The facility, with five years tenure, comes in two parts; the fixed five year term facility of GH¢ 345 million with 24 months moratorium to support capital expenditure plans; and the Revolving Credit Facility of GH¢165 million over the five year period for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Speaking at a ceremony to sign the loan agreement, the Chief Finance Officer and Ag. Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Modupe Kadri, said, “MTN Ghana requires flexible funding to meet our esteemed stakeholders’ expectations. We are therefore pleased that today through this syndicated facility, we have succeeded in partnering nine (9) local banks to raise GH¢ 510 million”.

“The huge interest in MTN’s business is a clear testament to how successful our business is, and the excellent financial health the business enjoys” he added.

The signing of the loan facility follows an initial debt raising transaction in 2012 of $300 million, and its successful repayment by MTN Ghana in May 2017.

MTN’s track record and strong leadership position paved the way for yet another successful capital market transaction.

This big-ticket Ghana transaction was arranged jointly by Ecobank Ghana Limited and Ecobank Development Corporation (EDC), as Mandate Lead Arrangers with Barclays Bank Ghana Limited as joint facility and Security Agents.

The syndicate banks are: Ecobank Ghana Limited, GCB Bank Limited, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited, Barclays Bank Ghana Limited, Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited, Societe Generale Ghana, Zenith Bank Ghana Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank Ghana Limited and Fidelity Bank Limited.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The awards night was held to celebrate Mobile Money agents in the Eastern, Volta, Greater Accra and the Brong Ahafo Regions, who have demonstrated high levels of professionalism in executing their duties in providing Mobile Money services to their customers.

The initiative forms part of MTN’s efforts to create an atmosphere that supports the growth and development of the mobile financial services sector in Ghana.

Speaking at the event, Mr. Eli Hini, General Manager for Mobile Financial Services at MTN Ghana said, the awards ceremony is in recognition of the role Mobile Money agents play to ensure good customer experience.

“We acknowledge the roles our Mobile Money agents have played to ensure our customers have a good experience with Mobile Money Services. We celebrate our Agents today for showing leadership and integrity in their day to day activities, and urge them on into continuing to be better ambassadors of MTN as their actions have an impact on the image of the MTN brand”, Mr. Hini said.

Mr. Kwame Kwadon of Notable E- Solutions emerged the Overall Best Mobile Money Agent. He won a motorbike, certificate of honor and other undisclosed prizes. Other winners at the awards took home prizes ranging from television sets, generator sets, mobile phones among others.

Criteria for the selection of winners included scanning for agents who have not indulged in fraudulent activities, agents who exhibit and provide customers with a good experience among others.

MTN Ghana is the largest Mobile Money service provider in the country with over 7 million active users on its Mobile Money platform and over 85,000 active agents across the country.

To safeguard mobile financial services usage, MTN Ghana has partnered with entities such as the Police and the Central Bank in order to put measures in place for the safe use of Mobile Money services.

MTN Ghana continues to spearhead innovations and initiatives that facilitate the growth of the mobile financial services sector, which provides customers with fast, simple, convenient, secure and affordable way of transferring money, making payments and doing other transactions using a mobile phone.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to officials, the company has come this far because of the contribution customers have made for the past years, indicating that it was necessary to place more value on them.

MTN as part of activities marking the annual celebration of their customers in the Ashanti Region, which is popularly called Ashanti fest, organized a health walk and medical screening exercise for about 5,000 residents in the region including its customers.

A team of medical personnel from a private hospital in Kumasi, screened participants with conditions such as blood pressure, malaria, diabetes and anaemia.

Speaking at the event, Head of Technical Department, MTN Northern Business District, Charles Osei Akoto, said the company cherishes its customers, and will do more to help them live a better life.

He indicated that, MTN was not only focusing on profit-making, whiles forgetting about the welfare of the customers who support the growth of the brand.

The customer celebration event he said, had also focused on organizing sporting activities as a way of providing leisure for them.

Participants who joined the walk, went through principal streets in the metropolis, including Nhyiaeso through to the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), to the Cocobod road in Adum to Asafo, and finally at ended at the Heroes Park near the Calvary Methodist Church close to the Kumasi Sports stadium.

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By: Hafiz Tijani/Citifmonline.com/Ghana

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A statement from  the mobile network operator revealed that, the new SEAGHA region will consist the telco’s mobile operations in Ghana, Uganda,  Rwanda, Zambia, South Sudan , Botswana and Swaziland, as well as MTN ISPs in Kenya, Namibia and Botswana.

Mr. Asante will leave a vacancy in his current position as CEO of MTN Ghana, a role held for just over two years.

Rob Shuter, MTN group President and CEO, has lauded the appointment of Mr. Asante, whose experience before MTN includes 13 years at consumer goods company Unilever as Managing Director, Zambia, and Customer Development Director.

“I am very pleased for Ebenezer; he is a great talent and business leader. His appointment to this new role only speaks to our strong bench strength, but the pool of talent we have within MTN as Ebenezer will bring great value to the Group leadership team. To the benefit of our people and customers across MTN footprint “ he said.

The role of Mr. Asante for the SEAGHA Region became vacant when Godfrey Motsa was appointed CEO of MTN South Africa in nearly seven months ago. Kral Toriola, VP for West and Central  Africa (WECA) region, has been managing the portfolio of operations in what was known as the SEA region in acing capacity until the disclosure of Asante’s appointment.

According to MTN, the inclusion within the SEA to SEAGHA rebalances  the workload across MTN Group’s regional structures and will further optimize the oversight responsibilities of Regional VPs in the Group.

Mr. Asante will report directly to the Group President and CEO who is now a member  the MTN Group’s Executive Committee.  MTN also notes that the new VP is the reigning GITT CEO of the year in Ghana and the CIMG Marketing Man of the year, 2017.

MTN Group’s  interim results up to 30 June 2017 show that MTN Ghana under Mr. Asante leadership joined MTN Uganda, and MTN Ivory Coast in contributing positively to the Group’s top line growth.

MTN Group revenue in constant currency grew by 6.7 percent to R64315 million overall I the six months to June with Ghana registering a 22.6 percent rise in total revenue in that market alone.

Subscriber numbers for Ghana have however declined by 10.3 percent to 17.3 percent.

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Credit: itwebafrica.com

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The team tracked the health of nearly 800 villagers from the Chianti region of Italy to see if their local tipple had any discernable impact.

They found no proof that the wine ingredient resveratrol stops heart disease or prolongs life.

Experts say more research is needed to get a definitive answer.

The British Heart Foundation is carrying out its own resveratrol study.

French Paradox

Many studies have sought to explain why there is a low incidence of heart disease in France, despite many of its inhabitants eating a high-fat diet.

Some put it down to moderate drinking of red wine.

Studies have shown that consumption of red wine, dark chocolate and berries reduces inflammation, leading researchers to speculate that their common ingredient, resveratrol, explains why.

But Prof Richard Semba, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues found no evidence for this.

They chose two small towns in Tuscany as their test ground, and 783 elderly people who were living there agreed to take part in their investigation.

The volunteers gave details about their daily diets as well as urine samples for measurement of their resveratrol intake.

During the nine years of the study, 268 of the men and women died, 174 developed heart disease and 34 got cancer.

But urinary resveratrol was not linked with death risk, heart disease risk or cancer risk.

Nor was it associated with any markers of inflammation in the blood.

Prof Semba said: “The thinking was that certain foods are good for you because they contain resveratrol. We didn’t find that at all.

“The story of resveratrol turns out to be another case where you get a lot of hype about health benefits that doesn’t stand the test of time.”

He says any benefits of drinking wine or eating dark chocolate or berries, if they are there, must come from other shared ingredients. And it’s not clear how much you might need to eat or drink.

“These are complex foods, and all we really know from our study is that the benefits are probably not due to resveratrol.”

Maureen Talbot, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “The results of this study, while interesting, will not change the dietary advice we provide. People should continue to eat plenty of fruit, veg and wholegrains.

“We recognise the need to learn more about the action of resveratrol though, so are funding research into its reported disease-combating properties and how it affects the heart and circulatory system.

“This research is vital as it could form the basis of future medicines.”

Source: BBC

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