Kufuor snubs Churcher
NPP won’t be part of June Four – Dan Botwe
292 billion cedis missing at Agric Ministry
Baah Acheamfuor distances June 4 from December 31
Man 47, charged with wife’s murder
20,000 illegal houses spring up
The Palaver in a front page story says the on-going attrition between two main factions within the NPP, the pro-Kufuor group and the pro-Akufo Addo,which started after the Sunyani congress last October, took another turn when the parties Presidential candidate gave his Cape Coast MP, Ms Christine Churcher the snub in Cape Coast.
According to the Palaver, Mr J.A, Kufuor was in Cape Coast about two weeks ago for the funeral of the late Madam Araba Abbanba.
The paper says in order to give the late supporter a ’fitting’ burial, the NPP made announcements on GBC’s Central Regional FM radio station Central to precede the funeral rites.
In the advertisements, the paper says, the names of the NPP leading members were mentioned as some of those to grace the occasion, but Mr Churcher’s name was conspicuously left out in the.
According to the Palaver, many Cape Coast residents took the omission for an oversight, however, to the utter dismay of many, when Mr Kufuor arrived for the funeral service, Mr Churcher was not in the high-powered delegation even though she was believed to be in Cape Coast at the time.
The paper questions whether Mr Churcher’s bid for re-election is on the line.
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In a lead story, the Guide reports that the NPP has stated categorically that it will not take part in the June Four anniversary celebrations that would be crowned with a football match between MPs and Ministers of state.
The NPP MPs will therefore not take part in the match that is supposed a curtain-raiser to the Kotoko-Hearts of Oak match on tomorrow.
The paper quotes Mr Dan Botwe, General Secretary of the NPP as saying the emphatic position is is in reaction to a publication in the "Daily Graphic" of May 28, 1999, which tried to include the NPP in the whole celebration. "The NPP regards the story as distasteful and unreservedly condemns this underhand attempt to link the party to the infamous ‘June Four coup".
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In its lead story, the Independent reports that billions of cedis being proceeds from a Japanese-sponsored agricultural project, Kennedy Round Two (KR2),is missing at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
According to the paper, its painstaking investigations have established that the Ministry is unable to account for 292 billion cedis earmarked for the project.
The Independent explains that the KR2 is a grant given to the government to help boost agricultural production in Ghana. It says the project started in 1982 with an initial annual grant of 400 million Japanese yen, and since then, the Japanese Government has been giving the grant yearly.
The paper says the idea behind the project is to help farmers get agro-chemicals and agricultural machinery at one-third their original price. According to the Independent, since its inception, there have been no audited reports of the KR2 project.
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The Crusading Guide in a front page story says contrary to the general perception by A cross-section of Ghanaians that the June 4, 1979 revolt had the same objectives and characteristics of the December 31, 1981 coup.
The paper says the former was a product of years of frustration and anger among a section of the military Drawing a line between the two military insurrections, the Crusading Guide quotes ex-Captain Baah Acheamfuor, a member of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), who is in voluntary exile in London, as saying unlike June 4, 31st December was not designed to deal with any injustices or deficiencies either in the Armed Forces or in the Ghanaian society at large.
"December 31was planned and executed by a group which had long sought power but had been unable to do so because they constituted a minority in our society", he was reported as saying.
According to the paper, in the words of ex-Captain Baah Acheamfuor, the incompetent manner in which the Limann government handled the aftermath of June 4, provided the minority group of soldiers with an opportunity they would otherwise not have had.
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The Graphic reports that the Saltpond Community Tribunal in the Central Region, yesterday remanded in prison custody an employee of the Geological Survey Department at Saltpond for allegedly beating his wife to death over a cup of iced water.
The front page story says the suspect, Thomas Boadi, 47, allegedly kicked his wife several times in the abdomen after a quarrel at their home at Abandze when she failed to provide him with iced water during supper. Boadi has been provisionally charged with murder.
His plea was not taken and he will re-appear before the court on June 9. The Graphic says the Saltpond District Police Commander, Superintendent Kwadwo Oware, told the tribunal, chaired by Mr G.A.N. Donkor that the wife died after being rushed to the Saltpond Government Hospital by some co-tenants.
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The Times in a front page banner headline story, says encroachers are having a field day on the 2,929-acre land earmarked for a National Olympic Sports Complex at Nii Boi Town in Accra.
The paper says while a survey in 1992 showed that there were about 5,000 illegal buildings on the land, there are now over 20,000 buildings there.
According to the Times, indications are that it would not be long before the whole area would have been fully taken over by illegal developers.
The paper says this has come about because of the inaction by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to claim the land acquired by the government in 1975 for the Sports Complex.
The story quotes Mr Kofi Aggrey, Public Relations Manager of the Ministry of Youth and Sports as saying that when the Ministry discovered that people had encroached upon the land, it appealed to the government to determine what action to be taken.
The government, according to Mr Aggrey, then advised that the encroachers should be made to pay a compensation of about 2.5 million cedis each to the Ministry. He said initially the encroachers agreed to pay the compensation but later refused, claiming that they had bought the land from the chiefs.
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