Sam Jonah ‘storms out’…Of AGC probe
Vendetta against Sam Jonah…Peprah’s neck on the line
Reform Party gets 200 cars, helicopter
We don’t want to be liberated…’Witches’ tell women MPs
‘Witches’ being murdered on the quiet at Gambaga?
Primary schools rotten
NDC activists advised to devise effective networking
Sam Jonah ‘storms out’…Of AGC probe
In a front page splash the Crusading says there was drama at the conference hall of the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare in Accra last Thursday, when the Chief Executive of the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) Limited, Mr Sam Jonah, appeared before the ‘Anyidoho Committee’ set up by the government to probe the recent industrial action at the Obuasi branch of the company.
The paper quotes sources close to the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare as intimating that the proceedings of the Committee were thrown into complete disarray with its members virtually ‘stranded’ when the AGC boss declined to co-operate with the probe until certain conditions had been fulfilled.
Mr Sam Jonah is reported to have demanded that both the Committee and the President, Flt-Lt Jerry Rawlings had publicly cleared the air on certain media reports containing negative assertions about him which had been attributed to the President and the work of the Committee.
The AGC Chief Executive is said to have appealed to the Committee to publicly clear the air as to whether or not it had released any report based on its proceedings which had ‘indicted’ him asa "corrupt and criminal person", as the President was purported to have told members of the Council of State at a meeting at the Castle, on July 28, this year.
According to the Crusading Guide, Mr Sam Jonah also requested the Committee to seek clarification from the Office of the President on whether President Rawlings had indeed described him as ‘a criminal’ at the said meeting with members of the Council of State.
The paper says the AGC boss made it clear that he would not co-operate with the Committee until the air had been cleared and the integrity of the Committee is thereby upheld.
The Crusading Guide says the President reportedly told the Council of State that his information from the Anyidoho Committee was that Mr Sam Jonah ad turned AGC into his private goldmine where his businesses, tribesmen and family relations were benefiting from contracts at the expense of the workers and the nation.
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Vendetta against Sam Jonah…Peprah’s neck on the line
The Independent says unless there is some change of heart and other weigty consideration, the Minister of Finance, Mr Kwame Peprah, will be out of his post very soon.
The paper says Mr Peprah has come into the ‘‘firing line of the Castle vendetta" against Mr Sam Jonah, Chief Executive of the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) Limited. According to the Independent, the Castle sees Minister Peprah as too much of a friend and ally of Sam Jonah, who cannot be trusted in the battle against the AGC boss.
The paper says the Castle and President Jerry Rawling seem to have been drawn into a ‘ding-dong’ battle with various protagonists, including the ‘Blue House’, the seat of the Ministry of National Security, headed by Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi, and the Anyidoho Committee set up by the government to investigate the recent strike action by workers of AGC at Obuasi in Ashanti. AGC and the Castle, the Independent says, are already involved n a press battle which might end with the head of the Minister of Finance ‘rolling down the Gulf of Guinea’.
The Independent recalls that the paper and another bi-weekly, the Crusading Guide,on August 12,this year, published a report of a meeting between President Rawlings and the Council of State during which the President, quoting from the yet to be published report of the Anyidoho Committee, called Mr Sam Jonah ‘a criminal’ and accused him of many big and small crimes at AGC.
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Reform Party gets 200 cars, helicopter
In a front page banner headline story, the Guide reports that the National Reform Party is bringing in 200 vehicles to campaign in the next general elections.
Additionally, the paper says the party is also going to procure a helicopter to help its Presidential candidate to conveniently campaign throughout the country.
The Guide quoting what it describes as ‘authoritative information’, however declined to name the sources of the party’s funding.
It says according to the information, about 40 per cent of the sitting NDC Members of Parliament are with the NRP and at the appropriate time, they would make their intentions known.
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We don’t want to be liberated…’Witches’ tell women MPs
The Ghanaian Times, in its lead story reports that even though the ‘Nayiri’, paramount chief of Mamprugu Traditional Area in the Northern Region, has indicated that he and his divisional chiefs want to abolish the "Witches Camp" at Gambaga, the inmates have dared them to close the facility.
Their leader, Madam Sanatu Manbangba, aged about 75, is reported as saying that any action designed to close the camp and send them to their communities would result n their being killed y people in the communities, who had accused them of witchcraft.
The paper says this contradictory osition came to the fore at the weekend, when the women caucus in Parliament visited Nalerigu and Gambage in the Northern Region.
The Times says Madam Manbangba, speaking through an interpreter, said that the camp, set u nearly 100 years ago, had outlived many a ‘Gamba-Rana’ (chief of Gambaga) who cared for the women who sought refuge from prosecution, at the place.
The paper says the woman, who claims to be a witch, requested among other things, that camp should not be closed since it provides solace for the inmates.
She alleged that there were more witches in the communities, who, sooner or later, would take refuge at the camp if they are accused of sorcery.
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Return to top Daily Graphic
‘Witches’ being murdered on the quiet at Gambaga?
In a front page story, the Daily Graphic reports of alleged killing or maltreatment of some supposed witches from the "Gambaga Witches Camp", who are reintegrated into their communities through the intervention of the Presbyterian Outcast Home project. The murders, the paper says, are hushed up.
According to the Graphic, this information came to light when the Women Caucus in Parliament visited the Gambaga Witches Camp, now "Gambaga Outcast Home, in the East Mamprusi District of the Northern Region, to learn at first-hand about the living conditions and other issues concerning the inmates.
The paper says after the women parliamentarians had been briefed about the Presbyterian Church’s rehabilitation programme of re-integrating the alleged witches into their communities, it was revealed that some of them who are re-integrated are secretly murdered, but for unexplained reasons, people in those communities allegedly refuse to inform the police about the murders.
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Primary schools rotten
The Statesman observes that as the crisis in the universities reaches a stalemate, the much bigger, self-generated crisis at the primary school level seems to have been relegated to the background, at least, for now.
The paper in a front page observation, says "but this one refuses to stay there and everyday we get reminded of the grim reality of the depths into which Ghana’s education has fallen" According to the Statesman the Local Authority Junior Secondary School at Kukua, near Suhum in the Eastern Region, has a sad story to tell about its falling standards.
The paper says in 1998, the school presented 45 pupils for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and only one of them got enough to qualify for admission to senior secondary school. But his aggregate 31 pass, was not good enough for the school he chose, not when the school awash with many aggregate 10, or better. So this applicant was rejected.
The Statesman notes that a common trend running through this nation-wide problem, particularly in the rural areas, is poverty.
It says absenteeism is rife because pupils are often sent home for their impoverished parents’ inability to pay their fees, adding that some of the children have to take manual jobs to be able to pay their fees.
The paper says this means that they often have to be absent from school.
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NDC activists advised to devise effective networking
The Palaver reports that Madam Faustina Nelson, a national vice-chairman of the NDC has advised members of the part to wait for the national executive councils guidelines on the election f parliamentary candidates and not rush to endorse or support any individual with parliamentary ambition, where the NDC has sitting members of Parliament. Madam Nelson, who is also the chairman of the Veranda Boys and Girls Club, is said to have given the advice when she and other party functionaries interacted with executives of the NDC and those of the Club in the Upper and Lower Akyem constituencies, to devise strategies for effective networking.
The Palaver says the NDC vice-chairman cautioned party activists against making promises to parliamentary aspirants, saying that the mode of picking candidates is still being worked out by the national leadership.
"Let me also use this opportunity to caution members of the Veranda Boys and Girls Club that like the other party activists, you are not to project any parliamentary aspirant.
Your main task is to mobilise more people from the opposition to join the NDC", she is quoted as saying.
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