New cedis out soon
Passengers held to ransom
Ghanair operations grinding to a halt?
92 b-cedi EU grant for Ghana – For water project in 3 Northern districts
Tribunal frees two suspects
More dongomi, alofole cars exposed – Landcruisers sold for 2m cedis each
Parliament asked to break silence on ESB
Send them to court – Prof. Hagan
Soussoudis goes to JAK’s with hidden gun
Rawlings, others responsible for all the tortures – Peace Seekers
New cedis out soon
An exercise aimed at dealing with the excess liquidity situation and installing sanity into the financial sector is to be undertaking soon, reports The Statesman.
During the exercise, to be conducted along the lines of the 1979 demonetisation, people will be given 1,000 cedis of the new cedi for every 10,000 cedis they send into the bank.
Sources at the Ministry of Finance said the exercise has been necessitated by the “frightening quantum of money in people’s hands and homes,” which has starved the banks and the economy of the cash required for “healthy operations”.
He also referred to the “irresponsible economic decision by the NDC government to print about 900 billion cedis into the system without going through the necessary process.” The exercise, he said would take care of that excess.
The source noted that the amount of money in the system is “extremely excessive and worrying,” and expressed confidence that the exercise would help stem the drift of cash figures into trillions.
“This would help slow down all this talk about trillions and scale discussions about money back to billions,” said the source.
It noted, however, that enough time would be given for people to change their money, unlike in 1979 when so much panic was created that led to the loss of several millions of cedis and lives.
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Passengers held to ransom
The Ghanaian Times says some drivers in the Eastern Region have, in connivance with their union leaders, discarded the 15 per cent increase in transport fares announced on Friday and fixed their own fares far above the official rates.
Taxi fares from Anyinam to Kwabeng has been increased from 900 cedis to 1,500 cedis while in Koforidua, the fares has increased by 300 cedis for intra city travels.
Urvan drivers plying between Kumasi and Koforidua have also increased their fare from 8,500 to 9,700 cedis.
The situation, reportedly, is no different in Accra.
A number of people that the paper talked to urged the government to come out with new fares to reflect on the 15 per cent increase to stop the drivers from taking the law into their own hands.
Currently, they said, the government was to blame for allowing the drivers to have a field day, adding that hitherto, increases in fuel prices were released side-by- side the approved fares.
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Ghanair operations grinding to a halt?
The Times reports that Ghana Airways, the national airline, which has been described as a “gold mine” by many a businessman, could be blown out of the sky if steps are not taken to halt its poor performances.
The airline, which has been in operation for about 42 years, has remained in business with great difficulty with its position worsening.
There is therefore, the need for quick steps to be taken to streamline costs, as its operating costs far exceeds the operating revenue.
“If these are not immediately checked, no amount of additional revenue sought for the airline would be able to alter the present financial positions.”
Sources close to Ghana Airways have confirmed that with the operating outflows far exceeding operating inflows, together with the need to service the huge backlog of trade creditors, short term debts and overdrafts, a lot needs to be done and quickly too to avert an extremely grave situation.
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92 b-cedi EU grant for Ghana – For water project in 3 Northern districts
The European Union (EU) is to spend 92 billion cedis on a project to improve water supply and sanitation facilities in three districts of the Northern Region, the ‘Daily Graphic’ reports.
Under the project, which is expected to be implemented over a four-year period a total of 425 boreholes and 50 hand-dug wells as well as 2,050 sanitation facilities will be provided in the West Mamprusi, East and West Gonja districts.
Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance, announced this on Monday at a ceremony at which an agreement on the project was signed.
The Minister recalled that in early 1999, the Northern Region, particularly East Gonja and the areas along the Volta River and its main tributaries, were flooded causing damage to the already insufficient water supply infrastructure and making it possible for guinea worm, which was eradicated in some areas, to reappear.
The project, he said, is therefore aimed at eradicating guinea worm infections and alleviating poverty in these areas.
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Tribunal frees two suspects
The Graphic in another story reports that an Accra Circuit Tribunal hearing the case in which two persons have been charged with stealing a number of diskettes containing secret information of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) from the party’s national secretariat has discharged the accused persons for want of prosecution.
This followed a motion filed at the tribunal by Dr P.E. Bondzi-Simpson, counsel for the accused persons, praying the tribunal to discharge his clients, since the prosecution has no case against them and is only “wasting their time”.
The tribunal, chaired by Mr Imoru Ziblim, upheld the application and discharged the accused persons, George Graham, Administrative Manager, of Camelot Ghana Limited, and Patrick Opata, a computer technician and owner of Condes Computer Services.
The two are said to have agreed to steal the diskettes and sold them to some private newspapers in Accra but they pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to commit crime and stealing.
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More dongomi, alofole cars exposed – Landcruisers sold for 2m cedis each
The ‘Daily Guide’ says it has uncovered that 10 very expensive state vehicles were sold to an individual for a paltry 20 million cedis, breaking down to a mere 2 million cedis per one.
The vehicles include five Toyota Landcruisers, one Toyota Double Cabin Pick Up, a Nissan Patrol and a Pick Up, and two Korando Station Wagon.
According to the paper it all began when on April 2, 1998, one Lt. Col. E.R.N. Mensah (rtd) who signed for the Acting Chief of Staff, wrote to the then Minister of Mines and Energy that approval has been granted for the transfer of a list of vehicles belonging to the Ministry.
The beneficiary of the vehicles, one Attoh Baker, who claimed to be the Chief Executive of a National Cooperative Wholesale Unit (NCWU), strangely had the backing of the ex-deputy Minister for Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Austin Gamey.
Under the guise of creating jobs in the agricultural sector (Youth in Agriculture Programmed), Gamey communicated with ex-Vice President Prof. Atta Mills to support the move and succeeded in getting the vehicles sold to Baker.
The Minister for Employment and Social Welfare, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni had, reportedly, questioned the propriety of using the ministry to authorise the sale of government vehicles to an organisation that did not exist but Gamey carried out his intention all the same, claiming the ex-Vice President was aware.
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Parliament asked to break silence on ESB
A leading member of the NPP in the Upper East Region, Mr W.A. Afoko, has called on parliament to break its silence over the controversial End of Service Benefit (ESB) paid to ex-government officials, NDC functionaries, parliamentarians and DCEs, reports the ‘Evening News’.
“I cannot find my way clear as to why parliament as the legislative organ of government has not commented on the issue which is of national concern”, he told the paper on Friday.
The list of beneficiaries so far published, he said, is made up of only members of the ex-government.
“The public would equally want to know whether other members of parliament from the NPP camp who were then in opposition enjoyed the ESB or not,” he stated.
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Send them to court – Prof. Hagan
Professor George Hagan, the Presidential candidate for the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in the December elections has said that anybody who feels he or she was unjustly treated during the regime of the former President, Jerry John Rawlings, could channel whatever grievances to the quarters of the Attorney-General’s Department for attention.
“If you are put before court and you are able to defend yourself, fair enough, but if you are found guilty, then you have to face the wrath of the law,” he said in an interview with ‘The Evening News’ on his reaction to President Kufuor’s statement in his Sessional Address to Parliament that those who have wronged the society would be brought to book.
He said if a person seized power for over 20 years and meted out injustice to fellow human beings, the time is due for those who want to pursue justice to do so within the ambience of the law.
He asserted that during the over 20 years reign of the former President, some responsible citizens lost their parents in cold blood and that the law should take its full course to redress the situation.
The action being taken by President Kufuor, he said, was not witch hunting, explaining that witch hunting is when people start to point fingers at NDC functionaries with the intention of lynching them.
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Soussoudis goes to JAK’s with hidden gun
The Chronicle says in what may have been a major security nightmare, Police guarding President J.A. Kufour’s airport residence retrieved a revolver hidden on the body of Mr Michael Soussoudis right inside the house in Accra.
He was accompanying Mr Kofi Wayo, the popular political gadfly who happens to be a loyal and close friend of the notorious cousin and very intimate partner of the former President Flt. Lt. J.J. Rawlings.
It was barely 48 hours after Mr Soussoudis’s house had been searched and significant horde of arms and ammunition retrieved.
He turned up on Monday morning before 9.30 am at the residence of JAK and was allowed to go through the posse of Policemen at the entrance and actually parked his car inside JAK’s compound.
When the name of the swashbuckling ‘Chucks’ was announced he was waved in after he was ordered to park outside of the inner perimeter.
On this occasion one instinctive policeman quickly followed the duo and politely asked to be allowed to body search Soussoudis. “Within seconds, the cop felt the cold steel of the revolver neatly tucked away and hidden on his body.”
“He was politely taken out and taken straight to the police”.
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The ‘Ghana Palaver’ says President J.A. Kufuor is running the country without a Cabinet and a Council of State, which sources say, is due to the President’s difficulty in fighting back the pressure put on him with the load of 27 Ministers, all struggling for Cabinet Status.
It quotes Article 76 of the Constitution which mandates the President to have a Cabinet of between 10 and 19 members and says sources indicates that almost all of Kufuor’s Ministers have laid claims to Cabinet status, with none prepared to accept a non-Cabinet-ranking position.
“As a result, the President’s table is now filled with a jumble of old and new certificates, genuine and fake educational credentials, with each ‘applicant’, claiming to be better than all others.”
The infighting, the sources reveal, is now even more serious and severe than it was in pre-election days, when factionalism within the top party hierarchy, at times drew punches and blood.
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Rawlings, others responsible for all the tortures – Peace Seekers
Peace Seekers International (PSI), an association of Ex-PNDC political detainees who suffered various lengths of detention between 1982 and 1992, have underscored that ex-President Rawlings, Kojo Tsikata and Asase Gyimah were directly responsible for their torture, ‘The Crusading Guide’ reports.
The young men were recounting the ordeal they went through in the PNDC era on the popular Joy FM current affairs programme ‘Frontpage’.
Members of the Association who were on the programme, Stanley Obeng Okyere, Alex Abubakr Alhassan, Adongo and Thomas submitted that they were tortured while in detention.
“I wish people do not talk about 31st December and June 4th because they don’t know what went into it”, Thomas was quoted ass saying.
The Peace Seekers called for compensation and resettlement because according to them, they were detained for varying lengths of time only to be told that they had been pardoned, without addressing the effects of that unfortunate act.
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