GRi Newsreel 12 - 11 - 99

No school, children used as farm hands

Dade Tsunya (Eastern Region), 12^th November 99

For the past eight months since its roofs were ripped off by a rainstorm, the Dade Tsunya local authority primary school in the Fanteakwa district of the eastern region has not been able to hold regular class sessions.

The school now converges under mango trees and at the local Apostolic Church chapel for classes.

Parents in the area who hitherto were unwilling to send their children to school, now use them as farm hands.

These were when the Deputy Eastern Regional Minister and the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Mr. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, visited the town on Wednesday.

According to Mr. Joseph Otsi Tei, spokesman of the town, when the rains set in last February, he notified the district chief executive about the poor state of the school and he came round to inspect it.

Upon that, he said, the National Disaster Management Organisation provided four out of the required five packets of roofing sheets for re-roofing but the people could not immediately raise enough money to purchase nails and wood.

At the time the MP arrived for the visit only a handful of the pupils were around peeling cassava, obviously ignorant of the harm being done to their education.

Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo was not happy with the situation and gave 200,000 cedis to the people to purchase the remaining packet of the roofing sheets for the project.

Addressing the people, the MP told them that before their circumstances could change, they must place premium on the education of their children.

He charged the elders to liaise with the assemblyman and the unit committee members to embark on an enrolment drive and to encourage parents to send their wards to school.

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Ministry bans import of pigs, pork from West Africa

Accra (Greater Accra), 12^th November 99

The Ministry of Trade and Industry has temporarily banned the importation of pigs, pork and their derivatives from the West African sub-region where African swine fever has been prevalent.

This is contained in a statement issued in Accra on Thursday by Mr. J.S. Dalrymple-Hayfron, Chief Director of the Ministry.

The statement said the decision is to complement measures that have been taken by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to prevent the spread of the disease detected in the Greater Accra and Central Regions to other parts of the country.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture in October placed a ban on the movement and slaughtering of pigs in Greater Accra and Central regions following an outbreak of the disease, which had killed over 700 pigs.

Pig farmers consequently asked for compensation to cater for the economic impact of the ban.

About 200,000 pigs in certain parts of Accra, Tema, Ada and Bawjiase, are expected to be affected.

The first sign of the disease is the rise in the temperature of the animal from 38.5 or 39.5 to 40.5 or 42 degrees Celsius within five to 15 days.

The pigs, stop eating, become listless with uncoordinated movement and the get Paralysed.

Other symptoms are the change of their white-pink colour to dark blue, coughing, breathing with difficulty, diarrhoea and discharges from the eyes.

"The virus, which is very dangerous, can be found in all fluids of the body," said an expert.

Though the disease is not transferable to humans, they can spread it to healthy pigs.

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MP asks Ghanaians to reflect on Queen's visit

Accra (Greater Accra), 12^th November 99

Mr. Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, Minority spokesman for Foreign Affairs, on Thursday urged the government to demonstrate its commitment to the democratic need for a free media by "scraping obnoxious laws like criminal and intentional libel."

Mr. Owusu-Agyeman, in a statement on the Queen's visit, asked the government to develop a more tolerant relationship with the media."

He recalled that in her speech to Parliament, the Queen stressed the need for an "open society, a free media, a truly independent judiciary and a democratically chosen, accountable executive".

Mr. Owusu-Agyeman said he hoped the Queen's message will truly ingrain in the national psyche the spirit of transparency which are vital pillars of national unity.

"It is only when these pertinent principles embodied in Her Majesty's speech are given a lease of life that democracy can deepen and the Queen's visit made more memorable and meaningful."

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Check migration of young girls from the North, Minister

Yendi (Northern Region), 12^th November 99

Mr. Sam Nasamu Asabigi, Deputy Northern Regional Minister, has charged district committees on children in the region to gear their efforts towards checking the migration of young girls to the big urban centres where they engage in menial jobs.

In a speech to inaugurate an 11-member Yendi district committee on children at Yendi, he suggested that such girls should be encouraged to undertake traditional small-scale industries supported by the poverty alleviation programmes of the district assemblies.

Mr. Asabigi advised the committees to liaise with the district assemblies and unit committees to evolve implementable programmes designed to address problems like child labour, malnutrition and lack of parental care which hinder proper development of the child.

The Committees should also ensure that the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education Programme succeeds by sensitizing parents and guardians to the need of sending their children to school.

He stressed that religious bodies and other non-governmental organisations, teachers and parents should all redefine their roles in relation to the up-bringing of children to be in tone with global trends in development.

The district chief executive, Mr. Mohammed Alhassan said the District Assembly has allocated 210 million cedis to promote and support productivity improvement, employment and income generation in compliance with the district assemblies common fund.

About 25 million cedis of this has been set aside to improve infrastructure facilities throughout the district to enable rural farming households to increase their incomes through enhanced agriculture production, processing, storage and marketing on sustainable basis.

There is also a programme to assist hardworking girls, in particular from JSS, who gained admission to Senior Secondary Schools as well as other needy girls at other levels.

Mr. Alhassan therefore appealed to beneficiaries of the assembly's loan schemes to use their loans wisely so that they can support their children's up-bringing.

Mrs. Betty Akuffo-Amoabeng of the Ghana National Commission on children said district committees on children are being formed to ensure that issues affecting children are adequately addressed at the district level.

She asked district assemblies to develop data banks on children in order to identify the sources and peculiarities of problems that hinder their development and effectively tackle them.

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Women must assert themselves - Consultant

Accra (Greater Accra), 11^th November 99

Mrs. Elizabeth Q. Akpalu, a Gender and Development Consultant, on Thursday urged women to equip themselves adequately and adopt positive attitudes that would facilitate their performance in public roles.

"As women we must assert ourselves and begin to view the public domain as our rightful place alongside that of men.

"Above all, we must be prepared to train to acquire the necessary skills to be effective in decision-making at all levels."

She was speaking at the end of a two-day national consensus building forum in preparation towards the sixth African Regional Meeting on Women.

The meeting scheduled for November 22 to 27, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, will discuss the integration of measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women and trafficking in women and other women related issues.

Mrs. Akpalu also called for the monitoring of the implementation of Affirmative Action to ensure that women are represented on public boards, commissions, councils and bodies so that their views are reflected in national decisions.

"We know that men can speak for us at certain times, but it is not always that they understand how we feel. We must therefore be there to decide for ourselves to promote sustainable development".

She called for the setting up of a proposed nine-member supervisory committee to make sure that vacant positions of public boards are given to women.

Affirmative Action, the major intervention since the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women, seeks to ensure appointment to all government and public boards, commissions, councils, committees and official bodies, including cabinet and the Council of State to achieve a target of 40 per cent for the medium and long term.

Mrs. Akpalu, however, noted that Affirmative Action alone "will not transform the inequality in decision-making if we are to judge from past experience because the reality of the situation is that men still dominate all sides of decision-making".

She gave the statistics of the trend in women's participation in politics and public life since the 1950s, stressing that the situation had not improved because a wide gap still exists between men and women.

"In the Colonial Legislative Parliament, (1954 -1956) only one of the 104 members got elected. Between 1960 and 1966 10 women were elected in June 1960 to enter parliament. By 1965 there were 19 women in parliament, all CPP members.

"The current situation of women in power and decision-making shows a wide gap at all levels. Nineteen out of 200 members are women. Two out of 19 Cabinet Ministers are women".

Mrs. Akpalu reiterated the call for the establishment of a national non-partisan institution to nurture and train women for the various levels of political decision-making, especially for parliament, district assemblies and boards.

Mr Bright Blewu, General Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association, expressed concern about the poor turn out of men at the conference and urged the NCWD to involve men in their activities so that they would better appreciate gender issues.

Mr Blewu who spoke on the Media as an Agent of Change, assured the council of his association's co-operation in promoting women's interest.

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Nadowli North retains NPP executives

Nadowli (Upper West), 12^th November 99

The Nadowli north constituency of the NPP in the Upper West region has retained its presiding executives in office at its delegates' congress held at Nadowli.

The nine-member executive is headed by Mr. Sylvester Banye as chairman and Edmund Damula as secretary.

The 51 delegates decided to retain the executives "because in our view, the party is at the threshold of crucial elections next year and changing the executives will be counter productive."

The regional secretary of the party, Mr. Sahanun Mogtar, said all indications point to the party's victory in next year's elections and called on members to sink their differences and work together to achieve that goal.

He asked the delegates to embrace all those who have defected from the NDC and to treat them as brothers and sisters who have come to assist in voting the NDC out of power.

Earlier in an interview, Mr. Mogtar dismissed speculations that the NPP has been dormant since its national congress held last year.

"We are not sleeping. We are only being careful with our organisational strategies so that we do not leak our plans to our opponents who have massive resources to counter them".

He said the party has identified the rural communities as its bane and has started organizing from the level of polling stations to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated.

On mobilization of resources, he said all supporters are expected to make contributions towards financing party activities stressing that " a big party like the NPP cannot be funded by only the Presidential Candidate; so every party member must contribute to ensure that we do not remain in the opposition again."

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Stop sale of alcohol at lorry parks, association

Koforidua (Eastern Region), 12^th November 99

The Concerned Citizens Association of Ghana, (CCAG), has called on the government and district assemblies to prohibit the sale of alcoholic drinks at the country's lorry parks.

This, according to the association, would help curb some of the fatal accidents on our roads, especially during Christmas periods.

The national chairman of the association, Mr. J.Y. Aidoo, made the call at the launch of the Eastern Regional campaign on "operation keep the lorry parks clean", at Koforidua Wednesday.

He called on the government to give control of all lorry parks to the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) for it to ensure environmental sanitation and order at the parks.

Mr. Aidoo urged the GPRTU and drivers to provide dust bins at the parks and on their buses for use by passengers.

The Eastern regional commander of the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU), Mr. A.Y. Amanfo, who launched the campaign, said 80 per cent of road accidents in the region are caused by human errors.

He said, his outfit and the GPRTU has drawn up an elaborate road safety education programme to minimise accidents in the region.

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