, and surgical queues for conditions that compound gradually through physical labour can stretch to years. The body breaks down in conditions that the system is not, in practice, designed to repair quickly.

There is a second driver of the long hours that is rarely discussed honestly in public. A significant proportion of Ghanaians working in low-wage employment in the West are doing so not only to survive but to accumulate visible capital for return.

The house in Kumasi, the car purchased during a visit home, the school fees paid for siblings, and the restaurant bills picked up without consultation: these are the currency of social repositioning in a community where departure for the West is understood to confer a status that must be demonstrated materially.

The Ghanaian working 70 hours a week in a Sheffield warehouse and remitting half of what remains is, in part, managing the expectations of a social identity they acquired the moment they boarded the plane.

More hours of work, however, do not produce more financial freedom. In the United Kingdom, earnings beyond a threshold are taxed at 40 per cent. The person working 70 hours a week does not take home 75 per cent more than the person working 40. They take home considerably less per hour worked than they calculate, after income tax, national insurance, and the transport costs of maintaining multiple employment sites.

The financial model of working harder to accumulate faster is arithmetically weak at low wage levels, and the mental health cost of sustaining it is established: rates of anxiety, depression, and stress disorder among African migrant workers in precarious employment run as high as 75 per cent in some studied populations.

Why returning home is not a rational economic decision

The argument made in polite Ghanaian political discourse is that the diaspora simply needs to be encouraged, incentivised, or emotionally reconnected to the homeland. This diagnosis is comfortable for politicians and wrong in its analysis.

Ghanaians abroad have not forgotten Ghana. They think about it in every remittance they send, in every plot of land they attempt to purchase, and in every business they attempt to establish remotely. What they have correctly identified is that Ghana’s institutional architecture makes economic return punishing in ways that are not metaphorical but structural and financially precise.

Consider housing. Ghana’s mortgage market is among the most inaccessible on the continent. Average commercial lending rates reached 31.1 per cent in June 2024. Mortgage interest rates from mainstream Ghanaian banks range between 18 and 37 per cent, depending on whether the loan is cedi or dollar-denominated. Loan terms rarely exceed 15 to 20 years, against the 25 to 35-year terms that are standard in the United Kingdom. Only 7.5 per cent of Ghanaians borrowed from formal financial institutions in 2021.

More than 80 per cent of public sector workers earn less than the equivalent of $196 per month, a figure that makes even the cheapest formally priced housing financially inaccessible under current lending conditions. Approximately 90 per cent of all housing supply in Ghana is delivered through incremental self-building using personal savings, meaning that the aspiration of owning a decent home is almost entirely disconnected from any functioning credit system.

Land ownership compounds this. Land litigation accounts for 52 to 59 per cent of all court cases in Ghana, a proportion that has remained high across successive administrations. Cases average three to five years for standard disputes and can extend to 10 to 20 years for complex ones. A Supreme Court ruling documented a single 50-acre parcel with 13 different registered sellers between 1984 and 2014.

Violent disputes displaced over 50,000 people in 2025 alone. The practical consequence for a Ghanaian abroad attempting to invest remittances in land or property is a legal environment so uncertain, so expensive in professional fees, and so opaque in its overlapping customary and statutory frameworks that the rational response is either to use informal intermediaries whose reliability cannot be guaranteed, or to abandon the investment entirely.

The credit environment for small businesses is no less hostile. Only 9 per cent of banking loans were directed to small businesses in 2022. The Development Bank of Ghana targets raising this to 15 per cent but remains dependent on external development partner funding and political capital rather than a self-sustaining market mechanism. Microfinance institutions charge interest rates of between 25 and 35 per cent.

The informal savings cooperative, the susu, remains the most relied-upon financial instrument for the majority of Ghanaian entrepreneurs precisely because formal financial systems have not earned the trust or built the accessibility that would make them a credible alternative.

The Ghanaian professional who returns from years of NHS employment or European logistics work with a business plan and a modest amount of capital does not find an ecosystem ready to receive that investment. They find a lending market priced for failure.