Stop
displaying vulgar affluence
Student's
Union lauds government's decision on user fees
Three
contestants disqualified
'Sanction
officials who lease public lands'
University
College to admit 20,000
Expenditure
must not outpace revenue
Osafo Maafo
plays catch-up with IMF: What we were not told
Huudu
surrenders Benz at last…
Transport
Union, Edumadze settle car case
Shoddy
goods – traders challenge Standards board
The untold
story of Sam Jonah
African-American
interested in buying State Insurance Company
Stop
displaying vulgar affluence
The Minister
of Defence, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, has asked public office holders to desist
from displaying vulgar affluence in order to achieve the much needed positive
change in the country, reports The Ghanaian Times.
"Any attempt to be extravagant
will make the electorate who voted us into power lose confidence and interest
in us," Dr Addo-Kufuor told the Ashanti Regional Congress of the New
Patriotic Party (NPP) in Kumasi at, at the weekend.
He said that discipline among people
at the helm of affairs would go a long way to consolidate the confidence and
trust that the populace have in the new administration.
"Discipline should be part of
us so as not to corrupt the moral values of the future leaders of the
country."
The Defence Minister intimated that
the promises that the party made during the electioneering campaign had not
been fulfilled because of the economic conditions that National Democrat
Congress (NDC) left behind.
More…/
Student's
Union lauds government's decision on user fees
The
National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has welcomed the government's decision
not to increase academic and residential facility user fees for the 2001/2002
academic year.
A statement issued in Accra, said
that the decision to absorb the fees was indeed a clear demonstration of the
New Patriotic Party Government's commitment to ensure an accessible education
for all.
The decision, it said, also
demonstrated the government's desire and commitment to dialogue and build
consensus.
While the Union expressed the hope
that the gesture would put all intended demonstrations and student unrests on
hold, it said that it would look up to the day when the fees would be
done-away-with.
The NUGS reiterated its call on the
government to institute an enquiry into the disbursement of the said fees since
its inception two years ago saying the probe would ensure accountability,
transparency and judicious utilization of such moneys on the various campuses.
On Friday, the government announced
that there would be no increases in the academic and residential facility user
fees at the Universities for the 2001/2002 academic year, which begins in two
weeks.
Consequently, students were asked to
pay fees, which were charged for the 2000/2001 academic year.
GRi…/
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Three
contestants disqualified
With barely
six days to the National Delegates Conference on Saturday 25 August, three of
those who filed to contest positions to the national office of the NPP have
been disqualified.
Those whose applications were
rejected by the Vetting Committee were Dr Emmanuel Obuamah Laryea who sought to
contest the position of the National Chairman, George Okyere Asiedu who aspired
to the position of National Organiser and Rans Agyemang Prempeh whose vision to
become the next General Secretary was blacked out.
With these disqualifications, the
General Secretary, Dan Botwe walks into the School of Administration Auditorium
on Saturday the sole candidate.
According to Kwadwo Afari, the Press
Secretary, those disqualified failed to meet the basic condition of membership
of the NPP and were also not in good standing.
This means that either they were not
properly registered members of the party or were not up to date in the payment
of their dues and other forms of commitments to the party.
He said that the exercise, which is
ongoing, is to ensure that only committed and dedicated members of the party
stand for election to its highest positions.
The disqualifications bring to
thirty-one the number of candidates for the various positions up for grabs.
GRi…/
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'Sanction
officials who lease public lands'
The
Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has decried the practice whereby statutory
bodies lease public lands for private development, reports the Daily Graphic.
Lands earmarked for public use are
leased to private developers by some officials of the Town and Country Planning
Department, the Stool Lands Administration, Lands Commission and the Land Title
Registry, he disclosed.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu, who expressed the
concern in Kumasi at the weekend when he received a land certificate for the
Manhyia Palace and its environs from the Deputy Minister of Lands, Forestry and
Mines, Clement Eledi, also called for the sanctioning of such officials to
serve as a deterrent to others. The land certificate replaces the lease system.
Otumfuo observed that officials of
these statutory bodies, who have no land of their own, manage to lease lands
earmarked for schools, car parks, markets and recreational grounds, among
others, to private developers, at the expense of the larger society.
The development of such public
places has caused a lot of inconvenience to residents of urban areas, including
Kumasi, and has created congestion and traffic jams.
The Asantehene expressed concern
about the indiscriminate manner in which private developers have put up
structures at the Kumasi Railway Station, with the connivance of officials of
the Ghana Railway Company (GRC).
He said the rate at which structures
are springing up at the station with the active supervision of the GRC and the
Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, must not be tolerated.
More…/
University
College to admit 20,000
The
University College of Education, Winneba (UCEW) is to admit about 20,000 basic
schoolteachers as distance learners to begin a three-year Diploma in Basic
Education programme in October, this year.
The programme, which would be for
holders of Teachers' Certificate 'A', is to help improve the quality of
teaching and academic standards at the basic level.
Professor
Henry Brown-Acquaye, Vice-Principal of UNCEW, announced this at the second
matriculation for 101 distance education learners at Winneba last Friday. The
students would pursue various degree courses in education.
Prof Brown-Acquaye said the
programme has also been designed to enhance the skills of teachers to assist
the government in ensuring the success of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic
Education (FCUBE) programme.
More…/
Expenditure
must not outpace revenue
A senior Economist
and Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Professor Bartholomew
Armah, has stated that until the government is able to match its expenditure
with the volume of revenue mobilised, its objective to develop the private
sector into a formidable economic force would not be realised.
It is disturbing that the government's
expenditure continues to be higher than the revenue it generates at any given
time, Prof Armah told members of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) at a day's
workshop on Ghana's Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) in Accra to deliberate on
the draft document on poverty reduction framework and to provide a platform for
the labour force to make imputs into the GPRS document.
Prof Armah said while the government
expenditure is 28 per cent, its total revenue of Gross Domestic Product this
year, including grants, is 21 per cent.
He said this situation is not likely to change
since it is expected that next year, the government's expenditure will be 30
per cent with total revenue at 22.4 per cent.
GRi…/
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Osafo Maafo
plays catch-up with IMF: What we were not told
Finance
Minister, Yaw Osafo-Marfo, last Wednesday told the media that he is playing
'the headmaster' in checking the government's expenditure in Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure strict compliance to laid down fiscal
policies.
According to the Public Agenda
however, what he did not tell his audience was that the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) was playing headmaster on him.
The IMF, the Agenda says, has adopted an even
stricter supervisory approach in ensuring that the Kufuor administration
complies with the Prior Actions, Structural Performance Criteria and Benchmarks
set for Ghana as a condition for continuous support from the fund to this
country.
Key aspects of these conditions
include increases in a number of user fees, licenses and other charges that
have not kept pace with inflation in recent years. For user fees, Ghanaians
will be looking at education and the 'cash-and-carry' system at the hospitals.
The IMF is encouraging the
government to keep the option of raising the general VAT rate next year. If
this goes through, the IMF is advising that the government should avoid the
policy of further earmarking the resultant revenues to be accrued from the VAT
for particular expenditures.
This is in apparent reference to 2.5
percent increase in the VAT rate last year, which was made available for the
Education Trust Fund.
The government however rejected any
preposition for an increase in the VAT rate saying any attempt to achieve a
larger surplus in tax revenue through an increase in VAT rate would risk a
political backlash, following so closely on the increase in petroleum and
utility tariff.
The Government of Ghana is also
required to impose a 15 per cent excise duty and specific duties averaging ¢200
per litre on petroleum products with effect from September 1, 2001, to recover
petroleum taxation removed in the February 2001 price increase.
The structural Performance Criteria
demands completion of an audit at the MDA level of the full stock of payment
arrears accrued since January 1, 2000, and adoption of a strategy for their
liquidation by the end of August, 2001.
GRi…/
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Huudu
surrenders Benz at last…
The
Ghanaian Chronicle reports that Alhaji Huudu Yahaya the General Secretary of
National Democratic Congress (NDC) has surrendered to the looming pressure on
him by the Interpol, CEPS and the owner of the luxurious Mercedes Benz car he
took from CEPS at a questionable price when he handed it backed in Tamale last
Tuesday.
In line with the order, the Customs
Exercise and Preventive Service (CEPS) in Tamale on Wednesday escorted the car
back to their headquarters in Accra.
The paper gathered that Huudu Yahaya
has no option than to change his stand when it became obvious that the pressure
mounted on him would not allow him to use and enjoy the comfort of the car, in
spite of keeping it in Tamale from the eagle eyes of the owner Fred Asante,
CEPS and INTERPOL.
The Commissioner of CEPS, Kofi
Nti-Amoah confirmed the story when The Chronicle contacted him on Friday
morning. He said his outfit was yet to decide whether Huudu Yahaya should be
given a new car or his money should be given back to him.
“I think Huudu Yahaya was initially dragging
his feet because he was not clear whether when he handed over the car he was to
get his money back,” he suggested.
More…/
Transport
Union, Edumadze settle car case
Isaac E.
Edumadze, the Central Regional Minister, has been saved from any further
embarrassment and a looming law-suit following the timely intervention of the
Central Regional Secretariat of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU)
to settle the differences between him and the owner of the taxi cab he snatched
at gun-point last month.
Following their (GPRTU)
intervention, the car has been relocated at its base, Suhum in the Eastern
Region, while the association has also agreed to pay something in the region of
3 million cedis on behalf of the Minister as compensation to the owner instead
of the initial demand of 12 million cedis by the car owner, according to the
paper.
Before the Central Regional branch
of the GPRTU stepped in, there was an impasse between the Minister and the
owner of the Suhum taxi branch of the GPRTU over the bill forwarded to the
Minister and the release of the taxicab, which is at the centre of the
controversy.
GRi…/
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Shoddy
goods – traders challenge Standards board
Importers
and traders have challenged the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) to provide them
with specific standards for the importation of goods into the country, writes
the Accra Mail.
The importers and traders were reacting to a
meeting held last Thursday among officials of GSB, GSBV Company Limited, and
representatives of traders and importers to discuss the maintenance of quality
standards of imported electrical goods.
The two institutions have
responsibility for inspecting goods, which enter or leave the country. But in
recent times the two have come under public scrutiny for poor performance,
resulting in the dumping of shoddy goods on the local market.
During the deliberations it was not clear as to
who should be blamed for the flooding of shoddy appliances on the Ghanaian
market. While some importers blamed GSBV, others castigated the GSB for not
keeping a close eye on importers, some of who use the country’s scarce foreign
exchange to import anything into the country.
Consumers who heard about the buck
passing pointed accusing fingers at the traders but also noted that over the
years, the GSB has failed to insist on standards.
The Public Relations Officer of the
Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA), Paa Kofi Ansong laid the blame for
shoddy imports squarely at the doorstep of the inspection agencies.
“They’ve been clearing all kinds of
goods which are dumped on our market,” he lamented.
GRi…/
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The untold
story of Sam Jonah
The
Independent says if ever confirmation was needed that yesterday’s ‘pariahs’
have now become the establishment, then the gathering that assembled at Accra’s
plush M Plaza Hotel to witness the launching of Kabral Blay-Amihere’s new book,
“Fighting For Freedom” confirms that fact.
“The launch by President Kufuor, in
the afternoon of Friday, 17 August 2001 of Kabral’s autobiography, was proof
that yesterday’s ‘non persons’ are indeed today’s establishment. Kabral
Blay-Amihere, is today a High Commissioner designate, due to represent the
President of the republic, in Sierra Leone”.
In an emotional and witty speech,
Sam Jonah, Chief Executive of Ashanti Goldfields Corporation and chairman for
the launch, reflected on how much things have changed in Ghana today.
Amidst occasional laughs, he told the story of
how he had “…been advised in my own interest” to decline several invitations to
speak at such functions.
The man who just recently passed the
acid test of the Serious Fraud Office lauded Kabral for his courage, integrity
and humility. He said that at a time when some chief executives opted to travel
with “rubber bags” instead of their usual briefcases, the Kabrals remained true
to themselves.
Sam Jonah, for fear of persecution
by the then Government declined an offer to chair the tenth anniversary dinner
of this paper a couple of years ago.
The speech by Ghana’s
internationally respected CEO of Ashanti Goldfields company was very well
received. “We do live in interesting times indeed”, Jonah said.
GRi…/
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Last Friday’s issue of the Dispatch
had published how Agyapong in the presence of Ghanaians and foreigners at the
Kotoka International Airport on August 4, openly threatened a police officer in
uniform, raining insults at him.
GRi…/
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She said there had been complaints
about the award of consultancy assignments to foreigners in place of Ghanaians
and expressed the hope that the preparation and adoption of a standardised
selection procedure would put to rest some of these concerns.
More…/
African-American
interested in buying State Insurance Company
There are
strong indications that investors are still keen in buying State Insurance
Company (SIC).
According to the High Street
Journal, during the recent homecoming summit and exhibition, Ronald Bookman, an
African-American based in New York who attended the summit made his intentions
known to SIC’s management.
Bookman was referred to the
Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC), since the new government’s
intention over privatisation of SIC is not clear, according to industry
watchers.
Afrifa Yamoah, Head of SIC Business
Development Unit who led the team that manned SIC’s stand at the exhibition
told HSJ that his team received a large number of foreign visitors to the
stand.
He explained that most of them
indicated interest to do business with the company adding, “We have already
started making contacts with most of the referrals to us.”
Afrifa pointed out that his mission
at the fair, as a Product Development Manager was to find out if there were new
products SIC could develop for this caliber of investors.
GRi…/
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