Jobberman Ghana has launched the SHE CAN campaign with the objective to train 1500 women between the ages of 18 and 35 in future ready skills and place them in dignified jobs across Ghana under the HAPPY Program, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and Agri-Impact Limited.

According to the Programs Manager, Asiwome Biekro, the “SHE CAN” Campaign will focus on training young girls in soft skills, entrepreneurship and customer service to help them thrive in the workforce or start and grow their own business.

“We designed SHE CAN” to break down the barriers women face when trying to access the job market. Through these targeted training and job placement support, we are helping them build confidence, independence and long term success”, he explained.

What’s in it for participants?

At the heart of the “SHE CAN” campaign are two fantastic opportunities, both offered completely free of charge.

Future Ready Skills Training

Participants will receive interactive training in:

Soft Skills like communication, teamwork, problem solving and emotional intelligence.

Entrepreneurship Skills to spark innovation and learn the fundamentals of starting and growing a business.

Customer Service Skills for anyone aiming to make their mark in the hospitality or service industry.

Delivered in two-hour weekly sessions, these trainings are designed to be flexible, impactful and immediately applicable.

Job Placement Support

We are not just training participants; we are connecting them to dignified and fulfilling jobs across various sectors.

Job seekers who sign up for the program gain access to tailored job placement support, helping to bridge the unemployment gap amongst women.

Expanding our reach: The “Charley Job Dey!” Campaign

To ensure that no young woman is left behind, Jobberman Ghana is also actively running the “Charley Job Dey!” campaign, a parallel initiative specifically targeting young women who may have limited formal education or have not had access to skills training or vocational development.

“Charley Job Dey!” focuses on reaching these women through community engagements and offline initiatives, connecting them with opportunities in the informal or blue-collar sector. Our goal is to ensure that every woman regardless of her educational background has the chance to secure a dignified livelihood.

Why “SHE CAN”?

“SHE” stands for more than just a pronoun. It represents the foundation on which this campaign is built.

S – Skills. H-Hope. E – Empowerment.

Skills build up confidence. Hope fuels dreams. Empowerment creates change and we believe when women have all three, there is no limit to what they can achieve.

Whether it’s a recent graduate looking for her first job, a dedicated professional aiming to enhance her skills or a young woman trying to start a business, “SHE CAN” is here to say that “You can land a job. You can empower yourself. You can create the future you desire.”

DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.

DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.

The concept of customer satisfaction has long been associated with meeting the expectations of clients, or, in the context of regulation, meeting customer requirements. In contemporary times, such as the era of machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data and data analytics, hotels can no longer perform the minimum service delivery of making customers satisfied. The technological age has also meant that hotels no longer compete between themselves but must respond to disruptors such as Airbnb, which operates outside governments’ regulations and other constraints.

Airbnb, for example, doesn’t own hotels or accommodation facilities, and doesn’t need to deal with the overhead cost of traditional hotels and the regulatory rigidities. Therefore, the actions of disruptors such as Airbnb have added a layer of nuance to the hotel competitive landscape. The business model of Airbnb has meant that they create a customer experience that creates excitement and spontaneity, which is out of reach for most traditional hotels. The element of customer delight is considered to be superior and more desirable than satisfaction. However, it must be established that in the customer’s heuristics, satisfaction requirements must be met before delight. It’s also not feasible to deliver service delight without satisfying the delivery requirements for service satisfaction.

In other words, customer satisfaction is a precursor to customer delight. In a study conducted by Anabila et al (2021) on service quality and customer loyalty in Ghana’s hotel industry, it emerged that for the majority of hotel clients, offering services that go beyond the minimum satisfaction threshold to customer delight is what would keep them coming for more and by extension sustain the hotel business for the long term. The majority of the hotel clients sampled also agreed on the important role played by both satisfaction and delight as total precursors to achieving overall service quality. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1528008X.2021.1913691

According to the study, contemporary hotel management service delivery has gone beyond the discussions on room occupancy rates, restaurant management and airport pick-ups or chauffeuring to providing a holistic 360 service experience that is exciting and spontaneous. The functioning of customer delight moments throughout the entire service delivery must be done deliberately using historical customer experience data deployed by modern AI machine learning tools to proactively design a randomised, customised service experience. The use of modern machine learning tools, both supervised and unsupervised, would address the concerns of many experts’ opinions on the difficulties in addressing the nuances between international and domestic hotel customers.

For example, unsupervised machine learning can aid in modelling appropriate service delight choices, while supervised machine learning predicts the threshold of customer acceptance. A hotel may, for instance, be provided with the option of offering a local gastronomy and indigenous cultural experience for its international guests, with an 85% threshold of acceptance as predicted by machine learning. This would be successful by using comprehensive historical data from the hotels. We highly recommend hotels to jealously gather and use customer data for predictive purposes in designing delightful services.

Since service delight is a risky undertaking and involves elements of surprise and joy, we must be guided by Meller et al’s experiments on emotional reactions to outcomes of risky options. The experiment proved that positive surprises that result in wins generated elation than expected wins, while negative surprises ending with losses generated disappointments. For hotels in Ghana, they can moderate the risk with service-delight delivery by gleaning customer insights from their data using machine learning tools in delivering delightful services that have high acceptance ratios. Spontaneity and surprise must be the building blocks of any delightful service produced as a basis for ensuring the sustainability of the hotel business.

Leeford Edem Kojo Ameyibor, PhD.
The Writer is with the faculty of Management and the Department of Marketing, University of Professional Studies, UPSA, Accra

Crude oil futures traded within a narrow range as geopolitical tensions and seasonal demand dynamics balanced market sentiment, Exness Senior Financial Markets Strategist Dat Tong noted Tuesday.

Prices found support from looming U.S. and European sanctions targeting Russian oil exports, with traders closely monitoring potential supply disruptions following former U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge of new policy announcements.

Industry reports indicate robust short-term consumption during the Northern Hemisphere’s peak summer season, where transportation fuel and power generation needs are bolstering demand. China’s crude imports further reinforced bullish sentiment, hitting their highest daily volume since August 2023 in June.

These gains remain partially offset by rising OPEC+ output and U.S. tariff negotiations, Tong observed. While OPEC members’ production hikes have added downward pressure, analysts highlight a potential output pause after September could tighten supplies. Ongoing U.S.-led trade discussions continue fueling economic uncertainty, potentially dampening global growth and fuel consumption.

Market participants maintain cautious positioning ahead of clarity on sanctions and OPEC’s next supply decision.

Cedi remains stable on the interbank market

Ghana’s local currency, the cedi, has maintained some stability against major trading currencies on the interbank market, particularly the US dollar.

In its daily update, the Bank of Ghana noted that the cedi is trading at a buying price of GH¢10.39 and a selling price of GH¢10.40 to the dollar.

It was previously bought at GH¢10.34 and is selling at GH¢10.35 to the dollar.

The British pound is being bought at GH¢14.04 and sold at GH¢14.05, while the euro is trading at a buying price of GH¢12.15 and a selling price of GH¢12.16.

Checks by GhanaWeb Business on cedirates.com on July 11, 2025, at 7:40 AM indicate that the cedi is trading at GH¢11.95, while the pound is selling at GH¢16.20 at some forex bureaus across the country.

Additionally, the euro is trading at GH¢14.00 on the retail market.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Ghana has received $360 million from the IMF to further stabilise the cedi.

Watch the latest episode of Health Focus below:

Hoda Appiah, Head of Communications and Public Education at the FDA

Hoda Appiah, Head of Communications and Public Education at the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), has called on Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Ghana to embrace regulatory compliance as a critical enabler of trade and competitiveness.

Mrs Appiah noted that the inability of MSMEs to meet international standards locks Ghanaian products out of export markets and deprives the country of much-needed foreign exchange.

She said, “If our foods do not meet international standards, we cannot export, and we lose the chance to earn vital foreign exchange.”

However, by perceiving regulatory compliance not as a bureaucratic bottleneck but as a tool for economic empowerment, Mrs Appiah maintained that MSMEs could identify the right support, enabling them to compete, grow, and attract crucial foreign exchange for national development.

Mrs Appiah made these remarks during a UK-Ghana Chamber of Commerce (UKGCC) webinar held in collaboration with WTS Nobisfields, under the theme “The Role of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in Promoting Local and International Trade.”

Progressive Licensing: A Bridge, Not a Barrier

The FDA’s Progressive Licensing Scheme (PLS) emerged as a central theme during the webinar.

Designed to help micro and small enterprises enter and scale within the formal economy, the PLS allows businesses with limited capacity to begin operations under basic compliance and improve step by step.

“Compliance doesn’t have to be intimidating,” said Esther Amufa, also of the FDA. “The scheme allows businesses to meet regulatory standards gradually — through pink, yellow and green stages — each building toward full compliance without overwhelming financial or logistical pressure.”

Through this approach, the FDA has registered over 10,500 products and licensed more than 2,300 facilities since 2019.

Buy Ghana, Love Ghana: Local Brands, Global Standards

The PLS is closely tied to the Buy Ghana, Love Ghana campaign, which encourages major retailers to showcase FDA-compliant local products. This initiative has improved visibility and consumer trust in Made-in-Ghana goods and enhanced market access for MSMEs.

According to Miss Amufa, “We’ve partnered with supermarkets like Palace Mall to create dedicated shelves for local products, especially during festive seasons. But we also provide training on packaging, barcoding, and labelling — everything needed to be retail-ready.”

Infrastructure, Innovation, and Global Partnerships

The FDA, now over 28 years old, is internationally recognised and ISO-accredited, with the largest scope of accredited testing laboratories under one roof in Africa. Its work is benchmarked by WHO standards and supported through collaborations with the European Medicines Agency, the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF), and NEPAD.

Mrs. Appiah added that the FDA’s operations span Ghana’s seaports, airports, and border posts, facilitating efficient regulation of imports and exports and ensuring consumer protection across the supply chain.

The authority is also embracing digital transformation, with an AI-powered registration system and a soon-to-be-launched one-stop harmonised certification portal in collaboration with the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA).

Moderated by Theophilus Tawiah, Managing Partner of WTS Nobisfields and law lecturer at UPSA, the webinar forms part of UKGCC’s ongoing series on regulatory reform and competitiveness of businesses in Ghana.

Chris Lloyd (L), Patriotic Agenda leadership in a group photograph

 

PATRIOTIC AGENDA, a youth wing under the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has paid a visit to the Deputy National Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Chris Lloyd Nii Kwei Asamoah, following his assault by “macho men” during the Ablekuma North parliamentary re-election.

The youth-led group paid the visit on Saturday, July 12, 2025, to ascertain the health of their organizer following the assault. The leadership of Patriotic Agenda wished him a speedy recovery and assured him of their support during this time and at all times.

Chris Lloyd Nii Kwei Asamoah was among the party members who were assaulted unprovoked by these thugs alleged to be members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Meanwhile, the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has called on President John Mahama to take immediate action against individuals caught on video perpetrating acts of violence, stressing the need for swift and decisive accountability to protect the country’s democratic integrity and ensure peace.

“What we have to be clear about is that the people who have perpetrated these acts have been caught on video. I call on the President to take action, and all the people in charge of this country, the administration, to take action to bring the perpetrators to justice,” he stated.

By Prince Fiifi Yorke

The government has granted two of the allowances demanded by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA).

The two allowances were agreed at a high-stakes meeting between the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, the association and the government team. The allowances will feature in the mid-year budget review expected to be presented to Parliament on Thursday.

Daily Graphic checks from multiple sources have revealed that the allowances are uniform and fuel.

The government is also engaging the association to ensure that the rest of the items contained in the conditions of service could be implemented from next year, the Daily Graphic gathered.

The meeting facilitated by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health was to find a lasting solution to the dispute over the implementation of GRNMA’s 2024 Conditions of Service.

At the meeting yesterday, the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, acknowledged the GRNMA’s concerns and demands, reiterating the government’s position on further consultation and engagement.

He emphasised the need for mutual respect and cooperation, highlighting the progress made so far in the negotiations.

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, chaired by the Member of Parliament for Nabdam, Naawane Kurt Mark, facilitated a constructive discussion, assuring the GRNMA of the committee’s neutrality and willingness to facilitate a resolution.

“We are committed to finding a solution that works for all parties involved. We urge continued engagement and collaboration to address the concerns and demands of the GRNMA,” he said.

Association, further engagements

The GRNMA President, Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, emphasised the importance of implementing key allowances to improve nurses’ and midwives’ welfare, motivate and retain them.

However, the GRNMA expressed disappointment with the government’s proposal, which they deemed unacceptable.

The leaders of the association agreed to inform its members about the government’s position and the outcome of the meeting.

Daily Graphic checks also indicate that the association has already informed its members, but said its strike only remained suspended and not cancelled.

The Chief Executive of the FWSC, Dr George Smith Graham, gave the assurance that engagements would start soon, explaining that it was not a renegotiation but to address the remaining demands.

The commission has scheduled further engagements with the GRNMA for next Tuesday.

Both parties at the end of the meeting agreed to further engagement and work together to find a solution to the impasse and expressed the hope for a resolution that benefits the nurses and midwives in Ghana.

Background

The GRNMA embarked on a nationwide strike on June 4, 2025, citing the government’s failure to honour agreements reached on May 20, 2024.

Despite the National Labour Commission declaring the strike illegal, the GRNMA insisted on continuing the industrial action until their demands were met. 

However, following an appeal by the government and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, the association suspended its strike on June 14, 2025, pending further negotiations.