Krowor NDC salutes Alabi
Textbook publishing divested
Tsatsu weds
at last as GNPC PR chief finally says 'I do'
Daily Graphic
The Labone Secondary School in Accra was closed down on Monday, following the violent clash between students of the school and their counterparts of St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School at the weekend.
The school went on recess three days ahead of its scheduled closing date. Police patrol teams have been detailed to the two schools to maintain peace and order on their premises.
Last Friday, students of the two schools clashed, resulting in a student from Aquinas sustaining very severe injuries. Five of the students of Aquinas were arrested to help the police in their investigations.
An assistant headmaster of the school, Mr Daniel Mohenu, said in an interview that a day after the clash, there were rumours that one of the Aquinas students who sustained injury in the clash had died in hospital.
The rumours also had it that the Aquinas students were planning to avenge the death of their colleague, by mobilising support from one of the suburbs where the victim comes from to attack Labone students.
Mr Mohenu said as a result of the rumours, “the Labone students also armed themselves to the teeth, with cutlasses they had sharpened all nightlong, in preparedness for the clash with the Aquinas boys”.
He said the situation heightened tension while the atmosphere of uncertainties that existed was not conducive to learning.
The assistant headmaster said the closure came when the terminal examinations for the final year students and class tests for the juniors were in progress.
“But we think it is safer they go home now and come back next term to write their last papers”, he explained. He could not tell whether the clash was the result of a bitter rivalry between the male students of the school and the Aquinas boys over female students of Labone, as was being rumoured.
During a visit to the Labone Secondary School, parents had arrived on the campus in private cars and chartered taxies to take their children home.
But for the presence of the police patrol team, the atmosphere looked normal. At the St Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, the Assistant Headmaster, Mr Okyere Ababio, dismissed the rumour of the death of the student as untrue.
“We have not received any such report and we do not know who is peddling the rumour”, he said. As a day school, classes were not in session at the time journalists visited the school on Monday because of the public holiday.
Sources at the Cantonments Police Station and the Accra Police Regional Command could also not confirm the rumours. Mr Ababio said the school will break for the Christmas holidays on Thursday as scheduled.
Maru Andan who reportedly led the students to avenge an attack on a colleague, was nearly lynched. According to reports, some of the Labone students sustained various degrees of injury, and were treated and discharged at a nearby hospital.
Andan, who bled profusely from head injuries he sustained, was rushed to a hospital for emergency attention. An eye witness account said the disturbances began at about 2.30 pm, when about 30 Aquinas students besieged the premises of Labone Secondary School, to teach them a lesson for supporting Accra Academy students during a fight between Accra Academy and Aquinas.
The Aquinas students were alleged to have injured the security officer who tried to stop them from entering the school premises. In the process they destroyed the school’s gate, lights and other property.
The Accra Regional Police Commander, Dr K.K. Manfo said in an interview that the case was being investigated. “Our investigations so far seem to suggest a very trivial and ridiculous cause for the clash. It seems they were actually fighting over girls”, he said.
Aquinas Secondary School is a Catholic boy’s day school, while Labone Secondary is mixed and also has boarding facilities.
There are other versions of the reason for the clash.
It is said that because of the deep-rooted rivalry between Aquinas and Accra Academy, also a boy school, students of Aquinas felt slighted when it was rumoured that Labone girls now prefer Academy boys.
Sources said as a result of this development, Academy students were said to have supported Labone students during a scuffle between Aquinas and Labone.
The sources also said the Aquinas students attacked the Labone students because an assistant headmaster of Labone had called Aquinas students “bush boys”.
Others said the misunderstanding arose over the use of the Science Resource Centre at Aquinas by the Labone students. They said before the clash on Friday, Labone students who came to the Aquinas Science Resource Centre went on rampage and caused damage to some structures on the compound, for which Aquinas students decided to avenge.
More…/
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has stated that every effort is being made to maintain the integrity and unity of the party.
It therefore asked members of the party to stay calm and not to do anything to the contrary. An official statement signed by the party’s General Secretary, Alhaji Huudu Yahaya, said there have been media reports on perceived cracks within the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), resulting in accusations and counter-accusation, in recent items.
It said these have bordered on the work of the National Re-organization Committee and the declared intentions by some members to contest positions at various levels.
The statement said elders and top leadership of the NDC have as a result held meetings with the persons involved, with the objective of resolving these problems.
It gave the assurance that the National Executive Committee will report on the progress made in due course. The apparent crack in the party emanated from the election of constituency and regional executives as a prelude to the national congress scheduled for December 28.
It also stems from perceptions that a pro-reform group is gaining substantial grounds at both elections throughout the country and, therefore, looked poised to carry the day at the impending congress.
This attracted the anger and consternation of those who wanted to maintain the status quo. Allegations of people offering financial inducement to delegates to get elected have also been made.
Former President J.J Rawlings is reported to have expressed misgivings about allegations of financial manipulation of the election of NDC regional executives:
According to him, similar trends are manifesting in regional branch elections around the country and this, he said, was alien to the party.
“It is extremely important for party activists and those vying for executive positions to realise that any attempt to buy our way into executive positions will not only undermine our party but damage the integrity and the very spiritual soul of the party”, he is reported to have alleged.
Dr Obed Yao Asamoah, Chairman of the Re-organisation Committee of the party, has formally declared his intention to contest the position of the National Chairman of the party.
In declaring his intention at the Volta Regional congress of the party at Ho, he expressed optimism that the greater democracy and openness permeating the party-currently will galvanise not only members and supporters of the party but also more non-NDC members into the fold of the party to enhance its prospects of recapturing power in the 2004 elections.
Asked whether elections at the congress will, as was the case in the past, be by endorsement without voting, he replied, “I hope not” adding that “the exercise of revamping the NDC requires that all leadership positions in the party be filled through democratic elections”.
Other media reports indicated that the NDC is to separate the position of leader of the party from that of the founder. This was said to form part of proposals fro the amendment of the constitution by the Constitutional and Legal Sub-committee of the NDC, Sources said that the likely approval of the amendment, the first after the party’s defeat in the 2000 elections, will strip former President Rawlings of one of this titles.
The sources said the approval of the amendment by the delegates will guarantee former President Rawlings the founder’s position while the position of leader will go to the national chairman of the party who will be elected at the congress.
Another area of change will be the abolition of the co-chairman positions instituted since the formation of the party in 1992.
More…/
Krowor NDC salutes Alabi
The Executive and rank and file of the Krowor Constituency of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have described the election of Mr Joshua Alabi as the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the party as "a progressive and far sighted move that would boost the political fortunes of the NDC in the region."
In a statement issued by the group and signed by Mr Albert Nuertey, Krowor Constituency Secretary, the branch pointed out that Mr Alabi had, by dint of practical and positive deeds, proved his steadfast and deep-seated commitment to the cause of the party.
"Even in times when the going has been tough and some have held back from the party, he (Mr Alabi) has never wavered but has been at the fore front, mobilising and helping to organise and co-ordinate the actions of members, supporters and sympathisers to help boost the image, attraction and support for our great party", it said.
The group described the new regional chairman as "an astute leader, a good listener and team builder and a general whose concern for the well being and progress of his troops and for the success of the party is genuine and deep-seated".
"We are also elated that contributions he (Mr Alabi) has made to revamping of the party will not only enhance the move to deepen democracy and the involvement of the rank and file in the decision making process, but also contribute to the grand objective of helping our great party recapture power in the 2004 general elections and serve our people better," it stressed.
More…/
The University College of Education (UCEW) has decided to maintain the new grading system of 50 per cent as pass mark and 70 per cent as excellent, despite protestations from the students for a review.
This followed a careful consideration by the academic board of the university over the new grading system, which was introduced about two years ago.
Professor Josphus Anamuah-Mensah, Principal of UCEW, announced this at separate ceremonies to mark the sixth matriculation at the Kumasi and Mampong campuses of the university at the weekend.
Under the old grading system, 40 per cent was the pass mark; § while 70 per cent was for excellent. Professor Anamuah-Mensah said the board underscored the reasons for adopting the new grading system, since there are many variables in the evaluation process, which include course content, level of difficulty and coverage of examination questions.
In all, 757 and 227 students gained admission to the Kumasi and Mampong campuses respectively to pursue various courses at the certificate and bachelor degree levels.
Professor Anamuah-Mensah observed that in criticising the new grading system, the students made reference to other universities which have 40 per cent as pass mark and 70 per cent as excellent but failed to add that in those universities, the continuous assessment component in the grading process is 30 per cent, as against UCEW’s 40 per cent.
He said the continuous assessment mark of 40 per cent is being maintained while the pass level for degree classification has been widened to include cumulative grade point average of 1.00 to 1.99, which is in consonance with the concept of the new grading system.
He said the degree classification schedule is based on the simple logic that a student obtaining the minimum pass mark in all courses would make a final cumulative grade point of average of 1.0 since the numerical equivalence of the pass mark is 1.0.
He announced that for the first time in the history of the university, it extended direct admission to SSS graduates. He said the programme is to help clear the backlog, as admissions in the past had been restricted basically to trained teachers.
He, therefore, called on SSS graduates to take advantage of the opportunity. He expressed the hope that the university college will become a fully-fledged university by the end of the academic year.
He said as part of a comprehensive programme to encourage admission to the Mampong campus, a pre-entry access programme has been introduced to assist students with interest in agricultural education to pursue a degree programme at the university.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Textbook publishing divested
The Ministry of Education has ceased to be publisher and distributor of its own school textbooks in consonance with the policy of the government to make the private sector the engine of growth.
Mr Rashid Bawa, Deputy Minister of Education, said this at the 25th Ghana Book Awards ceremony organized by Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC) in Accra on Saturday.
He expressed the hope that professionals of the Ghanaian book industry would avail themselves of the opportunity that the textbook project would offer. Mr Bawa recommended to them the idea of pooling their resources or forming consortiums, considering the huge capital outlay involved in the project.
“We are looking forward to the day when the book industry in Ghana will be an important income earner for the nation, as obtains in the advanced countries,” he said, adding that the objectives could only be realized if the industry was rid of nefarious activities of pirates.
The annual award, sponsored by Afram Publications, Buck Press, Compuprint, EPP Books Services, Minerva Books and Stationery Supplies and Unimax Macmillan, was to honour deserving members of the industry for their contributions.
The Deputy Minister commended the GBDC for spearheading the production of the Textbook Development and distribution Policy, which would be the ministry’s blueprint for streamlining the procurement of textbooks and accompanying guides and manuals for the basic schools, he said.
“The textbook policy with its operational annexes is now ready and will be presented to Cabinet for study prior to its submission to Parliament for approval”.
“As soon as Parliamentary approval is given, the way will be clear for the Ministry to source funding of about 70 million dollars, for a major textbook production and procurement programme by the Ministry.”
Mr Bawa said this would be done in collaboration with publishers, as producers of the textbooks on the one hand and the Ministry as the purchases.
The Deputy Minister said pirates of intellectual property were not faceless entities but human beings who chose this orthodox way of making money at the expense of their hard working victims whose sweat and toil resulted in the products they stole.
He gave the assurance that the ministry would assist the council’s task force formed under the umbrella of the Copyright Administration to Combat books and software piracy in the country and across the borders.
More…/
Prempeh College at the week-end held its 52nd Speech and Prize Giving Day in Kumasi under the theme, “Rebuilding Prempeh College, three years after.”
The school used the event to honour President John Kufuor, an old boy for being the first product of Prempeh College to rise to the high office of the President of Ghana.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
The foreign
chapter of the Busia Foundation International (BFI) founded in 1998 to honour
and perpetuate the memory of Dr Kofi Abrefi Busia, Prime Minister of Ghana in
the 2nd Republic (1969-72), has been launched in Accra.
Busia
Foundation International aims at promoting in Ghana and elsewhere, the
principles of basic human rights and universal education, the hallmarks of Dr
Busia's philosophy and praxis.
It is also
the aim of BFI to raise funds in Ghana and abroad to fulfil its short-term and
long term goals including the establishment of an academic scholarship fund for
deserving Ghanaian students as well as educational fund to support the
education of children orphaned as a result of the AIDS epidemic.
The
Foundation's goals also include the establishment of BFI Book Mobile, mobile
book and video libraries that would travel the country, disseminating reading
and education resource materials to people living in less privileged regions.
In her
welcome address, Madam Ama Busia, a member of the Foundation said the BFI was
established in Ghana and elsewhere, to promote democracy and the rule of law.
She said,
the Foundation seeks to "translate our sense of culture to the community
level by inculcating good moral values into the people" and urged all and
sundry to contribute to the Foundation.
The
colourful night at the National Theatre featured two of Dr Busia's daughters;
Dr Abena Busia, a Professor and Poet based at Rutgers University in New York
Jersey, US and actress Akosua Busia, internationally known for her roles in Box
Office hits like 'Ashanti' and ' Colour Purple', with poetry recitals and
melodious songs.
Nana Akuffo
Addo, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, received a number of books
on behalf of President J.A. Kuffuor presented by Komla Dumor on Madam Ama
Busia's behalf.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Accountant-General’s Department (AGD), the office responsible for paying the salaries of all MDAs (Ministries, Department, and Agencies) of state, is rotten to the core.
It seems that the present Accountant-General, John Prempeh, has a lot to answer for the multi-billion cedi racket that is alleged to be very much part of the operation at his department.
The Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, speaks of 300 billion cedis of state funds being lost every monthly through the insertion of ghost names on workers payroll. This, he says, represent 10 per cent of the total amount that goes to paying the salary of both civil and public servants every month, about 3 trillion cedis.
The Statesman calculates that 300 billion cedis, the amount lost each month, can cater
for the outstanding payments on all contracts awarded by the government to local
entrepreneurs. 300 billion cedis can build and equip a JSS and a polyclinic in every
region on a monthly basis. 300bilion cedis will build low cost houses for the majority
of homeless people who sleep rough in Accra.
The amount lost to the ghost names alone can every year finance a dual carrier linking
the economic centres of the nation, a project, the funding for which see our government circumnavigating the Western world with bowl in hand.
It has been suggested that the purging of the system of ghost names calls for a dual
approach involving an efficient computerised payroll system and a complete head
count for all wage earners with the MDAs. But the situation appears hopeless, as
attempts to get rid of rot at the AGD has faced strong, persistent opposition from
within and some low ranking officers within the AGD fear similar frustration awaits
new purging measures.
Last October, the AGD was compelled to act and, therefore, commenced a nationwide
head count of all state employees to ascertain their actual figures. The exercise
is expected to end by the second week of January 2002. But, already it has attracted
pessimism. A source at the AGD says the ghosts will once again be reincarnated and
“find their way back onto the payroll immediately after the count.”
According to the source, “so long as the payroll continues to be done semi-manually,
the syndicate which controls the system at our office will continue to have things their
own way.” This so-called syndicate, the statesman learns, has its tentacles at the
various regions and can be only purged if an incorruptible task force manned by a
combined team from the SFO, CHRAJ and the Auditor General’s Department
undertakes and oversees the head counting process from the bottom upwards.
The previous government attempted to cure the canker by introducing a payroll
software but met massive impediments. It is estimated that billions of cedis have been
wasted on implementing a payroll software but top officials at the AGD simply do not
want it to work.
The Mandarins within John Prempeh’s department consistently frustrate all attempts
to install probity, accountability, transparency, and efficiency in the payroll system for
state employees.
The source at the AGD says it will be difficult for the present Accountant-General to
deny complicity, “because for a long time he was the deputy to Accountant-General
Ralph Tuffour, who was asked to vacate his post earlier on in the Kufour
administration.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Tsatsu
weds at last as GNPC PR chief finally says 'I do'
The Man who
laid the foundation for the collapse of the Ghanaian economy, Mr Tsatsu
Tsikata, has formalized his unofficial liaison, Mrs Esther Baah Boakye, (nee
Cobbah), the head of GNPC's Public Affairs Department and officially, the
spokesperson of the West African Gas Pipeline Project.
Chronicle
learnt that an as yet unidentified church at the University of Ghana was the
venue of what was planned to be a small and simple ceremony to formalise and
bind the lovebirds in holy matrimony.
Chronicle
monitoring of the couple showed that Mrs Baah Boakye, until recently the most
powerful person at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, cleared up all
lingering obstacles to Monday's event with a quick divorce of her
long-suffering husband, the gentle, well-dressed Mr Baah Boakye, she promptly
ceased using the name Mrs Baah Boakye-unusual with most divorcees who usually
hang on to their divorced husband's name-and started answering and filling
forms with the less famous name-Ms
Esther Cobbah.
She may
have been taking instructions from smart lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata, her boss for
more than 12 years. Like David did to Uriah by sending him to the frontline
battlefield where he hoped that he would die so that he would have his wife,
there has been strong speculations that Mr Baah Boakye was deliberately posted
to Bonn, Germany, as senior diplomat
through the instrumentality of the government of the day of which Tsatsu had
untrammeled power.
It was not
impossible then for Tsatsu, an academically endowed person, to have access to
the tall and elegantly beautiful Fante smash with brains and confidence.
Monday's
event will confirm several pieces of information and news surrounding the way
Tsatsu ran the organization to the ground. For Tsatu, this would be his first
marriage at the age of 50 plus, after he failed to marry another young
beautiful lady from the University of Ghana after having a child with her.
For Esther
it is her second, to the man she has grown to love (?) and play along with for
more than a dozen years.
At GNPC,
Tsatsu ran a fiefdom and distributed opportunities and privileges to inner
players as if he owned the company. Mrs Baah Boakye, Dr Nii Narku Quaynor, and
a few others benefited.
Esther had
four/five bedroom house sold to her less than 35 million cedis when the
airconditioners alone in this first class residential Cantoment residence would
have been probably a quarter of the sum paid for the property.
Several
conflict of interest issues will surface as well, including issues of real
estate interests and 'arrangements' in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, where Tsatsu
spent the last moments of his last days at GNPC, consummating powerful
connections for personal interests at the expense of Government time.
She set up
a Public Relations company, operating from the official-residence she now owns
and grabbed jobs from GNPC/Government connected agencies like the West Africa
Gas Pipeline and Westel jobs.
Her big
brother, Dr Cobbah, was spoken to and when Tsatsu's GNPC took the second
network operator's licence and formed Westel, his brother-in-law was appointed
and came down to Ghana as the Deputy Managing Director. It’s all in the family.
Westel is having problems now.
Another
Tsatsu man, Dr Nii Narku Quaynor, who came through the United Nations
Development Programme, also set up shop at GNPC and set up a separate company,
which began to supply computers to GNPC-brands that he represented. Quaynor, a
younger brother of Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister of Employment and
Manpower Development, also benefited
from the house-for-friends deal. Chronicle learnt that he also got one of the
houses next to nothing, despite his claims that he does not work for GNPC.
Baah Boakye
gradually eased herself out of the GNPC Public Affairs with the possible
insider knowledge that the Corporation was in the throes of insolvency.
They pushed
a young and fierce loyalist, Mr Owusu, to replace her. They managed to put
together a good team including a TV3 reporter and another fine young journalist
with a beautiful pen, Mr Egbert Failbille, Managing Editor of Ambassador Kabral
Amihere's The Independent to take charge of that portfolio on a substantive
basis.
Tsatsu
Tsikata is currently on trial over a million dollars facility to a farming
concern in the Western Region.
Chronicle
is also digging deeper into the legacy that he bequeathed to the country and
the ruins that he left that have left workers of the corporation now blighted.
He and his new wife have no such problems. The family engagement had been done
some three months earlier.
More…/
Hon. Dr
Kwabena Adjei, MP for Biakoye has dismissed rumours of disintegration in the
NDC. He told listeners of LUV FM in Kumasi during a talk show last week Monday
that there is no problem in the NDC camp that democracy was at play.
The MP said
perceived problems in the NDC are "one's own imagination." Hon. Adjei
said there were a lot of distortions and misinformation regarding goings-on in
the party.
Answering a
question by the host, Hon. Adjei said he was not aware of any deep seated
conflict between ex-President Rawlings and Dr Obed Asamoah, said to be at the
center of rumours of division following the leadership struggle.
The MP also
defended the minority's stand against the National Reconciliation Commission
Bill and the authority of the President to appoint members of the proposed
commission.
GRi…/
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com