Asare Original Pay All checkers demand compensation
Teachers want policy on study leave reviewed
Six-year-old-girl Electrocuted
Kpansiya gets 7.7m cedis school block
Queen mothers appeal for early completion of Kibi road works
Agric sector needs to grow by 6% every year - Minister
AIDS on the increase in Eastern Region
Youth besiege centre for enlistment into military
Cholera breaks out again in Accra
Police take custody of abandoned toddler
Farmers want adequate loans from financial institutions
Energy entrepreneurship workshop opens
African geo-scientists meet in Accra
Asare Original Pay All checkers demand compensation
Kumasi (Ashanti Region) 22 June '99
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is looking into the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of the entire female checkers at the Asokwa office of the Asare Original Pay All, a popular gambling establishment.
The checkers claimed the management of the company sacked them without any compensation after more than three years service.
They are therefore claiming compensation from the company for wrongful dismissal in accordance with the labour laws of the country.
Speaking to the press in Kumasi, Miss Margaret Boateng and Miss Victoria Ameko,
spokespersons for the group said they were not paid their salaries for the months of February, March and April, 1999.
They said on April 27 they asked for their salaries and were asked to go to the Asawase offices of the company the next day, which they did.
According to the spokespersons, when they got to the Asawase office, they were surrounded by armed policemen from the Buffalo unit who gave them sheets of paper to write their names before they were paid.
Soon after the salaries were paid, they were told that they had been sacked." We therefore reported the matter to the Labour Department which failed to resolve the issue "
The workers said they finally went to the CHRAJ to seek redress.
Mr Ofori Ohenaku, a director of the company confirmed that CHRAJ was handling the matter but denied that the checkers had been sacked.
He explained that due to financial problems, the company found it difficult to pay its workers and after struggling to pay them, they were asked to stay home.
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Teachers want policy on study leave reviewed
Wa (Upper West), 22nd June 99
Teachers at a forum at Wa on Monday appealed to the Ghana Education Service (GES) to repeal the policy where teachers seeking study leave are asked to serve an extra year before it is granted.
The teachers said since the teachers would already have done their national service, there should be no impediment in their way to seeking higher education.
The teachers were reacting to an explanation by Mr Kusi-Atansah, head of organisation and administration of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), on the new policy at the forum where the Price WaterHouse Report and other matters affecting teachers were discussed.
Mr Kusi-Atansah said under the new study leave policy, teachers who want to go on study leave with pay would be required to serve for three years after the completion of their courses.
They will further be bonded to serve an additional year.
He appealed to the GES to modify the system of approving study leave with pay to teachers since this drastically affects the educational budget.
Mr Kusi-Atansah said that, for instance, if 15,000 teachers leave the classrooms annually for further studies, this will require another 15,000 teachers to fill the vacancies while it is the same budget that has to cater for the two categories of people.
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Six-year-old-girl Electrocuted
Madina (Greater Accra), 22nd June 99
A six-year-old girl, Adisa Alhassan, was electrocuted last Sunday afternoon at Madina-Zongo, near Accra, when she held on to a cable supporting an electric pole near her house.
Mr Alhassan Fuseini, Adisa's father, told the GNA that he quickly rushed her to the Legon Hospital but she was pronounced dead on arrival.
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Kpansiya gets 7.7m cedis school block
Kpansiya (Northern Region), 22nd June 99
A 7.7 million cedi three-classroom block for Kpansiya Islamic primary school in the Yendi district has been commissioned.
Alhaji Malik al-Hassan Yakubu, Member of Parliament (MP) for Yendi and the district chief executive, Mr Mohammed Al-Hassan jointly performed the ceremony.
The MP contributed six million cedis from his share of the MP's constituency projects fund, while the community provided 1.7 million cedis and communal labour.
Alhaji Yakubu noted that the Kpansiya school, was among those destroyed during the 1994 ethnic conflict and that the communal spirit and anxiety of the people to rebuild it moved him.
Alhaji Yakubu donated two gas camping lamps to the people of Kpansiya and Bini for their adult literacy classes and announced that so far 40 villages that are without electricity have been supplied with the lamps at a total cost of six million cedis.
He has also purchased a tractor at a cost of 27 million cedis from the fund for the Eastern Dagbon farmers co-operative to plough their farms.
The rationale is to enable the farmers to increase food production and earn more income.
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Queen mothers appeal for early completion of Kibi road works
Kibi,(Eastern Region) 22nd June 99
Queen mothers in the Akim Abuakwa Traditional area have appealed to the contractors rehabilitating roads in Kibi to expedite action and complete the work in time for the funeral of the late Osagyefo Kuntunkununku scheduled for August nine to 16, this year.
The President of the Akim Abuakwa Queen Mothers Association, Nana Korkor Daa Mansah, made the call at a meeting of the Queen mothers at Kibi at the weekend to discuss preparations towards the funeral and other issues affecting the area.
She called on the Queen mothers to ensure clean environmental sanitation and help check the growing rate of teenage pregnancies and drug abuse among the youth.
Nana Daa Mansah decried the recent media reports that two boys have impregnated eight girls at Begoro.
Nana Mansah, who is the Queen mother of Kukurantumi and the Adontehemaa of Akim Abuakwa, called for urgent steps, such as the revival of the puberty rites in the area, to help check such negative tendencies.
She attributed the rising vices to the craze for video shows, drugs and wake keeping, among the youth.
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Agric sector needs to grow by 6% every year - Minister
Busua (Western Region), 22nd June 99
Mr J. H. Owusu-Acheampong, Minister of Food and Agriculture, on Monday said the agricultural sector would have to grow at about six per cent per annum over 10 years or more to support the objectives of Vision 2020.
Speaking at the 1999 mid-year review conference of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture at Busua, Mr Owusu-Acheampong said the inability of the sector to meet the target will have dire consequences in achieving the aims of Vision 2020.
In this regard, the Ministry has to re-examine the performance of its agricultural programmes and strategies and review its policies to enable the sector compete effectively in the 21st century, the Minister said.
Mr Owusu-Acheampong said there are certain major areas of concern the proper definition of long-term agricultural growth and development issues that have to be tackled properly.
Other areas are outlining actions that need to be taken in the short-term to increase food production, nutrition, and farm income levels, particularly by improving small holder productivity.
Identifying specific data needs and studies that would lead to the development of effective longer term agricultural strategies, the Minister said.
The Ministry must also find effective ways to deal with the severe liquidity crunch at a time when subsidies on inputs for the productive sectors of agriculture and others have been phased out.
He said the withdrawal of the subsidies have gradually pushed agricultural inputs beyond the reach of farmers and fishermen adding that modern ways of agricultural production, processing and marketing, must be found if the country is to move forward.
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AIDS on the increase in Eastern Region
Koforidua (Eatern Region), 22nd June 99
The Eastern Region recorded 93 new AIDS cases between January and March this year, out of which 32 were recorded in the New Juaben Municipality.
Dr. Sampson B. Ofori, Eastern regional co-ordinator of HIV/AIDS said this at a one-day seminar and quiz competition organised for students from selected second cycle schools in the Municipality on Sunday.
The programme, organised by the Eastern Regional Secretariat of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It was under the theme, "Preventing HIV/AIDS, the role of the youth''.
The programme was aimed at sensitising the participants on their reproductive health and passing such knowledge on to their peers to help reduce the spread of the deadly disease.
The regional co-ordinator said the problem confronting the world at the moment is not where the HIV virus or the AIDS disease originated from, but how to reduce it from affecting more people since now no cure has been found.
Mr. Emmanuel Nuworzah, project officer of PPAG said the essence of providing the students with the information on their reproductive health was to empower them to protect them against contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
He said the reproductive health of the youth forms part of their right to health-care and urged them to seek medical attention any time they have reproductive health problems.
Mr Nuworsah explained that under the laws of the country, no worker in any hospital in the country can deny any youth medical service simply because he or she has not attained a particular age.
New Juaben secondary commercial school won the quiz competition organised as part of the seminar with 43 points. Moses school of Accountancy came second with 40 points, while Oyoko Methodist senior secondary school placed third with 24 points.
In all six second, cycle schools took part in the seminar and the quiz competition.
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Youth besiege centre for enlistment into military
Tamale (Northern Region), 22nd June 99
More than 2,000 youths besieged a military recruitment centre at the Kaladan Park in Tamale for enlistment into the Ghana Armed Forces.
At the end of the five-day exercise at the weekend, 100 of them were selected for the army, and 49 for the airforce for further screening at a later date.
Major Vincent Yao Blege, team leader of the recruitment exercise told the Ghana News Agency that the nation-wide exercises lay emphasis on the selection of tradesmen, technicians and sportsmen and women.
After the first day's selection, 670 young men and women were short-listed and were taken through preliminary medical screening, documentation and body inspection.
Major Blege explained that those, who pass the regional screening, would appear before a central recruitment board in Accra to undergo another exercise for a final list of 700 to be selected for training.
He advised those short listed "to tune themselves up" to meet the military standards since they have to go through advanced tests and interviews among other requirements.
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Cholera breaks out again in Accra
Accra (Greater Accra), 22nd June 99
There is another outbreak of cholera in Accra with three dead and 49 on admission at the Korle-Bu Polyclinic.
Mr Fred Dugbazah, Public Relations Officer of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, told newsmen that 52 cases have been reported at the Polyclinic since Saturday, June 19.
He said three of them have since died while the rest are receiving treatment.
Mr Dugbazah said the patients, who are mostly adults are reporting from the Ashiedu-Keteke sub metro and some parts of Ablekuma.
The areas include Palladium, Chorkor, James Town, Agbobloshie and Korle Gonno.
A visit to the clinic showed patients lying on benches on verandas and in corridors.
A source at the clinic said there is no ward for the cholera patients, who need to be isolated but said there are plans to temporarily accommodate them at the fevers ward of the hospital.
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Police take custody of abandoned toddler
Accra (Greater Accra), 22nd June 99
A toddler, aged between 11 months and a year old, found abandoned at the edge of the Korle Lagoon during last Thursday's heavy rain is now in the custody of the Women and Juvenile Unit of the Police Service.
A 55 year-old good Samaritan, Kofi Nuamah of Mamprobi, who found the girl around 12 midnight, took care of her medical bills and handed her over to the Unit in Accra on Monday.
Briefing journalists, Mrs. Gifty A. Botwe, Commanding Officer of the Unit, said the man, who was on his way home during the rain, heard the child crying.
With the assistance of two others, he traced the crying child to the edge of the lagoon and took her to the hospital because of her high temperature and later reported the incident to the James Town Police, who referred the case to her unit.
The child now clothed and fed, will be sent to the Osu children's home while, investigations are underway to arrest and prosecute the mother.
Mrs. Botwe said, "at least once a month, cases of such nature are brought to the unit".
She said mothers abandon their children out of frustration due to the fact that fathers refuse to take responsibility for the children.
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Farmers want adequate loans from financial institutions
Gyewani-Nkwanta (Eastern Region), 22nd June 99
Farmers in the Birim North district of the Eastern region have appealed to financial institutions to give them adequate loans to enable them to maintain and expand their cocoa farms.
They also appealed to the government to reduce the prices of inputs, such as spraying machines, which now cost 950,000 cedis, from 700,000 cedis.
According to the farmers, the situation makes it difficult for individual farmers to purchase and use it on their farms against insect pests and the black pod disease.
A spokeswoman for the farmers, Ms Augustina Yaa Bortey, the 1993 Eastern Regional Award Winner for outstanding contribution to agriculture, made the appeal at a cocoa farmers' rally, dubbed "ye wafuo yie" at Gyewani-Nkwanta in the Birim North district at the weekend.
She promised to establish a gari-processing factory at Bortekrom, in a bid to assist women in the area to generate income to help their families and, therefore, urged farmers to form "nnoboa" groups to help each other in their farm work.
She appealed to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to assist them in the setting up of more gari-processing factories.
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Energy entrepreneurship workshop opens
Kumasi (Ashanti), 22nd June 99
A five-day in-country workshop on energy efficiency entrepreneurship, opened in Kumasi on Monday.
It is aimed at sharpening the business development and management skills of energy efficient entrepreneurs in the management of energy service enterprises.
It is being organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Energy and Environment Training Programme (EETP) and the Energy Foundation, with resource persons from Institute of International Education, Washington, United States.
Mr Fred Ohene-Kena, Minister of Mines and Energy, who delivered the keynote address said to reduce the cost of production in industry, it was necessary to use energy efficiently.
He said it has been estimated that the level of waste in the use of electricity in the country is over 20 per cent, that means consumers waste the entire energy generated from the Kpong water plant, adding, "this is sad and highly unacceptable."
Mr Ohene-Kena said with the rising cost of power generation, transmission and distribution coupled with the harmful environmental impact of thermal power production, it has become imperative for Ghanaians to take a second look at the way energy is used if the objective of Vision 2020 is to be achieved.
He said comparing energy consumption patterns of middle income countries to that of Ghana, would reveal that the country would have to increase energy supply to between five and nine times the present capacity, to propel agriculture, industry, commerce, tourism and mining to achieve a middle income status.
He said the Ministry would, therefore, continue to assist and encourage consumers to employ the most efficient technologies to avoid waste in the system.
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African geo-scientists meet in Accra
Accra(Greater Accra), 22nd June 99
President Jerry John Rawlings on Monday tasked African Geo-scientists to ensure an efficient correlation between geographical information and land use to bring about clear-cut development.
He said this is vital since development policies and programmes have a tendency to focus on specific sectors and the resolution of specific problems without necessarily taking account of the way in which they affect each other.
President Rawlings said this kind of approach normally loses sight of spatial planning and leads to piecemeal development.
He, therefore, called on geo-scientists to use geo-information systems to overcome practices, which have negative outcomes.
This is contained in a speech read on his behalf by Hajia Fati Jawula, a Member of the Council of State, at the opening of the Fourth Africa Geo-Information Systems '99 (AFRICAGIS) Conference and Exposition in Accra.
It is under the theme Emergent Africa: Geo-Information and Globalisation".
AFRICAGIS ' 99 brings together specialists from a wide range of sectors in development and application of geographical reference information in Africa.
This is the fourth Conference after those in Tunisia, South Africa and Cote d'Ivoire.
He referred to a situation where a farmer was awarded a prize for his excellent production of yams by one ministry while another chased him for encroaching upon a protected conservation area.
He cited another example of encouragement given to estate developers to increase housing stock without counting the loss in agricultural land and forests.
"Geo-information technology can give our planners and policy implementers that same clear and accurate overview, but more importantly, the tools to prevent such errors through prudent land use planning".
He said as globalisation challenges us to increase productivity and competitiveness and to provide incentives to encourage investors to utilise our resources, we must remember that the bottom line is sustainability.
"We cannot have sustainability without integrated planning, and we cannot have sound development planning without accurate geographical information", President Rawlings added.
Mr Jonathan Allotey, Chairman of the Local Organising Committee, said the conference is the most important geo-information event in Africa.
Two hundred and fifty thousand African geo-information and industry representatives from various parts of the world are attending the conference.
He said it is being organised by three consortium organisations and under the auspices of the ministries of communications, environment, science and technology and lands and forestry.
Dr Christina Amoako-Nuama, Minister of Lands and Forestry, who chaired the ceremony, said geo-information technology must be available to the continent's universities and all educational institutions to make the technology more relevant to Africa.
She said her ministry is coming out with a sustainable management of forests policy and hopes that the conference will lend many techniques to make the programme worthwhile.
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