USAID puts $1.5m into Gas Pipeline Project
Kufuor speaks on running mate
Race for new Okyehene kicks off
Colonial methods used to brutalise students
The Ghanaian Voiceø13b to end ‘mmobbrowa struggle’…Students vow to make campuses ungovernable if…
The GuideAftermath of police-student clash…Students threaten violence
The Crusading GuideNPP condemns police brutality as ‘a shameless act of fascism’
Ghana PalaverMore revelations on Friedrich Naumann Foundation anti-NDC activities
Ghanaian TimesFufu pounder dies in action
USAID puts $1.5m into Gas Pipeline Project
The High Street Journal in a front page story, reports the Minister of Mines
and Energy, Mr. Fred Ohene-Kena, as disclosing that the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) has put $1.5m into the West African
Gas Pipeline Project (WAGPP).
Mr. Ohene-Kena is said to have made the disclosure at the WAGPP meeting in Cotonou, Benin, on August 11, this year. The meeting was attended by Energy Ministers of the participating countries – Ghana, Nigeria, Benin and Togo.
The paper says USAID’s contribution is part of the $1.8billion which is total capital expected to be spent on the gas project.
The project began four years ago when the governments of the four countries entered into an agreement for the supply and transmission of natural gas.
The High Street Journal says the shared vision was that the project would be a co-operative, regional undertaking by all the four governments in co-operation with the Economic Co-operation of West African States
(ECOWAS.
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Kufuor speaks on running mate
Mr. J.A. Kufuor, the NPP Presidential candidate for the 2000 elections is reported as saying that ethnic balance to reflect the country’s diverse geographical ethnic distribution, gender balance and loyalty of the running mate to the party and the Presidential candidate is very crucial in deciding on a running mate.
The Dispatch says Mr. Kufuor explained that loyalty to the party and the Flagbearer was very important to avoid a situation similar to the one in which President Jerry Rawlings was reported to have attacked his then Vice-President, Mr. K.N. Arkaah. According to the paper, one name which has come up in interviews published as coming from NPP supporters, is Nana AkufoAddo, but after a series of interviews and investigations, Nana Akufo Addo, who is a respected lawyer and Member of Parliament for Abuakwa, will not e on the NPP’s Presidential ticket as Mr. Kufuor’s running mate.
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Race for new Okyehene kicks off
The Statesman in a banner headline story, says with the successful conclusion of the
"millennium" funeral which showcased culture at its best in the Okyeman capital of Kyebi, attention has now shifted to the choice of a successor to the late Osagyefuo Kuntunkununku II.
According to the paper the roll of contestants so far features Mr. Kwadwo Atta Akyea, a 36-year-old legal practitioner, Nana Kwame Ofori Atta, a 49-year-old United States-based insurance broker and Nana Kwame Adjei Boateng, a Cuban-trained engineer.
The Statesman says under Okyeman custom, like most Akan states, a successor to the late Okyehene is to be chosen within 40 days of his burial.
It says the process of nomination, election, enstoolment and installation, involves a lot of consultations and under normal circumstances, features prominently the queenmother, who eventually nominates the candidate for enstoolment.
Under the present circumstance, the Statesman says, in Okyeman where the queenmother, who died about three years ago, has not been replaced, the duty of nominating the next occupant of the ‘Asona’ stool of Kyebi, falls on the ‘Abusuapanin’ Kwabena Akowuah, who is expected to work in close consultation with members of the royal family.
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Colonial methods used to brutalise students
The Independent reports in a screaming headline story that last Friday, students from all the universities of Ghana under the leadership of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), took to the streets to present a petition to President Jerry Rawlings.
According to the paper, while the British Administration used bullets to stop demonstrating ex-Servicemen from presenting their grievances to the Governor at the Castle, the Rawlings government used more advanced weapons, tear gas and water canons to stop the students from going to present their grievances to the occpant of the Castle.
The paper says the petition was in reaction to the ncrement in fees paid by students in tertiary institutions.
The Independent recalls that President Rawlings when he made his first appearance on the political scene in June, 1979 and later in December, 1981, had his greatest support from Ghanaian students.
The paper says but now, the President’s worst opponents are students of the universities, who see his policies as destroying the foundation of Ghana’s educational system laid down by the first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. The Independent reports that the students numbering about 1,000 and wearing red clothes and bands, carried coffins and placards with inscriptions like ‘wake u Ghanaians, tertiary education is dying’; the ‘mmobrowa struggle goes on’ and ‘is a mobile phone a yardstick for the increment in fees and how many own or use it?’
According to the paper, the student leaders demanded to be granted passage to present their petition to the President. They were, however, refused entry by the police who had been placed at vantage points around the road leading to the Castle.
After persistent and futile requests to be allowed to present their petition, the students set fire to some coffins that they had as representing President Rawlings , Minister of Education, Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, his Deputy, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas and the Vice-President, Prof. J.E.A. Mills.
The Independent says what began as a peaceful demonstration, turned violent when the policemen, in what seemed like a bid to put out the fire, poured hot water from their truck on the student. In the ensuing pandemonium, the paper says the students took to their heels in all directions, but as if that was enough, the police pursued the students and brutally assaulted anyone they came across, including even pedestrians.
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ø13b to end ‘mmobbrowa struggle’…Students vow to make campuses ungovernable if…
The paper in its lead story reports that students of Ghana’s universities have again indicated their resolve to carry on their ‘mmobrowa struggle’ until the authorities heeded their call to reverse the ‘unilateral’ fee increases imposed on students for the 1999/2000 academic year.
It quotes members of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Ghana, Legon, as saying that their investigations indicated that there are viable options to raise funds to run the universities if only the government and officials of the Ministry of Education as well as the university authorities would care to sit down and reason with the students.
"We have come to realise that we are dealing with a government that understands only the language of demonstrations, strikes and civil disobedience, which is unfortunate", the paper quotes a General Assembly Member of the SRC as saying.
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Aftermath of police-student clash…Students threaten violence
In a front page banner headline story, the Guide says students of Ghana’s universities have threatened to use violence as the only means to achieve social justice in respect of their right to education.
According to the paper the students noted that in spite of the fact that they had used all known peaceful avenues to get the government to ‘see eye to eye’ with them, the authorities seem to have taken an entrenched position.
They said they have been incensed by the brutalities that were unleashed on them by the police at the Castle cross-road, even when many of them had run away. According to them the police chased them to the ‘Kantamanto Market’, far away from the Castle to brutalise retreating students.
"Some of us were even dragged out of taxis and beaten up while those of us who had taken refuge at a hospital behind the Accra Sports Stadium were chased up and beaten".
The Guide says three female students became victims of police molestation, degenerating into sexual harassment.
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NPP condemns police brutality as ‘a shameless act of fascism’
The paper says the ruling NDC government has been condemned for unleashing the police to brutalise students during their peaceful against the ‘astronomical’ fees being levied on them.
The Crusading Guide reports that the NPP condemning the act, in a statement signed by the party’s General Secretary, Mr Dan Botwe, described the act as ‘a shameless act of fascism’. According to the statement, if there were any doubts about the fact that those who lead the NDC are still steeped in the fascist ways of the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), this latest act of brutality should remove those doubts.
The NPP’s statement is said to have noted as coincidental this latest brutality by the police, which took place exactly the same Christiansboorg Crossroads, where an agent of the colonial administration gunned down ex-Servicemen also peacefully demonstrating to petition their government.
"It should be pointed out that Ghana today is an independent country and Ghanaians expect the NDC government, headed by President Jerry Rawlings to refrain from using colonial methods which were outlawed after independence", The Crusading Guide quotes the NPP statement as saying.
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More revelations on Friedrich Naumann Foundation anti-NDC activities
The Ghana Palaver says following its last Friday story on the ‘insulting’ invitation extended to the NDC by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a German non-governmental organisation, to participate in an economic forum in Dakar, Senegal, more evidence of the Foundation’s anti-NDC activities have been unearthed.
According to the paper, last year, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation sponsored an NPP workshop at Elmina in the Central Region on the party’s political programme, ‘Mission 2000’, which NPP speakers at the workshop claimed was aimed at the wrestling of political power from the NDC in the year 2000. According to the paper, the NDC formally protested against the obvious infraction of "our national constitution by the Foundation’s sponsorship of the NPP’s political programme".
The NDC protest letter is said to have pointed out that "whereas the NDC appreciates the support that your organisation and other foreign entities have given to our country’s development process, you must know that Ghana’s constitution forbids foreign support of the political programmes of the country’s individual political parties".
The Palaver surmises that it was this protest that compelled the Foundation to invite one NDC Member of Parliament to its ‘so-called’ economic forum in Dakar as if funding two political parties, albeit in a discriminatory manner, makes the Foundation’s conduct any more legal.
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Fufu pounder dies in action
In a human interest story on its front page, the Ghanaian Times reports that Mr Azure Atubiga, a 35-year-old man collapsed and died a few minutes later while pounding fufu at a chop bar at Atulibabisi, a suburb of Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.
The paper says the quantity of fufu he was pounding at ‘Enso Nyame Ye Chop Bar’ was abandoned when customers who were then enjoying the meals were informed of the tragedy. The Times says pandemonium broke out at the bar when customers waiting their turns to be served, were told that the man had collapsed.
The paper quotes an eye-witness as saying the deceased used to work for the bar but left the employment some time ago.
The owner of the chop bar, Madam Ama Ataa Poku is reported as saying that her regular fufu pounder, Mr Nsoa Ayime, appeared very drunk at the time when the yam and cassava were ready for pounding, so the deceased was brought in to pound the fufu. While he was pounding, he collapsed and fell headlong. According to eye-witnesses it is the second time that a fufu pounder has collapsed and died at the chop bar.
The Times says Madam Ataa Poku is meanwhile helping the police in their investigations into the incident.
The paper says after the incident, a report was made to the police and the body was deposited at the Bolgatanga General Hospital mortuary.
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