FIRSTRAND plans to grow its asset management business as it widens revenues from business segments that require less regulatory capital.
Group CEO Sizwe Nxasana said on Thursday in an interview the asset management business already had assets under management and administration of about $100bn.
The plan was to progressively grow these assets in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa over the next few years, Mr Nxasana said at the conclusion of FirstRand’s annual general meeting in Sandton.
The asset management business was being run through Ashburton Investments, a unit of FirstRand.
"We have about R100bn in assets under management or administration. It is a business we think there is opportunity to create more scale by leveraging on the internal skills we have," Mr Nxasana said. "We want to originate business in various asset classes such as equities, real estate and infrastructure in South Africa and Africa," he said.
Mr Nxasana would not say what the target value of assets under management was for Ashburton over the next few years. "We have a base from which to start growing the business but this is a journey rather than a process," he said.
Mr Nxasana also said FirstRand would next year prefer to concentrate on investing in the businesses it had or planned to establish outside South Africa.
"We have projects in Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and India which gives us more than enough to focus on," he said.
Speaking at the annual meeting, FirstRand non-executive chairman Laurie Dippenaar said the group’s remuneration strategy was neither excessive nor did it reward failure.
Group executives were paid on the basis of them achieving targets such as creating shareholder value by increasing return on equity.
Mr Dippenaar said in FirstRand’s annual report released at the meeting that some global banks produced return on equity that was well below cost of capital but paid executives and staff up to 80% of the return. FirstRand’s return on equity was on the other hand about 20% and it paid out 45% of that to executives and staff.
Source: Business Day
Showing posts with label Ghana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghana. Show all posts
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Ghana: Human Rights Abuse in Police Cells
The reported deaths of two detainees in Ashaiman police cells last Monday has exposed the bad human rights record of this country. According to the story, which has been corroborated by the police, the two detainees died from excessive heat, because the cells were overcrowded. A cell built to accommodate 20 people, now houses as many as 43 suspects.
The police are trying to distance themselves from the tragedy, and are blaming the courts and Nsawam Medium Security Prisons for the overcrowding of the cells. The Commander of the Ashaiman Police, Supt. Peter Cobina, told The Chronicle that prisoners, who are sent to Nsawam and other prisons on remand, are most of the time rejected on health grounds. According to him, in other cases also, the suspects could not be sent to the major prisons because of court orders to keep them in police custody to reappear at later dates, saying "When this happens, we have no other choice than to keep them here, and this contributes to the swelling in the number of prisoners in our cell." From the explanation given by the officer, the police alone cannot be blamed for what has happened.
We however think the law enforcement agency could have done better to avoid these preventable deaths. If judges who give orders for suspects to be remanded into police custody do not know conditions in the cells, then it was incumbent on the police to have drawn their attention to the fact that the cells were full. They accepted to accommodate the suspects in a small cell, resulting in their deaths. This is a clear abuse of the fundamental human rights of the suspects.
In developed countries, the only difference between a prisoner and law-abiding citizens is that the movement of the former is restricted, but they are fully guaranteed their fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, in Ghana, a prisoner is treated as a non-entity who must not be accorded human dignity.
To avoid a future occurrence of this sordid treatment, The Chronicle is urging the families of the deceased detainees to sue both the police and the government for causing the death of their beloved ones. The outcome of the case would send a signal to our law enforcement agencies to sit up and treat suspects as fellow human beings, not like animals.
The police cannot claim that the suspects were being kept in lawful custody, and cannot therefore be blamed, because they have the duty to ensure their safety in lawful custody.
Source: All Africa
The police are trying to distance themselves from the tragedy, and are blaming the courts and Nsawam Medium Security Prisons for the overcrowding of the cells. The Commander of the Ashaiman Police, Supt. Peter Cobina, told The Chronicle that prisoners, who are sent to Nsawam and other prisons on remand, are most of the time rejected on health grounds. According to him, in other cases also, the suspects could not be sent to the major prisons because of court orders to keep them in police custody to reappear at later dates, saying "When this happens, we have no other choice than to keep them here, and this contributes to the swelling in the number of prisoners in our cell." From the explanation given by the officer, the police alone cannot be blamed for what has happened.
We however think the law enforcement agency could have done better to avoid these preventable deaths. If judges who give orders for suspects to be remanded into police custody do not know conditions in the cells, then it was incumbent on the police to have drawn their attention to the fact that the cells were full. They accepted to accommodate the suspects in a small cell, resulting in their deaths. This is a clear abuse of the fundamental human rights of the suspects.
In developed countries, the only difference between a prisoner and law-abiding citizens is that the movement of the former is restricted, but they are fully guaranteed their fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, in Ghana, a prisoner is treated as a non-entity who must not be accorded human dignity.
To avoid a future occurrence of this sordid treatment, The Chronicle is urging the families of the deceased detainees to sue both the police and the government for causing the death of their beloved ones. The outcome of the case would send a signal to our law enforcement agencies to sit up and treat suspects as fellow human beings, not like animals.
The police cannot claim that the suspects were being kept in lawful custody, and cannot therefore be blamed, because they have the duty to ensure their safety in lawful custody.
Source: All Africa
Thursday, June 5, 2003
War Crimes Indictment of Liberian President Is Disclosed
President Charles Taylor of Liberia, widely viewed as a wellspring of the violence that has ravaged West Africa, has been indicted on war crimes charges by a special court in Sierra Leone that accused him of ''bearing the greatest responsibility'' for a decade's worth of murders, mutilations and rapes in the neighboring country. He is the second serving national leader to be indicted on war crimes charges in the last decade. The first was Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in The Hague while he was president.
The indictment by the court, run jointly by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, was originally issued on March 7. It was made public today shortly after Mr. Taylor, bowing to pressure from the leaders of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, announced that he would step down by the end of the year. Diplomatic officials and news reports from the region described a surreal diplomatic drama in which Mr.
Taylor was transformed from statesman to fugitive in a matter of minutes. The announcement came at the opening of a peace conference convened in Accra, Ghana, and designed to end Liberia's current civil war. Just after being applauded for his retirement announcement, Mr. Taylor left the peace conference abruptly and caught a plane home rather than risk arrest by his Ghanaian hosts. In the brief time that elapsed between the announcement of the indictment and Mr. Taylor's departure, various Ghanaian officials and West African diplomats said they did not know whether they would attempt an arrest, since Mr. Taylor's status as a head of state grants him automatic immunity from such actions, under various international treaties.
The train of events left deep frustration in at least two quarters, diplomatic officials said today. One senior United States official said today that Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and John Kufuor of Ghana felt sandbagged by the release of the indictment on the heels of their successful effort to get Mr. Taylor to resign. But both the Ghanaian government's delays and indecision about arresting Mr. Taylor, and his subsequent return home, left both the war crimes prosecutor's office and some Republican members of the international affairs committee of the United States House of Representatives confused or angry.
In a telephone interview, Luc Copè, the chief of prosecution for the court in Sierra Leone, said: ''We don't have any power of arrest. We depend on a state to execute our orders.'' He added, ''We can serve the warrant of arrest on Liberia. But that would be asking him to arrest himself.''
The indictment itself provided, in stilted legal language, a capsule history of the allegations of crossborder alliances between Mr. Taylor and insurgents in Sierra Leone, and his reported support for a war on civilians that left upwards of 200,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands more maimed or raped or homeless in the late 1990's.
Mr. Taylor originally was a rebel warlord in his own country, and on coming to power, his accusers have charged, he helped rebel groups in neighboring countries, effectively franchising out his own civil war first to Sierra Leone and later to the Ivory Coast. In the case of Sierra Leone, one of the prizes in the conflict was access to Sierra Leone's wealth of diamond mines. ''Victims were routinely shot, hacked to death and burned to death,'' in Sierra Leone, one count of the new indictment said. Another said ''widespread sexual violence committed against civilian women and girls included brutal rapes, often by multiple rapists.''
A third count, involving the mutilations of civilians whose limbs were hacked off, charged that ''these mutilations included cutting off limbs and carving'' the initials of rebel groups on the bodies of the victims. The war crimes court in Sierra Leone, created jointly by the United Nations and Sierra Leone's government 18 months ago, has already indicted several militia leaders from the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, who made common cause with Mr. Taylor's government.
The indictment unsealed today charged that Mr. Taylor had ''to obtain access to the mineral wealth of the Republic of Sierra Leone, in particular the diamond wealth of Sierra Leone, and to destabilize the state'' provided ''financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition'' and other support to the R.U.F., which in turn allied itself with the A.F.R.C.
In a statement released in Freetown today, the chief prosecutor of the special court, David M. Crane, said that he had unsealed the indictment when he learned Mr. Taylor would be in Ghana for the peace talks, and thus would be susceptible to arrest. He added, ''To ensure the legitimacy of these negotiations, it is imperative that the attendees know they are dealing with an indicted war criminal.''
A member of Mr. Crane's staff, contacted by telephone in Freeport on Tuesday night, said that the news of the indictment prompted ''cheering in the streets'' of Sierra Leone's capital. In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, The Associated Press reported that thousands of panicked civilians were running home from work to find their children, apparently fearful of renewed civil strife if Mr. Taylor's government fell.
Mr. Taylor's announcement today that he would resign was made, in the third person, to warm applause, The Associated Press reported. ''It has become apparent that some people believe that Taylor is the problem,'' he said. ''President Taylor wants to say that he intends to remove himself from the process.''
Sourc: New York Times
The indictment by the court, run jointly by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, was originally issued on March 7. It was made public today shortly after Mr. Taylor, bowing to pressure from the leaders of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, announced that he would step down by the end of the year. Diplomatic officials and news reports from the region described a surreal diplomatic drama in which Mr.
Taylor was transformed from statesman to fugitive in a matter of minutes. The announcement came at the opening of a peace conference convened in Accra, Ghana, and designed to end Liberia's current civil war. Just after being applauded for his retirement announcement, Mr. Taylor left the peace conference abruptly and caught a plane home rather than risk arrest by his Ghanaian hosts. In the brief time that elapsed between the announcement of the indictment and Mr. Taylor's departure, various Ghanaian officials and West African diplomats said they did not know whether they would attempt an arrest, since Mr. Taylor's status as a head of state grants him automatic immunity from such actions, under various international treaties.
The train of events left deep frustration in at least two quarters, diplomatic officials said today. One senior United States official said today that Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and John Kufuor of Ghana felt sandbagged by the release of the indictment on the heels of their successful effort to get Mr. Taylor to resign. But both the Ghanaian government's delays and indecision about arresting Mr. Taylor, and his subsequent return home, left both the war crimes prosecutor's office and some Republican members of the international affairs committee of the United States House of Representatives confused or angry.
In a telephone interview, Luc Copè, the chief of prosecution for the court in Sierra Leone, said: ''We don't have any power of arrest. We depend on a state to execute our orders.'' He added, ''We can serve the warrant of arrest on Liberia. But that would be asking him to arrest himself.''
The indictment itself provided, in stilted legal language, a capsule history of the allegations of crossborder alliances between Mr. Taylor and insurgents in Sierra Leone, and his reported support for a war on civilians that left upwards of 200,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands more maimed or raped or homeless in the late 1990's.
Mr. Taylor originally was a rebel warlord in his own country, and on coming to power, his accusers have charged, he helped rebel groups in neighboring countries, effectively franchising out his own civil war first to Sierra Leone and later to the Ivory Coast. In the case of Sierra Leone, one of the prizes in the conflict was access to Sierra Leone's wealth of diamond mines. ''Victims were routinely shot, hacked to death and burned to death,'' in Sierra Leone, one count of the new indictment said. Another said ''widespread sexual violence committed against civilian women and girls included brutal rapes, often by multiple rapists.''
A third count, involving the mutilations of civilians whose limbs were hacked off, charged that ''these mutilations included cutting off limbs and carving'' the initials of rebel groups on the bodies of the victims. The war crimes court in Sierra Leone, created jointly by the United Nations and Sierra Leone's government 18 months ago, has already indicted several militia leaders from the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, who made common cause with Mr. Taylor's government.
The indictment unsealed today charged that Mr. Taylor had ''to obtain access to the mineral wealth of the Republic of Sierra Leone, in particular the diamond wealth of Sierra Leone, and to destabilize the state'' provided ''financial support, military training, personnel, arms, ammunition'' and other support to the R.U.F., which in turn allied itself with the A.F.R.C.
In a statement released in Freetown today, the chief prosecutor of the special court, David M. Crane, said that he had unsealed the indictment when he learned Mr. Taylor would be in Ghana for the peace talks, and thus would be susceptible to arrest. He added, ''To ensure the legitimacy of these negotiations, it is imperative that the attendees know they are dealing with an indicted war criminal.''
A member of Mr. Crane's staff, contacted by telephone in Freeport on Tuesday night, said that the news of the indictment prompted ''cheering in the streets'' of Sierra Leone's capital. In Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, The Associated Press reported that thousands of panicked civilians were running home from work to find their children, apparently fearful of renewed civil strife if Mr. Taylor's government fell.
Mr. Taylor's announcement today that he would resign was made, in the third person, to warm applause, The Associated Press reported. ''It has become apparent that some people believe that Taylor is the problem,'' he said. ''President Taylor wants to say that he intends to remove himself from the process.''
Sourc: New York Times
Wednesday, June 23, 1999
Businessmen kidnapping scheme cracked
A top-level team of detectives arrested members of an international fraud syndicate which has been linked to the kidnapping of several prominent businessmen, one of whom was found murdered this month. The detectives made their breakthrough when they arrested five alleged kidnappers early on Tuesday, several hours after rescuing a Jordanian national the kidnappers had lured to South Africa with the promise of making a quick fortune.
Seven cases of kidnapping, resulting in 10 arrests, are being investigated by the police task team, drawn from the SAPS National Special Investigations Unit and formally established two weeks ago. Four of the victims were international businessmen who had been lured to South Africa by criminals using either a Nigerian advance-fee fraud or the "black dollar" scams. Police, who have been tight-lipped about investigations despite having released several warnings about the scams internationally in the past few days, confirmed major breakthroughs in their investigations. Inspector Mark Reynolds, a spokesperson for the team, said more than one syndicate was believed to be behind the kidnappings.
The most recent breakthrough occurred during the early hours of yesterday when three Nigerians, a Ghanaian national and a South African suspect were arrested in connection with the kidnapping of Jordanian citizen Abu Baker Mohammed Ali Saqaallah,57. Saqaallah was lured to South Africa by a fraud syndicate on June 12 and kidnapped at Johannesburg International Airport on his arrival. His attackers contacted his family in Jordan and demanded about R240 000 for his release.
The task team found Saqaallah, unharmed, on Monday afternoon and freed him. Continued work led to the five arrests on Tuesday. Four arrests have also been made in connection with the kidnapping of Johannesburg businessman Lawrie Butler, who was abducted with his son and father-in-law when they were on their way to church on March 14. Police managed to track Butler and the other two victims to a hideout in Soweto. Three South Africans and a Bulgarian suspect were arrested in connection with the incident.
Johannesburg businessman Zunaid Tayob, 33, was snatched by six men several kilometres from his Houghton home five days later, on March 19. The kidnappers demanded about R1,86-million for his release before police foiled the crime and Tayob was released unhurt. Other victims include Chinese businessman Chi-Chen Shen, an unnamed Greek business tycoon, who lives in Bedfordview on the East Rand, Canadian Jean Pierre Li Shing Tat - who was found dead - and Japanese businessman Kensuke Matsumoto.
The advanced-fee scam involves the international circulation of an appeal to businessmen requesting help to transfer over-budgeted money, while the black dollar scam involves the sale of counterfeit US dollars covered in ink.
Source: IoL
Seven cases of kidnapping, resulting in 10 arrests, are being investigated by the police task team, drawn from the SAPS National Special Investigations Unit and formally established two weeks ago. Four of the victims were international businessmen who had been lured to South Africa by criminals using either a Nigerian advance-fee fraud or the "black dollar" scams. Police, who have been tight-lipped about investigations despite having released several warnings about the scams internationally in the past few days, confirmed major breakthroughs in their investigations. Inspector Mark Reynolds, a spokesperson for the team, said more than one syndicate was believed to be behind the kidnappings.
The most recent breakthrough occurred during the early hours of yesterday when three Nigerians, a Ghanaian national and a South African suspect were arrested in connection with the kidnapping of Jordanian citizen Abu Baker Mohammed Ali Saqaallah,57. Saqaallah was lured to South Africa by a fraud syndicate on June 12 and kidnapped at Johannesburg International Airport on his arrival. His attackers contacted his family in Jordan and demanded about R240 000 for his release.
The task team found Saqaallah, unharmed, on Monday afternoon and freed him. Continued work led to the five arrests on Tuesday. Four arrests have also been made in connection with the kidnapping of Johannesburg businessman Lawrie Butler, who was abducted with his son and father-in-law when they were on their way to church on March 14. Police managed to track Butler and the other two victims to a hideout in Soweto. Three South Africans and a Bulgarian suspect were arrested in connection with the incident.
Johannesburg businessman Zunaid Tayob, 33, was snatched by six men several kilometres from his Houghton home five days later, on March 19. The kidnappers demanded about R1,86-million for his release before police foiled the crime and Tayob was released unhurt. Other victims include Chinese businessman Chi-Chen Shen, an unnamed Greek business tycoon, who lives in Bedfordview on the East Rand, Canadian Jean Pierre Li Shing Tat - who was found dead - and Japanese businessman Kensuke Matsumoto.
The advanced-fee scam involves the international circulation of an appeal to businessmen requesting help to transfer over-budgeted money, while the black dollar scam involves the sale of counterfeit US dollars covered in ink.
Source: IoL
Friday, May 3, 1996
Militia Leader Leaves Liberia Under Siege
The leader of a powerful militia was airlifted out of Monrovia today to attend peace talks next week in Ghana aimed at ending Liberia's six-year civil war, diplomatic and military officials said. A United States diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militia leader, Roosevelt Johnson, left Monrovia today.
A high-ranking official with the West African peacekeepers here said the troops had slipped Mr. Johnson out of a besieged army barracks, the Barclay Training Center, in a convoy of tanks and armored vehicles and put him on a helicopter to Freetown, Sierra Leone, en route to Ghana.
The United States bolstered its forces at the Embassy to 290 marines, from 230, and three United States warships carrying 2,000 more marines moved within three miles of the coast for the third straight day. The United States Ambassador, William Milam; a United Nations envoy, Anthony Nyakyi, and leaders of the West African peacekeepers said Mr. Johnson had agreed to a cease-fire late Thursday. But by this morning, negotiators had not been able to reach his rival, Charles Taylor, who had insisted that Mr. Johnson surrender before fighting stops.
The standoff between Mr. Taylor and Mr. Johnson ignited the latest fighting, which began April 6.
Source: New York Times
A high-ranking official with the West African peacekeepers here said the troops had slipped Mr. Johnson out of a besieged army barracks, the Barclay Training Center, in a convoy of tanks and armored vehicles and put him on a helicopter to Freetown, Sierra Leone, en route to Ghana.
The United States bolstered its forces at the Embassy to 290 marines, from 230, and three United States warships carrying 2,000 more marines moved within three miles of the coast for the third straight day. The United States Ambassador, William Milam; a United Nations envoy, Anthony Nyakyi, and leaders of the West African peacekeepers said Mr. Johnson had agreed to a cease-fire late Thursday. But by this morning, negotiators had not been able to reach his rival, Charles Taylor, who had insisted that Mr. Johnson surrender before fighting stops.
The standoff between Mr. Taylor and Mr. Johnson ignited the latest fighting, which began April 6.
Source: New York Times
Thursday, May 29, 1975
15 African Nations Sign Pact Creating An Economic Group
Fifteen leaders of African nations signed a treaty today creating the largest single economic grouping in Africa the Economic Community of West African States. The Lagos treaty was signed by presidents and top ministers of Dahomey [Benin], Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Upper Volta [Burkina Faso], Mali, Guinea, Senegal and Ghana.
The communique said that the community would seek cooperation in industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial matters and social and cultural endevours.
The conference was chaired by Gen. Yakudu Gowan, head of state of Nigeria, the dominant economic member, whose population of 60 million is more that half of the combined total of all member states and whose oil earnings, which topped $8.8-billion last year, make it the strongest economic power in all of black Africa.
Source: New York Times
The communique said that the community would seek cooperation in industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial matters and social and cultural endevours.
The conference was chaired by Gen. Yakudu Gowan, head of state of Nigeria, the dominant economic member, whose population of 60 million is more that half of the combined total of all member states and whose oil earnings, which topped $8.8-billion last year, make it the strongest economic power in all of black Africa.
Source: New York Times
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