Health workers urged to treat emergencies before demanding money
Govt spends over 103 million cedis monthly on mobile phones
Drug peddlers attack Aflao Catholic Priest…Threaten his life
One man’s will versus the sovereign good
Don’t misapply MPs Common Fund – Ahwoi
Serious joke
Health workers urged to treat emergencies before demanding money
The Daily Graphic reports in its top story that the Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Erasmus Agongo, has urged health workers, especially nurses and midwives to attend to all emergency cases before demanding payments for such services.
He said "It is within our jurisdiction to provide medical services to those who cannot immediately afford and make the appropriate representation to justify the expenditure to the appropriate authorities".
Dr Agongo is said to have made the call when he addressed the closing ceremony of a one-week workshop on life-saving skills for some selected midwives from the Builsa, Bolgatanga and Bawku districts in the Upper East Region at Bolgatanga.
The Graphic says Dr Agongo made it clear that no health worker would be sanctioned by the health administration for providing services to save a life at any health facility in Ghana.
He added that notwithstanding the cash-and-carry system, health workers are allowed to exercise the discretion to provide treatment to those who are rushed to the hospital in critical conditions and payments demanded later if they are in a position to do so.
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Govt spends over 103 million cedis monthly on mobile phones
The Dispatch says the mobile phone companies in Ghana have reacted to concerns of Parliament that they provide poor quality service to the Ghanaian public and said their services are not too bad, especially since the government pays over 103 million cedis a month in mobile phone bills for some of its officials.
The officials include some in positions like the Office of the President, Ministers of state and their deputies, as well as district chief executives. The paper recalls that last Thursday, Parliament expressed grave concern about the quality of service being provided by mobile phone companies in Ghana.
The members, the Dispatch says, therefore urged the Ministry of Communications to take urgent steps to ensure that customers get value for money. The Legislature is also said to have called on the sector Minister to grant Ghana Telecom the facility to operate its intended national network to introduce competition.
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Free Press
Drug peddlers attack Aflao Catholic Priest…Threaten his life
The Free Press says a priest of the St Peter and Paul Catholic Church, who has been spearheading the campaign against the sale and use of illegal drugs at border town Aflao in the Volta Region, one morning had the shock of his life when an angry and charged consumer of drugs, smashed both the front and back windscreens of his saloon car parked at the back of his church.
The paper says onlookers rushed into the church to alert the priest, Reverend Father Joseph Agoha, who was in the midst of saying the morning mass, but he insisted on completing the divine assignment before coming out to find the car without windscreens.
The Free Press says the culprit was identified as the son of a prominent local politician, whose wife is an outstanding member of all organisations and clubs within the Aflao Roman Catholic Church. According to the paper, the attack on the car by an apparent drug addict, did not come as a surprise in view of the priest’s prominent role in promoting programmes by the Narcotics Control Board at Aflao, a town which is steadily becoming notorious for drug-pushing, smoking and related vices.
The Free Press says the attack on Father Apoha’s car is the latest attempt by people engaged in the illicit drug business to either scare him away or physically harm him. There have been several threats on his life and even some knife-wielding addicts had once chased him publicly and urged him to leave them alone.
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One man’s will versus the sovereign good
In a front-page comment, the Ghanaian Chronicle says that news of the arrest and detention of several journalists from "The Statesman" and the Accra-based popular radio station, "JOY FM", is one of the bad news to add to the pressures that the good people of Ghana have been subjected to in these days of deepening economic and moral crisis.
The paper says the panic reaction from the government has not helped at all as it serves to inflame matters and raises even more eyebrows. According to the Chronicle, the primary irritating question that must engage the minds of Ghanaians is the conduct of the security agencies on issues that involve the President, his spouse and his close associates.
The paper says if it is the President and/or his spouse, then everything must be put on hold and all agencies of security must be mobilised for "His Imperial President’s despotic interest". The Chronicle remarks that Ghanaian are now being told that the Ghana Police Service and the Ministry of the Interior possess the capacity and ingenuity to move with such dispatch.
It says put in context with the Ablekuma murders (of our mothers and sisters) and the "Kumepreko" killings, the colonial management of priorities and subjugation of public interest in favour of "His Excellency’s fancies and pleasures" become so evident it hurts.
The Chronicle, within 48 hours of the "Weekend Statesman" publication, the usually plodding, hamstrung Tinganaba Nanfuri and the government have established that the controversial recording of a conversation between a lady and a man called Albert, is a "crude forgery".
The paper says the tae contained confessions of acts of bombing and murders at someone’s behest. It questions how the police established that and why does the government state that Ghanaians feel insulted by this so-called "crude forgery"?
"What is the Inspector-General of Police going to investigate when the Interior Ministry has already stated and ‘established’ unequivocally that the tape is a forgery?" …
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Ghanaian Times
Don’t misapply MPs Common Fund – Ahwoi
In an inside page story, the Ghanaian Times reports that the Minister of Local Government, Mr Kwamena Ahwoi, has expressed concern about the way some Members of Parliament (MPs) are using their of the Common Fund.
According to Mr Ahwoi, the Ministry has had reports that some MPs have bought and distributed television sets, radios and other items in their constituencies, while others have awarded scholarships to selected individuals in their areas.
The Minister, who is reported as commenting on allegations of misappropriation and abuse of the MPs Common Fund , explained that from the Ministry’s own monitoring. The major problem is not that of misappropriation or embezzlement, "but the use to which it is being put, which defeats the objectives of the Fund".
The MPs Common Fund, he said, is for development and the Ministry, together with Parliament marked out areas that the Fund should be applied.
"What we see now is individual MPs are applying the Fund to areas that are more political than development and also areas that we think don’t fit into the concept of development as required by the Constitution for the Common Fund use", Mr Ahwoi is quoted as saying.
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Serious joke
The Weekly Insight in its editorial column says one cannot help laughing at the recent demonstration organised at the behest of the First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, to protest the serial killings of women in Accra.
The paper notes that all those who should take action to unravel the killings, took part in the demonstration to pressure the "authorities" into taking action. It says those who followed Nana Konadu into the streets, included the Inspector-General of Police, the Deputy Minister of the Interior and some Members of Parliament.
The Weekly Insight says clearly, these are the "authorities", who needed to be pressured into taking action to resolve the murders but they were out in the streets demonstrating against themselves. The paper says that although the organisers claimed that the demonstration was to protest the murders, Nana Konadu appealed to disagree with them, when she said that "only seven of the murders have not been resolved".
She is reported as even going to the extent that the government could not find money to set aside as an incentive to informers in the attempt to unravel the murders. According to the paper, the demonstration was nothing more than a public relations gimmick calculated to turn the heat off the NDC and its security apparatus.
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