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Agotime-Afefame youth desert town
A first-time visitor to the border town of Agotime-Afegame in the Volta Region is struck by the empty houses in the town.
The reason is that majority of the young adults in the area have ‘fled’ the town to other parts of the country in search of comfort and jobs.
• A woman abandons her bags of charcoal due to the absence of market 
• A deserted house at Agotime-Afegame
For years, the people of Agotime-Afegame had made their fortune from cross-border trade with neighbouring Togo and also by selling their bountiful harvests of vegetable in ready markets at Ho, Kpetoe, Ziope and other parts of the region.
The massive storey buildings in the town which are now decaying depict lost years of wealth and glory.
In the PNDC era under Flt-Lt J.J Rawlings, Agotime-Afegame was said to be an important spot for intelligence gathering from across the border and that guaranteed security in the town.
Today, Agotime-Afegame is a pale shadow of its excellent past.
For some time now, the people of the border town have been held “hostage” in their homes.
This follows heavy rains which destroyed various portions of the 9.5kilometre untarred road from Agotime-Beh, along the Ho-Aflao road, to the town.
A journey on the road by car which under normal circumstances takes 10 minutes can now take more than one-and-a-half hours due to the nightmarish nature of the road.
In the absence of cellular phone signals, the community which has about 1,300 inhabitants is now in a grave state of uncertainty as the people can hardly contact their relatives in other parts of the country.
The road continues to Kpordzaxo in Togo which is just metres away from Agotime-Afegame, and then to the Republic of Benin.
That international road could rightly be described as an “international ruin”.
In times of downpours the stretch becomes a river course making it totally unusable and further tightening the hostage status of the people of Agotime-Afegame.
Now, the border is still shut, depriving them of their livelihood and with the nature of what is meant to be the road leading to the town, the people cannot sell their farm produce anywhere.
When some journalists waded through the muddy waters and visited the area last month, the atmosphere was a scary one.
The sick cannot access healthcare outside the town.
Plans to bury the dead in the land of their brothers and sisters at Kpordzaxo are frustrated by the official location of Kpordzaxor in Togo.
The road from the Beh junction to the town was constructed in the early 1970s and for more than 48 years the only rehabilitation was occasional reshaping.
In the absence of potable water, the people of Agotime-Afegame rely on River Tordze which according to local residents, is so polluted that one would not even want to use to flush the toilet.
With no link road, no cellular service and no potable water in the wake of little food stocks and an uncertain future, the people of the food basket are gripped with anxiety.
The town once known for wealth has been brought to its knees.
Citizens of the Agotime-Afegame who live in other parts of the country are now avoiding the nightmare in their hometown by keeping their distance from the town.
From Alberto Mario Noretti, Agotime-Afegame
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GEXIM deepens relations with US EXIM Bank
A management team of the Ghana Export – Import Bank (GEXIM) led by the Acting Chief Executive, Sylvester Mensah met with the leadership of the Export–Import Bank of the United States (US EXIM) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 in Washington DC, United States of America.
The Acting President and Chairman of US EXIM, Mr. James C. Cruse and Vice President, International Relations, Ms. Isabel Galdiz received the GEXIM delegation, which included Deputy CEO for Banking, Mr. Moses Klu Mensah and Head of International Cooperation, Mr. Jonathan Christopher Koney at the headquarters of US EXIM.
The meeting offered the GEXIM team the opportunity to share the strategic direction of the Bank in line with the resetting agenda of the President of the Republic, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama for the repositioning of the Ghanaian economy into an export-led one by providing the requisite investment to Ghanaian businesses.
Mr. James C. Cruse expressed US EXIM’s eagerness to deepen its existing relations with GEXIM and proposed the signing of a new Cooperative Framework Agreement following the expiration of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2019 to utilize US EXIM’s medium term loan guarantees to procure machinery by GEXIM for qualified Ghanaian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
Mr.Sylvester Mensah thanked the Acting President and Chairman of US EXIM for hosting the GEXIM delegation and reaffirmed the Ghanaian government’s commitment to strengthening trade and investment between Ghana and its global partners for economic transformation of Ghana with GEXIM playing a pivotal role.
The two teams will be meeting on the sidelines of the 2025 US EXIM Annual Conference on 29th and April 30, 2025 to explore possible areas of collaboration and matching Ghanaian businesses to American companies. The meeting ended with an exchange of gifts.
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Many SOEs have been used as mere instruments for personal wealth accumulation –Pres.Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has expressed concern over the misuse of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) for personal financial gain by individuals in leadership positions.
Speaking during a meeting with Chief Executives of specified entities under the State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) on Thursday, March 13, the President directly attributed the dire state of SOEs to their leadership, accusing chief executives, management teams, and governing boards of prioritising personal enrichment over organisational efficiency.
He pointed to bloated budgets, unjustified allowances, and unnecessary expenditures as factors draining public funds while SOEs continue to rely on government bailouts.
“Many SOEs have been used as mere instruments for personal wealth accumulation by appointees. The chief executives, management, and boards of these enterprises are responsible for this situation. Some SOEs have become perennial loss-makers, draining public funds with bloated budgets, unjustified allowances, and unnecessary expenditures while relying on government bailouts as if entitled to them. Many of these entities are at their lowest point in the entire history of the Fourth Republic,” he said.
President Mahama further noted that many SOEs have been plagued by inefficiencies, corruption, and mismanagement, leading to consistent financial losses. He cited the 2023 State Ownership Report by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), which highlighted systemic inefficiencies and wasteful expenditures within these entities.
He therefore reaffirmed his commitment to reforming under-performing SOEs and ensuring they serve national interests.
He warned that loss-making SOEs will no longer be tolerated and will either be merged, privatised, or closed.
“I will assess you based on your performance. If you do not align with the pace of the reset agenda, you may be asked to step aside. If that adds to the horror movie, so be it,” he added.
Source: Myjoyonline.com
