Arrest Rawlings if - Goosie
Term of NDC executive expires …election on Dec.
8
Indian
director assaults staff
Community
Tribunals not abreast with the law?
Police ordered
to apologise to chief
Stormy meeting over Yankey in Lome
Atta Mills replies J.H. Mensah
Ethnic engineering is normal – Antwi Danso
We won't approve new tariffs
Ministers, Deputies declare assets
Wa NPP member files writ to restrain Isshaque
Police quiz managing director over payments
J.J. eyes Bimbilla seat
Where is the ¢230M?
Baako slams NDC's past
Ghana operating de facto fixed exchange rate
Trust Bank rewards customers through
re-launched Gold Account
Another couple escapes robbers
Review the Interstate Law
NPP MP sobers up
Murdered student’s family appeals to Kufuor
Arrest Rawlings if - Goosie
The National Reform Party (NRC) flagbearer for
the 2000 general elections, Goosie Tandoh has said ex-President Rawlings should
be arrested and prosecuted if there is enough evidence that he committed any
crime against the state when he was in office, reports the Evening News.
He said the notion among some Ghanaians that
the ex-President should not be touched or was above the law should not be
entertained. “The Law should take its own course. However, it will be a disservice to democracy if he is arrested on the basis of mere speculation,” he is
quoted telling the paper in an interview at a weekend.
He made it clear that ex-President Rawlings is
a Ghanaian and that the law must be applied to him just like any other citizen
of the land. But, he stressed that as a former Head of State, the ex-President
deserves the needed courtesy and due respect.
More…/
Term of NDC executive expires …election on Dec.
8
The term
of office of the present National executive of the National Democratic Congress
(NDC) has expired, according to the Evening News. Consequently, the party’s
National Delegates Congress slated for between December 7 and December 9, 2001
will elect new executives to fill the vacancies.
Dr Obed
Asamoah, chairman of the reorganisation committee of the NDC, is reported as
telling the Paper that the congress, has been delayed for almost a year to
allow for the reorganisation of the party to ensure that the right calibre of
delegates are elected to the National Congress.
Dr
Asamoah said the party’s reorganisation, which is still ongoing would culminate
in the national delegates congress in December. He also said the congress would
deliberate on proposals to do away with the co-chairmanship position in the
party, as well as the pruning down of the number of vice-chairmen from the
current six to three.
GRi…/
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Indian
director assaults staff
The
Ghanaian Times carries that a worker of Blowpast Industries Limited in Accra
has been brutally assaulted by a director of the company while performing his
duties.
John
Antwi, 27, a factory hand/packer, was allegedly attacked, slapped and kicked in
the lower abdomen and in the groin by Jakdish Lakhiani, the director, because
he was packing some polythene rolls at an “unapproved place”.
Antwi,
the Times says, is now suffering from injuries to his eardrum and male organ. A
medical report from the Adabraka Polyclinic indicates that he is suffering
contusion of the left cheek, hyperemia of the left eardrum, contusion in groin
and scrotum and pains in the penis on urination.
Antwi
told the Times at the Kaneshie Police Station, that around 5.30 pm on August
20, he was packing the finished products of polythene rolls at a designated
spot inside the factory when Lakhiani arrived and inquired why he was packing
the goods there.
He did
not accept his (Antwi’s) explanation that he had been assigned to work there,
slapped him and kicked him in the lower abdomen and the groin. Antwi reported
the incident to the Kaneshie police who gave him a form to be taken to the
hospital.
A source
at the police station informed the paper that Lakhiani, was invited to write
his statement and then allowed to go.
When the
paper contacted Lakhiani, he denied assaulting Antwi saying, “I just gave him a
playful knock on the head. I did not slap him; I did not kick him.”
More…/
Community
Tribunals not abreast with the law?
Community
Tribunals do not have the current legislations made by Parliament in their
custody and the situation has resulted in the misunderstanding and
misapplication of some laws in the country, Ms Bernice Baiden, a member of the
African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA), disclosed on Tuesday at the marking
of the Day of Action on Inheritance Rights of Women in West Africa.
She said
that research conducted in the Western and Eastern Regions indicated that even the
police, who are supposed to be the law enforcers, did not understand some of
the laws, which they were supposed to apply.
She said
that police, more often than not, treated inheritance disputes as family issues
and therefore, did not treat them as the law required, resulting in many women
becoming victims of the law instead of the law helping them.
She
appealed to the Chief Justice to make current legislations available to all
tribunals and law enforcement agencies to make the rules relevant to people in
remote areas.
More…
Police
ordered to apologise to chief
The
Inspector General of Police (IGP) has directed the Western Regional Police
Commander to personally apologise to Nana Nkuah Okumdom, Omanhene of Sefwi
Wiawso Traditional Area, for the inconvenience and embarrassment caused him
following the raid of his palace by security personnel.
“The
Police Administration cherishes the chieftaincy institution and also respects
Nana Okumdom and the people of Sefwi Wiaso. The exercise was not intended to denigrate
him, the palace and the people,” ASP David Eklu, Director of Police Public
Relations, told the Times on Tuesday.
He said
that the joint team of soldiers and policemen acted upon information that a
large quantity of arms and ammunition had been hidden in the palace. The team,
he said, could not find anything of the sort after the search.
The
people of Sefwi Wiawso called on the government to institute a probe into the
raid, which occurred last Tuesday. During the exercise, the Omanhene’s palace
was searched in his absence.
GRi…/
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Stormy meeting over Yankey in Lome
The Ghanaian Chronicle writes that as at
Tuesday evening, the President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and
Development (EBID), Dr George Yankey had agreed to step down just before an
extraordinarily explosive meeting failed to secure a consensus of the Board of
the Bank to okay an intense but brutal effort from Ghana to effect his ouster.
Officially, Yankey has not been dismissed but
awaiting a court case n Abuja, Nigeria, challenging moves by Ghana to remove
him. The Paper
says sources in the secretariat corroborating, it’s investigations,
have it that Dr Yankey was invited to a meeting at which Lansana Koyate from
Guinea, current Executive Secretary of ECOWAS was present and another official
whose identity could not be established though his photograph was captured by a
Chronicle paparazzo.
The point was made to Dr Yankey at the meeting
that pressure from the Ghanaian side represented by the Minister of Foreign
Affairs of Ghana, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, had placed President Eyadema in a
situation where he had had to demand that Yankey hand over the keys to his
official residence and his office on his home soil by last weekend.
Yankey, the sources said, could however,
continue to stay on in Togo if he so wished, but not in his official capacity,
adding that Eyadema had forged a good relation with Ghana lately and did not
want to breach that because he might also require some kind of cooperation from
Ghana at some point in time.
Yankey surrendered last Sunday night and failed
to turn up at his office on Monday. The EBID meeting itself was split as
Ministers and Board members of the Bank argued for and against the request from
Ghana to seek the removal of the President of the Bank. It was deadlocked on
point of justice and fair play and deferred for the court’s to rule.
More…/
Atta Mills replies J.H. Mensah
Former Vice-President and Presidential
candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Professor Evans Atta Mills
has reacted to claims by the Majority Leader and Minister of Government
Business that the NDC is going to disintegrate, saying, such a proposition is
preposterous.
The former Vice-President told an Accra radio
station on Tuesday that the fact that the NDC lost the 2000 general elections
does not mean that the party will break up.
Prof Evans Atta Mills said the serious decline
of the economy under the NDC was the major factor that caused the defeat of the
party in the elections. He also revealed that a lot of things happened within
the party, however, the general accusation of the party’s mismanagement of the
economy accounted for its defeat and a victory for the New Patriotic Party.
Honourable J.H. Mensah is on record to have
predicted that the NDC will soon face a permanent collapse because there are so
many adherents of the NDC who had expressed preference for a party independent
of the influence of Ex-President Rawlings but their vision will not materialise
because of the factions that had emerged around various personalities in the
party.
More…/
Ethnic engineering is normal – Antwi Danso
Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso, a lecturer at the
Legon Centre for International Affairs (LECIA) has stated that the reported
attempts by leadership of the ruling NPP to engineer the outcome of the
election of national executives on purely ethnic considerations is a normal
practice in politics, meant to consolidate the position of the party.
“What the NPP is doing is to put the correct
people in these offices of trust, establish correct structures and to solidify
the party for 2004. There is no democracy in the world where some kind of
manipulation is not done in the interest of the party,” Dr Antwi Danso stated.
The lecturer, who spoke to the Chronicle at the
conference grounds last Saturday, made a stout and spirited defence of the
so-called plan, which worked to near perfection, arguing that the USA and the
UK are glowing examples of countries where this phenomenon has evolved over the
years.
The conference was held to elect officers to
form the national executive council of the party. The media including the
Chronicle had published the names of all except Lord Oblitey Commey as those
who will emerge as leaders of the party.
GRi…/
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We won't approve new tariffs
The Public Utility and Regulatory Commission
(PURC) has made it clear that it will not approve proposals for adjustments in
the tariffs of the utility providers unless they meet the targets set for them
by the commission, The Daily Graphic reports.
The PURC said although the companies are making
efforts to meet the targets, there is still, room for improvement. Mrs Dufie
Ofori, Director of Customer Services of the commission, said in an interview in
Accra on Tuesday, that the ability of the Ghana Water Company limited (GWCL)
and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to meet the targets will form the
basis for a review of tariffs.
She said the GWCL has been tasked to embark on
a comprehensive rationing programme, which will be acceptable to the PURC. The
programme, according to her, will aim at achieving water supply at least twice
a week, to all areas or localities, which currently do not have access to
water.
The water company is also to reduce the rate of
unaccounted-for water, lapses in billing and metering while illegal connections
should also be reduced to 16 per cent from the current estimate of 20 per cent.
The GWCL is expected to reduce power
consumption by about 10 per cent. Currently, it spends billions of cedis monthly
on power alone.
On revenue, Mrs Ofori said the company is
expected to improve revenue collection to achieve 95 per cent billing while it
is also expected to adhere to strict statutory water quality standards.
Mrs Ofori talked about the targets for the ECG
and explained that, "the commission has also imposed certain performance
targets and operational indicators which may trigger future electricity rate
adjustments only when the targets have been met to the satisfaction of the
PURC".
More…/
Ministers, Deputies declare assets
All Ministers and Deputy Ministers of State
have now declared their assets to the Auditor-General, according to an
interview granted the Graphic.
About 100 Members of Parliament have also declared
their assets, while the newly appointed District Chief Executives, Presiding
Members and other public office holders have collected assets declaration
forms, Kwao Aidoo, Secretary of the Audit Service Board, disclosed to the paper
on Tuesday.
Mr Aidoo said the public office holders have
been flocking the offices of the Audit Service, for the past three weeks, to
collect the forms, describing the trend as a positive development in the
attitude of public office holders saying, "they are all coming on their
own to collect the forms".
More../
Wa NPP member files writ to restrain Isshaque
A Leading member of the Wa Central Constituency
branch of the NPP, Alhaji Sanuni Iddris, has filed a writ at the Wa High Court
restraining Alhaji Abdulai Issahaque and 11 other regional executive members of
the NPP from performing the functions of the regional executive committee of
the party in the region.
According to the writ, the present NPP regional
executive has exhausted its constitutional term and is no longer competent to
act in that capacity. The story also contained that the impasse between the
Upper West Regional Chairman of the NPP, Alhaji Issahaque, and some regional
executives of the party has not been resolved, as published in the August 25,
2000 issue of the Daily Graphic.
More…/
Police quiz managing director over payments
The Police are investigating the circumstances
under which a colossal amount of ¢12.5 billion was wrongfully disbursed to
Eagle Star Construction Limited for work on two road projects in the Western
Region in November last year.
According to the Graphic, it has learnt that
the company had already received a total of £6 million (about ¢60 billion)
facility, in three instalments, from the Export Credit Guarantee Department for
the same projects, the Bawdie-Asankragua and Elubo-Asemkrom roads.
Helping the police in their investigation is
Theophilus Biney, Managing Director of the company Eagle Star. A source at the
Ministry of Finance said in an interview with the paper that the investigation
is to unearth the motive behind the payment of the ¢12.5 billion, the purpose
for the payment, what the money was intended for and those behind the release
of the money.
GRi…/
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J.J. eyes Bimbilla seat
The intent of the NPP government to ensure at
all costs that the post of the Executive Secretary of the ECOWAS goes to Dr Mohammed
Ibn Chambas, has set-off a campaign within the NDC to look for a winnable
candidate so as not to allow themselves to be outwitted by their closest rival,
the NPP.
Ibn Chambas is the sitting NDC MP for Bimbilla,
but the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), which already has parliamentary
majority, hopes to win the Bimbilla seat to increase its tally to 101 Members
of Parliament as against the 92 MPs that the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
currently has.
The ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, founder
and leader of the NDC, is said to have jumped into a fray, expressing his
party’s firm commitment to retain the Bimbilla seat.
According to the paper, this revelation was
made when the NDC branch at the Kokomba Market in Accra, visited the former
President on Monday to show their solidarity to him and to enquire about his
welfare.
GRi…/
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Where is the ¢230M?
The Alajo North Unit Committee has refuted the
claim by the consortium of Non-Governmental Organisations that the consortium
had distributed relief items valued at 230 million cedis to the flood victims
in Accra, including Alajo, the Free Press reports.
The committee is said, to have in a statement,
denied that such relief items were distributed to residents of Alajo North,
worst affected during the recent Accra floods.
Quoting the publication of the claim that
appeared on the back page of the Daily Graphic of Friday, August 10, 2001, the
committee said "A total of 11,703 beneficiaries were presented with 115
bales of second hand clothes, 469 cartons of key soap and 150 bales of poly
mats.
The five communities, according to the
publication, were Alajo, Avenor, Adabraka-Sahara, Odawna, all in Accra and
Kasoa in the Central Region.
In the interest of the good people of Alajo,
the committee said, "We challenge these bodies, secretary of the
Assemblies of God Relief Services and Sully Sumani, co-ordinator of the NGOs
who claimed they presented the items, to publish the names of the 11,703
alleged beneficiaries of the items, the communities they came from, the
quantity, and the value of the relief items each person benefited."
GRi…/
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Baako slams NDC's past
The Weekly Insight reports Kweku Baako Jnr.,
editor of the "Crusading Guide" as saying that the National Democratic
Congress (NDC) suffers from a credibility problem arising out of its past
performance in government.
He listed some of the problems associated with
the party’s rule as violation of the rights of citizens and the implementation
of economic policies, which are not substantially different from those being
implemented by the NPP government.
Baako, who was speaking at a media interaction
programme organised by the NDC's Youth Forum for senior personnel of the media,
said the NDC's criticism of the Kufuor administration lacks credibility because
it implemented the same policies.
He disagreed with suggestions that the media is
biased in favour of the NPP and drew attention to the fact that the Ghanaian
media has been sufficiently critical of the Kufuor administration.
He cited Mallam Isa’s case, the exposure of the
Sahara deal and repeated attacks on the HIPC initiative as some examples of
media criticism against the government.
GRi…/
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Ghana operating de facto fixed exchange rate
The High Street Journal (HSJ) quotes Dr Nii Noi
Ashong of Centre for Policy Analysis, as saying that the Government's policy of
restraining expenditure and not dishing out more funds to contractors and
certain sectors of the economy could be the reason for the stability of the
cedi on the foreign exchange market.
He said it could also account for the slight
slide in the inflation rate and as things stand now, the country may be said to
be operating a de facto fixed exchange rate.
Dr Ashong, who was contributing to a roundtable
discussion organised by the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF), said the
formal domestic debt has increased from 7.8 trillion cedis as at the end
December 2000, to 8.5 trillion cedis by June 2001.
The external debt is around six billion US
dollars, with Japan being owed about 60 percent of bilateral debt. The end of December
2000 domestic debt excludes those of Volta River Authority (VRA), Electricity
Company of Ghana (ECG), Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and payment arrears accrued by
the government, which is a form of informal debt.
Dr Ashong said as at December 2000, road
contractors were being owed 2.34 trillion cedis, out of which 70 billion cedis
had been paid to date. He said the government has so far collected 10 billion
cedis of the money owed by institutions and individuals.
The Government's decision to hold back funds
may be detrimental because it would affect employment because small-scale
businesses are not doing well, he stated.
More…/
Trust Bank rewards customers through
re-launched Gold Account
The Trust Bank, in line with its corporate
mission to periodically appreciate the patronage of its valued customers, last
week re-launched their latest innovative product on the banking terrain, TTB
Gold Account.
It is meant for customers to take advantage of
the golden opportunity presented to them through the ingenuity of the product
development department, to savour an investment account that combines the
features of the Savings and Current Account and attract tiered interest rates
as well as cash flow management.
The banks current interest rate, which varies
between 2.5 per cent and 16 per cent is reckoned with the Savings Account
Interest ranging from 2.5 per cent to 15 per cent to produce a hybrid TTB Gold
Account of 17 per cent to 29 per cent.
In relating the product features, Yiadom
Asare-Boakye, Group head, banking services said customers require ten million
cedis to open TTB Gold Account while withdrawals from it are restricted to a
minimum of four times per month.
GRi…/
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Another couple escapes robbers
The Accra Mail says robbers are now desperate
and it is showing in their newfound method in the face of the failure rate of
the standard "break in and rob" approach.
According to the paper, barely five hours after
its reported attempted robbery of a couple in their saloon car, it received a
call from a man who narrated how he suffered a similar fate two nights earlier
to the Achimota incident.
The man (name withheld) was using the short cut
from Sakumono to East Legon, with his wife on his side, which passes through a
tunnel on the Spintex road. An undulation, just before driving into the tunnel,
compels motorists to slow down.
The caller said on reaching that point, there
was a thunderous noise and his wife, sensing danger asked him to speed off on
realising a stone had been hurled at the side of the car. One of the robbers
held on to the side of the car as he tried in vain to pull the wife out as the
car gained speed. The robber finally let go off his grip.
The attack resulted in the smashing of a side
window of his pick-up. The informant thinks the robbers lurk in the bushes in
that vicinity ready to pounce on their victims as they approach the place.
A patrol vehicle around the Tetteh Quarshie
roundabout could not help, nor could he get through to the joint
military/police patrol immediately after the incident. He advised motorists to
avoid that part of the road between 7 and 9pm.
More…/
Review the Interstate Law
The
African Women Lawyers Association (AWLA), an advocacy of Ghanaian women lawyers
have called for a review of portions of the Interstate Succession Law to
provide security for spouses whose partners die interstate, report The Accra
Mail.
Addressing the press, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu,
Chairperson of AWLA noted that ignorance of the Law and cultural beliefs of the
people have affected the effective implementation of the Interstate Succession
Law.
She said the public could be educated about the
Law if the government took steps to address the serious lapses that came up
during its implementation by disseminating information among the population
especially those in the rural areas, who are most at risk.
Ms Bernice Baiden, a member of the association
observed that definition of a child and spouse under the law poses serious
problems to beneficiaries, especially in customary marriage in a polygamous
home.
She said the Law permits children outside the
ordinance marriage to share the house and property with the legitimate wife,
who might have contributed to the acquisition of the joint ownership.
However, she asked how a woman could share
property with the other wives and children of the man if he should die without
writing a will.
Ms Baiden acknowledged that though Ghana was
the first to have such legislation, touted as one of the best in Africa, there
was the need to fine-tune it and make its implementation relevant to the
existing situation.
GRi…/
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NPP MP sobers up
The Dispatch says there are credible
indications that the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North, Hon Ohene
Agyapong, has sobered up, after his attitude towards a law enforcement officer.
According to the Dispatch, this was evident at
the NPP National Congress at Legon last Saturday, when he was stopped by some
Policemen on duty to identify himself as he did not have any identification tag
either as a delegate or official.
He is reported to have “coolly brought out an
identity card from his pocket and was allowed into the congress hall”.
When the Policemen on duty were informed that
he is the MP of ‘do you know who I am’ fame, an NPP supporter remarked, “he go
talk true. Whatever the top hierarchy told him has obviously sobered him up.”
The paper recalls its August 17 to 23
publication in which the MP was said to have openly threatened a Police
Sergeant in uniform with “you foolish officer, I will slap you. Nonsense. Do
you know who I am?” The incident took
place at the Kotoka International Airport at about 9.30pm on August 4.
More…/
Murdered student’s family appeals to Kufuor
The father of the late Joseph Yawo Avonor, the
Accra Polytechnic student killed by a Policeman in Accra on August 16, has
described the Police Service’s claim that his son died accidentally as
“insensible, preposterous and damaging to the image of the service.”
Emmanuel
Kwashie Avonor has therefore appealed to President John Kuffour to ensure that
justice is done. He wondered how an incident that occurred in broad daylight in
the presence of eyewitnesses, some of whom have spoken to the Police, could be
“twisted without the slightest pinch of sensitivity” to cover “a reckless
Policeman whose crave for alcohol is confirmed by his colleagues.”
Avonor has therefore challenged the Inspector
General of Police (IGP) and all officers connected with the case to demonstrate
human feelings and professional competence to get to the bottom of the case and
come out with the truth.
He said until Ghanaians are told the truth
about his son’s death, the Police Service can never justify its call for public
support in fighting crime.
Avonor was reacting to a Daily Graphic report
of last Saturday, August 25, in which Inspector Kwame Tawiah of the Police
Public Relations Directorate claimed investigations had established that
Corporal Twumasi Appiah shot and killed his son accidentally. This was at a
family meeting last Sunday, at Darkuman-Nyamekye, a suburb of Accra, to which
The Dispatch was invited.
The aggrieved father, who was struggling to
remain stoic, wondered how the Police could claim to have concluded their
investigations when a post-mortem examination, which is a crucial part of the
investigations, was yet to be conducted on the body.
GRi…/
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