General

Traditional medicine, also known as ethnic, indigenous, alternative or complementary medicine, is the first and oldest healthcare system. It is the ancient and cultural means used by humans to deal with diseases. The practice is available and is found in almost every country around the world (Kenu et al., 2021). It is vast and diverse. According to the World Health Organization (W.H.O), Traditional medicine includes “diverse health practices, approaches, knowledge, and beliefs incorporating plant, animal, and or mineral-based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques, and exercises applied singularly or in combination to maintain well-being, as well as to treat, diagnose or prevent illness.”(W.H.O, 2002) Traditional medicine practices denote health medicines and practices that are outside of mainstream conventional medicine. It encompasses a vast range of ancient and modern approaches, including the use of traditional herbs, traditional and spiritual healing to support the prevention, treatment and management of diseases. Studies have shown that Traditional medicine plays a critical role and makes significant contributions to the health care needs of not only those in developing countries but also in some developed countries (Hilbers & Lewis, 2013; Hussain & Malik, 2013). Reports of W.H.O. indicate that the interest in Traditional medicine and its usages, treatments or supplementary treatments of many illnesses are wide and rapidly growing around the world (Qi, Zhang 2013). Over the past few years, in developed countries, there has been an increase in the interest in the use of Traditional medicine, where it is referred to as complementary and alternative medicine. The report also indicates that about eighty percent (80%) of the population in developing countries, especially in Africa, rely on Traditional medicine as a source of primary health care. According to Kasilo & Trapsida (2010), in developing countries, it is the primary source of health care for the majority of the populace; because of its affordability, accessibility, and cultural acceptability. In Ghana, Traditional medicine has been practised for many centuries, even before the colonial era. As indicated by (Elujoba et al., 2005; Gyasi et al., 2017), the activities of missionaries, likewise colonization, resulted in the introduction of mainstream conventional medicine. The orthodox subsequently became recognized and institutionalized as the mainstream health care system in Ghana, resulting in repression of the traditional practices in Ghana to some extent. Moreover, the W.H.O. recognized and acknowledged Traditional medicine’s essence as it encourages its members to formulate policies, regulations, and programs and integrate them into the national health systems. As a member, Ghana recognizes Traditional medicine as an existing healthcare system; likewise, it has in place national policy but yet to fully integrate it into all the aspects of its national health care system (Gyasi et al., 2017). Ghana recognized that the majority of its populace, about 70% depend on Traditional medicine for their primary health care needs. This led to its introduction into the mainstream health care system in several hospitals in the country in 2011, following a policy of herbal medicine practice in 2005. This also subsequently led to the implementation of the W.H.O. strategy of integrating Traditional medicine into the formal healthcare delivery system in 2012 (Gyasi et al., 2017). According to (WHO, 2019) the integration has come to stay and gradually making progress, with about forty centres in the district and regional hospitals where Traditional medicine is being used side by side with conventional therapy. Furthermore, to integrate traditional medicine into the national health care system in Ghana, the Traditional Medicine Practice Council, as the lead institution on the subject matter, was established through the Traditional Medicine Practice Act, 2000 (No. 575), and mandated to promote, control, and regulate Traditional medicine practice in Ghana. Despite the process made so far, Traditional medicine still receives limited consideration from many professionals, especially medical experts demanding more scientific evidence of its safety, quality, and efficacy. There are concerns about the quality, safety, and negative perception of Traditional medicine in Ghana. Despite the importance and the essential role it plays in the health care needs of Ghanaians, there is a paucity of information about the current state of Traditional medicine practices in Ghana. As a result, I found it prudent to consult the body responsible for promoting, controlling and regulating Traditional medicine practices in Ghana, to attain and relay to you, the reader, insight into the current situation. I posed a series of questions to the Traditional Medicine Practice Council concerning the state of Traditional medicine practices in Ghana. Here’s what they had to say. — What is the current state of the Traditional Medicine Practice Council (TMPC) and what would you say is your 2022 or future Agenda? Answer: The TMPC is on course to ensure appropriate standards of practice among Traditional Medicine Practitioners (TMPs). How successful has the Traditional Medicine Practice Council been so far in carrying out its core mandate and 2021 Agenda? Answer: The TMPC has registered over 1,000 Practitioners in 2021, it has trained different practice groups and it has controlled the influx of quacks and charlatans while promoting good traditional medicine practice. What are some of the initiatives the Council is currently undertaking to promote Traditional medicine in Ghana? Answer: Ensuring Standards. What are the challenges faced by the Council in carrying out its core mandate? Answer: Human Resources, logistical, and financial support. What are some of the major challenges faced by Traditional medicine practitioners, specifically in Ghana? Answer: Extinction of raw plant materials due to low cultivation. Needed support from the State, research to find timely relevant remedies. What is the Council doing to help mitigate the challenges of the practitioners? Answer: Research, development and publicity, cultivation of medicinal plants.   Is Ghana following the W.H.O guideline for registration and regulation of Traditional medicine, and what is the latest update with regards to the registration of Traditional medicines and practitioners in Ghana? Answer: Over 20,000 registration of Practitioners and premises in total. What is the Traditional Medicine Practice Council’s assessment of Ghana’s intent to integrate Traditional medicine into the national health system so far? Answer: The TMPC provides support for graduates from KNUST to undergo a mandatory internship programme after which

What comes to your mind when you think about the financial performance of a business? Is it the profit/loss given at the last line of an income statement? Although that’s one of the strong measures to analyze the financial performance of the business, it does not offer a comprehensive perspective to base all of your decisions on that single metric. This is due to an inherent limitation of the profit/loss that comes with subjective assumptions, accounting estimates, and adequacy of the transaction-related controls. (wikiaccounting, 2021) Hence, there is a need to consider cash flow operations which are more objective and lead to enhanced accuracy of the decision making and financial analysis. But, the question arises of how to perform cash flow analysis with perspective to working capital management and how startups/businesses can control their cash flows to achieve higher profitability. How to perform cash flow analysis with perspective to working capital management Generally, cash flow is divided into three main categories: operating, financing, and investing activities. Operating activities are about how businesses manage their day-to-day operations. These operations consume working capital/financial resources. As we understand, interest/dividend is payable on raising debt/equity (financial resources). So, there is a cost associated with raising finance and using it as working capital. Hence, businesses tend to optimize their operations and streamline their processes so that the length of the working capital cycle decreases. Working capital cycle refers to a complete process of trade. It involves the length of time required to purchase, hold, and collect receivables from the customers. So, if the business has a shorter working capital cycle, it can complete the trade process in a shorter time to earn higher profit within the business’ working capital cycle and vice versa. So, a shorter working capital cycle is desirable from the perspective of financial analysis, achieved with the shorter production time, shorter inventory days, shorter receivable days, and higher payable days. It’s important to note that higher payable days is more desirable as it brings financing within the business without any cost (in most cases). It means there is a direct connection between the performance of operational business activities and the achievement of business profitability. If activities like sales, production, and collection are performed with higher efficiency, there are higher chances of profitability, and vice versa, generally speaking. So, if the working capital cycle is shorter, it leads to a lower cost of financing and higher business profitability. The next question arises how business can control cash operations/working capital to achieve higher profitability. How businesses can control cash operations/working capital cycle to achieve higher business profitability Control of cash operations require a disciplinary approach to plan, measure, monitor, and take corrective actions for the cash-related operations. The following actions can be helpful in the effective management of the cash-related functions/working capital. Measure your current cash runwayCash runway refers to the time your business is expected to sustain without a need to raise finance from external financing sources. It considers opening cash position, expected cash inflow and outflow of cash during a period under consideration (SRJ Chartered Accountants, n.d.). For instance, let’s say your opening cash amounts to $10,000, the expected inflow is $5,000 a month, and the expected outflow amounts to $6,000 a month. The given cash outline suggests more outflow of cash than inflow. Hence, opening cash needs to be able to support the shortage. However, opening cash is limited and expected to support the business to a specific period called cash runway. Cash runway in the given case can be calculated as follows. Cash shortage during a month =cash outflow – cash inflow Cash shortage during a month = $6,000– $5,000 Cash shortage during a month = $1,000 Cash runway = opening cash/cash shortage during a month Cash run ways = $10,000/$1,000 Cash run ways = 10 months The current cash runway is 10 months. This means, in the circumstances specified, the business can sustain itself for exactly ten months without raising finance from external sources (for working capital purposes). So, the strategic decision-making persons of the company must consider the length of the cash runway to adequately plan the cash needs of the business. Setting cash runway as a benchmark can be a helpful measure to control cash-related performance. A comprehensive evaluation of cash flow in terms of revenue and expensesIf your business has more expenses than revenue, it can be taken as an alarming sign; the situation is termed as ”burning cash”. So, there is a need to reduce the cash-burning rate that can be achieved with implementable smart moves to enhance revenue. For instance, finding a new market to sell an existing product, implementing smart marketing tools, and intelligent changes in the product design can lead to higher sales and increased revenue. Speed up recovery function for the accounts receivablesMaking profitable sales is not enough for the successful running of a business. The cash needs to be ultimately realized for successful operations. Otherwise, there may be actual losses behind the profit. For instance, if the business profit amounts to $2,000 and the expected bad debt to be recorded in future for the current period sales is $2,200. It means there is a net loss of $200. Hence, there is a need to ensure the efficiency of the collection; otherwise, an apparent profit might be a loss in reality. To increase the efficiency of the collection, the business needs to optimize the process of credit approval, formation of credit policy, invoicing, following up, and collecting the cash. Work to enhance gross profit (more relevant for manufacturing business)One of the ways to achieve higher gross profit is by increasing the price of the product. However, that might not be feasible in a competitive economic environment. So an alternate approach can be to control direct costs. The biggest secret of controlling direct cost lies in the fact that if there is a higher gross profit, the business has space to offer early payment discounts while maintaining net profitability. Hence, working

The post COVID world has been observing massive heights in product price/inflation. However, it remains a grey area if the trajectory is long or short. Let’s first go through detrimental aspects of inflation in terms of the economic environment, global supply chain, policy regulations, demand factors, cost-push factors, rising wages, rising oil price, and how it’s linked with the pandemic outbreak. The current crisis of inflation can be linked to the frequent flow of resources, interruption in the global supply chain, and demand factors in the economic environment. I should state that these are not conclusive factors and multiple things need to be considered for a more definitive report. The frequent flow of resources This means increasing the flow of resources in the world economy. For instance, to tackle the situation presented by COVID-19, the US Government had introduced different relief packages and injected $1.9 trillion into the economy. This must-have contributed to the country’s inflation (Galloni, 2021). Further, resource utilization has been shifted from services to goods. More people need physical items to help in dealing with the pandemic than they need services; that’s goods. This has affected the global supply chain. Interruption in the global supply chain Continuous lockdown and business closures have severely affected the global supply chain. There is an increasing lag time between demand and supply of goods. That is because of factory closures and the redundancy of workers made during the unprecedented time. So, it’s taking time for the factories to get back to their full potential. However, the outbreak of another COVID variant, Omicron, has further created uncertainty in the economic environment, and once again, we seem to be existing in uncertain times. (Tan, 2021) In simple words, the business and ports were steadily getting stability in the fight against the crisis. Now, the outbreak of Omicron has further stressed the supply chain as there is increasing anxiety among business owners if they should take the risk of paying demurrage charges on their expected shipment. The leading economist at Oxford, Mr. Sian Fenner, said ” Supply chains remain vulnerable to pandemic-related disruptions, with the Omicron variant highlighting that the crisis is not yet over’’ (Tan, 2021). So, if the crisis is not over, it’s wise to expect continuity of inflation around the globe. Further, China as one of the prominent suppliers to the world economy has doubled restrictions and are ensuring strict checking on the ports for cargo and ships coming into their country in an effort to stop the virus. Likewise, China is expected to further intensify its zero COVID measures to avoid any adverse impacts of the new variant. These measures can lead to extreme shortages of shipping containers and other key manufacturing components. There has been massive order backlogs in areas of consumer products, in the automotive industry, core electrics, etc. So, Chinese restrictions can further worsen the situation as some of the busiest world’s ports are found in China. For instance, Shanghai, Ningbo-Zhoushan, and Shenzhen rank first, second, and fourth respectively in the world. Similarly, there has been a massive disruption on these ports for closures, floods, and a shortage of containers. These factors have carried massive logistical challenges for the shipping and air freight industry. So, there have been constraints of supplies and leading to lag for the multi-year. Get an idea from the fact that only less than half of ships timely arrived at their destination in 2021 (Tan, 2021). So, supplies are getting constrained and this leads to higher prices and inflation. It’s important to note that China is one of the top suppliers globally and contributes around 13.45% of the global exports (ChinaPower, n.d.). It’s equally important to note that main Chinese exports include broadcasting equipment, computers, circuits, telephones, etc. Further, it’s also known as the factory of the world (BAJPA, 2021). It’s a safe assumption that a major disruption in China affects the rest of the world. The second major contributor to the world’s exports is the United States (contributing around 8.98% of the world’s global exports) (ChinaPower, n.d.). The fear is not different there as well.  As per remarks made by MS. Janet Yellen (US Treasury secretary), the negative feeling brought by Omicron are expected to intensify supply chain problems and might lead to depressed demand. So, nothing is clear at the moment, and things need to be balanced between health and economy as both are living essentials. (Shepardson, 2021) She further pointed out that a significant decline in the US economy was observed with the outbreak of the Omicron  variant, and things are not clear now. However, still, there is room to evaluate (Galloni, 2021). In the meantime, the higher demand for labour has led to higher payroll costs, higher costing, higher prices, and higher inflation around the globe. That’s a clear example of cost-push inflation (Kenton, 2020). This is the most varying part of inflation due to irreversibility, as wages once increased, remain on heights; otherwise, there may be demotivation and human issues on part of the labour. All these further prove that the Omicron variant has a higher risk of sustaining or worsening the global surge of inflation. It’s something that can highly impact and contribute to the global economy. However, another side of the picture is that a serious wave of Omicron can discourage consumer spending structure, lead to lower employment and lower demand for the goods. In return, this will relax the shipping industry’s bottleneck and improve the global supply chain. That’s the same expected situation as happened during a big wave of COVID-19 last year (Hartman, 2021). Increase of an oil price globally Oil prices cannot be ignored when we speak about global inflation. An increase in oil price directly or indirectly impacts the end product price. For instance, in the case of goods made of petroleum products, the price is directly affected. On the other hand, an indirect impact is when the cost of the goods increases due to the higher cost of transportation. That’s an example of cost-push inflation as product prices need to be increased due to