Transport business should be preserved for
Ghanaians- Asoma Banda
Accra (Greater Accra) 14 March 2002- Ghana Telecom Company on Wednesday said that its cable network projects had come to a standstill because of financial difficulties. Mr Albert Enninful, General Manager in charge of the Switching and Transmission Network Implementation Department of the Company, made this known to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra.
"It isn't that Ghana Telecom does not want to serve the people. We are ever ready to provide our services. "After all, it is money we want, but we are (locked up) in a financial crisis." Mr Enninful said, adding that contractors had stopped work because the company owed them six million dollars.
He mentioned areas like Gbawe, Kpando, Saltpond and Adenta as places where they were facing a lot of connecting problems due to insufficient resources. Mr Enninful said some of the uncompleted works dated back to 1998, adding that these problems had made the public to lose confidence in Ghana Telecom.
He explained, however, that this was not the fault of the company. Mr Enninful said it carried out an expansion project in Madina last year, but could not give the number of lines that were provided.
Mr John Jones Tetteh, Area Manager, Madina, said all lines to areas such as the SSNIT Flats, Madina Township, East Legon, Haatso, Ogbojo and Ashalley Botwe had been allocated.
Mr Tetteh commended customers in the area for their patronage of Ghana Telecom services saying with a switch capacity of about 21,000 it had been able to serve nearly 14,000 customers in the area.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 14 March 2002- A big gain by Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), the highest-priced equity on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), boosted the GSE All-Share Index on Wednesday as the market continues to shake off the poor performance earlier in the year.
SCB was the sole gainer in trading that saw only five equities selling a paltry 16,800 shares, down on another low of 20,600 shares on Monday. The equity gained 447 cedis at 21,000 to push the GSE All-Share Index up by 4.06 points at 991.29 points. Change for the year was also up at 3.70 per cent from 3.27 per cent while market capitalisation rose to 3,972.71 billion cedis from 3,964.64 billion cedis.
Only five equities - Aluworks (4,200), Ghana Commercial bank (10,500), Guinness Ghana Limited (4,300), Home Finance Company (100) and Standard Chartered bank (1,400) sold shares.
The following are the closing prices of the equities in cedis:
ABL 321
AGC 18,800
ALW 4,300
BAT 629
CFAO 60
EIC 3,121
FML 950
GBL 1,000
GCB 1,655
GGL 910
HFC 950
MGL 241
MLC 147
MOGL 18,502
PAF 750
PBC 450
PZ 1,100
SCB 21,000 +447
SPPC 342
SSB 2,510
UNIL 2,620
CMLT 430
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Accra (Greater Accra) 14 March 2002- Parties involved in the labour impasse that led to the strike action by workers of Pepsi Cola Plant of the Ghana Bottling Company Limited on Tuesday have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enable management to re-open the gates as soon as practicable for work to begin.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday, Mr Talic King Essilfie, Chief Labour Officer, said a joint meeting of representatives from the local Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union, the management of Pepsi Cola and government had "an in-depth discussion" over concerns raised by the workers.
He said the main issue identified during the discussion was payment of overtime to workers. Representatives at the meeting therefore, recommended that a five-member committee be set up with representation from the affected parties to look at the clocking and the payroll system of the company.
Mr Essilfie explained that the computerised system made it difficult for management to calculate payment for overtime. The committee would also consider any other issue relating to overtime and come out with modalities to compute holiday entitlements.
The MOU also required management to ensure that the human resource manager went back to continue her job and asked the workers' union leaders to remove all red flags from the work premises.
The Chief Labour Officer said representatives also agreed that ring leaders were not to be punished since there was a form of mechanism to ensure that lost hours were covered. Workers of the company on Tuesday went on strike to demand for better working conditions.
When the GNA visited the premises on Wednesday, only a few casual workers could be seen hanging around. A worker who wished to remain anonymous said most of the workers came early in the morning but found the gates still closed with some policemen patrolling the area. No management staff reported for work.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 14 March 2002- The Chairman of the Crime Prevention Foundation, Alhaji Asoma Banda, has suggested that operations of transport business in the country be restricted to Ghanaians.
In a statement issued in Accra on Wednesday, Alhaji Banda said this was because he had noticed with concern that in recent times, most of the malpractices and criminal activities on the roads and in the urban areas were perpetrated by foreigners, who operated transport business in the country.
He said Ghana had been acclaimed the world-over as a peace- loving, stable and affectionate nation with warm-hearted people "and these unscrupulous foreigners must be stopped from doing anything that would jeopardise its reputation." The activities of these people, he said, would send wrong signals to investors and tourists.
He appealed to the IGP to mount a heavy checkpoint at the airport to thoroughly scrutinise all vehicles leaving and entering the airport areas in the night. He said the IGP should also give taxicabs special identity cards.
Alhaji Banda said reports reaching him indicate that a number of visitors arriving in the country by air are attacked, robbed and even shot at immediately they left the airport area.
They are chased and hunted by taxicabs with guns and other deadly implements. He appealed to the Ghana Immigration Service to educate nationals of ECOWAS countries on the rules and regulations of the ECOWAS protocol and indicate to them that they were not entitled to be engaged in any employment in Ghana unless they passed through the due legal process.
They must be forced to adhere strictly to procedures regarding job placements. Alhaji Banda said immigration officers should also follow up to the hotels constantly to verify the details on the visitors' disembarkment forms.
He also asked hotel operators to check the movement of foreigners who lodged in their hotels and make photocopies of their passports to facilitate monitoring of their movements and activities.
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