Secondary mortgage market (SMM): Is it right for financing housing in Ghana?

The formal housing finance system in Ghana is inadequate and highly underdeveloped. The formal finance institutions have provided very little mortgages particularly to the low and middle-income households. However, the fast growing capital market of Ghana offers an opportunity for sustainable housing finance in the country. This paper explores the possibility of addressing the housing finance problems in the country through the use of Secondary Mortgage Market (SMM). It does so by surveying the literature on SMM. It also examines the housing finance system in Ghana. It finds out that an SMM in principle will enable Ghana to overcome some of the constraints on the mortgage market and attract housing funds. But in practice it is not the best way of solving the housing finance problems in the country since the fundamentals are not right for a successful implementation of SMM. It notes that the scale of mortgage origination in the primary market is limited; the adjudication process is slow; collateralization is inadequate; and the land title regime is poor. It suggests that it is appropriate for Ghana to concentrate on solving these basic problems before any attempt at implementing a secondary mortgage market in the country

Housing Affordability in Ghana: A focus on Kumasi and Tamale

There are insufficient affordable housing units in Ghana. Most of the available units are poorly developed and are not habitable. The paper explores the affordable housing situation in Ghana by using Kumasi and Tamale as study area. It determines whether housing − housing credit, and rental and owner occupied units are affordable. It also determines the extent to which government interventions have been successful in providing affordable housing for Ghanaians. It examines the contribution of the formal finance institutions to the provision of affordable housing in Ghana. It does so by surveying the literature on affordable housing. It also evaluates the affordable housing delivery system in Ghana. It found that housing units with basic acceptable standards are unaffordable by many households in the study areas. Also, most households in Kumasi and Tamale cannot afford mortgage credit, and adequate rented and owner occupied housing units due to low income levels, high unemployment rate, and high interest rates. It notes that interventions by government have been unsuccessful in providing affordable housing in the country.Keywords-Affordable Housing, Government Interventions, Formal Finance, Households, Ghan

Dissecting the Histone-binding Mechanism of a PHD Finger Subtype

Disordered tails of histones are critical information retrieval hub and thus, aberrations in the flow of information through these hubs are associated with a number of pathological consequences in human. Mechanism for retrieval of information from these hubs is achieved by protein-protein interaction, i.e. proteins dock onto histone tails to initiate chromatin signaling. Eukaryotes have a number of small peptide binding domains that have evolved to specifically interact with histone tails, and these domains called histone readers as they read the information encoded on histone tails. Plant homeodomain (hereafter PHD) finger, a binucleated zinc finger, family is one such histone readers. Next-generation sequencing efforts on diagnosed patient’s genomes or cancer tissues show that mutations in PHD finger, particularly a subgroup of PHD fingers, are associated with number of pathological consequences. Therefore, for future understanding of the possible mechanisms for the pathological consequences, as an initial step, detailed characterization of the binding mechanism of the PHD subtype, the PHD_nW_DD, was undertaken here. Starting with human BAZ2A (bromodomain adjacent to zinc-finger 2A), one member of the PHD_nW_DD subtype that is associated with prostate cancer was utilized to probe the effect of mutations on histone tail binding. We experimentally discovered two categories of mutations that disrupt peptide binding: (1) Type-A: positions that are in contact with the peptide and (2) Type-B: positions that are remote from the peptide-binding site (distal site). For my dissertation, I focused on understanding the biochemical basis of the effects of Type-A mutations using recombinant protein chemistry and biophysical chemistry. The peptide-anchoring residue positions of BAZ2A-PHD, interestingly, are enriched in specific type of residues in a subtype specific manner. The energetics revealed that, two non-polar amino acid residues and an Aspartate residue in the treble clef knuckle make significant contributions to the formation of the hBAZ2A-histone peptide complex as mutations at these three positions completely aborted peptide binding. The energetic contributions of the identified positions were further confirmed by mutagenesis in three members of the subtype (UHRF1-PHD, KDM5B-PHD and KAT6A-PHD) that included pairs sharing even less than 40% sequence identity with each other. Despite low sequence similarity, mutations cause similar consequences in histone H3 binding suggesting a strong similarity in the binding mechanism, and thus justifying the subtype classification

The Concept of African Pianism

African Pianism is a style of piano music which employs techniques and styles used in the performance of African instrumental traditional songs and African popular music. The percussive and melodic capabilities of the piano make it an ideal medium for expressing the rhythmic and percussive features of African music. Deploying African traditional idioms in compositions using the concept of African pianism is however only one aspect of creating an art based on the fundamental principles which are essential to its well being. The paper discusses the various techniques and styles composers employ in composing music using the concept of African Pianism

Land Use Planning and Housing Situation in the WA and Offinso South Municipalities, Ghana

Housing insufficiency is a major problem confronting most Ghanaian households. The paper examines the state of housing in the Wa and the Offinso South municipalities of Ghana. It investigates the liveability of housing in these municipalities. The housing adequacy across the municipalities is compared. One hundred and twenty housing units in each municipality were surveyed for data gathering. The units of enquiry were the households’ heads and property owners. Questionnaires were used to obtain data from respondents. It finds that most of the houses surveyed lack basic facilities. It notes that most households in the municipalities lack adequate housing. The paper observes statistically significant difference in the room occupancy rates, flooring materials, households’ access to toilet facilities, mode of disposing liquid waste, and quality of bathing facilities across the municipalities. The paper however, finds no statistically distinguishable difference between the quality of outer wall, roofing materials, drinking water quality and solid waste disposal modes in the municipalities. Again, non-adherence to planning regulations is partly responsible for the state of housing in the municipalities. The paper notes that deprived housing conditions have significant negative impact on protected lands and environmentally vulnerable areas of the municipalities. It recommends the use of both social force and the legal regime to discourage environmentally unfriendly acts in the municipalities. Again, it recommends the enforcement of regulations on the provision of in-house toilet and bathing facilities and de-emphasizing of public toilets delivery.Key words: Housing Situation, Housing Infrastructure, Planning Regulations, Wa, Offinso-South, Ghan

The Macro-Economy and Housing Credit Market in Ghana

The housing finance market of Ghana is underdeveloped. A number ofstudies have suggested that the weak and unstable macro-economicenvironment in the country is responsible for this. These studies however,showed the relationship between the country’s mortgage market and themacro-economy through qualitative techniques. This paper, examines thisrelationship via regression models. It regressed mortgage originations in the country on inflation, interest, and exchange rates to determine their impacts on mortgage market activities. It found out that the only significant factor influencing mortgage origination in the country is the exchange rate. It suggests that this exists because mortgages in Ghana are denominated in foreign currencies notably the United States dollar and that mortgagees focus on Ghanaian residents abroad or Ghanaians with foreign currency denominated income. It notes that resident Ghanaians have been priced out of the mortgage market by high exchange rate levels and the “dollalization” of mortgages in the country. It recommends that policy must focus on addressing the exchange rate problem in other to make the mortgage market attractive to both mortgagees and resident Ghanaians. Key Words: Mortgage originations, Macroeconomic Factors, HousingCredit, Ghan

Application Of Adaptive Extended Kalman Filtering Scheme To Improve The Efficiency Of A Groundwater Contaminant Transport Model

Pollution of groundwater can be harmful to the environment. The use of subsurface contaminant transport models, combined with stochastic data assimilation schemes, can give on-target predictions of contaminant transport to enhance the reliability of risk assessment in the area of environmental remediation. Observation data are required to guide the deterministic system model to assimilate the true state of the contaminant. Modeling the behavior of contaminant in groundwater is imperative in predicting the fate of the pollutant, in risk assessment, and as a preceding step of the remission process. In this study a two-dimensional transport model with advection and dispersion is used as the deterministic model of contaminant transport in the subsurface. An Adaptive Extended Kalman filter (AEKF) is constructed as a stochastic data assimilation scheme to meliorate the prediction of the contaminant concentration. Simulation results are shown to compare the performance of the numerical, the Extended Kalman filter and the AEKF. The effectiveness of the AEKF is determined by using a root mean square error (RMSE) of pollutant concentrations in contaminant transport modeling. The results of the models indicate that, at the end of the simulation, the introduction of the Extended Kalman filter improved the deterministic model prediction by reducing the model error from 28 mg/L to 18 mg/L, thus improving the prediction accuracy by approximately 35.7%. The AEKF was successful in reducing the errors in the Extended Kalman filter prediction from 18 mg/L to 11 mg/L hence ameliorating prediction accuracy by approximately 38.9%. In general, the implementation of the AEKF was successful in improving the prediction accuracy of the deterministic model by about 60.7% which shows a substantial improvement in the prediction of the contaminant concentration in the subsurface environment

Regional and global market integration of African financial markets

The study examines the degree of regional and global integration of 11African Stock Markets (ASMs) using monthly return series from 1997 to 2015. It tests for the existence of structural breaks and whether any detected significant break in the regional and global degrees of integration caused an increase or decrease in segmentation. Additionally, the study examines the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on the regional and global integration of the ASMs. Evidence is provided that suggests: (i) a time-varying regional and global integration of the ASMs; and (ii) that global integration dominates regional integration for all of the ASMs. The ASMs are more globally integrated, relative to their degrees of regional integration. Significant structural breaks are detected, which for most countries are associated with an increase in the degree of integration and for others a decrease in the degree of integration. Most of the observed structural breakpoints in the degree of global integration correspond with the GFC; however, the structural shifts in regional integration are largely unrelated to the GFC. The evidence shows that geographic proximity may have minimal impact on market integration unless there is an associated regional economic integration. Regional diversification benefits may thus exceed that of global diversification and vice versa depending on the extent and direction of economic activities of the economies of the geographic region.Keywords: Market integration; Structural breaks; Diversification gains; Emerging markets; Africa

The monetary policy transmission mechanism and inflation control in Ghana

The central bank of Ghana officially adopted an explicit inflating targeting monetary policy in May 2007 following its operational independence in March 2002. This thesis firstly explores the evolution of monetary policy and inflation in Ghana, before characterising the conduct and effectiveness of monetary policy. The thesis uses time series estimations of Taylor-type reactions functions to characterise monetary policy conduct and uses three other approaches to evaluate monetary policy effectiveness. In the first approach the long-run interest rate response to inflation, output gap, and other inflation precursors from estimated reaction functions is compared with Taylor’s reference values. The second method analyses the responsiveness of the policy interest rate to commercial bank retail rates while the third approach investigates the monetary transmission mechanism to the wider economy using variables’ impulse responses to investigate how other important variables that are either the final objective of policy or the conduit through which the final objective of policy is attained, behave in response to monetary policy. The analysis uses a modified cointegration and error correction model that is robust to the stationary properties of the data as well as vector autoregression techniques. The results show monetary policy was largely effective in influencing the savings rate but not quite effective in controlling inflation. An alternative model (McCallum 1995a) that uses monetary aggregates as a policy instrument appears to explain monetary policy in Ghana better. The thesis suggests possible reasons for the non effectiveness of monetary policy and offer policy recommendations for long-term inflation control