Unity is crucial – to move nation forward – President
20 Communities walk in protest over fares
NDC withdraws 855b cedis from Bank of Ghana
We’ll make Ghana better place for you
Ghanaians run back o Libya
BNI buys telephone tapping equipment
Kufuor, JH & Co disagree over HIPC
Kwame Peprah on Presidential Jet
Unity is crucial – to move nation forward – President
President J.A. Kufuor said on Tuesday that the great hopes that Ghana’s founding fathers had for the nation could only be realised if Ghanaians unite and pull together as an entity.
A Daily Graphic report says the President explained that such unity of purpose could spearhead the country and provide the needed platform from which Ghana could become economically self-reliant and wealthy.
President Kufuor said this when he addressed a parade of school children and the security services to mark the country’s 44th independence anniversary celebration in Accra.
The parade, climaxed activities marking this year’s celebrations. In attendance were the Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, the acting Chief Justice, Justice E.K. Wiredu, the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, ministers of state, Parliamentarians and service commanders, among others.
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Ceremony was unique, colourful
The Graphic in another story describes the parade of security agencies and school children, which took place at the Independence Square in Accra to mark the 44th Independence anniversary of the country on Tuesday as colourful.
According to the paper, contingents and spectators began gathering at the square, which had been decorated with balloons in the national colours, between 6:30a.m. and 7:20a.m.
The contingents of 50 officers and 1000 men drawn from the Army, Air Force, Navy, Ghana Police, Ghana National Fire Service, Customs, Excise and Preventive Service and the Ghana Immigration Service marched on to the grounds around 7:45 a.m.
Ministers of State, Members of Parliament and the Diplomatic Corps were seated by 7:55 a.m.
The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lt. General Ben Akafia, and the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Ernest Owusu-Poku, and other service commanders arrived soon after and by 8:05 a.m, the Minister of Education, Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, Minister of Defence, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor and the Minister of the Interior, Alhaji Malik Al-Hassan Yakubu, also showed up.
The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey and the acting Chief Justice, Mr Justice E.K. Wiredu, were the next to follow.
President Kufuor then proceeded to light the perpetual flame and the gathering, especially supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), dressed in party colours and other paraphernalia, applauded and simultaneously sang the song “Aba mu ewie, aba mu awia, Onyame bohye no aba mu awia…” meaning God’s promise has come through.
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Major changes in Police Administration underway
Changes in the portfolio of schedule officers of the Police Administration are expected to be made this week, according to the Daily Graphic.
The major changes are expected to be in the positions of Commissioners of Police responsible for the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and Administration.
There could be other changes, though.
Highly placed sources told the Graphic that the Western Regional Police Commander, Mr W.A. Kumi, is expected to move to the headquarters to take over from Mr. W.K. Aboah as the CID boss.
Mr Aboah, who is also the Director of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), will continue to head that organisation which he has successfully transformed into one of the most efficient institutions in the country.
The paper recalls that Mr Aboah was given additional responsibility as CID boss, the second most powerful after the IGP, when the then CID chief, Mr Seth Aggor, was removed in October 1999.
Mr Aboah, a detective who has risen through the ranks to his present position, has since then been able to stem the tide of “419” syndicate and other criminal activities except the serial killing of women, which remains a mystery, says the Graphic.
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20 Communities walk in protest over fares
The inhabitants of 20 farming communities near Coaltar in the Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar District have chosen to walk instead of pay new lorry fares being charged by trotro and taxi drivers plying the area, reports the Ghanaian Times.
Before the new fares, drivers plying the 10 kilometre road to Nsawam from Ntowkrom, Bada, Abiesi and Marfukrom, among others, charged 800 cedis and 1,000 cedis for mini-bus and taxi respectively.
The new rates are 1,200 and 1,500.
At the general meeting held by more than 700 farmers and sub-chiefs at Otoase last weekend, Nana Odoi Yirenkyi II, chief of the town, and Baffour Addo II, chief of Ntowkrom, told the Ghana News Agency that the people could not afford the new fares, which they considered to be unreasonably high.
The two chiefs said that though they sent delegations to the Coaltar GPRTU, they had received no response, adding that the farmers planned to go on strike if the law enforcement agencies did not come to their aid.
Nana Addo and Nana Yirenkyi also appealed to the government to provide the people with regular bus services to enable them to cart their locked up foodstuff to the marketing centres.
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Banda offers to buy jet
The Independent says a well-known Ghanaian entrepreneur, Alhaji Asoma Banda, has offered to buy the controversial Gulf Stream Presidential Jet, which was leased in very mysterious circumstances by the Rawlings regime.
The Independent has learnt that Alhaji Banda, a former Chairman of the defunct Peoples Convention Party (PCP) and the Great Alliance of the PCP and the NPP in the 1996 elections, has in a letter dated February 19, 2001 to The Minister of Finance expressed interest in buying the presidential jet.
The letter reads as follows: “My attention has been drawn to recent media reports that His Excellency the President, has categorically stated that his Government does not intend to continue with the leasing of the Gulf Stream Presidential Jet as contracted by the former Government.
I wish to assure you, sir, of my deep interest to purchase the aircraft. I shall therefore be very much grateful if you put me in direct contact with the owners of the aircraft to enable me start negotiations for its purchase.
It will be very much appreciated if all relevant documents and information of the aircraft will be released to me”.
But The Independent says its investigations confirmed by highly-placed government sources said that the mystery about the controversial presidential jet lingers on and that the wish of Alhaji Banda who is the Chief Executive of RORO Services may never be fulfilled.
A government source said that the government is finding it difficult to find the leaser in order to enter into arrangements for the disposal of the jet. Some believe that the jet is a handshake from General Sani Abacha and that the Rawlings government who ignored laid down procedures in the acquisition of the jet might have set up a ghost company that nobody can locate now.
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NDC withdraws 855b cedis from Bank of Ghana
In the wake of the condemnation by officials of the International Monetary Fund that the Bank of Ghana did not properly control government expenditure over the past year, the Bank has strongly reacted and set the records straight, reports the Free Press.
An official source at the Bank of Ghana categorically stated that the NDC government threw caution to the wind and resorted to discretionary withdrawals and payments that culminated in an overdrawn position of 855 billion cedis by the close of last year.
The source explained that the overdrawn position of the NDC government accounts significantly reflected the net balance on the total government inflows (committed and uncommitted) and payments that were either statutory or discretionary.
The “Free Press” learnt that whereas the discretionary payments were pre-determined by the Bank of Ghana and, for that matter, could be monitored, the NDC government clandestinely resorted to discretionary payments that were effected from the various districts and regions.
In the light of the above transactions, the Bank of Ghana was relegated to the background and all discretionary payments were undertaken without any reference to the government’s financial position at the Central Bank.
The Rawlings’ government developed a scheme by which all such payments were effected at the Regional treasuries after which the cheques were forwarded through the clearing system.
It is against this background that within three months, the government’s financial dealings could escape the scrutiny of the Central Bank.
The result of such a financial misconduct is the increment in the overdrawn position of the government’s accounts from 3.0 billion cedis at the end of the third quarter of year 2000 to 855 billion cedis at the end of the year.
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We’ll make Ghana better place for you
President J.A. Kufuor has assured the youth of Ghana that his administration is committed to their upbringing and to making them assets for the nation.
Addressing 44th Independence Anniversary parade at the Black Star Square in Accra on Tuesday, President Kufuor said the youth should be the driving force in the country’s development. To this end, the government would revamp the educational sector, with emphasis on restoring teachers to their proper status.
The Statesman says he expressed regret that the teaching profession, once a noble one, has been allowed to lose stature. “My government is determined to restore teachers to their proper status. That is the only way the profession will attract and retain the best brains and well-behaved individuals, right from the primary to the tertiary level,” he said
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Ghanaians run back o Libya
Most Ghanaians who were recently evacuated from Libya following a bloody confrontation between the Libyan people and nationals from West African States have started going back to Libya despite the strong animosity between them and the Libyans.
According to The Daily Guide, the adamant Ghanaians think Libya is still the place to make it in life and are therefore leaving in their masses again to seek greener pastures there.
It is also not clear whether those going back to Libya are going to regain whatever they lost in the conflict.
Sources in Tripoli say about 90% of Ghanaians who go there go to do masonry work with the rest being shoe shine boys and a very small percentage being teachers. Ghanaians and other West African nationals go to Libya against all odds. Very, Chilling and cold weather and homelessness are some of the challenges they have to contend with but hey are somewhat able to survive.
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BNI buys telephone tapping equipment
If the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) is not stopped no telephone conversation in Ghana can be considered safe, states The Weekly Insight.
According to the paper, an innocent telephone call to a concubine or discussion with a business partner over how to submit a better bid than a competitor for a contract may end up on the recording machines of the BNI.
This is because the BNI has acquired Motorola equipment for tapping telephones on a mass scale.
Experts say that with the kind of equipment, which the BNI has acquired the only telephones it may find difficult to tap are mobile phones. It is an offence to tap the phones of citizens without justification.
Security sources say that apart from the BNI, a number of foreign diplomatic missions in Ghana have also acquired the capacity for tapping telephones.
The regulation of the use of telephone tapping equipment in the country will be a giant step in realising the promise of the Kufuor administration to guarantee personal freedoms.
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Kufuor, JH & Co disagree over HIPC
The Ghanaian Chronicle says President John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday gave broad hints that he is not enthusiastic about joining the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative that is being so vigorously pushed by the British Government, thus setting the stage for an academic collision course with his top economic majors in the party who are proselytes for HIPC.
He noted in his address at the 44th anniversary celebration of Ghana’s independence that Ghana is not a poor country but rather an endowed nation that has been blighted by mismanagement a status quo that is not beyond redemption.
Our country is not poor, the sharply dressed and confident President stated. It is a well-resourced nation that has been badly managed and only needs responsible and committed leadership to get it to the position it deserves to be.
He expressed optimism that the economic challenges are indeed overwhelming but can still be surmounted.
The big economic difficulties that we face today might appear so enormous as to paralyse us with despair.
We can easily throw our hands with despair as we try to grapple with the concept of trillions of cedis as debts and argue over how many zeros constitute a trillion.
But we think of our present desperate economic conditions not as obstacles but as challenges.
This message from the President was received with much cheer from the crowd, most of whom, obviously might be against Ghana joining the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, the paper concludes.
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Kwame Peprah on Presidential Jet
The Despatch carries an interview it had with the former Minister of Finance, Kwame Peprah on a wide rang of issues including the controversial presidential jet, of which the paper asked; the Presidential Jet has become a topical issue. What are the facts of it?
Mr Peprah had this to say; “The Presidential Jet, as far as I’m concerned, is a straight forward acquisition of a used jet for the state to be used as one of the executive jets in the fleet.
When we looked at the purchase of the jet, because we didn’t have enough money and we could not borrow at the terms that we could use to do this, we decided to lease.
We have had questions that relate to the fact that this jet could have been a gift from the late Abacha, which we in turn sold to ourselves. And I think what I want to say about this is very simple, unlike maybe vehicles and other items, the life history of aeroplanes are tracked internationally. In every aeroplane in the world, you will find exactly changes in its ownership, in its registration, because any ownership change will cause a registration to be done. And therefore one of the ways by which you can find whether the jet has been owned by any other person other than the present owner is simple.
Infact, the jet when it got out of the factory, was owned by the company Johnson Products of the USA. They owned this jet until we bought it. It is on record in the USA files. Infact, I’ve been wanting the government now to get either the FBI or somebody to check whether somebody owned the plane all the way until after the death of Abacha before we bought it. So I think that, that argument can be easily turned on its head that there is an international registration.”
On the financing of the jet, he said: “I think one of the problems that we have is that, in modern finance, such … things become so complicated that it is difficult to explain to the ordinary man and therefore if you want to play the fact that there could be some corruption, it is easier.
The Gullen Company from which we are leasing is a single-purpose company, a company that was created only to lease that plane to us. And anybody who does not know what a single-purpose company is in financial transactions now means that he has a long way to go.
What happened was that the plane was going to be financed in its leasing to us by the bank HSBC. Now the Bank, in order to minimize tax … and other business considerations, needed to create an offshore entity and used it to be the vehicle to lease the thing to us.
The important thing was for us the government of Ghana to say that how much is the thing being leased to us? What is the underlying interest rate? Are they cheating us? We really shouldn’t worry since we have gotten hold of the plane, the aeroplane is with us. We are paying the money to a company, is that money too much? Are we being overcharged? I mean these are the things to ask not who is that company? The company is a creation to facilitate the transaction. And I think the NPP should take some of their financial gurus, send them to HSBC, the biggest bank in the UK, to analyse whether there was any problem with it. Because it is not a thing you bring to the general public. Because it is a complex transaction designed to minimize the cost to the operators.
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