Institutions, authorities and agents of the government need to harmonize all priority infrastructural projects they will begin this year to ensure a predictable and reliable flow of funding for them. The Managing Director of Stanbic Bank Ghana Ltd, Mr Alhassan Andani, who shared these views in an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on his expectations for this year, said when the agents prepared thoroughly and aligned all areas requiring funding, the government would be in a better position to appropriately identify the source and right mix of funding to ensure that none of the projects remained behind schedule. He noted that having contained the economic difficulties of the past year, the country should now prepare to make increased investments in infrastructure in the next couple of years to drive growth and development. Ghana needs billions of dollars to expand water, electricity generation and supply, improve and rehabilitate road networks, rehabilitate and expand health and educational facilities and also improve access to Internet services as part of a larger information and communications technology programme. In the 201 0 Budget Statement, the government recognizes the importance of infrastructural development and has made some interventions in that regard. For instance, the budget intends to achieve growth and stability through sustenance of the macroeconomic stability and fiscal discipline achieved in 2009; positioning the country for a sustained growth through the modernization of agriculture, provision of key' infrastructure development, oil and gas projects, private sector development, lCT and delivery of social programmes targeted at poverty reduction. However, Mr Andani said misaligned and non-harmonized programmes could cost the country, especially, with dearth funding, while a well co-ordinated programme by all governmental agencies could attract easy funding from all sources including multilateral, bilateral and private debt. There have been instances in the past where, governmental agencies and ministries do not co-ordinate their programmes and activities leaving the projects to overlap and consequently utter unreliable financing. "Institutions should collaborate and play it together to enable us as a people to know what we want, so that we can go for the right financing," Mr Andani told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS. Stanbic Bank has, in recent times, been at the forefront of helping raise enormous funds for activities of the government and other large corporations and hopes to consolidate this feat in the coming years. For long-term financing, Mr Andani said Ghana could resort to some Asian economies such as Japan and China for a reliable flow of funds; using our well-priced resources as the trump card. China is ready to support developing countries, particularly in Africa, but often partly in return for some guaranteed amount of natural resources such as oil, gold or cocoa. EXPECTATIONS FOR 2010 Mr Andani sees an intriguingly interesting horizon in 2010 for a number of reasons, including the fast recovery in the world economy, rising commodity prices and expected flows (taxes especially) from the oil and gas industry. With the world crisis gradually getting behind, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are now less busy in helping fix the crisis in the advanced world and will now turn attention to the developing world. For Mr Andani, however, economics would now come back to its basic tangible levels, devoid of the aesthetic derivatives and complex products and that should give developing countries like Ghana the edge to bargain well for what they wants from the world and the multilateral institutions. COMODITIES He expects gold prices to stay above the US$l,000 range for the better part of the year due to the fallen confidence in the US dollar as a store of value for world trading activities. The debate is currently on-going as to maintaining the dollar as the store of value. Already, an emerging economic power like China is considering denominating all its transactions in Yuan, it may do so for new contracts and those that need to be revised now. “Before a more liquid currency is found, gold will maintain its luster and people will store their values here," Mr Andani predicted. This phenomenon is likely to give rise to many economic actors resorting to gold as the store of value for the ensuing years, thus lending credence to the enduring value of gold which will enable Ghana to continue to enjoy a windfall. Similar views that gold will continue to shine are held by Mineweb's David Levenstein who maintains that "the current bull market in gold is far from over. In fact, it is only beginning". For him, while the price of gold is influenced by many different factors, the major driving force has been the lack of confidence people have had in all the major currencies, especially the US dollar, which has now lost more than 30 per cent of its value since 2001. And, as some of these currencies have done well against the US dollar, gold has gone up substantially against practically all these currencies. It has gone up against the US dollar, the British pound, the Canadian dollar, the Chinese Yuan, the Swiss Franc, the Russian Rubble, the South African Rand, and the Mexican Peso, just to mention a few of the currencies. From the 1980's high of US$850, gold was in a bear market for some 21 years. The price of the metal gained some 30 per cent this year, reaching US$l, 225 an ounce. When this plays out well, it would also give credence to the government's attempts to engage mining companies in the country to increase their royalties from three per cent to six per cent to enable the country enjoy part of the Windfall that the mining firms are currently reaping from hikes in gold prices. Cocoa, which directly benefits the country through Balance of Payment and Budgetary support, is also on track to enjoying favourable prices on the world market following Cote d’Ivoire’s continuous political challenges and Brazil's inability to produce more. These would create a shortage and leave Ghana to reap the gains. Another reason why cocoa prices will still hold in 2010 is that new markets are being developed with China coming on the top of the list. Consequently, the country should take its support for agronomic farming practices seriously, work with farmers to increase yield and acreage and rope in younger generation to engage in cocoa farming to make the benefits much more widespread. OIL AND GAS Unlike 2007 when oil prices hit a record US$147 per barrel, the contract is expected to remain within US$80 and US$l00 for the rest of the year. This would be good for Ghana whether it becomes a producer or importer of oil. In any case, the preparatory activities to produce oil would help generate some revenue for the Government in 201 0 even if actual production does not take of as scheduled in the rest quarter of the year. Mr Andani said it was time the country put its domestic content regulations at play to ensure that certain services were either entirely reserved for local companies and the foreign entrants should have a reasonable level of partnership with their Ghanaian counterparts. He added that it would not be out of place for the Government to use such a legislation to request certain specific activities to be performed by domestic companies. The Stanbic managing director identified some of the areas as the provision of petroleum and petro-chemical storage facilities, transportation, catering, bunkering and port services, communications services, helicopter and charter flight services and the likes, should have a high level of local participation, if not an exclusive reservation. LEVERAGING ON THE CRISIS Mr Andani said Ghana should make itself attractive to its nationals who had been released by the crisis for them to contribute meaningfully to national development, saying Ghana had produced some of the quality human capital that operated on the world stage who should now be brought home to help. He believes the country could make the best use of the good governance and disciplined economic management credentials still wrapped around it, continue on that trajectory and try to further understand the economy, especially short term and long term implications of her actions, so as to move the economy on the right track. The banker was upbeat about the government's management of the economy, holding back on expenditure and not worsening the situation, even in the midst of complaints, hue and cry, in order for them to put the economy back on track. "For me, this represents good eco¬nomic governance as the government comes under fire but chooses the hard and proper way out to solve a problem.' he asserted. Source: Graphic Business