Paul
Boateng joins British Cabinet
Buruli Ulcer patients to pay cost of treatment
Anti-corruption and good governance seminar opens in Accra
Ghana Health Service urges media to help in anti-tobacco crusade
Time to promote Ghanaian food - Osei-Bonsu
Churches urged to encourage wealth creation
Holy Ghost Miracle Centre International inaugurated
International Peace Support Operations course opens
Catholic Church is a reliable partner - Churcher
British High Commission to be closed for two days
Short-term training for unemployed persons soon
Use of Accra International Conference Centre closed temporarily
Paul Boateng joins British Cabinet
London
(United Kingdom) 28 May 2002 - Paul Boateng, is the new Chief Secretary to the
Treasury, and becomes the first black Cabinet minister in Britain. Born in
Hackney, London, Boateng spent much of his childhood in Ghana where he attended
Labone Secondary School. Now aged 49, he has been a member of the Labour Party
since 15.
He was
educated at Bristol University (where he was President of the Debating Union)
and a Barrister by profession. Boateng has since 1987 been an MP for Brent
South, a strongly pro-Labour constituency in the inner city of London, and was
the first person of African descent to be elected to the British parliament.
When Boateng
was promoted to his first ministerial position as Junior Health Minister in
1997, he told Ghana Review International in an exclusive interview that he was
delighted to be appointed. Asked if he had a message for Ghanaians and in
particular readers of Ghana Review International, Boateng, whose father was a
cabinet minister in Nkrumah’s government in the First Republic of Ghana, he
paid glowing tribute to his parents and did not mince words on his sense of
gratitude to them. He praised the high level of education in Ghana and said he
is grateful to all.
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Agroyesum (Ashanti Region) 28 May 2002 - Buruli Ulcer patients from outside the Amansie West District of Ashanti would now have to pay the full cost of treatment at the Saint Martin's Hospital at Agroyesum in spite of the government's exemption policy.
The decision, described by the hospital's Management as painful and unfortunate, has become necessary to prevent work at the hospital grinding to a virtual halt. Dr Samuel Atuafful, the Medical Superintendent, announced this during a pastoral visit to the facility by the Apostolic Nuncio in-charge of Ghana and Togo, the Most Reverend George Kocherry on Monday.
The decision, he said, followed Ministry of Health pegging at eight million cedis a month, refunds on exemptions in respect of Buruli ulcer treatment. Dr Atuafful said between January and May, 23 million cedis that should have been refunded under the exemptions policy remained unpaid as a result of the Ministry's position. "This certainly cannot be allowed to continue."
He said about 60 per cent of people suffering from the debilitating ulcer, who report for treatment at the hospital come from outside its catchment area. The Medical Superintendent said they have, therefore, taken a firm decision not to admit or treat such patients unless they paid deposits.
Mr Emmanuel Taadi, the Hospital Administrator, complained about the poor staffing situation saying instead of the mandated minimum of 60 qualified nurses it had less than 15. "The situation is so pathetic that much against the norm the hospital had had to engage as many as 27 ward assistants most of whom are used in nursing capacities".
The NPP Government had promised during its electioneering campaign to introduced a more humane health care delivery system by scraping the Cash and Carry system introduced by the previous government of the NDC, but that promise is yet to be fulfilled. The hospital, established in 1957 as a maternity home by the Dutch Missionaries, now serves a population of about 108,100 people from over 150 communities. The Most Rev Kocherry officiated at a mass wedding for 15 couples.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - A five day programme on anti-corruption and good governance aimed at equipping participants with skills for monitoring and investigating integrity breaches, opened in Accra on Monday.
Senior level legal personnel, human rights activists and journalists among other groups are attending the seminar, organised for civil society leaders from Ghana, Nigeria and Mali. It is being organised by the Les Aspin Centre for Government, an international education-training institute and sponsored by USAID.
Mrs Brooks Anne Robinson, Charge D' Affairs of the US Embassy in Accra, noted that systems and institutions were needed to discourage and punish corrupt behaviour while encouraging transparency and accountability. She said civil society organisations had to promote the anti-corruption agenda in public and among key government officials. "Here in Ghana, for starters, we would like to see the government's code of conduct formally adopted, promulgated and implemented.
"We would also like to see the government held to its promise of establishing an office of government accountability and integrity," Mrs Robinson said. Mrs Robinson said USAID had funds to support the implementation of the code of conduct for government officials, which had been drawn up. What was left was for the organisation of an executive integrity retreat with Transparency International and its local affiliate, Ghana Integrity Initiative, she said.
"We know a code of conduct has been drafted and the purpose of the retreat is to create awareness and commitment to it. We await Ghana government's indication of its readiness to take this up." Mrs Robinson said the US government considered strong systems of accountability to be key elements of good governance. She said corruption was highly destructive and discouraged investments, slowed economic development, disrupted and "warps the decision-making process and also creates disaffection among citizens."
Mrs Robinson noted that, even though, modalities on President George Bush's new millennium account involving an investment of five billion dollars were not entirely worked out, the funds would be targeted to a handful of countries, which had made progress in building strong institutions of accountability.
Dr Cephas Lerewonu, Director of Africa Programmes of the Les Aspin Centre, said one of the aims of the seminar was to provide participants with practical skills for strengthening the anti-corruption and good governance. He explained that participants would learn about the linkages among good governance, politics and corruption.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - The National Media Commission (NMC) said on Tuesday it found no evidence of misappropriation or malfeasance on the part of Mr Robert Kafui Johnson, General Manager of the Ghana News Agency (GNA), and directed an Accra independent newspaper, The Statesman, which published the allegations to retract the stories.
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Mr Nutifafa Kuenyehia, the Commission ordered the Statesman to render an unqualified apology to Mr Johnson within 14 days. "The said retraction and apology should be given front-page prominence and should be published in two consecutive editions of the newspaper."
This followed the resolution of a complaint lodged by Mr Johnson against the newspaper in respect of stories it published on 16 January, this year headed "GNA sacks senior officer for spilling the beans," and another on 22 January, headlined "Pay scandal at GNA--Workers paid less than management claimed from Accountant-General."
In the 16 January story, the Statesman alleged that Mr Johnson had spent over 200 million cedis to refurbish his official residence at Cantonments in Accra at a time the organisation was in need of cash to purchase operational tools.
The Statesman further alleged on 22 January that the GNA management had been slashing salaries of workers, paying them less than the amount claimed from the Controller and Accountant-General's Department. "The General Manager, Mr Kafui Johnson may be defrauding workers to the tune of billions of cedis."
In his complaint to the commission, Mr Johnson, who produced evidence to deny the allegations, stated that the publication created the impression that he was corrupt and was involved in malpractice at the GNA. He said the publication, which was discussed extensively on radio, were premeditated, malicious and in bad faith and he sought a complete retraction of the stories and an apology from the Statesman.
The statement said Mr Amfo Kwakye, then Managing Director of Kinesic Communications, publishers of the Statesman, stated that the publications were not meant to tarnish the image of Mr Johnson and presented documents purported to be evidence for its claims when it appeared before the commission.
However, the commission said it found out "as a fact" that the stories as published by the Statesman could not be substantiated by the documents it made available. "There was no evidence of misappropriation or malfeasance on the part of Mr Kafui Johnson as alleged by the Statesman," the Commission wrote.
It established that the Public Works Department undertook the renovation of the bungalow, which had been duly allocated to the GNA by the government and adequate documentation was produced. The Commission observed that the Statesman and its source "do not appear to be conversant with the financial administration in the public service".
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - The Ghana Health Service (GHS) on Tuesday appealed to the media to help in the crusade against tobacco advertisements. A letter signed by Professor A. B. Akosa, Director-General of the GHS, said in response to scientifically proven risks posed by smoking to the health of smokers as well as non-smokers, the GHS, the World Health Organisation and their collaborators have embarked on " resolute course to combat this scourge".
It said 31 May of every year is celebrated as "World No Tobacco Day" to focus on the tobacco epidemic. This year's theme is: "Tobacco Free Sports: Play it Clean" and it seeks to draw public attention to "the nefarious advertisement strategies" of tobacco companies through sponsorship packages to sporting clubs and events and also to television stations.
The letter said GHS was making a special appeal to the media to contribute towards the fight against tobacco advertisements. "Contributions could be in the form of announcements, publicity, discussions, debate and possibly a whole programme on banning tobacco advertisements and de-linking it from sports activities and personalities."
It appealed to TV stations to screen films on the health hazards of tobacco during the week of the launch. The Minister of Health would launch the day at the Kaneshie Sports Complex on 7 June.
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Kumasi (Ahanti Region) 28 May 2002 - Mr Charles Osei-Bonsu, Deputy Executive Director of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) in-charge of finance and administration, said on Monday that it was now time for Ghana to promote her food culture to give tourists memorable stay in the country.
He said, however, that this could only be achieved if the numerous snack bars, restaurants, hotels and chop bars served hygienic food in decent and clean environment. Mr Osei-Bonsu was opening a three-day workshop on hygiene training for food handlers drawn from hotels, restaurants and traditional caterers in the Kumasi Metropolis.
The workshop is aimed at equipping food handlers with the requisite environmental hygiene practices to help reduce the increasing incidence of typhoid, cholera and other food related diseases in recent times. The 30 participants would be taken through introduction to food hygiene, food processing and microbiology, prevention of contamination and poisoning, personal hygiene, cleaning and disinfecting premises and equipment of food pests and food safety legislation.
Mr Osei-Bonsu noted that many more people ate from outside their homes now than before, indicating the growth and importance of the fast food industry. He said, however, that it had been realised that through ignorance or negligence, food handlers had visited food borne diseases on people.
As food science operators, Mr Osei-Bonsu said they had a moral obligation to ensure that the food they served their customers was wholesome and safe. He said there was also a legal obligation since the country's law empowered the environmental Unit of the Ministry of Health to visit hotels, restaurants and chop bars to ensure that their kitchens and surroundings were healthy, safe and environmentally acceptable.
The GTB could also cause the closure of hotels and restaurants that did not keep healthy kitchens and environment. Mr Osei-Bonsu said the best way to build customer confidence and save money was to keep their kitchens, equipment and surroundings in good condition.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - Dr. David Ogbamey-Tetteh, Senior Vice President and Head of Research of Data Bank Financial Services, on Monday urged churches to encourage wealth creation through entrepreneurial skills development to supplement the government's poverty reduction programmes.
He said although they had played an important role in the establishment of hospitals and educational institutions, one vital area, which had not gained the necessary attention of churches had been that of wealth creation. Dr. Ogbamey-Tetteh was speaking at the opening of a weeklong business seminar in Accra on the theme, "Wealth creation through entrepreneurial skills development."
The Word Miracle Church International (Circle Branch), in collaboration with the Leadership Development Institute (LDI) organised the seminar. "The church should neither shy away from wealth creation nor consider it as crude or secular," Dr. Ogbamey-Tetteh said, adding that so far as manner no longer fell from heaven, there certainly was the need to create wealth.
He pointed out that aid was no sustainable way to deal with poverty, saying, "rather than look to a benefactor's whims, we need to take charge of our destiny, work with our own hands and rely on the everlasting arms of the Almighty God." Ghanaians must not only pray for the nation but also play their roles to lift the nation's fortunes, he said adding that, "The agenda for wealth creation is an all inclusive affair."
Apostle Hansen Adjei-Frimpong, Head pastor of the church, said in everyone's life, success was a choice but not a gift. Dr. Spencer Duncan, President of LDI, said a person's performance was determined by his perception and that it was important to have access to information that could influence that perception positively to enhance financial progress.
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Agona Swedru (Central Region) 28 May 2002 - A branch of the Netherlands-based Holy Ghost Miracle Centre International has been commissioned at Agona Swedru to cater for the well being of members in addition to providing salvation.
Commissioning it, the General Overseer of the church, Apostle Justice Billy Nyakoh, who flew in from Amsterdam, said its mission was to help the poor by establishing small-scale industries and training unskilled members to enable them to acquire skills to better their lot.
He said the church would establish an orphanage in Swedru adding that a land had been acquired for the project. Others project envisaged by the church included a computer school to be established in Swedru to train orphans and school dropouts in the district to take advantage of the global computer age.
Apostle Nyarkoh said the church would join hands with the body of Christ to help the government to fight HIV/AIDS. This, he believed, would give true meaning to Christianity by helping the poor and needy in the society. For example he said the church would reach out to needy children and single parents. Apostle Nyakoh said with assistance from its headquarters in Holland, the church would sponsor orphans in the community from their primary education up to university level.
The Reverend Ebenezer Nyakoh, Head Pastor of the Swedru branch of the church, said membership had increased from 10 to 300. He called for unity and peace among the pastors in order to raise the image of Christ, who came to die for the people, cautioning that without unity, false prophets would infiltrate the church and destroy the souls. The church has five branches in Holland, three in South America and one in the United Kingdom.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on Monday said recent developments in Africa suggest that the current crop of leaders emerging on the continent were genuinely committed to bringing hope of regeneration to the continent. Under the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) African leaders ought to be determined to make fresh efforts to move the continent out of its present predicament and "marginalisation", he said.
Mr Owusu-Agyemang, who was opening an International Peace Support Operations Course (IPSO) organised by the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC) for selected senior military officers in the sub-region at Teshie, near Accra, said peace was an absolute pre-requisite for the continent's development.
The countries include: Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, Sierra Leone and the United States. The United Kingdom, Germany and Ghana governments are sponsoring the three-week course, the third in the series. It is aimed at harmonising training and support systems and inter-operations of equipment of armies to enhance the capacity and capability of African countries to respond to conflict situations.
Mr Owusu-Agyemang said NEPAD had identified peace and security as indispensable conditions for the sustainable development of Africa, emphasising that the building of Africa's capacity to manage all aspects of conflicts must focus on the means necessary to strengthen existing regional and sub-regional institutions.
To achieve this, he said, discussions were taking place among member states of the African Union on how to strengthen the mechanism for conflict prevention, management and resolution. Mr Owusu-Agyemang noted that capacity building remained a key component in the effort to develop the appropriate framework to respond to conflict situations and peace building on a sustainable basis.
He noted that the broad geographical spread of participants represented at the course underscored the growing acceptance of the collective responsibility of the international community for conflict resolution and peacekeeping.
The Foreign Minister said as more countries became involved in peacekeeping operations, there was the need for the harmonisation of procedures, especially where training was concerned. The IPSO, he said, would provide an opportunity for the officers from various regions to share experiences and obtain a better appreciation of security issues and problems confronting their counterparts and their approaches to solutions.
Participants would be taken through a series of topics that include: "Conflict Resolution"; "Military Policing", "Rules Of Engagement"; "Negotiating Techniques" and "Principles Of Operations". Other areas are "Peacemaking, Peacekeeping And Peace Enforcement", "Post-Conflict Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction" and "Combating. The Illicit Proliferation Of Small Arms, Light Weapons And Landmines". Resource persons are drawn from the UK, UN and the US.
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Obuasi (Ashanti Region) 28 May 2002 - Miss Christine Churcher, Minister of State in-charge of Basic, Secondary and Girl-Child Education, has described the Catholic Church as a reliable partner in girls' education.
She said for instance that out of the 20 public girls' secondary schools in the country, the Catholic Church had 10. Miss Churcher was speaking at a fund-raising rally organised by the Obuasi Diocese of the Catholic Church in aid of an education complex for girls sited at Kwabenakwakrom, near Obuasi.
The Most Reverend Thomas Kwaku Mensah, Bishop of Obuasi initiated the school complex from kindergarten to senior secondary school as part of efforts to promote girls' education in the area.
Already, work on the kindergarten is about to be completed and the fund-raising ceremony coincided with the pastoral visit to the diocese by the Most Reverend George Kocherry, Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana and Togo.
Miss Churcher said the fund-raising "further deepened the church's commitment to building a future full of hope, honour and dignity for the Ghanaian girl-child". She expressed the ministry's preparedness to assist in ensuring the successful take off of the educational complex.
Mr P.V. Obeng, a former Presidential Advisor on Governmental Affairs and a citizen of the area, donated five million cedis while Miss Churcher contributed 2.5 million cedis during an appeal for funds, which yielded 82 million cedis.GNA
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - All Sections of the British High Commission would be closed to the public from Monday, 3 June to Tuesday, 4 June 2002. A statement from the Press and Public Affairs Section of the Commission in Accra on Monday said the holiday was in connection with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth's accession.
The Commission would, however, be re-opened on Wednesday, 5 June with the Visa Section opening from 7:30am to 10:30am on week days, the Consular Section from 7:30am to 12:30am while all other sections would be opened from 7:30am to 14:30am.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister of Manpower Development and Employment, on Saturday announced that the Ministry would soon introduce short-term competency based training for registered unemployed persons.
"Preliminary examination of the information obtained from the registration exercise that took place last year has confirmed that majority of unemployed persons lack skills and need to be trained," the Minister said at the 27th Annual Certification and 30th anniversary celebration of the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre (OIC) in Accra, during which 735 students graduated.
Mrs Bannerman noted that unemployment was a canker that had plagued the nation for many years and said the government was working to reverse the trend, adding that to meet the demand for increased skills training, the Ministry had already taken steps to expand and improve community-based skills development programmes and to also establish at least a development centre in each district.
Mrs. Bannerman said, so far 25 new centres had been established in addition to the existing 66, adding that 10 new National Vocational Training Institutes had also been set up in the country.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - The use of the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) for events has been suspended temporarily owing to rehabilitation works, a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.
The statement read: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to announce for the information of the general public that owing to rehabilitation works at the Accra International Conference Centre, hosting of events and meetings at theCentre has been temporarily suspended until further notice."
The AICC, which was opened in 1991 during the Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, hosts major conferences, workshops, meetings and other social functions.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May 2002 - Mrs Helena Obeng Asamoah, Supervisor of the Osu Children's Home at the weekend called for immediate governmental support to redeem the Home from its financial difficulties.
She said, governmental support of five million cedis yearly was "dangerously inadequate" to cater for the about 134 children at the Home. Mrs Asamoah made the call at a presentation of over one million cedis worth of assorted food items to the Home at the weekend by the Youth of Faith Foundation International as part of it annual week celebrations.
She said the home spent over 15 million cedis monthly on food, utilities and medical bills and thus survived on the benevolence of society. Pastor Seth Baah Agyekum, a pastor of the Foundation, who presented the items, pledged the continuous support of the Church and called on others to assist in caring for the children.
He noted that children were gift from God and needed the best care, love, affection and a general healthy environment to grow irrespective of their background. Pastor Agyekum said the government; parents and the society were losing control over the proper upbringing of children and called for an immediate national youth development programme to educate all stakeholders on their responsibilities.
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