Police Commander gives update on crime
Interpol Ghana says uncovers car-stealing syndicate
Bechem (Brong Ahafo) 09 November 2001 - Hundreds of people continue to besiege several centres in the Brong Ahafo Region in the on-going registration of unemployed and under-employed.
The rush, coupled with the cumbersome nature of the exercise has brought intense pressure on registration assistants, resulting sometimes in arguments between the officials and impatient members of the public.
Mr Martin Opoku, Regional Statistician and co-ordinator of the exercise and Mr Richard Obeng, Regional Labour Officer, on Wednesday toured centres in the Tano, Asutifi and Asunafo districts.
Mr Bernard Oduro, an official at a centre in Bechem complained that they have no time even for meals and the people even follow them to their homes in the night to be registered. He said about 2,000 people have so far been registered in the three centres in the district since the exercise begun this month.
At Kenyasi Number One, Mr Ben Blankson, Asutifi District Registration Officer, said about 1,545 unemployed people have been registered in the district. He complained about the non-payment of part of their allowances, as promised them.
At Goaso, Mr Randolph Wilson, Asunafo District Registration Officer, said about 1,489 people have been registered. Meanwhile, 40,000 additional registration forms, which were received in the region on Tuesday, have been distributed to the various registration centres.
In another development, the Sunyani District Assembly has decided to train four more assistants to speed up the exercise due to the growing number of unemployed at registration centres.
Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah, District Chief Executive, said on Thursday that some of the unemployed had been going to the centres as early as 1 A.M. and yet do not get registered.
He said the assembly would cater for the four officials from its resources. Mr Augustine Peprah, an official at one of the centres at Sunyani complained about the intense pressure on them and false information provided by some of the people.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 November 20001 - Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister of Information and Presidential Affairs, on Thursday decried the increasing number of African medical doctors and engineers in Europe and North America saying, "it is time to halt the intellectual flight."
He said Ghana and Nigeria for instance have more medical doctors and engineers working and contributing to the development of Europe and North America than they have at home.
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey was opening the 11th African Business Round (ABR) Table Conference in Accra under the theme: Regional Economic Integration and Private Sector Development in Africa".
The ABR, founded in Cairo in 1990 by Dr Babacar Ndiaye, is a continent-wide association of African business leaders. It is a non-profit association devoted to promoting the private sector in Africa.
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey urged African leaders to work harder to create equity in the flow of wealth and human capital to ensure that intellectual flight became a thing of the past and that Africans and people of African descent would feel proud and willing to invest on the continent.
He said Africa's fast declining human capital needed to be aggressively developed, using extraordinary measures "Extraordinary measures have to be taken to train and educate a large number of Africans to participate in the reconstruction of the continent," he said. "This capacity has to be created within the continent, possibly in an integrated manner at regional levels."
Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey stressed the need for Africans to start building and creating confidence in their own institutions, especially education, legal, financial and political systems. "These institutions must be strengthened to make them play optimum roles," he said.
"It is ridiculous that Africans spend millions of dollars educating their children abroad while our schools lack basic items such as pencils and pens not to count computers and printers."
He urged African leaders to start laying foundation for a better Africa. "An Africa that will be respected and self reliant and not a recipient of aid. An Africa whose children will be proud to be Africans and those who can confidently hold their own amongst the world's people."
Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Executive President of ABR, called for a road map "to our targeted objective of private sector empowerment and mobilisation by the public sector. It is the surest way to economic development."
He said first, there must be in place government-supported policy instruments governing rule of law and financial regulations and other policy frameworks conducive to international standards and practices.
He said transparency and accountability must not only be legislated but also fully backed by effective enabling instruments. "In other words, corruption and fraud must be openly punished and their negative impact on socio-economic progress vividly exposed."
Mr Sam Jonah, Chief Executive of Ashanti Goldfields who chaired the plenary sessions, appealed to Africans in the Diaspora to return and invest their monies in the reconstruction of the continent.
"It is only Africans abroad who can entice, encourage or motivate foreigners to come and invest in Africa. This they must do by first putting their own investments first."
He stressed the need for good governance, rule of law and the shedding of thoughts that make the activities of the private sector uncomfortable.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 November 2001 - The Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama left Accra on Thursday night for New York to attend the 56th Session of the United Nations General Assembly which opens on Saturday November 10.
The General Assembly, which was originally scheduled for the end of September, had to be postponed due to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, a statement signed by Andrew Awuni, Office of the Vice President, said on Thursday.
It said the Session would consider a wide range of global issues including disarmament, a report of the Economic and Social Council, the external debt crisis and development and the implementation of the UN first decade for the eradication of poverty.
"This assembly is the first after the re-election of Ghana's Kofi Annan as Secretary General to the UN for the second term," the statement said.
It said the vice president would use the opportunity to thank member states of the UN for reposing their trust and the destiny of the UN in the hands of Mr Annan. Alhaji Aliu is due back home on November 14.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 November 2001 - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Thursday called for cordial partnership between African governments and the private sector.
This, he said would enable the continent to join the mainstream of global development. This is crucial for the establishment of an investor friendly atmosphere to facilitate regular consultations between both sectors, enhance decision-making and strengthen the credibility of governments as promoter of business development, he added.
"The development of both the physical and technological infrastructure in Africa would be easier if both government and private sector work together," he said.
President Kufuor was speaking at a dinner held in honour of the participants attending the 11th African Business Roundtable (ABR) Conference at the Banquet Hall in Accra. The theme of the three-day Conference is, "Regional Economic Integration and Private Sector Development in Africa."
The ABR, established by the African Development Bank (ADB), in 1990, remains the premier continental-wide private sector organisation that has enjoyed international recognition.
President Kufuor said foreign investors monitor the activities of African businessmen and when they invest in their own countries and enjoy good relationship with their governments it would create congenial atmosphere for them to be more interested in the African economy.
"You must be the ones to display confidence in our economy before we could hope to attract foreigners to come and invest here. We therefore, cannot keep our monies in foreign banks and hope that the foreigners would bring their monies into our countries," he added.
He said when Africans invest in their countries, then the building blocks to get their economies right would then be properly put in place and this, coupled with the right policies, "good governance would spread in Africa."
"While capital enjoys good governance, it also prepares strong buoyant market, but Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa is under-developed and poorly resourced and this is why regional integration is crucial to attract both African and Foreign investments into our economy," he added.
President Kufuor said African governments have the responsibility to acknowledge the efforts of ABR, promote their undertakings and encourage them to use their network and creative vision to move their economies and create wealth hat would be beneficial to the people.
"We all have the responsibility to ensure that we have the right atmosphere for these businesses to flourish and that could only happen when the rule of law reigns supreme, have a judiciary that is respected by all, a legislature that is vigorous and a free and independent media, then the entrepreneurial skills would be able to compete with the rest of the world," he added.
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Ho (Volta Region) 09 November 2001 - Raymond Hesse, a member of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) on Thursday urged utility companies to apply the appropriate sanctions on government institutions which have defaulted in the payment of their bills.
The approach to recovering service charges should be the same for all consumers and there must be no discrimination, Mr Hesse said whiles contributing to discussions at a workshop on "Transitional Plan for Electricity Rate Adjustment and Quality Service Issues" for the Volta and Eastern Regions at Ho.
State organs such as the Ministries, Boards and Agencies have been listed as the major defaulters in utility service charges in the country.
Under a new government arrangement, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) withholds part of the subventions of Ministries, Boards and Agencies for direct payment of utility bills, especially electricity and water to their providers.
Mr Stephen N. Adu, Executive Secretary of the PURC said the new system of payment was effective, but noted that some departments still owed while some exceeded their approved targets.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 November 2001 - The Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, Dr Kofi Kesse Manfo, said on Thursday that armed robbery in Accra was under control since the police had stepped up foot and mobile day and night patrols.
Briefing the media in Accra, Dr Maafo said 19 robbery cases were reported to the police in October while four cases had so far been recorded for November. He said the trend now was car snatching and that at least five cases had been reported since October 1 most of which involved taxi cabs.
"What these robbers do is to snatch these vehicles, rob the drivers of their earnings, remove the car tapes and other valuable items in the car and later abandon the vehicles immediately or after they have been used for robbery".
Dr Manfo said on November 2 one Gideon Dorsu, 20, stole a taxi cab at Fadama and together with three other accomplices they robbed a lady of her bag containing 320,000 cedis.
In another incident two Nigerians, Mmaduko Mwali, 24, and Eze Obi 30 and a Ghanaian John Andoh, 41, boarded a bus on November 3 and at gunpoint robbed the driver Kwaku Afum of 90,000 cedis at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.
Dr Manfo said a joint police and military team arrested them and found two fully loaded pistols and five rounds of spare ammunition found on them.
Dr Manfo advised drivers to be circumspect about passengers they pick and avoid attractive fares. They should also be careful about passengers who ask to be taken to dark areas and at odd hours.
He said serious fraud cases were still common and appealed to the public to be cautious in their daily transactions. Dr Manfo said on October 27 two Indian men were defrauded of 354 million cedis under the pretext of changing it into 50,000 US dollars.
The suspect Adika has been arrested and remanded. On September 22 one Robert Ayeh, 22, was arrested for withdrawing 78.5 million cedis fraudulently with a Sika Card.
Dr Manfo said the threat posed by HIV/AIDS required the control of prostitution. Therefore, the police have embarked on an operation to rid the metropolis of prostitutes and those who solicited for immoral purposes.
Brothels, hotels and secluded areas have been swooped and a number of culprits have been arrested and charged. He said the police have begun an operation on traffic offences and so far 116 drivers have been arrested and charged.
Dr. Manfo said one Charles Rogers Oppong, a known "visa contractor" who police attempted to arrest, escaped. He said upon a tip off the police sent an agent who told Oppong he wanted a visa and he charged the agent 1,500 dollars.
When the money was being sent to pay him he suspected police presence and took to his heels, leaving his car. A search on his car revealed four Benin, one Swaziland, two Burkinabe, one Ivorian and 33 Ghanaian passports.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 09 November 2001 - Interpol Ghana said on Thursday that it had in collaboration with its foreign counterparts uncovered a syndicate operating in stolen cars in the country.
A statement issued in Accra said the group, which has partners overseas, takes delivery of these cars that were sometimes obtained through armed robbery and then shipped them to their accomplices in Ghana who cleared and sold them.
It said at the moment two of such vehicles had been impounded at the instance of the Interpol and were at the CID Headquarters.
One of them is a Mercedes Benz C 240 with registration number AL 700 UGH, Chassis number WDN2030611F17220 and engine number 11291230793855. This car, it said, was taken by armed robbers at gunpoint in Doplin Estates in Okoyi, Lagos, on December 12, 2000.
The other is Mitsubishi Pajero with chassis number JMBLYV78WIJ002540, with Belgium registration number FLY833. It belonged to Moorkens Car Division in Belgium and was stolen on October 16, 2000 in Belgium.
The statement said both cars were traced to the garage of Jobesh Car Rental Company owned by Joseph Ekow Baisie Haizel who was under investigations for allegedly being part of the syndicate that dealt in stolen cars from abroad.
It said the investigations had so far revealed that both cars which were bought and registered at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority had fake documents covering them.
The statement advised the public to crosscheck with Interpol Ghana when purchasing vehicles with doubtful documents cover. It said Interpol Ghana, under its obligations to the international community and law, would under no circumstance tolerate anyone or group of persons who through clandestine moves tried to use such cars in the country.
"Interpol would ensure that all cars that manage to reach the country through wrongful means of acquisition were investigated when notified by their counterparts abroad and appropriate action taken," the statement added.
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