NPP organiser charged with Black Stool theft
Stanchart outdoors innovative cash management product
Postal staff angry over 1.8 billion cedis scandal
Korle-Bu crisis…Health Minister in a fix over conflicting reports
Government assets in U.S. risk seizure
Banda Senior Secondary School in crisis
Robbers raid Amansie West Rural Bank
Buruli toxin found…Cure in sight
Ghana, South Africa against gold sales
NPP organiser charged with Black Stool theft
In a screaming front page headline story, the Ghanaian Democrat reports that the NPP constituency youth organiser for Asante Mampong, Mr Joshua Ernest Kofi Marfo and his close friend, Osei kofi, have been charged by the Asante Mampong Police for allegedly stealing a 69-year-old Black Stool.
The paper says Nana Kwadwo Boakye, ‘Nkonwasoafohene’ and Nana Boakye, the ‘Akonforihene’, narrating the story said the theft was detected on May 30, this year, when the stool was needed for ritual. They said Osei Kofi, on whose ceiling the stool was kept, was arrested three days later and charged with stealing.
According to the chiefs, after the death on May 4, 1930, of Nana Osei Bonsu, Mamponhene, his stool was to be kept in the family house until after the final funeral rites, but an ensuing chieftaincy dispute prevented the performance of the funeral rites.
The Democrat says when Osei Kofi was arrested, he mentioned the NPP youth organiser as his accomplice and he was subsequently nabbed. According to the paper, Marfo admitted stealing the stool with Osei Kofi and told the police that he had kept it in an empty barrel, but when they accompanied him to retrieve it, the stool was no where to be found.
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Stanchart outdoors innovative cash management product
The High Street Journal in a front page story, says the Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited (Stanchart), has introduced a corporate banking product, the Domestic Payments system (DPS), to lighten the cash management burden of its clients.
The paper says the new product is an electronic banking product system which works by customers down-loading their accounts payable into an diskette which is forwarded to the bank.
The essence of the product, the High Street Journal says, is that the bank takes up responsibility of customers’ creditors, either by delivering bank cheques to them or paying into their accounts in other banks. According to Stanchart, the new system which is safeguarded by high security controls, also has the advantage of cost and time saving.
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Postal staff angry over 1.8 billion cedis scandal
In a front page splash, the Ghanaian Voice says a state of uneasiness, suspicion and murmuring, is rife within the rank and file of the Ghana Postal Service Corporation in the wake of workers’ discontent about why some 1.8 billion cedis worth of imported telecommunication equipment to strengthen the corporation’s operations, are lying idle in various parts of the country.
The paper quotes sources at the corporation’s headquarters and regional offices, notably, in Ashanti, Eastern and Central, as indicating that many of the workers are aggrieved about how the equipment which some of them described as ‘unwanted’ and ‘sub-standard’, were imported into Ghana.
It is alleged that the importation of the equipment was influenced by the current Director-General of the corporation, Mr Isaac Adu Boahene. According to the Voice, Mr Boahene is alleged to have introduced some ‘bizarre’ administrative procedures and virtually turned the corporation into an NDC household.
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Korle-Bu crisis…Health Minister in a fix over conflicting reports
The Public Agends says conflicting reports from official investigations into allegations of fraudulent practices at the Korle-Bu Teaching hospital, have added to the chaos at the top level of Ghana’s biggest hospital rather than offered a basis for a clear-cut resolution.
The paper in a lead story, says at the time of going to press, the Minister of Health, Mr Samuel Nuamah Donkor, had not pronounced on the contradictory findings of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Justice Osei Committee of Enquiry, which he set up in February this year.
The Public Agenda says the probes were set up after conflicts between the hospital’s doctor-dominated six-member purchasing committee, which oversees the selection of suppliers of medical consumables, and the Director of Administration, Dr Sylvia Anie-Akwetey, came to a head amidst counter accusations of corruption. Last year, the government dissolved the purchasing committee and the blacklisted the main suppliers, Rona Chemists.
According to the paper, the Serious Fraud Office found that the purchasing committee had failed in its duties and that the corruption and impropriety allegations against Rona Chemists, the medical suppliers at the centre of the case, are well founded.
The Osei Committee, on the other hand, exonerated the purchasing committee of any wrong doing. Meanwhile, says the Public Agenda, the main parties in the bitter quarrel over corruption and probity, are each claiming victory and calling on the Minister ‘in keeping with their reading’ of what has come out of the investigations.
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Government assets in U.S. risk seizure
In a banner headline story, the Ghanaian Chronicle reports that a Washington D.C. District Court is expected (today), to hear a suit filed by the American majority shareholder in Delta Foods Limited, seeking to enforce the judgement of Ghanaian courts to sell the assets of the Ghana government in the United States, to pay for the $10 million (about 30 billion cedis) worth of maize (including interest), it bought from the food company.
The paper which was quoting lawyers representing Delta, says the Ghana government, is simultaneously, seeking in an Accra High Court, to quash the judgement on the grounds that the maize sale and purchase contract was vitiated by fraud and false representation by Delta Foods.
According to the Chronicle, a writ to this effect was filed on April 15, this year, by the Attorney-General with an attached affidavit by the Solicitor-General. The paper surmises that if Ghana loses the case in Washington D.C., assets likely to be seized include Ghana Airways planes.
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Banda Senior Secondary School in crisis
The Daily Graphic in a front page lead story which gives cause for national concern, reports that no student has sat for the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) at the Banda Ahenkro Community Secondary School in the Brong Ahafo Region, since its establishment in 1993, because of lack of teachers.
The story says out of the 20 pioneer students admitted in 1993, only seven are still in the school trying to complete the syllabus to enable them to register for the SSSCE. Mr Ebenezer Baffo-Mensah, President of the University of Cape Coast branch of the Brong Ahafo Students’ Union, who disclosed this in Cape Coast, after the Union’s annual get-together, is reported as attributing the refusal of teachers to accept posting to the school to the protracted chieftaincy dispute in the area.
According to him, the predicament of the students came to light recently whem members of the branch union undertook an outreach programme in the Banda area. He said the chieftaincy dispute has forced teachers in the school to leave while newly-trained posted ones have refused to go out for fear of their lives. Mr Baffo-Mensah is said to have expressed concern about the plight of the students, who have spent six years instead of the normal three-year period for the SSSCE programme.
Robbers raid Amansie West Rural Bank
In a second front page story, the Graphic says about 50 armed robbers allegedly raided the Amansie West Rural Bank at Antoakrom in Ashanti, in the early hours of Saturday and made away with the bank’s electric generator and several millions of cedis.
The paper quotes the Manager of the bank, Mr George Osei Mensah, as telling newsmen in Kumasi that the robbers, armed with pistols and other weapons, fired several warning shots to scare the residents and held policemen on duty at the Antoakrom Police Station under siege before breaking intgo the bank at 2 a.m. during a downpour.
Mr Mensah said the exact amount of money allegedly stolen is yet to be ascertained. According to him, the bank recorded an amount of 49 million cedis at the end of business on Friday and kept it in two safes at the bank, saying that the armed robbers took away one of the safes and the total amount contained in the safe, is yet to be known. He said he has reported the case to the Manso-Nkwanta, Bekwai and Kumasi Police.
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Buruli toxin found…Cure in sight
The Ghanaian Times reports in its front page banner story that experts have now identified and isolated the toxin responsible for Buruli Ulcer, a debilitating disease which mostly affects the limbs.
The paper says the discovery could lead to the production of a vaccine against the disease. Until now, the mode of transmission of the disease was unknown, although the causative organism had long been identified.
The Times quotes Dr George Amofa, Deputy Director of Public Health of the Ministry of Health, as saying the positive achievement in addition to the successful identification of some possible transmission agent by researchers, are giant strides towards the eradication of the disease.
The disease, according to doctors, starts as a small painless node on the skin and ends up as an ulcer, which has partially or totally incapacitated hundreds of Ghanaians and cut short the education of many youths, particularly at the most endemic part of the Ashanti Region.
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Ghana, South Africa against gold sales
The Ghana government has assured its South African counterpart that it will join her and other African gold-producing countries to oppose the proposed gold sale by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the on-going gold sale by the British government, reports the Dispatch in a front page story.
The story says Mr Fred Ohene-Kena, Minister of Mines and Energy, who met a six-member South African delegation in Accra, last Friday, noted that such co-operation was necessary because of the devastating effect such sales would have on Africa’s emerging gold mines, workers and economies.
He is quoted as saying: "We condemn this move in no uncertain terms. We need to be very vociferous in letting the international community know about what these mean to our economies".
The South African delegation was in Ghana to discuss ways of mounting pressure on Britain to stop the gold sale and the impending sales by the IMF, World bank and other European Central Banks.
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