Insurance Industry faces debt crisis
Three children smashed by speeding cars at Abesewa
The Progressive Unity, comprising three political parties, The Convention People’s Party (CPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC) and the National Reform Party (NRP), has called on the Kufuor administration to reduce the country’s over-dependence on the developed countries and strive to strengthen her influence in international politics.
“This way, we will be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that will present themselves for big leaps forward,” it said.
In a joint communique issued in Accra, the parties said by pursuing economic democracy and national integration, the country can implement concrete alternatives that will reduce her dependency on the advanced world. The communique strongly objected to the current international economic relationship, which it claims, has led to the underdevelopment of the country.
It said present global trading arrangement and economic relation keep the developing world, especially Ghana, under perpetual servitude and bondage.
“Our parties oppose the international economic order that steadily and unfairly transfers resources from developing countries, such as Ghana to big businesses in the developed world. This system hurts Ghana, an exporter of unprocessed cocoa and gold to companies in the developed world,” the statement said.
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The Daily Graphic reports that the five policemen interdicted in connection with a vehicle loaded with large quantities of dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp near Offuman, in the Brong Ahafo region earlier in the week allegedly collected ˘7 million bribe from the suspected drug dealers.
The driver of the vehicle, Cosmos Kwabena Danso, who made the allegation at an identification parade at the Regional Police Command at Sunyani on Friday, said the amount was part payment of 25 million bribe demanded by the policemen.
Danso, who was arrested at Nsawam and sent to Wenchi under police escort, therefore, described as unfounded the statement by the policemen that they demanded a bribe of 7 million and were yet to receive it when they were arrested.
The interdicted offices, however, insist that they never took any money from the drug dealers. The affected officers Simon Wortoyesor (Station Officer), Inspector Frank Hagan, Corporal Thomas Acquah and Constable Twum Dauda, all of the Wenchi Police.
Danso was arraigned before a Sunyani Community Tribunal on Friday on a charge of possessing Indian hemp and was remanded in prison custody to re-appear on December 6. His plea was not taken.
A highly-placed police source said in an interview with the paper that the owner of the Ford vehicle, who also resides at Nsawam, caused the arrest of Danso after the story broke out.
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Thieves have broken into the offices of Media Guard Limited a private media organisation, in Accra and made away with office equipment valued at about ˘20 million.
The items stolen include: two iMac Apple Computers, Epson Stylus Colour Printer, lacie CDR writer, 10 software CDs and other softwares.
The Graphic quotes Mr Kofi Badu, Managing Director of the company, as saying that the theft was detected by one of the workers last Saturday. He said the thieves broke into the office by removing some louvre blades at the back of the building.
The Adabraka Police in Accra confirmed the story and said investigation have begun into the matter.
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There was drama at an Accra Circuit Tribunal when a complainant, Georgina Adjei Asare, visibly dissatisfied with a judgement in a stealing case, openly hurled insults at the judge.
As soon as the tribunal chairman Ms Elizabeth Anderson-Yeboah, acquitted and discharged the accused, Mavis Marfoah, for lack of evidence, Georgina burst out in rage.
Shouting at the top of her voice, she said: “I know you are a corrupt woman who takes money from accused persons and set them free.”
Georgina, 35, a trader, also alleged before the open court that Ms Anderson-Yeboah had once accepted a car from an accused person in a case before the tribunal. She also referred to the tribunal as a corrupt court.
Undeterred by the warnings from the court warrant officers and clerks, Georgina went ahead to say, “I am an NPP woman, and I will report you to my people”.
She further said: “I knew you would by all means free the accused, so now that she is free, you can send me inside.”
Georgina, whose strange behaviour as well as awkward utterances created a scene at the premises of the Cocoa Affairs Court, was subsequently arrested by the court warrant officers and arraigned before Circuit tribunal “A”.
The tribunal, chaired by Mr Imoru Ziblim, on Sunday sentenced Georgina to a fine of 2 million cedis, after she pleaded guilty o the charge of disturbance of court and insulting behaviour. In default, she will go to jail for six months in hard labour.
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Insurance Industry faces debt crisis
The country’s insurance industry is facing huge outstanding premium debts leaving all insurance companies with non-life accounts in a crisis Miss Josephine Amoah, Commissioner of the National Insurance Commission (NIC) said on Thursday.
The Ghanaian Times reporting, quotes Ms Amoah as saying that this has affected their cash flow position and is making it impossible for them to settle claims and other obligations promptly.
Ms Amoah who announced this at the opening of a 255 million cedis newly refurbished and fully computerised office for the Tema branch of the State Insurance Company (SIC) at Tema said the rising customer dissatisfaction and complaints is not helping the image of the industry.
She noted that until 1999, the insurance industry experienced significant growth, but this slumped, due to the sharp deterioration in the macro-economic environment experienced in the year 2000. “The high devaluation of the cedi and the high rate of inflation drastically changed the success story,” she said.
Miss Amoah said the NIC is to form a committee to come out with guidelines and proposals to tackle the outstanding debt situation and embark on public education and business promotion activities.
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Only 2,700 students, out of the 11,000 eligible for students’ loans, have submitted their forms to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) for processing, according to Mr K. Osei-Bimpong, Head of Public Affairs of the Trust.
He said barring any anomalies with the forms, their banks will be advised to start releasing their loans to them from next week.
Mr Osei-Bimpong was speaking to the Times in a telephone interview on Friday. He said it was unfair for the students to accuse them of delaying the release of the loans.
According to him, before the students went to campus bout 10 weeks ago, the loan forms were lodged at their various institutions for distribution to them. But the students, he said, started returning the forms to them only two weeks ago, adding that, “there are lots of problems which accompany the forms on submission to SSNIT which contributed to some delay”.
He said that sometimes when the forms were returned, they were not accompanied by list of students from the heads of the institutions. Other times, the Public Affairs Heads said that the forms sent to them did not have Social Security Numbers of the guarantors or they had blurred fingerprints. In all these cases, Mr Osei-Bimpong said, the forms had to be sent back for the proper things to be done to enable them to be processed.
He, therefore, appealed to heads of institutions whose students qualified for the loans to endeavour to submit their students’ lists and the forms as early as possible.
He advised students to take pains to ensure that the needed information was provided on the forms after which they should open bank accounts to receive the payments. “If these are done, it would not take us two weeks to have the monies in the students accounts,” Mr Osei-Bimpong said.
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Three children smashed by speeding cars at Abesewa
Tragedy struck Abesewa, near Tepa Junction in the Ashanti Region, last Tuesday when three pupils of the local Kindergarten were killed instantly by two over-speeding saloon cars.
The deceased, Mercy Osei, Constance Boateng were aged four with Michael Duah, five. They were said to be crossing the main Abesewa-Sunyani road after school when the cars, a BMW and a Hyundai, knocked and ran over them.
The police at Tepa arrested the two reckless drivers, Daniel Anarfi and Joshua Adusei, of the BMW and Hyundai cars respectively, and placed them in custody for further investigation.
The police said that as a routine, the little children of the school were after classes, always escorted to the roadside by their attendants to cross the road to their homes. On the fateful day, the children were as usual, taken to the roadside to cross.
Anarfi and Adusei who were driving towards Sunyani at about 1.35 pm, were signalled to slow down while the children were crossing the road, but they could not because they were driving at top speed.
Anarfi, who was driving ahead, slammed into the children while Adusei ran over them. The two drivers were later arrested by the police and would be put before court after investigations.
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Two Lecturers charged for theft
Eight persons, including two lecturers of the University of Ghana, Legon, have appeared before a Sekondi circuit tribunal, charged with conspiracy to steal and stealing.
The eight persons who pleaded not guilty are Emmanuel Kofi Nkebi, Western Regional Survey Officer, Dr Kwesi Anarfi, a research fellow at Legon, Joseph Asante, a retired army officer, Osei Sarfo, a lecturer at Legon and Isaac Kow Okyir, a building technician.
The rest are Alfred Kwame Baah, a businessman, Sampson Osae Addo and Emmanuel Kofi Quagraine, a pensioner.
They are accused of using fraudulent means to withdraw an amount of ˘35 million with two separate cheques from the bank accounts of the leader and founder of the Mystic Church of Ghana, Prophet Daniel Arthur, now deceased.
A state attorney who presented the facts said the complainants in the case, Daniel Kingsley Arthur and Mrs Comfort Appiah, are the son and niece respectively of Prophet Arthur.
He said the church was established by Prophet Arthur at Apremdo in Takoradi and was later expanded to Accra and Kumasi with each branch having its own bank accounts and four executive members who saw to the activities of the church.
The prosecutor said Prophet Arthur later moved from Takoradi to Accra where he opened his own personal bank accounts with the Kaneshie branch of the Barclays Bank with account number 3617985.
Prophet Arthur, according to the state attorney, in 1996 contracted the first accused, Emanuel Nkebi, as a result of old age, to assume control of all his bank transactions.
However, after the death of Prophet Arthur in March 1997, the family appointed Kingsley Arthur to administer his property after letters of administration had been granted at the Sekondi High Court.
The prosecutor said when the complainants took the letters of administration to the manager of the bank to submit it was discovered that Nkebi, in connivance with the other accused persons, had gone o the bank to withdraw monies totalling ˘35 million on two different occasions.
The first amount of ˘15 million was withdrawn a month after the death of Prophet Arthur, and on January 27, 1998, the accused withdrew another ˘20 million from the same account when their authority had expired.
The prosecutor said Kingsley Arthur therefore reported the case to the police, whose investigations revealed that Nkebi withdrew all the monies with the tacit help and consent of the other persons including the two lecturers.
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Benjamin Mensah, alias Kwesi Alabo, 32, who beat his wife amidst threats of killing her and later bit the nose of a policeman during his arrest at Dawurampong in the Central Region, has been jailed two years with hard labour.
Mensah was charged with threat of death, assault on a public officer and causing harm to which he pleaded guilty.
The Dawurampong Circuit court, presided over by Mr. P.K. Richardson, also imposed a 250,000 thousand cedis fine on Mensah, in default of which he would go to prison for another six months.
Furthermore, Mr Richardson ordered Mensah to compensate the police officer, General Corporal Evans Futukpor, with ˘1 million or serve a three-month prison term with hard labour. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Mensah’s plea for leniency backfired when Judge Richardson retorted: “I have heard your plea. But you don’t deserve any mercy. Your conduct was atrocious and dastardly.”
According to the prosecution, the complainant is the wife of Mensah and that following the beatings she had been receiving at the hands of her husband, she moved out of their marital home. On October 10, 2000, at 6.30 pm the complainant was in her house when Mensah arrived in a bad mood and started beating her amidst threats to kill her.
The prosecution said the woman ran away and lodged a complaint at the police station.
Thereupon, Detective-Sergeant Yeboah and General Corporal futukpor were detailed to accompany the complainant to her house and arrest her assailant.
On reaching the house, the policemen met Mensah but he resisted arrest in spite of the fact that he had been informed of their mission and threatened to kill the complainant in the presence of the peace officers for calling the police.
The policemen gripped Mensah and while they were bringing him to the police station, he attacked Corporal Futukpor, assaulted him and bit his nose. He was however overpowered and brought to the police station while the corporal who was bleeding profusely was rushed to the Catholic Hospital at Apam.
Cpl Futukpor was referred to the Police Hospital and thence to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra where he underwent a surgery.
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A fetish priestess of the Gborbu Shrine at Nungua, Sophia Mensah, has for some time now been very busy at night. Under the cover of darkness, the priestess has allegedly used her fingers to violate the private pat of Borteley Mensah, also a fetish priestess of the same shrine, reports The Spectator.
According to the story, each night when Borteley was fast asleep, she was awakened from her slumber by a strange feeling in her private part. She always opened her eyes to find Sophia “fingering” her and not even her protests would stop Sophia who persisted night after night with the shameful act.
Sophia reportedly gave Borteley a stern warning not to tell anyone in the locality about her ordeal, else she would regret doing so. But Borteley is said to have braved the threat and told the matter to Madam Yaborley, an elder living in the Nungua township.
Sophia sensing she has been exposed failed to answer to invitations from madam Yarboley. Sophia is said to have bumped into Borteley on her way to town on October 5 and gave her (Borteley) severe caning. It took the intervention of passers-by to save Borteley from her tormentor.
After her ordeal, Borteley quickly went to the Nungua Police station and lodged a complaint and upon that Sophia was charged with indecent assault.
When the matter was taken to the Osu Community Tribunal, Sophia pleaded not guilty and was granted self-congnizance bail. However, some elders in the town later pleaded with the tribunal to settle the case out of court.
George Nana Donkor who chaired the tribunal adjourned the case to Monday, November 19.
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