First Lady unhappy about
condom adverts
Implementation of Health
Scheme - workers won't suffer
6 months old 2.1 cedis
plant breaks down
First Lady unhappy about
condom adverts
Accra (Greater Accra) 28 April 2003 – The First Lady, Mrs Theresa Kufuor, has expressed concern about how some advertisements are promoting the use of condoms in the mass media as one of the means of preventing the HIV/AIDS menace.
She wondered whether the adverts are educating and influencing the youth to abstain from pre-marital sex or giving them the choice to have casual sex by using condoms.
She, therefore, called on advertisers to use the media to promote abstinence among young people. Mrs Kufuor expressed the concern at a four-day national bi-annual conference of spouses of ministers of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in Accra yesterday.
The conference, which is being attended by about 450 women from all over the country, is on the theme, "Standing firm with a common purpose and desire for the faith".
For the period of the conference, the women will deliberate on the theme as well as identify unskilled women so as to train them in vocational skills. They will also raise funds for widows and their children. The First Lady stated that Ghanaian women have always worked in support of their husbands and that it is rather unfortunate that such deeds have not been acknowledged by the society.
She appealed to the women to support her Mother and Child Community Development Programme by coming up with ideas and strategies as to how to curb indiscipline that has taken root in the youth of the country to make them responsible adults in future. Additionally, she called on the women to stamp out stigmatisation among people living with HIV /AIDS and treat them with love and care.
The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Right Rev Dr Sam Prempeh, in a remark, asked women to be pro-active and put all hands on deck to help reduce anti-social activities such as child delinquency, violence against women and children, child labour and prostitution so as to bring sanity into the society.
Rev Prempeh said to achieve this, women need to identify the root causes of problems that confront them on a daily basis and that women should be prepared to assist their children to make the best of their education by acquiring vocational skills if they are unable to further their education.
Rev Dr Prempeh stated that by taking up vocational training, they will be able to fit into the job market and resist any temptations that might lure them to engage in immoral acts that could lead to the contraction of the deadly HIV/AIDS disease.
He appealed to the women to be role models and be vigilant in monitoring the lifestyles of their children because the youth are being fed by and pressured with negative ideas from their peers.
He further stated that the church’s stand on HIV/AIDS is to preach abstinence and that it will unrelentlessly give its support to the Mother and Child Community Development Project. The Headmaster of the Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School (PRESEC), Legon, Joseph J. Asare, in his welcoming address, called for the review of the lost mission of evangelisation that dwelt on the moral training and educational skills of children.
Asare stated that the school has not seen any major refurbishment since it moved from its old site at Krobo Odumase to its present site at Legon and called on the partners involved to help solve the problems of the school. He noted that though the school has been attacked by armed robbers on three occasions, the compound is safe. - Graphic
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Implementation of Health
Scheme - workers won't suffer
Accra (Greater Accra) 28 April 2003 - The Minister of Health, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, has given the assurance that workers will not be worse off by deductions from their contributions to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to fund the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
On the contrary, workers will receive the same benefits from the 17 per cent SSNIT contribution they are paying currently. Dr Afriyie, in an interview in Accra, was reacting to the stand taken by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) that it will resist any attempt by the government to use two and a half per cent of workers’ contribution to fund the NHIS.
He attributed labour’s stand to the lack of understanding of the effect of such a deduction and said the ministry will soon meet with the leadership of the TUC for a frank discussion on the issue for a consensus. The minister said it is rather the management of SSNIT which should be in the position to say whether it can cope with the deductions or not since the organisation is expected to pay the normal amount of benefits to workers.
Dr Afriyie described the explanation by the TUC leadership that most workers enjoy health benefit as surprising saying the government, which is the main employer of the formal sector, finds it difficult to meet the health needs of its employees.
“It would have been good news if 30 per cent of Ghanaians, who are the work force, have free medical care,” he said, and emphasised that “the real situation on the ground is that health care benefits, including the allocation for exemption, have never been enough”.
Dr Afriyie said the two per cent deduction is based on good actuarial grounds and that there other option of resource mobilisation for the scheme. He expressed the hope that the meeting with the TUC will result in more understanding of the operationalisation of the NHIS and the benefits to both workers and the public.
On the suggestion by insurance experts that the government should considers the issue of “co-payment”, a system under which people will be made to pay a token of their health bills under the scheme, the minister said this will depend on the implementation of the scheme.
He said co-payment is meant to check moral hazards, so that people will not abuse the scheme because health care will not be based on out-of-pocket payment. Dr Afriyie said a National Health Insurance Council will be put in place to review the scheme as and when necessary. Dr Afriyie said an up-to-date mechanism such as computerisation and cross verification is being put in place to check fraud. – Graphic
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6 months old 2.1 cedis
plant breaks down
Accra (Greater Accra) 28 April 2003 – Barely six months into the operation of the new Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) the plant has been shut down due to a break down. The cause of the breakdown, according to the management of the refinery, is minor.
But how minor the problem that has necessitated a shut down of fairly a new plant that was commissioned just last November 2002, can be your guess. When “The Ghanaian Voice” newspaper called the Director of Operations of the Refinery, R. Forson at his office, he refused to disclose the problem.
He just tensely said “The problem was too technical for ordinary understanding.” He added, “it is not strange however, that the RFCC has run down at this short of its operation”. He disclosed that since the plant was commissioned it has experienced several breakdowns and had been repaired.
He boasted: “The technology establishing the RFCC is an “American decent” and I don’t see why a minor breakdown could attract media comments. He was optimistic that the plant would start work last Friday 25 April 2003. But that the optimism when at last Friday they still struggling with the repairs.
The RFCC was dashed when as at last an estimated cost of about $230m (2,070 trillion cedis). President John Kufuor commissioned the RFCC just six months ago in November 2002. The RFCC is a catalytic cracker that converts residual cracker into highly refined and quality fuel products including bitumen.
The nation over the year has been spending billions of precious cedis to import bitumen. When “The Ghanaian Voice” reached Adu Gyuamfi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the refinery, he said he was not in the position to comment on the technical operation of the plant. He therefore referred “The Ghanaian Voice” back to the management of the refinery.
As the chairman’s phone line was out of order, this paper could not find from the Chairman who bears the cost of the repair works on the plant. Whether it was guaranteed and for how many years? Whether the President will be pleased to hear that just after six months, a plant he had commissioned should breakdown severally as claimed by the Director of Operations?
The Board Chairman could not tell who supervised
the construction of the new plant whilst the Director of Operations told the
“The Ghanaian Voice” that he could not also divulge such information to the
public. – The Ghanaian Voice
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 April 2003 – A three-man delegation from General Electric (G.E.) Rentals has arrived in the country from the United States to collect rental arrears for the strategic Reserve Plant (SRP), or in default, the project faces a shutdown. Those in the country are Joseph Dumakoski, site engineer, Larry Parker and one other.
The Chronicle’s findings are that Dumakoski landed in the country on Sunday, last week and the following day, which was Easter Monday, he went straight to the site and went through every document. Report was that his presence and mission to collect some millions of dollars the Volta River Authority (VRA) had defaulted in payment sent shockwaves to the very livewire of the authority.
Immediately, Chronicle learnt, meetings were convened between Accra and Akuse, all in a bid to find a solution to the headache and also to prevent the public from having a wind of it. The General Electric delegation reportedly gave last Saturday as the deadline for either payment of the arrears or the project be shutdown. As a result of this presently, there is lukewarm attitude on the part of workers at the project site. Both G.E. representatives and VRA have agreed for the latter to honour payment between now and early next month or the last resort would be the closure of the project.
Information gathered by the “Chronicle” has it that a few weeks ago, as a result of this revelations, the board members of the project trooped to the site of the SRP at Tema to acquaint themselves with happenings. Details from the visit were not made public, but sources hinted that the board members were not satisfied with what they learnt. Another issue at stake was the acquisition of the land on which the SRP is sited, a place already developed by a power generation company, CUMMINS, in 1998, when the country witnessed energy crisis.
There are calls that allegation that VRA acquired the place by paying over 200m cedis be investigated. Meanwhile, “Chronicle” gathered that the Public Affairs Department is gathering debris from a “bomb” that landed. Reports are that Ms Bellona Gerad, the PR “specialist” who guarded the VRA from public information, is in serious trouble. According to our intelligence source, Wereko-Brobbey, wants the woman to be sent to the north to train some people for an area she has no knowledge.
“Chronicle” was told she reportedly cited health reason that it would not be conducive for her to go to the north, and the next time she was made to face the medical board at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. Even though result from the board was yet to come out, a letter was delivered to her to either proceed to the north or consider herself sacked.
Again, no one from the public affairs department was prepared to comment on these issues, but information that “Chronicle” gathered has it that about 99.9 percent of the entire VRA workforce would like their CEO to leave. Inside sources have it that those supposed to be saying, “hosanna” are right behind, singing “crucify him” with deafening chorus. – Ghanaian Chronicle
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