Help save the child - President urges ECOWAS states.
Ho ready for NDC congress.
Make NMC first stop for complaints.
NPP, PNC, CPP, GCPP will be there.
Tony Aidoo's 'confession' … Konadu should have been presidential candidate.
Electoral commission must split, Kufour calls for regional electoral bodies.
Crises? What crises? Markets are busy and there are traffic jams - no real problem.
Church forms virgins club
Mills is battle ready!
Help save the child - President urges ECOWAS states.
The Daily Graphic says in its lead story that President Jerry John Rawlings has at a two-day ministerial conference on "War Affected Children in West Africa" organised in Accra, urged ECOWAS states to take the initiative to ratify the optional UN convention on the right of the Child.
This, he said, would help raise the minimum age for recruitment and participation of children in justifiable combat from 15 to 18 years.
He is said to have further called on ECOWAS leaders to commit themselves to the prevention of conflict in the sub-region and the continent as a whole.
President Rawlings described the cynical and calculated uses of drugs, fear and intimidation to turn innocent children into ruthless killing machines as horrible, adding, "we face the challenge of addressing the traumas they have experienced and finding ways and means of rehabilitating them"
He, therefore, stressed the need for the sub region to put the sordid past behind and take action to ensure that the people live in a future where regional co-operation, integration and development are real and attainable and where "children are armed with books and pencils rather than weapons of war."
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Ho ready for NDC congress.
In another front-page story, the Daily Graphic reports that all is set for tomorrow's extraordinary congress of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) slated for the Volta Regional capital, Ho.
According to the story, which was also carried by the Ghanaian Times and the Evening News on their front pages, the conference centre at the Dela Cathedral at Ho-Kpodzi, which has undergone extensive rehabilitation, is ready for the congress.
In addition, the story says, Ghana Telecom has also provided three booths at the forecourt of the cathedral to provide pay phone services to the people while a total of 12 telephone lines have been provided for communication services and live radio coverage. Four of the lines have been allocated to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and Radio Gold, an Accra based FM station, to run live commentary on the event.
It continues that all hotels and guesthouses have been fully booked and additional reservations have been made at Akosombo, Tsito, Dzodze and Agotime-Kpetoe to accommodate delegates.
Meanwhile, banners and posters of portraits of Professor John Atta-Mills, in party colours adorn the various suburbs of the town. The Regional Minister, Lt. Col. Charles Agbenaza, who said about 100,000 people are expected to attend the rally on Saturday, has expressed optimism that the congress will be successful.
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Make NMC first stop for complaints.
The Ghanaian Times says the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Justice D.F. Annan, has appealed to Ghanaians to make the National Media Commission (NMC) the first stop for all complaints against the media.
This would not only ease the pressure on the courts but also, give meaning to the constitutional guarantees of the media, he said, at the launching of a number of publications by the NMC and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in Accra on Thursday.
The publications include the National Media Policy, Broadcasting Standards, Guidelines for Rejoinders and Guidelines for Political Reporting.
Mr Annan urged the judiciary and judges, as aides in the interpretation of the law, to have recourse to the provisions of those guidelines and Code of Ethics of the professional bodies within the media.
He is also said to have advised that after a trial period, the publications should be sent before Parliament for legislative backing. "While not committing Parliament, I am hopeful that MPs would be favourably disposed to giving legal backing to these guidelines", Mr Annan added.
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NPP, PNC, CPP, GCPP will be there.
The Evening News reports that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has accepted an invitation from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to observe their fifth national congress scheduled for Ho in the Volta Region on April 29, 2000 and will send a two-member delegation to observe it.
According to the report, Mr Dan Botwe, general secretary of the NPP said their acceptance to honour the invitation is because it is a "new development in our young democracy which will help to further consolidate the democratic gains that has been achieved so far".
The People's National Convention (PNC), the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) and the Convention People's Party (CPP), have also accepted to honour the invitation to witness the NDC congress while the National Reform Party (NRP), which confirmed receipt of the invitation, says it is yet to decide whether to attend.
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Tony Aidoo's 'confession' … Konadu should have been presidential candidate.
In a front page story, the Dispatch reports that the Deputy minister of Defence and a leading member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Tony Aidoo has 'confessed ' his disappointment at the fact that the First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings will not be contesting the 2000 Presidential elections in December.
The report quotes him to have said in a an interview, featured in the April edition of the London-based Ghana Review International magazine, that "It is just unfortunate for us because if she was to stand, she will win hands down, definitely win hands down".
This admission by Dr Aidoo, the report says, confirms to a large extent stories carried by the Dispatch over the past 12 months that some well placed members of the NDC, known as Konadu for President 2000 (KP 2000), still wanted her to challenge Prof. J.E. Atta-Mills at the NDC congress at Ho.
The report however stressed that at no point in time did the 'Dispatch' indicate or imply that Dr Tony Aidoo was or is a member of KP 2000.
According to the report, when the 'Dispatch' asked a leading member of the NDC to comment on Dr Aidoo's assertion, he said Dr Aidoo was entitled to his opinion but wondered whether he was implying that Prof. Mills did not have the ability to win "hands down".
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Electoral commission must split, Kufour calls for regional electoral bodies.
The Weekend Statesman in a front-page story says the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, has called for the decentralisation of the Electoral Commission and the appointment of regional electoral commissioners, whose terms and tenure should be by consensus of all registered political parties.
These regional electoral commissioners, Mr Kufour said, should be empowered to declare the election results within their respective regions when he addressed a crowded rally at Nsoatre in the Sunyani West Constituency in the Brong Ahafo Region on Easter Monday.
He is quoted as saying: "The work of the Electoral Commissioner would then be to collate the final national results for presentation to the nation".
This he said will localise any mistakes and make it easier to contain and rectify them, at the same time, speed up the declaration of the final results and most importantly enhance the transparency of the electoral process itself.
Mr Kufour added that the appointment of regional electoral commissioners by consensus would have the added effect of eliminating the perception that sometimes figures and results are cooked, changed or doctored by the Electoral Commission in Accra, especially when it is seen that the opposition party is winning.
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Crises? What crises? Markets are busy and there are traffic jams - no real problem.
The Ghanaian Chronicle reports that after a series of partial persuasive presentations on the drifting economy by a team of senior government men led by the Minister of Finance, a Presidential Staffer, Professor Kofi Awoonor showed the quality of discussions of the government's Economic Management Team when he made remarkably shocking statements on the state of the economy.
Prof. Awoonor is said to have mentioned that those who say there is an economic crisis do not know what they are saying because they only have to look at the traffic on the roads to see that there is no serious problem with the economy.
According to the report, he added that not only are there traffic jams, but that if one goes to the market today, one will see that there is booming business.
"It is an exaggeration to say that the economy is in crises… This is not 1979", he is quoted to have said adding that the Ghanaian economy has acquired a resilience which cannot be described as a collapsing economy.
The paper continues that Prof. Awoonor's disastrous clanger rounded up more rational presentations by the Minister of Trade, Mr Dan Abodakpi, the Governor of the Central Bank, Dr Duffour, the Minister of Communications, John Mahama all of whom conceded that there were serious problems of the economy.
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Church forms virgins club
A story in the centre-spread of the Free Press says the Jesus Generation Sanctuary, has set up a Virgins Club of girls between ages 13 to 22 years to help curb moral decadence in the society.
Rev. Nana Ayani Boadum, General Overseer of the Church, is reported to have said that the extent to which morality had gone down compared to the 1950s and 60s called for immediate and practical action from the churches, civil society and the government.
“Today every parent is apprehensive of what the child would become given the level of influence and exposure to TV and western lifestyle,” Rev. Boadum was quoted to have said.
“The Church’s establishment of the Virgins Club was to serve as a moral booster for the very young ones who are likely to be tempted into promiscuity to know that there is dignity and virtue in being savoured until marriage”, he added.
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Mills is battle ready!
The banner story of the Ghana Palaver says Vice-president John Evans Atta Mills is battle ready for the task ahead as he takes the first step to the presidency with his formal coronation as NDC’s flagbearer at the party’s extraordinary congress at Ho, the Volta Regional capital on 29 April.
“Prof. Mills is already home and dry”, submits the Palaver, which also has it that, as the former tax law professor mounts the rostrum at the congress to deliver his acceptance speech, he would do so against the backdrop of the massive support he has received from President Rawlings, First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, and the rank and file of the party.
The story says, Prof. Mills, although the sole candidate, did not have his candidacy coming easily but through “a lot of consultation and consensus building as well as through his diligence, hard work and unblemished character.
“But for democratic niceties, Prof. Mills could have been the sole contestant in the December presidential election. This follows the unalloyed goodwill he enjoys countrywide”, the Palaver said.
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