GRi
Press Review 05 – 06 – 2003
“NDC will not impose candidates on people”
Witness dies at Reconciliation hearing
He
explained that his intention is not motivated by the perception that he is
being pushed against the wall but that he no longer wants genocide to be
perpetrated and to see Liberians continuously dying.
"I
am tired: Our people are dying. Liberians are dying. I love
"We
are one people and
He
said, there must be a transitional government of
national unity that will not include him. President Taylor expressed the belief
that all the parties to the negotiations, love
He
said he was saddened that he had to come back to
Meanwhile,
leaders of the various opposition political parties from
They
contended that he had been the problem in
The
leader of the Liberia Unification Party, Charles Walker Brunskine,
said they are committed to ensuring that peace returns to the
The
National Chairman of the Liberian Labour Party, Rt. Apostle S. Washington, said
his party is hopes to see President Taylor go by his statements. He said the
President will be free and happy if he steps down and absents himself from the
transition that is being advocated.
A
representative of the All Liberian Coalition Party, Musah
Balloh, described the President’s statement as funny
because of the current civil unrest that he has created in the country. Balloh said if the peace process brings about a government
of unity, President Taylor should not be part of it.
The
Press Secretary to President Taylor, S. Vaani Paasewe, said President Taylor has taken a flexible
position for the settlement of the Liberian crisis.
The
National Co-ordinator of the Women In Peace Building Network, Madam Leymah Gbowee, said the presence
of the women at the conference grounds is to protest the war in their country,
report Charles Benoni Okine.
"We
are tied of the turmoil and suffering that the war has brought to us the women
and we feel it is time for us to voice out our grievances and to win the
support of all", she said.
Madam
Gbowee said it is refreshing that President Taylor
has said that he will leave the political scene if it is discovered that he is
the problem. She said should that happen, the women
and the entire population of
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The
new production lines which are already in use were installed at the cost of
¢40bn from the company’s own internal resources. They comprise ultra modern
production lines for chocolates, pebbles, chocolate spread and ice cream
coatings to complement the existing lines.
Paul
Awuah, Managing Director of the company, made this
known when Ishmael Ashitey, a Deputy Minister of
Trade and Industries and Presidential Initiatives (PSI), paid a working visit
to the factory at Tema.
In
addition to the expansion of the confectionery section, Awuah
mentioned that the company is also expecting a 22 million Euro loan from
Barclays Bank for the acquisition of new machines for the cocoa section as part
of its factory expansion project.
He
said the Prudential Bank is to provide ¢6.75bn for rehabilitation of an old
warehouse for the installation of the machines. The expansion of the cocoa
section will raise its current capacity from processing 25,000 metric tonnes of
beans to about 65,000 tonnes per year.
Awuah said CPC which is now a publicly owned company is therefore hopeful
that it will be given the needed support to enable it to remain viable and competitive
on the market.
Presently,
he said, CPC buys it cocoa beans at the international rates while its
competitors buy the cheaper light crop beans making the company’s operational
cost high.
In
view of this, Awuah urged the Ministry of Trade and
Industry and Presidential Initiatives to facilitate the operations of the
company for it to remain competitive on the market.
Ashitey told the management of CPC that the visit was to get firsthand
information on some of the issues militating against the growth of the industry
in the country.
He,
therefore, gave the assurance that the issues raised will be given the needed
attention to facilitate the growth and expansion of the industry. – Graphic
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“NDC will not impose candidates on people”
According
to Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, National Organiser of the
party and Member of Parliament (MP) for Fanteakwa,
primaries will be held in all the 200 constituencies, including where there are sitting MPs.
Ofosu-Ampofo, who said this in an interview at Begoro,
stated that the decision is part of strategies adopted by the party to enable
it to recapture political power in the 2004 general elections.
Touching
on preparations towards the 2004 general elections, he said the NDC has begun a
process of holding primaries for about 110 constituencies where there are no
sitting MPs. He said nominations have been opened for interested party members
to file their nominations for the exercise.
According
to him, the submission of nominations will close by August ending, while the
party will use the following month to thoroughly screen the applicants, after
which the primaries will be held in those constituencies between October and
December, this year.
Commenting
on the situation of sitting MPs, Ofousu-Ampofo said
although the party would like to retain as many as are willing to contest again
in order to tap their skills and expertise, “we will still hold primaries in
their respective constituencies to confirm their candidatures”.
Reacting
to allegations by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that three NDC MPs are going to
resign their positions by the end of this year, the NDC national organiser said
there is no iota of truth in the allegations.
Ofosu-Ampofo said, “We have been attending a series of caucus meetings as NDC MPs
and no one has indicated taking such a decision,“
adding that it is only a ploy by the ruling party to deceive Ghanaians that the
NDC is fragmented.
In
another development, the NDC national organiser has praised nurses who are
currently serving at the country’s hospitals for “foregoing mouth-watering
conditions of service abroad and deciding to render selfless care to
Ghanaians”.
Addressing
a large gathering of nurses at Begro as part of
activities marking the celebration of Nurses Week, Ofosu-Ampofo
pointed out that while their counterparts have left the country for greener
pastures abroad, “ you have thought it wise to stay
behind and serve your country”. – Graphic
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The
aim is to reduce redundancy and avoid duplication of roles among the agencies
as well as to facilitate the swift processing of land applications and
documents.
The
Minister of Lands and Forestry, Prof Dominic Fobih,
who disclosed this in an interview in
Consequently,
he said, the ministry is in consultation with legal experts to review the laws
and mandates of the agencies so as to come up with a single legislative
framework that will address all land issues in the country.
Prof
Fobih observed that some of the mandates of the
agencies are interrelated, a situation which according to him has led to a
number of bureaucracies and corruption in land administration in the country.
He
said “some of them are just doing the same thing”, a situation, which he
described as “waste”. Prof Fobih said reports
reaching him indicate that most of the heads of these agencies are engaged in
corrupt practices that result in delays in the processing of land application
forms.
He
noted that some of these practices has culminated in
the myriad land disputes in the country and indicated that anyone found to have
engaged in any such act will not be spared.
Prof.
Fobih said he has received numerous complaints about
corrupt officials who connive with other unscrupulous members of the society to
cause undue delays in the processing of land applications.
He
has therefore directed all heads of such agencies to submit monthly reports of
their activities with regard to the number of land applications received and
those that have been worked on to the ministry. “The time has come to inject
efficiency and dynamism into the land administration sector in the country,”
Prof Fobih stressed.
He
has also directed that any investor who may require land for use in
On
the creation of land banks, the minister said he has sent directives to the
regional and district land commissions to identify available lands in their
districts and report to him. Such lands, he said, after consultations with the
traditional authorities will be given out for investment purposes. -
Graphic
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Witness dies at Reconciliation hearing
He
was rushed to the Ridge hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival. Ampah is reported to have developed a heart failure while
testifying at the commission. The Commission resumed sitting after an hour but
the incident affected proceedings. – Myjoyonline
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The
witness, an assistant superintendent of police, Ahmed Issa
Yakubu, of the police headquarters who took an oath
to tell the truth and nothing but the truth before the Fast Track Court (FTC)
yesterday, ended up telling the court untruths.
Witness
then reversed his earlier evidence and told the court, “My Lord, I did not sign
the statement” minutes after D. O. Lamptey, counsel
for the first accused, Sherry Ayittey, raised an
objection.
Things
took a dramatic form when the court presided over by Justice Amonoo-Monney, an
“Stick
to the truth at all times,” Judge Amonoo-Monney told
the witness. “Aren’t you a superior police officer”, the judge questioned
further. To this question, witness responded in the affirmative and said, “Yes,
I am a superior police officer, my lord.”
ASP
Issa Yakubu, the
investigator of the case who was formerly with the Criminal Investigation
Department (CID) special investigative taskforce, told the court during his
evidence in chief that he received and appended his signature to a cautioned
statement dated 23 May 2001 from the treasurer of the 31st December Women’s
Movement (31st DWM), Ms. Sherry Ayittey, an accused
person in the case.
This
assertion raised an objection from counsel for the first accused to the effect
that witness neither took the statement nor appended his signature and that the
statement was taken by a detective sergeant who appended his signature.
Counsel, however, argued that witness was not the right person to tender the
document in evidence.
Giving
his ruling, Justice Amonoo-Monney prevented witness
from giving evidence on the said statement since he was not competent to do so.
Sherry
Ayittey and three others were accused of causing
financial loss to the state following their involvement in the divestiture of
GREL in favour of Societe Industrielle
Plantation Hevea (SIPH), a French company.
The
rest are: Emmanuel Amuzu Agbodo,
executive secretary of the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC), Ralph Casley-Hayford, a businessman, and Dorcas
Satirieh Ocran, a
businesswoman.
They
pleaded not guilty to charges of causing financial loss to the state and they
are on self-recognisance bail. ASP Issa Yakubu further told the court that in the course of his
investigation, he interviewed and interrogated persons whose names came up.
He
told the court that he interviewed Dr. Banarfo,
Georgina Okaintey, Kwame Asante and Etienne Popeller, all
prosecution witnesses, among other personalities but interrogated the accused
persons.
In
cross-examination, witness admitted that he did not sign the cautioned
statement volunteered by Sherry Ayittey on
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He
stated that it is a clear manifestation that armed robbery has gone down but
now the whole country is having single digits for the month adding that
throughout the nation, the police now get less than 10 reports in a month.
In
Kofi Boakye made this statement in an interview
with Chronicle on the spate of armed robberies in the country and the issue of
land guards.
He
attributed the reduction in attacks to the fact that the robbers have been
arrested. Almost all the people who were instrumental in these robberies for
the past two years have been arrested.
He
recalled that four months ago when the service declared about 40 people wanted,
they arrested 35 and the five left are now at large. Last month, only eight
cases of armed robbery were recorded as compared to 52 in December last year.
On
the allegation that some police personnel know or team up with the armed
robbers, the police commander said as a human institution they cannot discount
that, giving an example as the incident in Anomabo in
which a policeman was associated directly in a robbery.
He
was of the view that if “1% of the police population are robbers, then no one can live in the country since it is in every
system. We have to strengthen our internal auditing mechanism in order to bring
such people to book.”
Touching
on the issue of land guards, Boakye said the case of
land guards has been a perennial problem and it cannot be looked at in
isolation without looking at chieftaincy and land dispute problems.
He
stated that in
He
called on all Ghanaians who have compact documents and are being harassed to
report to the police and take the aggressors to court. But it is up to the
court to work expeditiously on land issues so that they have their way clear.
He
hinted that as much as the police are not supposed to meddle in land issues,
“we have decided to centralize land guard operations at the headquarters so
that we can really have central focus in dealing with landguard
issues.” – Chronicle
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A
statement signed by the KMA’s Public Relations
Officer, Kwame Frimpong
said the Assembly regards this development as a serious anomaly for which the Busia Foundation has to take steps to rectify.
''Statutorily
speaking, it is the KMA through its affiliate agencies and departments that has
the mandate to give approval for the re-designation of important landmarks such
as the Suame roundabout in the metropolis'', the
statement said.
According
to the KMA, it has been unable to answer the numerous enquiries that have
arisen from the publications because it was deprived of the benefit of prior
consultation by the Foundation.
''Consequently,
the Busia Foundation would be most advised to seek
the official input and mandate of the Assembly in determining how the
distinguished national icon could be honoured in the
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Investigations
have revealed that Interbeton BV, recently benefitting from an illegal tax exemption from the Ministry
of Roads and Transport and the Ministry of Finance in respect of the $60
million GPHA project, has been handcuffed by the Auditor General and the Post
Clearance Unit of the Custom Exercise and Preventive Service for violation of
previous tax exemptions granted them by Parliament.
According
to documents sighted by the Chronicle and confirmed by an Auditor General
report, Interbeton has been cited for tax evasion in
respect of the illegal sale of vehicles and equipment brought into the country
by
In
February 1999, the then Minister for Roads and Transport, E. K. Salia, sent a memorandum to Parliament seeking approval for
tax/duty exemptions for the rehabilitation of phase 4 of the Kumasi-Yeji road.
The
then minister, in his memorandum to Parliament, stated that “Honourable members
are respectively invited to consider and approve tax /duty exemptions contained
in the contract agreement for the rehabilitation of the phase 4 of the Gyato Zongo-Yeji road by
The
then minister reminded Parliament that the government of
In
the light of the above, the minister said that the project needed to be
exempted from all taxes on the contractor and the sub-contractor’s profits,
income tax for expatriate staff, taxes and duties on materials, equipment, plant
and vehicles including spare parts, lubricants and fuel.
According
to CEPS officials, by virtue of the fact that taxes on the above mentioned
items and equipment were waived by Parliament,
“The
rule is that if taxes are waived on these equipment,
they have to be sent back after completion of the project. You are not allowed
to sell these items in
But
there is documentary evidence that soon after
Last
year, the Ministry of Finance, headed by Osafo Maafo instructed the Auditor General to conduct a special
audit of the indebtedness of the government of
The
audit among other things, was to “determine the net amount payable to or recoverable
from Interbeton BV by way of overpayments on
government-awarded contracts and determine the tax liability of Interbeton BV in relation to withholding taxes, value added
tax and possibly, import duties”.
The
Auditor General’s report dated June last year, revealed that Interbeton BV’s indebtedness in respect of indirect taxes
was ¢730,436,604.
“The
indebtedness resulted from short collection assessed on unauthorized disposals
plus pecuniary penalties. This had prompted CEPS to send a monitoring team from
the Post Clearance Unit to conduct further investigations after receiving the
information on capital assets which had been disposed of without CEPS’
authorization” the report stated.
On
30 May, last year W. K. Akpabey, the assistant
commissioner/ auditor of CEPS wrote to the managing director of
“The
review will specifically cover import transactions during the period of 1999 to
date, specifically to determine the status of those equipment and motor
vehicles imported and exempted of duty/taxes” the letter stated.
The
CEPS team asked Interbeton to make available books,
records and documents such as Import and Clearing documents (bills of entry,
supplied Invoices, packaging lists, exemption letters), Purchase Ledger,
Inventory/Assets Records, Disposal records and any other relevant books of account.
Akpabey slapped a 300% pecuniary penalty on Interbeton
and gave the breakdown of the indebtedness as “Short collection - ¢182,609,151,
300% pecuniary penalty - ¢547,827,453”.
The
CEPS letter warned Interbeton that whiles awaiting
the audit review from the Post Clearance Unit and its outcome, “You should take
steps to settle the short collection plus pecuniary penalty within 14 days of
the date of this letter.”
When Chronicle contacted
“It
was a mistake and we accepted it. We were embarrassed and so we took measures
to prevent it from happening again.” Egas said. He
noted that perhaps the Interbeton officials who
committed the offence were ignorant of the fact that it was unlawful to sell an equipment, which had been exempted from duty/taxes by the
government.
According
to Egas, the company settled the bill on 10
September, last year adding that the pecuniary penalty of 300% was later
slashed down by CEPS.
It
is recalled that it is the same Ministry of Finance, which is in the center of a recent controversy for issuing another illegal
tax exemption certificate to
In
a story published in the Chronicle two weeks ago, the GPHA boss, Mr. Ben Owusu Mensah, Dr. Richard Anane, the immediate past Minister for Roads and the
Ministry of Finance were indicted for issuing another tax exemption certificate
to Interbeton without seeking Parliamentary approval.
– Chronicle
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