GRi Newsreel 03 – 09 - 2002
National Reconciliation Commission begins work
End of service benefit restored
Ghana calls for partnerships with developed
countries
The poor must be considered in private participation in water supply
National Reconciliation Commission begins
work
Accra (Greater Accra) 03 September 2002- The National Reconciliation Commission
(NRC), started work at its zonal offices on Tuesday, 03 September an official
statement said. The statement said the Commission, instituted to seek and
promote national reconciliation, would start receiving statements and petitions
from alleged victims of human rights violations during periods of
unconstitutional governments and other periods between 06 March 1957 and 06
January 1993.
It said the offices would be opened from 8:30am to 12:30pm
and 1pm to 5pm on working days and appealed to alleged victims to co-operate
with the staff. The offices are located at House No. H1/A, Medical Village
Road, Awatidome, off Ho-Keta Road in Ho for Volta and Eastern Regions and
Freeman Centre for Leadership Development, Opposite Wesley College in Kumasi
for Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions.
The rest are former GNTC (R.T Briscoe) Building above Ghana
Commercial Bank, Market Circle Branch in Takoradi for Western and Central
Regions; Regional Co-ordinating Council Office (Regional Administration)
Building in Tamale for Northern Region; and SSNIT Building in Bolgatanga for
Upper East and Upper West Regions.
In the Greater Accra Region, statements and petitions
could be filed at the Commission's Secretariat located at the Independence
Square. The NRC, apart from seeking and promoting national reconciliation,
would also make recommendations to the President for reparation for those
wronged.
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End of service benefit restored
Accra (Greater Accra) 03 September 2002- The National Tripartite Committee,
representing the government, organised labour and employers, on Monday
recommended the introduction of a new End of Service Benefit (ESB) scheme to
supplement the SSNIT pension scheme. The scheme, the Committee said, should be
agreed upon at the enterprise level and its terms negotiated in accordance with
the principles of free collective bargaining.
A communiqué issued at the end of
a meeting at which members of the Tripartite Committee considered the report of
its Technical Sub-Committee on ESB, said enterprises should set up funds for
the payment of the new ESB.
Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister of
Employment and Manpower Development, who represented the government side, Mr
Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, Secretary-General of Trades Union Congress (ESB) and Mr Ato
Ampiah, representatives of organised labour and employers respectively, signed
the communiqué.
In negotiating for the ESB, the
Committee said, parties should be mindful that the new scheme would not
jeopardise the financial viability of their enterprises. The Tripartite
Committee said it would initiate steps for the government to consider making
employers' and or employees' contributions to these ESB schemes tax exempt. All
funds accruing to the scheme, the Committee said, should be managed separately
and independent of the enterprise.
It said, "employees should as
much as practicable have access to the benefits under the new scheme only when
leaving the service of their employer", and encouraged parties at the
enterprise level to explore the possibilities of modifying the operations of
existing supplementary schemes to emphasise their terminal character.
Commenting on the previous ESB,
which was frozen in 1990, the Tripartite Committee said, "there were real
problems and difficulties with many of the ESB schemes that existed before the
termination, especially in relation to their management and sustainability as regard
funding of the schemes.
Following a Bipartite agreement
between the government and the TUC in 1990, the ESB scheme was terminated after
payment of benefits negotiated at the enterprise levels.
The termination of the ESB scheme
attracted mixed feelings and agitation from workers; especially those that were
deemed disqualified by their enterprises, and, therefore received no benefits
at all from their employers.
Workers, consequently, welcomed
the announcement by the government last year that the ESB scheme would be
restored, following which the Tripartite Committee convened to consider the
issue.
The Tripartite Committee said the
ESB was restored to provide an enhanced financial security for the worker in
retirement as a means of promoting equity, higher productivity and loyalty
within the establishment or organisation.
In an interview with the GNA, Mr
Adu-Amankwah said the terms and benefits under the scheme would not be
universal in nature, but would be determined at the enterprise level, adding
that positive features of the old scheme could be incorporated.
He said enterprises with
collective bargaining power whose agreements were due for renegotiation could
start considering the ESB for inclusion in their reviewed agreements. Mr Ampiah
urged workers to be willing to contribute to the scheme so that their employers
would be encouraged to play their part and for the scheme to be sustainable.
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Ghana calls for
partnerships with developed countries
From E. Kojo Kwarteng,
Johannesburg, South Africa
Accra (Greater Accra) 03 September
2002- Ghana on Monday called for specific partnerships between developing,
advanced countries and private financial providers to ensure sustained
accelerated socio-economic development. The Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama,
made the call when he addressed the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
He said a supportive international
environment in micro-economic policy-making, market access, debt relief, flow
of private capital capacity building and human resource development were
critical for the growth of the economy.
Alhaji Mahama was accompanied by
the First Lady, Mrs Theresa Kufuor, Foreign Minister, Mr Hackman
Owusu-Agyemang, Minister of Environment and Science, Professor Dominic Fobih,
Minister of Lands and Forestry, Professor Kassim Kasanga, Minister of Economic
Planning and Regional Integration, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom and Mrs Cecilia Dapaah of
the Office of the President.
He called for the extension of the
mandate of the United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Development
Programme, United Nations Habitat and other organisations to ensure sustainable
development by supporting capacity building for the implementation of the
Global Agenda for Development.
The Vice President urged the
international community to support the NEPAD initiative, which he said
represented a framework for Africa's development. He said the support was
necessary for the protection, management and development of coastal, marine and
forest eco-systems in Africa.
Alhaji Mahama urged the World
leaders at the summit to focus on "delivery by negotiating a tangible
programme of realistic outcomes with time bound measures and identified
financing sources and levels to implement agreed outcomes that will accelerate
the achievement of sustainable development goals including those of the
Millennium Summit".
"The gains of globalisation
have not been equitable; economic reforms have not realised the desired growth
as poverty has not reduced; trade liberalisation has become the target of
protests as Africa's already small share in world trade has regressed into
insignificance," he said.
He said Ghana was committed to the
Rio Convention in 1992 and had since its ratification developed a comprehensive
legislative and institutional framework and other social policies as well as
created and empowered the Ministry of the Environment and Environmental Protection
Agency to police the environment.
Measures had been taken to
conserve biodiversity, manage biotechnology, protect oceans and coastal waters
and their resources, freshwater bodies and resources and to manage hazardous
waste.
President Olusegun Obasanjo of
Nigeria said sustainable development could not be realised so long as external
debt remained. He called for efforts towards the elimination of drought and
desertification, which had negative effect on agriculture and food security.
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe explained his policy of land reforms, which
he said were aimed at equitable sharing of resources between African farmers
and others.
He said some white farmers owned
between 15 and 30 farms while some indigenous Zimbabwean farmers did not have
any, saying, "sustainable development is not possible without land
reforms". "We want to be friends and not enemies. Let Africans come
first in development. We fought for rule of law and democracy and sovereignty
and we are prepared to fight to protect these," he said.
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The poor must be
considered in private participation in water supply
Accra (Greater Accra) 03 September 2002- Dr Charles Biney, Director of the
Water Research Institute (WRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research on Monday said any attempt to privatise the water market must take
into account the basic needs of the poor.
He endorsed Government's
invitation to the private sector to participate in water service delivery but
stressed that it must ensure that participants went by the rules for financial
sustainability, transparency and efficiency.
Speaking to Journalists after
delivering a paper on the Africa Water Vision at a four-day seminar on urban
wastewater management, Dr Biney said private sector participation (PSP) in
water service delivery should not attract a blanket price for consumers but it
must consider the ability of the poor to pay.
More than 30 Stakeholders in the
water sector, including those from the food and beverage industries,
researchers, consultants, international water management experts and officials
from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are attending the seminar, which
is underway at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration
(GIMPA).
The seminar, which is via
satellite to Masters programme students in water management in the universities
of Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania and the University of Zimbabwe, is being organised
by the Civil Engineering Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science
and Technology and the Netherlands based UNESCO International Institute of
Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering.
Dr Biney said there had been an
improvement in urban water delivery system, but noted that treating and
managing waste water had over the years been more expensive than production. He
stressed that there was the need for stakeholders to adopt cost effective ways
to the urban wastewater management problem.
Dr Biney said the Public Utilities
Regulatory Commission (PURC) should not be the only agency to control water
service delivery, but rather should team up with other sectors, such as the WRI
the Water Sector Restructuring Committee (WSRC) among others institutions to
regulate the delivery.
Dr Biney expressed concern over
the high level of water contamination on the African continent and said this
was the result of industrial pollution, poor sanitation practices, discharges
of untreated sewage; solid waste thrown into drains and waste materials from
refuse dumps.
"As a result, concentrations
of waste frequently exceed the ability of rivers to assimilate them and water
borne and water based diseases are widespread" he said, adding that the
problem of environmental degradation went beyond poor water quality management.
Dr Biney indicated that the
requirements for water quantities and quality had not been considered in the
overall allocation of available water resources in a large part of Africa and
warned that the important roles played by wetlands in many rural economies were
being threatened by poor cultivation, deforestation and overgrazing.
He stressed the need to recognise
that eco-systems supported life and said available water resources should be
preserved for the support and sustenance of such systems.
Mr Nikoi Kotey, Executive
Secretary of the National Accreditation Board, who opened the seminar on behalf
of the Minister of Education, Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, said
attempts to address large quantities of wastewater in the urban centres had
proved futile due to the lack of knowledge, financial constraints, lack of
skills and incentives.
He announced that Government's was
making efforts to construct more freshwater treatment plants and to improve on
existing ones to cope with wastewater problems associated with urbanisation.
Prof Ameyaw-Akumfi called for a comprehensive approach to wastewater treatment
and re-use to include administrative and institutional framework within which
all stakeholders must operate.
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