Ghana
Government loses 300b cedis on ghost workers
US report on Trokosi is misleading -says a fetish priest
Advocacy
on female abuse must move to problem areas- Asmah
Stop
criticising surface mining- Adjei-Darko says
Let's
wage war on indiscipline - Aliu urges media, others
Japan
to increase aid to Ghana
Monday
declared statutory public holiday
Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - Mr Abramah Kofi Asante, the Minority
Spokesman on Energy, on Wednesday said the ex-pump price of gasoline should be
9,000 cedis per gallon.
He said the
government's formula for fixing ex-pump price a five-dollar drop in World
market price should trigger a reduction in local prices.
Speaking in
an interview in Accra, he said, "since February 2001, crude oil price on
the world market had decreased over 30 per cent, more than the five dollar
triggering point and yet no reduction in prices had occurred".
"The
cedi has been stable and, therefore, the reduction of the World price of
petroleum should automatically change our ex-pump price."
The member
said the government was using subtle means to reintroduce taxes at hiked
levels. The "Government should understand that there is the need for the
people of Ghana to enjoy the benefits of the reduction of prices and not use
clever means to avoid the issue."
He said the
impact of petroleum price on the ordinary Ghanaian and the economy was very
grave adding, "the over-pricing must stop".
Mr Asante
disagreed with government's assertion that the windfall as a result of the low
world price was being used to pay the debt stock of the Tema Oil Refinery
(TOR).
He said the
public did not know how much the windfall was and what it was being used for.
"How much savings are we making? How much is being used to clear the TOR's
debt? And at what price on the world market would Ghanaians enjoy reduction at
home? These are some of the questions I had wanted to ask."
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Sunyani
(Brong Ahafo) 13 December 2001 - The Government loses 300 billion cedis every month
through the insertion of ghost names on worker's payrolls, Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo,
Minister of Finance said in Sunyani on Tuesday.
The amount
represented 10 percent of about three trillion cedis that the government
expended on civil/public servants every month, he said.
The Finance
Minister was addressing the eighth annual conference of District Chief
Executives (DCEs), which was under the theme, ''strengthening the
decentralisation process''.
The
three-day conference, organised by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural
Development, aimed at achieving good governance for the realisation of
objectives of government policies and programmes.
It was also
to enable the District Chief Executives to brainstorm on their experiences and
problems for effective local government administration.
Mr.Osafo-Maafo
mentioned personal emolument, names of pensioners and the dead on the payrolls
as some of the channels being clandestinely used to pay the faceless government
workers.
The problem
is particularly deep-rooted in the health, education and local government
sectors, he said, stressing that the fight against the canker was a collective
responsibility of all Ghanaians.
Mr.
Osafo-Maafo called on Regional Ministers, DCEs, regional and district directors
of education to help the government to arrest the situation.
The Finance
Minister said the problem contradicted President Kufuor's call for zero
tolerance for corruption. "If zero tolerance for corruption will be a
reality, then ghost names must be eliminated from government payrolls''.
He noted
that before the introduction of the district assembly common fund, Local
Government authorities were raising their own revenue to finance projects and
recurrent expenditure.
Mr.
Osafo-Maafo, therefore, advised the DCEs not to wait for the common fund before
they initiate projects, but should generate funds from local sources for such
projects.
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US report on Trokosi is misleading -says a fetish priest
Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - The United State Embassy in Ghana was on
Wednesday called upon to re-institute a research into the trokosi institution
in Ghana following its misleading information on their website.
Togbe Eklo,
Chief Priest of the Togbe Adzima Shrine at the Tsata Bame in the Akatsi
District of the Volta said in an interview that: "the US Embassy's report
on Ghana's religious freedom is confusing, misleading and a disservice to
Ghana's effort to stop harmful cultural practices such as the trokosi
system".
According
to a GNA report the US Department of State's report on International Religious
Freedom released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour and posted
on its website stated that trokosi existed in Ghana but on a very limited
scale.
The report
also noted that there were not more than 100 trokosi women in the whole of the
Volta Region. A research by the Department of Religion of the University of
Ghana also stated that there were over 5,000 women and children still under
bondage in shrines in the Volta and Greater Accra regions.
Togbe Eklo
said "in undertaking a research exercise when you meet only four women in
a shrine at the time of visit does not mean that there were only four of such
women under bondage in that particular shrine."
Togbe Eklo
said there was the need for researchers to go beyond what was perceived on the
surface to get to the truth of any institution that existed in Ghana.
Asked about
the number of women in Trokosi shrines, Togbe Eklo said he knew there could be
as many as 100 or more in one major shrine, even though, some of the Trokosis
might not be residing there. He could not give the number of shrines operating
at present.
Togbe Eklo
said the definition of trokosi by the US Embassy was misleading. The report defined trokosi ''as a system in
which virgin girls, sometimes under the age of 10, is given by her family to work
and be trained in traditional religion at a fetish shrine for up to three years
as a means of atonement for a serious crime as rape and murder allegedly
committed by a member of the girl's
family."
Togbe Eklo
said girls are sent to shrines "even for petty thievery, adultery and even
mere quarrelling. "Before the start of trokosi, which involved the sending
of young virgins as objects of sacrifice and atonement to the gods, our
forefathers were using animals.
Receiving
human beings was a corruption of the practice and, therefore, not part of our
religion," he said. Mr Christian Morti of the Human Rights Organisation of
Ghana, an NGO, said the practice of Trokosi should be kept out of religion
because it is a pure human rights issue.
"The shrines worshipped without taking girls in the
beginning".
He said the
best thing any person could do for Ghana was to ask the government to enforce
the law on Trokosi and aid the organisations working to help the poor women and
children instead of trying to destroy their work.
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Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - Mrs Gladys Asmah, Minister of Women and
Children's Affairs, said on Wednesday it was time seminars and workshops on
harmful traditional practices were shifted from the cities to the rural areas
where the problems were common.
She said
despite the numerous media reports about workshops on various abuses against
women, "we are still scratching at the tip of the iceberg."
"Perhaps
it is time we moved away from the multiplicity of seminars, conferences and
workshops in the big cities and get down to where the problem is found,"
she added.
Mrs Asmah
was opening a day's advocacy workshop on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
organised by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in collaboration with the World
Health Organisation (WHO) for partners in the health sector.
The
workshop aimed at sharing information on best practices and strategies for
eradication of FGM for individuals and organisations working in the
communities.
Mrs Asmah
urged women groups to discuss the issue of FGM to understand why it was
practised so that they would be able to evolve appropriate interventions to
address the problem.
"The
mere fact that two law enforcement officers could not protect the recent five
victims of FGM in the Wenchi district of the Brong Ahafo region should bring to
the fore that the communities, which practise these rites, either do not know
about the legal prohibition of the practice or they respect their practice more
than the law.
"That
parents of the victims could aid and abet the practice may mean the stigma of
not going through the rites constitutes a serious breach of family dignity and
respect," she said.
The
Minister urged the partners to focus on men and use more male advocates for the
cause of women because in the rural communities, men constitute and hold the
symbols of authority.
Dr Melville
O. George, WHO Representative, said Ghana was at the forefront among the five
African countries identified by the organisation to establish multidisciplinary
collaboration groups to review progress made in each country in relation to the
elimination of FGM.
He said it
was estimated that globally, between 100 and 140 million women and girls had
undergone some form of FGM with another two million being at risk each year.
He said
despite the magnitude of the social health burden of FGM, the act still
persisted and urged the Legislatures of practising countries to impose stiffer
punishment on the perpetrators.
Madam
Beatrice Duncan, Rights Protection and Promotion Officer at UNICEF, said the
fund was supporting peer education programme with the view of giving the
members of the various communities the chance to play the advocacy role in
eradicating harmful traditional practices among themselves.
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Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - Mr Michael Waterphal, US Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defence for Africa, on Wednesday stressed the need for countries
to maintain and sustain constant military training for peacekeeping missions.
Speaking
during a courtesy call on the Minister of Defence, Dr Kwame Addo Kufuor in
Accra, he said the US was prepared to co-operate with sub-regional
organisations such as ECOWAS in such exercises.
Mr
Waterphal is in the country to assess and evaluate the sub-regional security
situation with respect to US assistance and also to devise new avenues to
improve it. He has already been to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and
Nigeria.
Mr
Waterphal said his visit was also to see how best US military programmes such
as the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which was aimed at providing
peacekeeping training and equipment for African militaries, would be
strengthened.
Dr Addo
Kufuor thanked the US government for their close co-operation with Ghana and
said the country had benefited a lot from the joint military training
programmes.
He said he
hoped US military assistance to the country would be regular and, if possible,
increased.
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Bolgatanga
(Upper East) 13 December 2001 - The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Mahami
Salifu on Tuesday inaugurated a 13-member crisis management committee to manage
the Bawku crisis.
The
committee is to identify relief requirements of victims, solicit relief
assistance to assuage the plight of the people as well as adopt any prudent
means to enhance the restoration of normalcy to the area.
The
committee is chaired by the regional director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr.
Anderson Anafo. Other members are the regional director of the Ghana
Educational Service, Mr. Ken Dabour, the Deputy regional Director of Health
Services, Dr. Nsire Agana, and the regional director of the Ghana National Fire
Service, Mr. Stephen Kandue.
Others are
the deputy regional director of the Bureau of National Investigation, the
regional engineer of the Ghana Water Company Limited, Mr Abudulai Belo and the
regional director of the Department of Social Welfare.
The rest
are the military Task Force Commander in Bawku, Captain Michael Poku, the area
manager of the Volta River Authority, Squadron leader John Tey, the regional
Red Cross director, Mr Issifu Musa and the Public relations officer of the
Regional Co-ordinating Council, Mr. Majeeda Kasum.
Mr. Salifu
in his inaugural address said the consequences of the recent resurgence of the
conflict at Bawku was unprecedented and charged members of the committee to work
relentlessly in ensuring that calm returns to the area.
He said,
the government was finding lasting solution to the Bawku conflict and other
measures were in place to achieve the objective.
The
minister re-emphasised his appeal to individual philanthropist and
organisations to come to the aid of the committee with relief support to enable
it care for displaced persons in the conflict.
Mr Anafo,
speaking on behalf of members gave the assurance that they would discharge
their duties with diligence and effectively to ensure that peace prevails in
the area.
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Bibiani
(Western Region) 13 December 2001 - Mr Kwadwo-Adjei-Darko, Minister of Mines,
has called on NGOs to desist from criticising companies engaged in surface
mining.
He said
some NGOs continued to paint a picture of doom as if surface mining companies
were operating with the prime aim of destroying the communities in which they
operate.
Mr
Adjei-Darko making the call during an official visit to the Ashanti Goldfield
(Bibiani) Limited in the Western Region on Monday, said: '' As a nation we need
the minerals that are mined for our development.
During the
time when Europeans mined coal for the industrial revolution no one criticised
them in relation to the environment because they needed it for development.
"We as
a nation should not continue to ignore our rich deposits for tourism in the
name of butterfly sanctuaries or flower gardens when they could rather help
speed up our industrialisation."
Mr
Adjei-Darko said gold earned the country a lot of foreign exchange and provided
jobs and other benefits to communities in which it was mined. "There
should be a balance between development and what we are crying for", he
said.
The
minister urged mining companies to enforce their reclamation programmes and
ensure that re-vegetation was done in a manner that would bring the reclaimed
land to a natural forest status.
This could
be done by inter-cropping timber species with trees such as mangoes to sustain
the economic value of such used lands after the mines had closed.
He said
since every mine had a life span, miners should ensure that they acquired other
skills while still miners "so that you
might not live on past glories after the mine has closed"
"You
would have to plan for your future so that you and your dependants would not
become disappointed then the mines eventually close," he said.
Mrs Joyce
Wereko-Brobbey, Executive Director of the Ghana Chamber of Mines who
accompanied the minister, said because there was a lot of ignorance about what
actually transpired during surface mining, some people continued to make
mistakes when talking about surface mining.
"Most
mining companies are given very big concession but they only mine very little
of it with benefits to the communities in which they operate.
"So
far most of the re-vegetated areas do not show signs of having been mined
before," she said.
Mr Daniel
Owiredu, Managing Director of Bibiani, said out of a 50-Kilometer concession,
the company is operating within a 1,600-meter square radius. "We have also
reclaimed about 45 hectares of land already with 32 timber tree species and
eight exotic ones. The community members have tested the land by planting maize
and cassava which some have already harvested," he said.
Mr. Owiredu
said the company had employed 1,000 Ghanaian workers with only four
expatriates.
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Accra (Greater
Accra) 13 December 2001 - Vice President Aliu Mahama on Wednesday urged the
media, opinion leaders and civil society organisations to implement programmes
that would eliminate the high level of indiscipline in society to enable the
nation to progress.
Speaking to
journalists at the Castle, Osu, Alhaji Mahama said the government's efforts to
transform the economy and promote democracy and the rule of law wouldbe
difficult to achieve if Ghanaians were not law abiding and disciplined.
"We
must adopt positive work culture, ethics, attitude in both the public and
private sectors and in our day-to-day activities," he said, and added,
"it is unfortunate that even in rural areas which were noted for
discipline, the youth are very rowdy and unruly."
Alhaji Mahama
said basic national laws and regulations requisite for achieving order, peace
and progress in society were disregarded or broken with impunity, adding that
the media should use its influence to address these.
"We
should not limit the searchlight on politicians, but extend it to everybody to
be able to respond to the national agenda for progress," he said.
Earlier,
the Vice President urged members of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers,
who paid a courtesy call on him, to influence Ghanaian youth with their high
sense of discipline.
"I
visited your country in 1994... and I was overwhelmed by your high sense of
discipline and courtesy," he said. "I would like you to serve as role
models for our youth as you interact with them."
The volunteers
have been assigned to the educational, health and community development
institutions for two years in Begoro and New Abirem in the Eastern region,
Eikwe in the Western region, Tamale in the Northern region and Peki and
Dodi-Papase in the Volta region.
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Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - Ghana is to receive more development grants
and technical cooperation from Japan as part of efforts to reduce poverty and
strengthen the country's democracy.
Mr
Motoyoshi Noro, Charge d'Affaires of the Japanese Embassy, who announced this
during a courtesy call on Vice President Aliu Mahama at the Castle, Osu, said
the road sector would attract the biggest support.
The
courtesy call was to introduce a six-member Japanese volunteer corps, assigned
to the educational, health and community development sectors in rural communities.
Mr Noro
lauded Ghana's stable democracy, saying, Japan wanted to see it flourish for
other African counties to emulate. "We have observed the progress of Ghana
since the last elections. Japan puts a high value on Ghana's democracy. This
government is really a free and fair government in the true democratic
sense," he said.
Consequently,
said Mr Noro, Japan would establish a "Golden Age of Friendship and
Partnership" with Ghana to serve as a bridge between Africa and Asia.
"Our
former Prime Minister asserted that there would be no global peace in the 21st
Century without solving the peace and security problems of Africa and this has
guided our relationship with Africa," he said.
Japan has
been Ghana and Africa's largest development partner over the past years, with a
total of 13.1 billion dollars support to the continent last year.
However,
Japanese assistance to Ghana from next year will be limited to grants and aid
as Japan does not grant loans to Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, of which
Ghana is now a member.
Alhaji
Mahama thanked Japan for its support to Ghana over the years and welcomed the
pledge to increase the assistance. "You have always been our genuine
partners, responding when we need you. You have supported the health, education
infrastructure and other sectors and we will continue to rely on you," he
said.
Alhaji
Mahama said though Ghana's problems were numerous they could be solved with the
help of well-endowed and developed countries.
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Accra
(Greater Accra) 13 December 2001 - The public has been reminded that Monday,
December 17 would be a statutory public holiday as Muslims would be celebrating
Eid-Ul-Fitr.
A statement
signed on Tuesday in Accra by Nana Akufo-Addo, Attorney-General and Minister of
Justice and Acting Minister for the Interior, said the day should therefore, be
observed as such.
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