Kufuor’s comments on End of Service Benefit, TUC fires back
SSNIT Turns down Vibe FM Offer
Prof. Amoah urges African Gov’ts to invest in human resource
Police, CEPS officials clash over contraband goods
Government must submit to domestic pressures
-TUC
UN Sec-General calls on Africans to find solutions to their problems
"Wee" farming on the increase-
officer
"It is a demand that is consistent with the application of the fundamental right of workers to collectively bargain. Workers have simply called for the reintroduction of a facility that existed in the past and was frozen as a result of variety of circumstances," Mr Kwasi Adu-Amankwa, Secretary-General of the TUC, said at a press briefing in Accra in reaction to recent statements by President Kufuor on the ESB at Tamale.
President John Agyekum Kufuor was reported to have said that the government would not be held to ransom by unrealistic workers' demands. The Greater Accra Region Council of Labour last week asked its members to wear red bands and hoist red flags to back their demand for the restoration of the ESB.
Mr Adu-Amankwa described as " unsavoury" the president's comment that workers' leaders were deceiving their rank and file. "A statement like this tends to pitch workers against their leaders and is therefore potentially divisive."
He said the TUC was a responsible organisation that used democratic structures to decide and act. "It is therefore insulting to us to suggest that workers are being used by certain people to achieve their own agenda''.
Mr Adu-Amakwa said the TUC took a strong exception to this particular statement since history had shown it to be precursor to clamp down on workers' rights.
Some of the comments on the issue by the President constituted political intolerance just like the TUC's stand on water privation that was also condemned because it held a contrary view, he said.
"We will like to use this opportunity to remind the government that when Ghanaians voted for 'positive change' it included a healthier political culture that has tolerance as one of its key ingredients."
Mr Adu Amankwa said genuine democracy demands that the government mediates between the competing interests and pressures that come from different sections of the people.
"Indeed we believe that it does a democratic government more credit to 'kowtow' to and negotiate pressures with different sectors of the population than to pressures from international financial institutions".
He said the red bands and hoisting of the flags was called for by the Tema West Union after a letter to the government on the ESB was not replied to and that the decision was not nationwide as being assumed.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 19 November 2001 - Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) on Monday said it has turned down an offer from Questfine Ventures, operators of Vibe FM to take up shares in the company as a means of recovering the debt it owes SSNIT.
Vibe FM owes SSNIT 506 million cedis as rent since 1997, for their offices on the first and eighth floor, which used to be in the Trust Towers in Adabraka. The amount includes court charges.
The Ghana News Agency quotes sources at SSNIT told the media that it was not the best option for it to go into any form of partnership with Vibe FM. "It is possible that we could make some investments and therefore have returns on them, it is not prudent to do business with a company such as Vibe FM."
The Accra FM station with a high staff turnover, currently transmits from a small office in the Ghana Classifieds building at Kanda. This was after SSNIT moved the "Soul of the Capital" station out of their Trust Towers residence based on a court order. Officials of the Trust said the company's equipment would have to auctioned "if they are unable to settle the debt in good time."
The source said Vibe FM has still not paid the money, adding that SSNIT will this week find out if the possible bail out by Graphic Communications Group is still among options opened to the radio station.
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Prof. Amoah urges African Gov’ts to invest
in human resource
Bunso (Eastern Region), 19 November 2001 - A former Deputy Director-General of GIMPA, Professor S.A. Amoah, on Saturday said Africa's desire to achieve poverty alleviation, peace and justice would remain a mirage, unless there was adequate, and appropriate human resource base.
"Africa has natural resources which have been left untapped due to the absence of competent managerial capacity to exploit them for economic development".
He, therefore, urged African governments to devote more resources in developing appropriate human resource in order to achieve maximum benefit.
Prof. Amoah was addressing over 500 participants from Ghana, including observers from Togo, Benin and Britain, who were attending a National Congress of the Ghana United Nations Association (GUNA) at Bunso in the Eastern Region.
Speaking on the topic "African Integration and Renaissance: The Human Resource Capacity Building for its realisation," he said Africa's road to economic emancipation could be achieved when the continent's human resource base was re-fashioned with skills.
This, Prof. Amoah said would result in the harnessing of natural resources to service the needs of the people. He suggested that African countries should restructure and strengthen their training and educational institutions, so as to make the people responsive to challenges ahead.
Prof. Amoah expressed the need for a vibrant and viable civil society that could play effective advocacy in any developmental effort adding, with the weak status of such organisations, they could not serve as the necessary catalyst as expected.
He said failure to adopt such measures would worsen the unemployment situation and "breed mediocrity among the professional ranks".
Prof. Amoah said unemployment for instance, persists because "most people, particularly young school leavers, did not possess the requisite skills to enter or cope with the job market.
"The private sector also lacked skills in entrepeneurship, production, management, marketing, accounting and information management", he added.
He said poor education facilities and lack of funding for improvement had resulted in lack of education for 125 million children of school-going age on the continent.
This, he said, had culminated in over 41 per cent illiteracy rate and a growing population and high infant mortality rate, of 151 of every 1,000 children dying before the age of five.
Professor Amoah enumerated other issues that affect productivity including low retention of capacity due to poor remuneration, ineffective utilisation of few skills and inadequate creation of economic infrastructure.
He said 70 per cent of doctors as well as 400 nurses trained by the government migrate to European countries and last year, 321 pharmacists left government service.
He, therefore, called on political leaders to create the enabling working conditions, devoid of harassment in order to retain professionals.
The Management expert advised that all actions taken by governments in arresting the situation must meet the structures of labour markets through an interplay of standardisation of training, transferability of skills and ability to re-learn.
The Secretary General of GUNA, Mr Mike Awuah Asamoah said the association was re-directing its efforts from a mobilisation agent to a job-creation organ.
He said it would "preach and promote the ideals of the government's concept of "Golden age" of business. President of the association, Nana (Col.) Takyi Ameyaw the second, stressed the determination of GUNA to help promote peace and development in the world.
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Police, CEPS officials clash over
contraband goods
Aflao, (Volta Region) 19 November 2001- There was a controversy on Thursday between three Officials of Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) and two policemen at the CEPS barracks at Aflao over alleged contraband goods seized by the police from smugglers.
The confrontation was over which of the two institutions, has the authority to handle smugglers who have been arrested with goods.
When the Ghana News Agency (GNA) got to the scene, there was an exchange of words with each side claiming to have authority to handle smugglers.
The suspected carriers were released by the CEPS personnel who said the police should have first handed them over to the CEPS and not go into any negotiation with them for the release of the goods
Mr Amissah-Koomson, Assistant Commissioner of CEPS in-charge of Aflao, told the GNA that though the law empowers the police to arrest smugglers the same law was explicit that they should be handed over to the CEPS for prosecution.
Mr Ransford Ninson, District Superintendent of Police in charge of Aflao on his part, said that every law including the arrest and handling of smugglers comes directly under the police.
He said, however, that about four years ago, the government issued a directive that smugglers arrested by the police should be handed over to the CEPS.
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Government must submit to domestic
pressures -TUC
Sunyani (Brong Ahafo) 19 November 2001 - Mr. Kwasi Adu-Amankwaa, Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on Friday said it would be a credit to the government to respond to domestic pressures than to yield to those of international financial institutions.
"The government would perform better to respond to the demands of workers than to attribute political motives to our genuine and legitimate demands like the End-of-Service Benefit (ESB), he told a meeting of the Brong Ahafo Regional Council of Labour.
The one-day meeting reviewed the activities of the Council and dilated on other national issues that affect the wellbeing of workers.
Mr. Adu-Amankwaa emphasised that a major role of any democratically-elected government was to mediate between competing interests and pressures of different segments of its population.
The TUC boss, however, pledged the support of the workers to enable the government to plug leakages in its revenue generation system to help meet the demands of workers for better conditions of service.
That would be possible, if the government is able to identify where the leakages are, since it has the machinery to do so, he added.
Mr. Albright Opoku-Kyeremeh, regional chairman of the Council advised workers to study more about their rights and responsibilities to know and understand issues and policies that affected their socio-economic lives.
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UN Sec-General calls on Africans to find
solutions to their problems
Bunso (Eastern Region) 19 November 2001 - The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has reiterated his conviction that African problems, required African solutions and resourcefulness.
"Although the commitment of the international community is crucial, we must also know that African problems require African solutions", he said in a message to a two-day National Congress of the Ghana United Nations Association (GUNA) currently going on at Bunso Cocoa College in the Eastern Region.
The congress, under the theme " African Integration, Poverty Alleviation-Dynamics of the peace process in Africa: the role of civil society and GUNA".
It is the first to be held in five years and seeks to charter a new course for the association from a mobilisation agent to a wealth creation organisation.
Mr Annan said solving African problems hinged on and required "all the creativity, wisdom and resourcefulness the continent has to offer."
The Nobel Laureate affirmed his determination to make African issues a priority of his administration.
He called on civil societies to rise and face the challenge of harnessing their talent and energy for development of the continent because of the indispensable contribution they could make in peace building and poverty alleviation.
The UN Sec-General described GUNA as a "shining example of Ghana's long tradition of steadfast support for the United Nations and active engagement in
our work."
The work of the association, Mr Annan added, should be a source of encouragement to all to put the principles of the UN Charter into practise.
The Secretary-General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Mr Adu Amankwah, in a solidarity message read on his behalf, commended Mr Annan for his pioneering work in ensuring equitable and just society.
He called for a concerted effort amongst civil societies to encourage tribal tolerance in partisan politics.
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"Wee" farming on the increase- officer
Sunyani (Brong Ahafo) 19 November 2001 - Many farmers in Brong Ahafo Region consider the cultivation of Indian Hemp (marijuana) more lucrative than maize.
Mr. Amadu Salifu, Brong Ahafo Police Crime Officer, who made the assertion on Friday said many farmers had thus continued with the "business," despite its illegality.
He was speaking at the launch of the regional education campaign on drug abuse for the youth in Sunyani.
The programme, organised jointly by the Regional Health Administration and the World Health Organisation (WHO), was under the theme, ''youth against drugs - I am drugs free''.
It was attended by students from the Sunyani Polytechnic and selected secondary schools in the region. The Crime Officer emphasised that though the problem of smoking of Indian Hemp in the region was serious, its cultivation was worse.
In a speech read for him, Dr. Melville George, WHO representative in Ghana noted that the complexities and scope of the drug problem required an equally complex and integrated solution.
The problem is pervasive, which cuts across geographical and cultural boundaries, hence, it is essential to involve communities and Primary Health care systems in the policies for prevention, care and rehabilitation, he said. Dr. George urged communities to be prepared and equipped to treat and care for victims of the menace.
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