THE STATESMAN

The Statesman reports on its front page that moves by the Board of the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) to embark on a programme to spend a maximum of one billion cedis to purchase its own shares, has caused a stir among some shareholders. In the story under the headline: "Big row over GCB shares", the Statesman says some shareholders have expressed misgivings over the programme which they consider to be irregular and of doubtful transparency. According to the paper, the shareholders are of the view that the whole objective of the programme should have been advertised before its commencement. GRi

"VAT to cause inflation...ISSER report rings alarm bells", is a back page headline of the Statesman story which says the threat of the re-introduction of VAT adding to the inflationary situation in Ghana, has been raised by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana. The Statesman says in an overview of the economy contained in "the state of the economy for 1996, released last week, ISSER noted that "in 1998, if VAT is introduced as envisaged, it will add another dimension of uncertainty to the inflationary situation". The paper says the report identified "high inflation and increasing dollarisation of the economy" as the two major problems of the Ghanaian economy. GRi