"African governments are showing more sensitivity to the plight of
their people," he said. President Kufuor was addressing the opening
session of the two-day Annual Policy Forum of the Global Coalition for Africa
(GCA) in
The Forum under the theme "Security and the New Partnership for
About 150 participants, including current and former heads of state and
government, ministers and Senior officials from development partners, international
organisations, parliamentarians and representatives of the private sector,
civil society and the media, are attending.
The GCA is an innovative inter-governmental forum that brings together
key political, business and civic actors from African and partner countries to
deepen dialogue and build consensus on
President Kufuor said since insecurity existed in many parts of the continent,
there was the need to address the fragility of the component states, which were
often characterised by over-centralisation of power and weak state
institutions.
He said there must be the devolution of power to allow for realistic
participation in governance by all the major stakeholders to provide a safety
valve for pent-up feelings that were often the cause of upheavals.
President Kufuor said state organs such as the Armed Forces and the
Police must be strengthened by modernising and motivating them to be effective
and loyal agencies of state to maintain law and order.
"When these agencies are effective and work as they should, the
borders will be better policed and the proliferation of arms stopped and
opportunities for mischief will be minimised," he added.
He said the watchdog institutions like the media and civil organisations
should be encouraged constitutionally to buttress the regular justice and
educational institutions to fight the endemic ignorance, which had been
exploited to destabilise many nations.
President Kufuor said sub-regional groupings should have peacekeeping
forces that could be rapidly mobilised to help in emergencies when the Council
of Leaders so determine.
"It is only within the secured atmosphere that human resources and
skills can be developed to catch up with the rest of the world. And it is only
then
President Kufuor said for the GCA to play a meaningful impact on the
continent, it must seek to promote the recognition of the essential humanity of
the African as the core of the NEPAD process.
"The current generation of Africans has a responsibility to redeem
the image of the continent, we owe it to our forebears and even more
importantly to future generations," he added.
President Festus G. Mogae of
He said peace, stability and security were prerequisites for economic
and social development and without these, NEPAD goals could not be achieved and
it was for these reasons that the Forum was devoted to a discussion of security
within the context of NEPAD.
President Mogae said Africans needed to
continue to deepen democracy to contribute to lasting security as well as the
respect of human rights of all members of society because without these,
security could not be guaranteed.
He said in
"We also need to support peace negotiations in
GRi.../
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Antonio Mascarenhas Monterio,
a former President of Cape Verde, said NEPAD was of crucial importance to
He said, however, that a major handicap was the inability of the
Sub-Regional Groupings on the continent to function and operate effectively as
expected. The Forum under the theme, "Security and NEPAD" is to
review aspects of security in
About 150 participants, which included current and former Heads of State
and Government, Ministers and Senior official from development partners,
international organisations, Parliamentarians and representatives of the
private sector, civil society and the media.
President John Kufuor, President Festus G. Mogae
of
The GCA is an innovative inter-governmental forum that brings together
key political, business and civic actors from African and partner countries to
deepen dialogue and build consensus on
The first meeting of the GCA was held in
He said there was the need to increase public assistance for development
because the time for official development aid was over and placing emphasis on
private investments was very demanding. He also called for stability and good
governance.
"These are the ingredients we need in
Monterio said another problem facing NEPAD was what he termed a three-tier form
of countries on the continent. These were countries that had embarked on
democratic reforms for good governance, countries which had not been affected
by armed conflicts but had bad governance and countries affected by armed
conflicts and have been destroyed.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chairman of the Implementation of NEPAD said
some of the organisations and structures on which NEPAD was based upon were
weak, especially the AU.
He said to build NEPAD as a strong Initiative and pursue its programmes
vigorously, the AU should be strengthened. "All the other organs of the AU
and the international organisations such as FAO, WHO, ECA, AfDB
have some ramifications for
President Obasanjo said what NEPAD sought for
President Obasanjo said the NEPAD was unique
because it was initiated by African leaders themselves unlike in the past when
programmes were initiated outside the continent and the leaders were convinced
to accept.
Secondly, he said NEPAD had the African Peer Review Mechanism for the
leaders on their own monitor. They would review and sanction themselves for the
development of the continent.
"We cannot perform creditably on our own without taking cognisance
that we are not an island but interact with other countries in the world
because whatever we do has implications on what we do hence the partnership
with ourselves and the world."
GRi.../
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Government lashes at NDC for
statement on fuel price hikes
It said the NDC
should rather cooperate with the government to find lasting solutions to
problems most of which should have not been resolved within the almost 20 years
of the (P) NDC rule.
The
government's view was contained in a statement signed by Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey
in reaction to the NDC's statement on the petrol
price hikes. The statement said the government considers the position of the
NDC minority in Parliament on the price increase of petroleum products as
"most unfortunate".
It said the NDC
statement stated that it wondered whether the leaders from the churches, Muslim
communities, student leadership, labour movement a well as the Private
Enterprise Foundation (PEF) who were consulted could
justify the increase.
It said these
leaders "were clandestinely invited to the Castle and told to preach and
convince their congregations to accept the imminent increases." "This
is an insult to the intelligence of the leaders invited for consultation and
discussion and clearly exposes the disrespect and contempt of the NDC for
eminent opinion leaders."
It said it also
betrays the NDC's complete misunderstanding of the
culture of consultation. "Consultations, and we hasten to add that those
mentioned by the NDC were not the only ones in which the government took part,
need not necessarily be done in the full glare of the public."
It said the
government believes consultations are vital to good governance and they would
continue to be part of the method of its governance whether conducted in public
or in private.
The statement
said the increase in fuel prices is not pleasant, even to members of
government, and would have been avoided if it were possible to do so.
"That the government chose to take the hard decisions and risk a loss of
its goodwill is the surest indicator of the government's sense of deep sense of
responsibility."
The statement
said it compares with the NDC, when in office, chose to sacrifice the long-term
national interest for political expediency, pointing out that the 3.4 trillion
cedis debt at TOR is an infamous legacy left to the government and continues to
grow and accrue interest for the country to pay, possibly in the next 10 years.
The government
also questioned the statement of the NDC, which said that the percentage of
last Friday's fuel price hike of almost 100 per cent is historically
unprecedented.
"In just
two months, September to November 1990, the PNDC increased premium petrol
prices from 396 cedis a gallon to 1,000 cedis a gallon, an increase of 153 per
cent.
"We do not
bring up these reminders to say that as the (P)NDC did so will we do but to
show that we research our history so that what was done can guide us in what we
now do."
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- President John Kufuor on Wednesday, hosted a state
banquet for delegates to the two-day 2003 Policy Forum of the Global Coalition
for Africa (GCA) meeting in Accra.
Proposing the
toast, President Kufuor said the array of luminaries to the meeting testified
the high reputation the Forum had built over the years. He said the relevance
of the agenda of the meeting must be one of the explanatory factors of the
Forum's drawing power.
President
Kufuor said for the Coalition to have the clout to act as a powerful lobby to
put the case for
Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and
Co-Chairman of the GCA said the Coalition was happy to organise the meeting in
He paid tribute
to Ghanaians for their contribution to Africans and African liberation. The
Forum under the theme "Security and the New Partnership for
About 150
participants including current and former Heads of State and Government,
Ministers and senior officials from development partners, international
organisations, Parliamentarians and representatives of the private sector,
civil society and the media attended.
The GCA is an
innovative inter-governmental forum that brings together key political,
business and civic actors from African and partner countries to deepen dialogue
and build consensus on
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Speaking Ga through an interpreter, Neequaye
interrupted his story with brief moments of stillness, and had to be prompted
by some of the Commissioners before he continued with his narration.
Amid a dead
silent hall, Neequaye told the Commission of how he
was fired in the head in the evening of
He said he was
selling drinks in the hall and when he came out during the break, he saw two
ladies one of whom asked him to sell her a bottle of beer. He replied that the
drinks were sold only in the cinema hall, and asked them to come in to get the
drinks.
"In the
course of the conversation with one Sammy and the girls, Jonas Nii Tetteh Mante,
alias Akatapore, slapped one of the girls called
Philomena Mensah. I asked him why he was beating the girl, but he asked me if I
knew the girls, and I also asked him the same question.
"As the
conversation continued, Sammy suddenly warned me that Mante
was taking a gun. I turned round to look at him, but Mante
fired his gun and it hit my head. I fell down unconscious and was rushed to the
Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
He said at the
Hospital, the doctor on duty, one Dr Neequaye rather
said he was an armed robber who had been shot. However, upon explanation from
one Sowah, who was among the people that took him to
the hospital, the doctor attended to him.
He said after
some drugs were given to him he went into coma for six weeks. He said one Dr
Mustapha performed surgery on him to remove the bullet that hit his forehead.
"I was on admission for nine months. I had a normal right arm and leg
before the shooting. The gunshot affected my right arm and leg.
It weakened
them," Neequaye said. He said he had not been
able to do any work since this incident. Commission: Did you apply for
compensation to the Attorney-Generals Department? Neequaye:
No. Commission: So you have not been paid any compensation by anybody? Neequaye: No.
When Tetteh Mante, the alleged
perpetrator, was asked to cross-examine Neequaye, he
asked him if he could tell the Commission where he bought the rinks. Neequaye replied that he saw him going into a drinking bar,
but he did not know if he bought drinks.
Mante told Neeequaye: "I did not go to any
drinking bar. You also said I slapped Philomena, but I never slapped her."
At this point Mante told the Commission that he would
not ask any more question to waste the time of the Commission, but would rest
his case and speak only when invited to give evidence.
Continuing his
story, Neequaye told the Commission that several
drugs were prescribed for him after he was discharged from the hospital, but he
did not have money to buy them. His brother staying abroad had to be buying the
drugs for him.
He said in 1995
his mother had a letter from Nii Adjei Boye-Sekan, the then
Member of
Parliament for Ledzokuku, that he (Neequaye) would be given a 500,000
cedis compensation. Neequaye said his mother made a
formal complaint in December 1995 to the Attorney- General's (A-G) Department
and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice. They received a
reply from the A-G and the Commission, asking for the medical report on his
surgery from Dr Mustapha.
He said after
initial failure to get the report from Dr Mustapha, he finally had a medical
report from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, but he has not received any
compensation from any quarters on his handicap.
The Commission
informed the house that the report indicated brain injury due to gunshots. Mante, who said he is a Muslim, told the Commission that he
was then engaged to marry Philomena.
He said he told
her that he was going on a refresher course at Asutuare,
but returned the same day only to find her fiancée, with whom he used to stay
in Dr Busia's House at Odorkor
among a group of people at La Scala Cinema Hall with
her back towards him.
He said in his
bid to get Philomena from among the people, Neequaye
without any provocation hit him and a scuffle ensued. He said the pistol he was
having on him went off and grazed Neequaye's
forehead, but never went through his head as he was claiming.
"If the
bullet had gone through his head, he would not be alive by now," Mante, alias Akatapore and Abdul Aziz, said. Mante who said he was
a former Personal Security Commando, who was recruited in 1985 as a typist with
additional security duties at the Castle, said after the incident, he fled
without attending to his victim when he saw the crowd rushing on him.
He went to make
a report to the Counter Intelligence Unit at the
He said he was
charged in 1988 at a magistrate court with attempted murder and was asked to
compensate the victim with 500,000 cedis, in addition to 10 years imprisonment
or in lieu go to jail for life.
Mante said he decided to go to jail for the 10 years and after spending over
six years in jail he decided to pay the compensation. However, his approach,
through friends and relations to pay the compensation was rejected by Neequaye's family.
He said he lost
an appeal he filed at the Appeal Tribunal a year after his conviction and he
was released in October 1995 after the Prisons Headquarters said he had paid
the compensation. Mante, now unemployed, promised to
assist Neequaye financially when he secures a gainful
employment.
Sitting
continues.
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria left Accra on Wednesday after
participating in the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA) Forum, which opened in
Accra earlier in the day.
Other heads of
state of who participated are from
The two-day
conference under the theme: "NEPAD and Security" was opened by
President John Kufuor. About 150 participants made up of Ministers,
Parliamentarians, former heads of state, the private sector, civil society and
eminent personalities around the globe are attending. The forum is expected to
create a platform for the discussion of problems confronting
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Alex Obiri Yeboah, a retired civil servant, who made the appeal
in a petition to the President, the Chief Justice and Parliament, and copied to
the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi, said the laying-off en-bloc of non-lawyer
magistrates at the time when many district and sub-district courts were without
judges, undermine justice delivery at the lower courts.
According to
the petition, "the present system adopted by the judiciary for a judge to
combine two or three district courts in addition to his substantive court will
not solve the problem, but will rather put the judiciary in jeopardy and worsen
the plight of the already embittered communities in view of the numerous cases
pending at the lower courts".
It said the
closure of non-lawyer magistrate courts was disturbing in some districts, where
litigants as well as the police who had arrested criminals travel far to their
only district court just to be told the case was either adjourned or that,
there was no presiding magistrate.
The petition
regretted that the use of qualification to lay them off and said most of the
lay magistrates had gained experience on the job that some were performing far
better than professional lawyers.
It noted that
professional lawyers were refusing to accept postings to the bench not because
of low salaries, but at times due to lack of basic social amenities, especially
in the rural areas where these lay magistrates had been working for several
years.
The petition
therefore, called on the government to make the law flexible to accommodate the
non-lawyer magistrates and tap their knowledge and experience to help in
justice delivery at the lower level, until such a time conditions would be
improved to attract professional lawyers to fill vacancies in the rural courts.
It cited
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- Three Heads of State attending the on-going two-day
Annual Policy Forum of the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA) in Accra on
Wednesday paid separate courtesy calls on President John Kufuor at the Castle, Osu.
They were
President Festus G. Mogae of
"This is a
vision of African nations being networked into a unified continental modern
economy and market." On the Ivorian crisis, President Kufuor said the
French government was lending a hand to the way forward for amicable solution
to the crisis whilst ECOWAS would send a peacekeeping force to assist to bring
peace to the country.
President Mogae said there was the need to put an end to conflicts on
the continent, which is the main agenda on the Forum. He said he was hopeful
that with the influence of
President Obasanjo said NEPAD was an African initiative to deal with
African problems by Africans for
He said it was
to deal with the entire social, economic and political problems of
President Kagame said it was important for the various African
leaders to come out with what contributions they could make towards finding
lasting solution to problems on the continent.
The Forum under
the theme, "Security and NEPAD" is to review aspects of security in
The GCA is an
innovative inter-governmental forum that brings together key political,
business and civic actors from African and partner countries to deepen dialogue
and build consensus on
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- Retired Warrant Officer Class one (WO1) Yaw Nkwantabisa, Tuesday apologized to Samuel Agyemang for
burning his 15-seater Toyota mini-bus with registration number AN 4885 KN at
Koforidua 20 years ago.
Sixty-year-old Nkwantabisa, now unemployed, appeared before the National
Reconciliation Commission (NRC) in an obviously, remorseful mood wearing
bathroom sandals (charley wote), and admitted having
burnt Agyemang's vehicle.
In what has
been described as yet another positive landmark in the work of the NRC, Nkwantabisa said: "I regretted my action the moment I
fired the second bullet which ignited the car and I am deeply sorry for the pain
I caused Agyemang."
He walked up to
Agyemang and his brother, Dickson Jeremiah Acheampong, who had earlier given
his account of the incident to the Commission, and apologized to them and shook
hands with them, with General Erskine and the Most
Rev. Father Palmer-Buckle joining him.
Prior to Nkwantabisa's admission and subsequent apology, Acheampong had
told the Commission that sometime in 1982 when the Provisional National Defence
Council (PNDC) took power from President Hilla Limann's government, orders were given for borders to be
closed and for all vehicles with foreign registration numbers to be impounded.
He said at the
time his brother, Sam Agyemang had returned from Nigeria with the bus, which he
gave to one Frank Sarpong to operate on commercial
basis. "My brother decided to return to Nigeria because of the political
situation in Ghana so Sarpong, the driver was asked to
drive him to the Aflao border and return with the bus
to Kumasi, where we lived."
Acheampong said
after five days when the vehicle had not returned as arranged, he checked on
the driver at Koforidua only to be told that it had been impounded at the
Koforidua Military Base because it had a foreign number.
Apparently an
order had come from the Chairman's (Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings) Office that
all vehicles with foreign numbers should be impounded. "I went to the
Military Base to find out why the vehicle was impounded and when it would be
released. To my shock, I found several other such vehicles packed in the yard
but only my brother's had been burnt near a mango tree.
"I was
told that Nkwantabisa had asked to use the car for an
errand in town, but after moving it from the lot, asked two soldiers to fire at
it for no apparent reason till it got burnt," he said.
Acheampong said
he reported the incident to his brother, one Sergeant Osei-Tutu at the Kumasi
Barracks, who promised to see to it that the money was refunded to him, but
that promise never materialized.
In his
statement to the Commission Nkwantabisa, a Catholic, said he was not at the barracks when the vehicles
were impounded, but on his return he overhead Sarpong
hurling very provocative insults at all uniformed soldiers.
"Then I
heard a gun cocked, which attracted my attention so I decided to take action to
avert any possible bloodshed because Sarpong's
insults were so provocative that he could have been shot dead," he said.
Nkwantabisa said he collected a gun from one soldier and asked
one Lance Corporal Ampofo to move Sarpong's car away
from the others. He said he shot twice himself at the petrol tank with the
intention of crippling it as a punishment for Sarpong's
insults.
"When I fired
the first bullet burst the petrol tank but I fired a second one which was a
tracer bullet," he said. "I did not know that the gun carried a
tracer bullet. I wouldn't have shot it if I knew and I am really sorry for
that."
Asked whether
he apologized at the time to Sarpong for burning his
vehicle unintentionally, Nkwantabisa said he did not.
In response to another question, Nkwantabisa said he
did not know what kind of arms soldiers carried around at the time, adding that
soldiers at the time did not account for the use of weapons, except when they
used them in the range during practice.
He said it was
not normal at the time to be shooting at one's discretion, but in his case he
wanted to prevent a possible bloodshed, which was very imminent, given the kind
of insults Sarpong threw at the soldiers.
"I took
into consideration an earlier incident which occurred at the time in which a
soldier under my command in a marijuana busting operation fired and killed
three persons without my orders so I decided to prevent a similar situation.
"Given the
chance again, I would never do that," he said. "I would want to advise
that soldiers should be kept from such internal situations for the police to
handle them."
In the second
case heard by the Commission, 63-year-old Madam Cecilia Aku
Hoffman, a trader, dressed in white told the Commission that between 1979 and
1983 various military activities led to her unlawful imprisonment for two weeks
and the seizure of her goods worth several millions of cedis.
She said on 18
August 1979 there was an announcement that the Makola
Number One Market, where she traded, was being razed to the ground so all traders
should stay away from that market.
Madam Hoffman
said she went to the scene and joined a large group of traders whose goods were
being packed into about six parked vehicles by soldiers, whiles other soldiers
carried out the demolition.
She said in
1980-81 when President Hilla Limann's
administration took over, she and other traders returned to the market and
mounted tables to sell but soldiers came back and burnt their tables.
"I then
decided to keep my goods, which comprised flour, rice, sugar and oil in three
store houses in my house at Atukpai in Accra and
brought them to town in bits to sell," she said.
She said one
Saturday morning in 1983 military men came to her house held everybody in the
house captive and asked of her. When she came out of her room she was led to
her storerooms and a vehicle was brought from the Chorkor
lorry station to pack all her goods away for allegedly hoarding those goods.
"They
packed at least 20 bags of flour, 25 boxes of cube sugar, 25 boxes of oil and
several bags of rice to the Accra City Council (ACC) "I left the house to
see where they took my goods and on my return I was told that the military had
given a warning that I should come and see them if I did not want
trouble."
Madam Hoffman
said she went and was accused of hoarding goods. She was arraigned before the
ACC tribunal and charged with the offence and sentenced to two weeks imprisonment
at the James Fort Prison. "Later I was accused of insulting Ft-Lt J. J.
Rawlings and so the soldiers requested that I be sentenced to five years
imprisonment but that was not done," she said.
"After the
two weeks detention I returned without a penny and I have been poor since. I
now sell iced water." Justice E. K. Amua-Sekyi,
Chairman of the NRC assured the victims that the Commission has taken note of
the issues and would make the appropriate recommendations for redress.
GRi.../
Send your comments
to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- The Speaker of Nigeria's Parliament, Ghali Umar Na-abba
and his Burkinabe counterpart, Marc Christain Kabori on Wednesday praised
ECOWAS member states for striving to sustain democracy in their respective
countries.
They reiterated
the need for member states to collaborate and support the idea of democracy
since military adventurism has the tendency to derail economic and political
development.
The two
speakers made these remarks in separate pre-departure interview with
journalists at the airport after participating in the ceremonial opening of the
Third Session of the Third Parliament of the Fourth Republic at Parliament
House in Accra on Tuesday.
Others who
attended are the Speaker of Togo as well as the First Deputy Speakers of the
National Assemblies of Cote d'Ivoire and Mali. The Nigerian speaker was full of
praise for Ghana for sustaining parliamentary democracy and called on Ghanaians
to support parliament's efforts at entrenching democracy.
Na-abba expressed the hope that his country would follow Ghana's
examples, especially with their forthcoming general elections in April this
year. "In West Africa today we don't have any military regime in place.
This is an indication that we are maturing as far as democracy is
concerned," he said.
On the Ivorian
situation Na-abba expressed concern about the
inability of the feuding parties to resolve their differences. He noted that
ECOWAS has the capacity to broker peace in that country as they did in Liberia
and Sierra Leone.
As to why the
peace talks should be shifted to Paris, Na-abba
expressed regret that such a thing should happen and observed that this is an indication
of "strong colonial bonds on its former colonies."
The Burkinabe Speaker urged parliaments to condemn uprisings in
whatever form and called on both factions to resolve issues and differences
peaceful. He denied the idea that ECOWAS failed in it bid to bring the Ivorian factions
to resolve the conflict but had to allow France to step in, adding that this
shows deep-seated interest of France in Cote d'Ivoire. Both speakers were seen
off by Okachire Edusa, chairman
of parliamentary committee on Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Minority leader,
Isaac Adjei-Mensah.
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor,
Minister of Defence and Acting Minister of the Interior, and the Chinese
Ambassador, Lu Yongshou on Wednesday cut a sod for the commencement of the
construction of eight new Military and Police Barracks in Accra.
The Chinese
government, under an interest-free loan of $4.5m, is sponsoring the
construction project. At a different ceremony, China donated 23 vehicles
costing $482,000 to Ghana. They are four tipper trucks, eight troops-carrying
vehicles and 11 single and double cabin pick-ups.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said the barracks project was the result of
consultations between the Chinese government and the Ministry of Defence on 24
October 2002. He said the military component of the project, which would be the
first to be started, would include three blocks of 28 units each and two blocks
of 12 units each. They have been designed to accommodate 105 families.
Dr Addo-Kufuor praised China for her assistance to Ghana since
Independence when the first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah established diplomatic
relations with that country. "The mutual benefits from these ties are seen
in the increased trade between our two countries, especially in the manufacturing
and technological sectors, thus promoting technical and scientific co-operation
between our countries."
Ambassador
Yongshou said his government attaches importance to the friendly relations and
co-operation with Ghana. He said the barracks project being undertaken by a
Chinese contractor would be completed by next year.
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater
Accra) 23 January 2003- Vice President Aliu Mahama on Wednesday advised Muslims
to avoid extremism and excesses associated with them as they strive for the
rest of the world to accord Islam, particularly Muslims minorities, their due
in the community of religions.
Closing the
First Conference of Muslim Minorities in Accra, Vice President Mahama said the
dogmatic stance of Muslims on religion, culture and modernization, which is
described by Dr Rabiatu Ammah
of the University of Ghana as the three jeopardy of Islam, had compounded the
negative perception of Muslims.
More than 130
delegates from about 70 countries from around the world attended the three-day
conference, which adopted a communiqué to preserve the identity of Muslim
Minorities and ensure their socio-economic advancement.
Vice President
Mahama stressed the need for Muslims to avoid the discrimination and
stereotyping often suffered by the religion by respecting the freedoms and
beliefs of others and working within the confines of the laws and sovereign
rights of their countries of residence.
He stressed
that inter and intra religious tolerance was a virtue and a command of Allah
and Muslims should, therefore, strive for it. "Ghana is a secular country
in which people are allowed to practice their faith without any
hindrance," he said. "This arrangement is guaranteed by our
constitution and it has worked for us and we intend to keep it that way."
Vice President
Mahama quoted a verse in the Quran, which abhors religious
compulsion and advised Muslims rather to live in a manner that would glorify
Allah and attract others to convert to Islam.
In a 21-point
communiqué' read by Sheikh Abdullah Al Kharbash,
Director of Minorities Department of the Organisation of Islamic Conference
(OIC), the delegates stressed the need for Muslims to avoid sectarianism, tribalism,
partisanship and other divisive tendencies to unite their front.
They said the
rights and beliefs of Muslim minorities had to be upheld in all circumstances,
while their roles in socio-economic development be defined and respected.
The delegates
called for investments and the establishment of schools, training institutions,
information, communication and technology institutions to promote the
socio-economic advancement of Muslims.
They welcomed
the support of well-endowed Islamic countries and organisations such as the
OIC, but cautioned against the interference in the internal affairs and
sovereignty of the beneficiary countries.
Dr Kamel Al Sherif, who chaired the
ceremony, commended Ghana for respecting the rights of minorities, saying
"a society is judged by its treatment of its minorities, while the history
of humanity is that of its minorities.
He said the
democracy, justice, fairness and equity in the Ghanaian society was worthy of
emulation. "Islam, World Peace and Development," was the theme of the
conference, organised jointly by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference
(OIC) and the Islamic Centre for Education and Development, Ghana.
In an interview
with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Sheikh Mohammed Gedel,
a co-ordinator of the conference, said the event had become very crucial,
particularly in the aftermath of the September 11 suicide attacks on the World
Trade Centre, to dispel the perception that Islam promotes violence.
Sheikh Gedel said Muslims, who are minorities, particularly needed
to be educated to be law abiding, progressive and peaceful. He explained that
Muslims are classified minorities when they form 50 percent or less of their
countries' population.
He said the
conference was successful because it had brought both orthodox and unorthodox
Muslims together, adding that religious tolerance and peaceful co-existence
would be widely promoted.
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
At the court's
last sitting last week, the prosecution closed its case for Tsikata to open his
defence today. But just before Tsikata could be invited to put up his defence,
his counsel rose to his feet and told the court that he was making a
"submission of no case" against his client.
Tsikata is
standing trial for wilfully causing financial loss to the State, and deliberately
misapplying public property. He is alleged to have caused the loss of more than
2.3bn cedis to the State in a transaction in which he committed GNPC to
guarantee a loan facility from a French Development Aid Agency for Valley
Farms, a private limited liability company.
The accused has
pleaded not guilty and is on a 700m cedis bail in his own
recognisance. Making his submissions, Professor Emmanuel Victor Oware Dankwa, counsel for Tsikata
told the court that since the prosecution had failed to establish a "prima
facie" case against his client, he should be freed.
Prof Dankwa submitted that looking at the evidence adduced by
the prosecution, one was left with the conclusion that his client be acquitted
and discharged. Counsel further submitted that his client could not be held
guilty of the charges preferred against him, since they were based on Acts
which at the time, did not constitute offence.
Prof Dankwa submitted that all the alleged charges of his client
were committed long before the amendment of the Criminal Code, which came into
force in July 1993. Counsel argued further that whereas his client authorised GNPC's investment in Valley Farms in June 1990, he signed
the guarantee agreement on 11 March the following year.
Prof Dankwa submitted that all the alleged charges preferred
against his client were committed long before the amendment of the Criminal Code,
which came into force in July 1993.
"It was
unconstitutional for a charge to be preferred against my client long before the
Act was enforced", counsel pointed out. It was his humble submission,
therefore, that his client be acquitted and discharged, since he could not be charged
with acts which did not constitute offence at the time they were committed.
Counsel told
the court that GNPC itself benefited directly from the guarantee agreement,
which his client signed on its behalf with officials of Caisse
Francaise Development.
Counsel
submitted that none of the six prosecution witnesses led evidence to show the
wilful action or omission of his client through which the State incurred a
financial loss. Accordingly, he prayed the court to free his client.
At this
juncture, Mrs Justice Henrietta Abban, Appeal Court
Judge with an additional responsibility on the case as a High Court Judge
stopped proceedings and adjourned the case to Monday, 27 January.
This is to
enable counsel to conclude his submissions, to be followed by a reply by the
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), after which the Mrs Justice Abban would give her ruling on the matter.
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Akosombo (Eastern Region) 23 January 2003- The Volta River
Authority (VRA) has imported 400,000 compact florescent lamps (CFLS) at 1,000
dollars for sale to the public in order to reduce significantly energy
consumption.
Disclosing this
to the Ghana News Agency at Akosombo on Tuesday, Jabesh Amissah-Arthur, deputy
Chief Executive in-charge of Engineering and Operations, said the energy
consumed in the country impacted heavily on water usage of the Akosombo dam.
He said the use
of compact florescent lamps would reduce energy consumption and assist
consumers to make savings on their bills, stressing that CFLS are widely
recognised as the major solution for reducing electricity consumption for
domestic lighting.
Amissah-Arthur disclosed that VRA was now exhibiting
leadership by example by making optimum use of energy in its own premises. He
said the Chief Executive of the VRA, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey,
has therefore, set up energy conservation task force within the Authority to carry
out a comprehensive energy audit of all VRA facilities and implementation of
measures to reduce energy consumption.
Amissah-Arthur said the VRA intends to embark on energy
consumption campaign to motivate the population to improve on its consumption
habit by putting off electrical gadgets that are not in use.
GRi.../
Send your
comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com