The University of Ghana, Legon, has appointed the Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong onto the Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYSC) Corporate Advisory team.
The team was inaugurated by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the 73rd Annual New Year School Conference organized by the University of Ghana and tasked with the responsibility to advise on how reports of the conference will help advance Ghana’s strategic growth.
The team is chaired by lawyer Samuel Okudzeto (Member of the council of state) and includes Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison, Prof. Olivia Kwapong, Mr. Andrews Dotse and Mrs Regina Afari Boateng.
The conference was on the theme “Covid-19 and Socio-economic Dynamics in Ghana”.
Speaking on the conference theme, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong noted that Covid-19 brought innovation into Ghana’s private sector as companies had to innovate to cope with the challenges that came with the pandemic.
Dr. Agyepong pointed out that innovations such as local production of hand sanitizers, nose masks, hand washing machines, and disinfectant among others were some initiatives local companies and SMEs had to venture into to create new job opportunities.
“We at the Jospong Group of Companies and Zoomlion Ghana Limited had to innovate in the areas of assembling technologies and equipment to undertake nationwide disinfection exercises. We had to learn from what the Chinese were doing and locally replicated that by designing and assembling vehicles that can undertake massive disinfection activities,” he said.
Dr. Agyepong lauded the visionary leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo during the intense period of Covid-19 and his support to help local companies innovate to fight Covid-19.
President Akufo-Addo noted that Ghana recorded one of the lowest Covid-19 death rates in the world and this was due to the prudent management of the pandemic.
He said Ghana was named alongside Korea as one of the best countries to have properly managed the Covid-19, adding that no one lost their jobs in the public sector, and salaries of the public sector workers were not reduced.
According to the President, even though global food supply was hard hit, Ghana remained self sufficient in terms of food, due to the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.
The Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse indicated that since the inception of the annual new year school and conference in 1948, it has provided a unique platform for national discourse on development issues.
“National and local government agencies, academia and other stakeholders have used this platform to deliberate Ghana’s strategic growth,” she said.
She expressed confidence that the newly inaugurated ANYSC Corporate Advisory team will help stimulate economic growth of the country.
