President Kufuor stresses need for disciplined youth
Government to develop Tamale Regional Hospital
Bagbin speaks on 2004 elections
Korle Bu Doctors still on strike
Greater Accra GMA meet striking doctors
Food/Drugs law to be reviewed
Use proceeds from castles to develop areas of location
Accident claims lives of 14 choir members
Show resilience in
the face of challenges - Bishop
Adansi
West Assembly imposes curfew on children
Government votes 2.3 billion cedis for roads rehabilitation
EC urged to split Kintampo
Constituency
Akwatiahene calls on EC for redress
President Kufuor stresses need for disciplined youth
Cape Coast (Greater Accra) 17 February
2003- President John Agyekum Kufuor on Saturday said stakeholders in education,
such as parents and teachers, have the divine responsibility in ensuring that
the children entrusted in their care were moulded into responsible adults, who
would realise their full potentials in the world of life and work.
He noted "the fear of the
present generation, and the lament of the whole country, is,
the youth of today are misguided in their values, disoriented in their pursuits
and above all not disciplined".
The President gave the reminder
in an address read on his behalf, by the Senior Minister, John Henry Mensah at
the 166th Speech and Prize-Giving Day of the
He stressed that in the nation's
search for a solution to this problem, there was the need for adults, to
examine themselves as to whether they had failed in their divine responsibility
towards the youth.
"All too often, we the
grown ups have to admit that the indiscipline which is ravaging this country,
and blocking the path to its appointed destiny, is not only characteristic of
the lives and attitudes of the youth; we the adults are often times more guilty
of it".
President Kufuor said whether it
was liked or not the corrective aspect of discipline was necessary, if the
country were to produce future leaders, free from the faults and handicaps that
hindered the realisation of the maximum potentials of children and wards.
"Let us as parents,
teachers and adults love the children enough to discipline them with a
discipline that is loving, corrective and constructive," adding, "the
winners in life are not developed on feather beds."
President Kufuor acknowledged
that most workers in Ghana today were dissatisfied with their salaries and rightly
so, considering the current economic situation, and gave reassurance that the
government was aware of their plight and would do all in its power to address
it.
He, however, noted that this,
notwithstanding, teachers and educationists in general had a unique role to
play in moulding the character of the youth, and thereby shaping "the
whole 50 to 60 years of their working lives".
Turning to the students, the
President exhorted them to have visions and set goals that they value and
passionately want to achieve and to focus their entire beings on achieving
them.
Dr. Paa
Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Economic Planning and
Regional Co-operation, who was the guest speaker, said the socio-economic
situation in the country would soon get better with the government's tackling
of the of the serious problem of the TOR debt.
He took the opportunity to explain
government policies to the gathering and said the fixing of a minimum wage
should not be a source of agitation among workers, since it did not automatically
increase salaries in general, but only served as a "safety net" for
the pegging of appropriate wages.
Dr Nduom urged Ghanaians to be
prudent in the pricing of goods and services and to stop taking undue advantage
of the fuel increase to dupe fellow citizens. The Headmistress of the school,
Mrs Nancy Thompson, whose tenure of office ends this year, took the opportunity
to express appreciation to all individuals and organisations as well as old
students that helped to expand facilities at the school, such as the dormitories
and the computer centre, which had enabled the school to increase student
intake.
Lady Julia Osei Tutu, wife of Otumfuo Osei Tutu, Asantenhene,
an old student, chaired the function, and urged the students to study hard and
strive to achieve excellence. She announced that six best students, two from
each form, who excelled in all subjects, would have their fees paid from the Otumfuo's Educational Fund.
The 1982-year-group, which
sponsored the speech day, handed over a refurbished administration block of the
school on which it spent 200 million cedis, as well as a solar energy system
valued at 50 million cedis to the school.
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Government to develop Tamale
Regional Hospital
Tamale (Northern Region)
In this regard, he said, he had
directed the Ministers of Education, Health and Finance to continue to source
funding for the upgrading of the health facility into a teaching hospital and
urged professional medical bodies to assist the University for Development
Studies (UDS) to develop its medical school.
President Kufuor said this in a
speech read for him by Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi,
Minister of Education, at the third congregation and 10th anniversary of the
UDS on Saturday.
The President said the
government would also improve the physical environment of the university to
enhance teaching and learning. He asked the graduates to be agents of change
and act as front liners in preventing rural-urban drift.
President Kufuor commended the
Upper West Regional Co-ordinating Council for the role it played in the
establishment of the Wa Campus of the UDS and entreated
the other regions, which have campuses of the university to emulate the
Council.
He expressed the hope that in
the near future, the university would be able to carry out research into
chieftaincy problems in the three Northern Regions. Professor J. B. Kaburise, Vice-chancellor of UDS, appealed to the government
to consider as a matter of urgency, the tarring of the road between Choggu, a suburb of Tamale, and the UDS central
administration.
He announced that that the
university was drawing up a strategic plan to guide and regulate its growth and
development within the next five years. Dr Hakim Wemah,
Chairman of the University Council appealed to the government for special
allocation of funds for the training of students, who faced financial
constraints.
Dr Wemah
appealed to the people of Dagbon to embrace the "Akosombo
Peace
Initiative" and learn to live
peacefully with one another. Graduates numbering about 180 were presented with
certificates.
Honorary doctorate degrees were
also conferred on Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, a former Vice-Chancellor of the
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Bagbin speaks on 2004 elections
Ho (Volta Region) 
Parliament on
Saturday asserted that the National Democratic Congress's (NDC's)
battle against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2004 elections would be
fought and won by the NDC in the "arena of facts".
This is because the NPP
government has so far shown its inability and lack of courage to disprove the
facts the NDC continued to marshal against it. Bagbin made these points when he
addressed the Volta Region Chapter of the Tertiary Educational Institutions
Network (TEIN) of the NDC at Ho.
He, therefore, urged the youth
and young intellectuals of the party to go to the people, especially their
peers, armed with facts and critical analyses to buttress their apprehensions
about the future direction of the government".
Bagbin said
The Minority Leader gave the
assurance that he would not condone corruption and would expose that tendency
even within the NDC because it undermines the party's credibility and national
interest.
Bagbin said for now, politics in
the country is thriving on "form rather than substance, "thereby
alienating the cream of society from being actively involved politically to the
detriment of the citizenry."
He said politics required the
participation of honest energetic and knowledgeable people committed to social
justice and service in humility to make a nation great. Bagbin said these were
the qualities the country badly needed in its leaders if the country was to
progress.
The Minority Leader alleged
that, the primary concern of the government is to ensure the material comfort
of its members while calling on the citizenry to sacrifice for lack of money.
He said the award of contracts
worth billions of cedis for the unwarranted renovations of government bungalows
and offices of the top hierarchy of the government and the luxurious lifestyles
noticeable with them are contrary to the "no money refrain".
He said the maturity of the NDC
was being misconstrued by the government as weakness and it was time the NDC
proved without jeopardising national peace and stability that it is not a
weakling.
Haruna Iddrisu,
National Youth Leader of the Party said a new and dynamic leadership is
emerging in the NDC, which recognises the immensurable potential of the youth
to ensure victory for the party in future elections.
He observed that the election
victory of the NPP in the 2000 elections was due largely to the dedication, and
resilience of its youth, which had provided a useful lesson to the NDC
leadership.
"Having gone through what
we went through and seeing how things are now going, we will do better", Iddrisu said. He said the NPP government was setting a dangerous
precedent by putting some NDC Ministers and officials before the courts for
"causing financial loss to the state in the discharge of their
duties".
Iddrisu said the same treatment would
be visited on them not as retribution but as a matter of cause because many of
their actions have gone contrary to that law. Johnson Asiedu
Nketia, Member of Parliament for Wenchi-West, and a
former Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) painted a dismal
performance of the agriculture sector.
He alleged that many initiatives
taken by the NDC government to bolster, the fisheries, poultry, crop and cocoa
sectors had been bungled by the government and fraught with cronyism.
Asiedu-Nketia repeated his challenge to the
Minister and Deputy Ministers of MOFA for face-to-face debates with him on the
performance of the sector. None of them had the courage so far to meet me but continued
to give excuses to evade me", he said. Adzamli
Mensah, President of the Ho-Polytechnic Branch of TEIN said the NDC was working
diligently, strategising and refuelling for the 2004 elections campaign.
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Korle Bu Doctors still on strike
The Ghana News Agency (GNA)
during a visit to the Hospital noticed that the place was deserted with a few
doctors on the various blocks attending to in-patients. A doctor met at the
Children's emergency ward who did not want to disclose his name to GNA said
there were only three of them attending to the in-patients at the block.
He said the Ghana Medical
Association (GMA) would be holding its quarterly general meeting on Sunday
February 16 and he believed his colleagues would discuss the next action to
take.
The GNA noticed that there were
about five in-patients at the children' ward. The situation is not different from
the other blocks such as the surgical and the Gynaecological blocks.
The doctors have refused to
resume work despite appeals by senior doctors, hospital authorities and their
representatives. A meeting held on Wednesday between the aggrieved doctors and
their senior colleagues and the hospital authorities advised the doctors to go
to work because their action was illegal.
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Greater Accra
Accra (Greater Accra) 17 February
2003- The Greater Accra Branch of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) is
meeting with representatives of the striking junior doctors of the Korle Bu
Teaching Hospital at 1500 hours, Sunday to find out why the doctors are still
not working despite appeals by the association.
Dr. Koma
Jehu-Appiah, Secretary of the GMA told the Ghana News
Agency on Sunday that the Association has already condemned the strike action
and appealed to the doctors to go back to work while negotiations continued.
Junior doctors at the teaching
hospital on
According to Dr. Jehu-Appiah the Association has issued a statement calling
on the government to resolve the issue and come out with a package to meet the
demands of health workers by the end of March this year.
The strike actions has crippled
services at the teaching hospital and resulted in a massive influx of patients
to various hospitals such as the
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Food/Drugs law to be reviewed
Tema (Greater Accra)
The Reverend Jonathan Y. Martey, Head of Quality Control/Laboratory of the Board,
said this at a seminar on the law, organised for the Tema branch of the Ghana
Chamber of Commerce in Tema at the weekend.
He explained that the decision
of the FDB was necessitated by the challenges posed to foods and drugs sellers,
in the face of global technological advancement. Rev. Martey
said a draft review law would be submitted to the appropriate authorities for
study, comments and presentation to Parliament for consideration.
He regretted that despite the
existing law, vendors continued to work under unhygienic conditions to the
detriment of the health of consumers. Rev. Martey,
therefore, appealed to individuals, organisations and the district assemblies
to collaborate with the FDB to enforce the law.
He said: "We see people
selling under filthy conditions while sheep, goats and other animals roam the
communities, posing health hazard to the people, yet the district assemblies do
nothing about the situation."
Rev. Martey
advised the district assemblies to enforce the byelaw on the sale of foods and
drugs instead of concentrating on the collection of taxes from vendors, though
some operated under deplorable conditions.
He said it was an offence to put
up an advertisement without FDB vetting the contents. Rev. Martey
expressed regret that some clients, after vetting added their version to their
advertisement contrary to FDP regulation.
He said though the Board has
organised seminars to educate advertisers and media personnel on the law on
advertisement, some preferred contravening the rule and paying huge penalties
to doing the right thing.
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Use proceeds from castles to develop areas of location
Elmina (Greater Accra) 17 February
2003- The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Nana Akomea on Saturday
appealed to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) to allow communities
in which Castles are located to use the revenue generated from them for
development projects.
He regretted that towns like Elmina, which are world centres of tourism, are still
undeveloped and stressed that part of the monies earned from its tourist
attractions like the castle, should be used to develop the "historic town
to befit its status".
Nana Akomea
made the call when he commissioned a 10,000-dollar museum, known as the "Elmina JAVA museum", at Elmina.
The museum, which is a special edifice of the African Diaspora in memory of the
Edward Abraham Ulzen, a citizen of Elmina is to promote his legacy of public service and
philanthropy, primarily through support of health initiative in the Elmina area.
Edward Ulzen,
who died in 1999 at the age of 73, played a central role in the establishment
of KNUST, and was its first registrar. He later lectured at the universities of
He became the project
coordinator for the Family Health broadcast programme of the Union of National
and Television Organisations of Africa (URTNA). Proceeds from the museum, whose
facilities include a research centre and a library, would be used to support
the education of needy students in Elmina.
He commended the Ulzen family for establishing the museum in memory and honour
of their relative, and said, "this is what
Ghanaians should be seen to be doing instead of using their monies on expensive
funerals all in the name of the dead".
The Deputy Minister, gave the
assurance that his Ministry would give the museum the necessary support and
expressed concern about the way children are said to be harassing tourists and
the way people still win sand along the beaches in the township, and wondered if
the people of Elmina were ready to tap its tourism
potentials.
The occasion was also used to
inaugurate an eight-member 'Edward Ulzen Memorial
Foundation Board' to oversee the running of the museum, and to donate drugs worth
40,000 dollars to the
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Accident claims lives of 14 choir members
Hohoe (Volta Region)
Twenty-Eight others, who were
seriously injured, are on admission at the
The dead including eight men and
six women were yet to be identified. Those on admission included Paul Sai, the Driver of the Benz Bus, Sophia Lagbagra
Adadevoh, the Madina EP Church Circuit Secretary,
Michael Kudiavor, Circuit Organiser and Public
Relations Officer (PRO).
Others are, Foster Kwashie, unemployed, Gladys Legbedze,
and Joyce Antwi, both traders. James Dogbe, Hohoe District Chief
Executive (DCE) visited the victims at the hospital to console and wish them
speedy recovery. The Police are continuing with their investigations.
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Show
resilience in the face of challenges - Bishop
He noted that there was no easy
way to progress, adding that, there were likely to be benefits flowing from the
sacrifices they made. Bishop Abubekr was preaching
the sermon at the inauguration of the Santasi Circuit
of the
The new circuit comprises 18
societies including Santasi, Trede,
Konkori, Atasomanso, Ahenema-Kokoben, Kotwi, Ampabame, Ahyiaem and Afrancho. The rest are New Adwampong,
Adjamasu, Nkoransa, Anyinam, Mpatasie, Brofoyedru, Deikrom, Kyekyewere and Nwinsa.
Bishop Abubekr
said: "Let us as a people learn to be modest, hardworking and totally
committed to the cause of our nation." He also spoke of the need for
people to be patient with the government and give it every necessary support to
implement its development agenda.
"The problem with some of
us is that we seem to be impatient and expect instant results and answers to
even prayers we make to our God", he said. The Methodist Bishop made
reference to the recent petroleum price hikes and said although it had had negative
impact on the people the increases were in the best interest of the country.
He reminded Christians about the
need to stand firm in their faith saying, they should rely not on human intelligence
but on the direction of God for salvation. The first Superintended Minister of
the Circuit, the Very Reverend Richard Kwaku Amankwaah was inducted into office by the Diocesan Bishop.
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Adansi West Assembly imposes curfew on children
Obuasi (Ashanti Region)
The curfew
starts from 2000 hours to 0500 each day and takes immediate effect and is aimed
at arresting the falling academic standards, especially among the public schools
and also help to reduce child labour in the district.
It is again designed to prevent
teenage pregnancies and reduce truancy and crime wave among the youth. For a
start the assembly has approved a levy of 100,000 cedis to be imposed on
irresponsible parents or guardians whose children or wards are caught in Obuasi during the curfew hours.
The imposition of the levy would
be extended to Akrokerri, Akrofuom,
Ampunyasi, Dompoasi and Fomena that are headquarters of area councils after some
time. The imposition of the curfew came about following the submission of reports
to the general assembly by the Justice and Security Sub-Committee and that of
the Executive Committee on the need to control children at night.
Joseph Kwadwo Boampong, District Chief Executive, during the discussion
on the curfew impressed upon the assembly members to maintain 2000 hours as the
starting hour since the academic standards in most schools in the district was
bad.
"The Regional Minister's visit
to some communities in the district recently revealed that our schools are not
performing well and if we do not take care we will not get future assembly
members like you", Boampong stressed.
When an assembly member wanted
to know the fate of a child, who had been sent by the father to go out to buy a
cigarette during the hours of the curfew, the Presiding Member, Stephen Kwarteng
condemned such errands saying; "It is unacceptable for parents to send
their children out for cigarette, alcoholic beverages and the like".
The assembly, however, agreed
that children who are accompanied by their parents during the period are
exempted. It also accepted that a special taskforce should be set up at Obuasi while volunteers would be recruited in other communities
to enforce the curfew.
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Government votes 2.3 billion cedis for roads rehabilitation
Ajumako-Bisease
(Central Region)
The Central Regional Minister,
Mr Isaac Edumadze announced this at the installation of John K. Amoah Buachie, Managing Director of
Happy Kids Enterprise (
He said the government was
committed to improve the lot of the people and appealed to them to eschew
negative tendencies such as chieftaincy disputes, backbiting and pull him down
attitude to ensure peace in the town.
Edumadze commended the chiefs
and elders of Bisease for resolving the chieftaincy
dispute that gave way to the installation of a new chief and expressed the hope
that this would spur them on to better things.
He said his administration would
not entertain chieftaincy contractors and would, therefore, expose anybody who
tried to instigate disputes. In a welcoming address, Nana Gyan
said the people had plans to launch a 200 million cedis education fund to
sponsor the education of needy children in the town.
He expressed concern over the
falling standards of education and poor enrolment of school children at Bisease and appealed to citizens of the town resident
abroad, businessmen and philanthropists to contribute generously towards the
fund.
Nana Gyan
expressed regret that Ajumako with a population of 27,000 people has only one
KVIP toilet and appealed to the district assembly to increase the facility to
meet the demand of the people. John Okyere, National
Chairman of Bisease Youth Development Association,
appealed to the citizens of Bisease, who have not yet
paid their development levy, to pay.
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EC urged to split Kintampo
Constituency
Kintampo (Brong Ahafo) 17 February 2003-
Clinton Amo-Mensah, Vice Chairman of Kintampo Constituency branch of the National Democratic
Congress (NDC) has urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to create two
constituencies for Kintampo to enable
parliamentarians in the area to manage their electorates successfully.
Amo-Mensah told Ghana News Agency
at Kintampo: "The area is so large that every parliamentarian
finds it very difficult to reach the people to keep them abreast with
government policies".
He said most of the roads in the
area were also not in good condition and that it always took a great deal of
time for the Member of Parliament to get in touch with all the people.
Kintampo, which is the central point of
the country, has assumed cosmopolitan character and the creation of the
constituencies would make the area very manageable for the MPs, the
vice-chairman said.
He announced that Mr Yaw Effah-Baarfi, NDC MP for the area had purchased 30 bundles
of roofing sheets worth about 18 million cedis from his share of the District
Assemblies' Common Fund (DACF) to be supplied to selected communities for
school projects.
Effah-Baarfi is also supporting the
construction of a block of three-classroom for
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Akwatiahene calls on EC for redress
Akwatia (Eastern Region)
The Akwatiahene
observed that the EC was in the process of reviewing constituency boundaries
and, therefore, asked the Commission to take into consideration a ruling by the
Constituencies Boundaries Demarcation Tribunal in 1994 that the areas lost to
the Akwatia Constituency be restored.
In a statement issued at Akwatia on Friday, Barima Kofi Boateng mentioned the areas as Osenase,
Otwenkwanta, Kobriso, Kakoase, Nyankomase and their
surrounding villages.
He recalled that the Tribunal,
under the chairmanship of Justice C.E.H. Coussey,
ruled in favour of the Akwatia Traditional Council in
their action against the EC Nana Boateng said in its
determination, the tribunal said by making those towns and their surrounding
villages, which were Ward 5 of the Akwatia Constituency
part of the Lower West Akyem Constituency, the latter
had gained a population of about 10,000 over the former.
This disparity, the tribunal
noted, "was excessive" saying, there were other compelling factors
from evidence before it, such as traditional area linkage, to return Osenase and neighbouring towns and villages to the Akwatia Constituency.
The Akwatiahene
recalled that the areas lost to the Akwatia Constituency
were from the time of the first Parliamentary Elections in 1951 through to the
period before the 1992 Parliamentary Elections part of the Akwatia
Constituency.
He blamed the National
Commission for Democracy which in 1987, during its re-demarcation of
constituencies exercise made those areas part of the Lower West Akyem Constituency.
The Akwatiahene
noted that the determination by the tribunal was never challenged and to date
the West Akyem District Assembly which gained by the inclusion
of those areas in the Lower West Akyem Constituency
had never appealed against the verdict.
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