Motion on housing loan withdrawn
MP's condemn indiscriminate pollution of
environment
Accra (Greater Accra) 30 November 2001 - Ghana’s salt industry holds more potential for revenue than the country's traditional exports yet it is not being taken seriously, Mr Kofi Poku-Adusei, NPP-Bekwai, told Parliament on Thursday.
"The prices of our traditional exports like cocoa and gold are fixed on the international market. They are outside our control, but prices of exports like salt are fixed by the price mechanism, the free forces of demand and supply."
The member, who was delivering a statement on the salt industry in Parliament, said "our economy needs vigorous diversification if any meaningful headway is to be made towards a long term solution".
"The commodity (salt) has the potential to generate foreign exchange for Ghana. Nigeria, for example, imports over 700 million dollars worth of salt annually from Australia. If our industry is well developed, we could attract these earnings."
He said: "Salt could be processed into caustic soda, the basic raw material for soap and other pharmaceutical products, which we now import."
He said it had been proven that salt could be put to 16,000 different uses and this made it imperative that any country with the resource needed to give it all the attention it deserved.
"Government's declaration of the Golden Age of Business underscores our commitment as a nation to support initiatives to strengthen the private sector as the engine of growth to develop this resource."
Mr Amos Buertey, NDC-Ada, said if the salt industry were to develop, old ways of winning the commodity must stop. He, however, cautioned that any attempt to take over rich salt ponds and fields without the consent of the traditional owners would misfire.
Mr K. A. Kyeremanteng, NPPAfigya Sekyere East, said Ghana could invoke the ECOWAS Protocol and short distance between the country and Nigeria to take care of their salt requirements.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 30 November 2001- The report of the Joint Committee on Finance and Works and Housing on a supplier agreement between Ghana and Hycoprojekt Bratislavia A.S of Slovkia for 41.4 million dollars for housing development was withdrawn from Parliament on Thursday.
Subsequently, debate for the adoption of the report, which was deferred on Wednesday, had been terminated. The Majority in Parliament was compelled on Wednesday to call for the deferral of a motion when the Minority found it be technically deficient.
Two letters and two reports from the Cabinet bearing the same reference number and signature but having different contents accompanied the loan agreement to Parliament. Papa Owusu Ankoma, the Majority Leader, made no statement after seeking leave of the House to withdraw it.
Mr Johnson Asiedu-Nkestia, NDC-Wenchi West, alerted the House to the anomaly and criticised the joint Committee on Finance and Works and Housing for allowing it to slip through.
He said: "I agree with the objectives of the loan and I agree with government's desire to provide adequate housing for the masses but the devil lies in the details." The member said inconsistencies existed in the report and that the "House should be saved from further confusion.
"This report is worth not more than the paper on which it was written. We need to organise seminars for Ministers and some members to deliver on such matters."
Papa Owusu Ankoma said there might be a procedural error but it did not mean that seminars would be necessary for members.
"The whole country knows what happened before we (NPP) come to power." He explained that the confusion came about because there was a first report, which was amended but it happened that the original version came with the amended version.
"For all the confusion on the matter to be erased, I submit that the motion be deferred but hope that the other side would co-operate with us in the same spirit in future."
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MP's condemn indiscriminate pollution of
environment
Accra (Greater Accra) 30 November 2001- The Member of Parliament for Odotobri, Mr Samuel Nkrumah-Gyimah was on Thursday supported by his colleagues in condemning the indiscriminate and widespread polluting of the environment across the length and breadth of the country.
Mr Nkrumah-Gyimah said some of "our churches, scared groves and tourists sites now serve as places of convenience". He said this in a statement he presented in Parliament on the need to check environmental pollution in the country.
Mr Nkrumah-Gyimah said due to the absence of places of convenience in most homes, it was a daily sight of people queuing at public places of convenience similar to those seen at trotro stations.
He said the activities of people, who defecate by roadsides, classrooms and even in churches and in polythene bags and dump them elsewhere, and in rivers, streams and gutters posed danger to the health of the people.
"Our uncontrolled pollution of the environment brings about epidemics such as cholera and other forms of diseases ", which needed to be checked by all concerned citizens.
Mr Nkrumah-Gyimah said people ignored planning regulations and built structures without toilet facilities while some landlords converted their toilets into rooms for human habitation.
He said the enforcement of by-laws by district and metropolitan authorities should be taken seriously so that offenders were made to pay for their misdeeds to serve as deterrent to others.
Alhaji Ali Amadu, NDC- Atebubu South, said public toilets were meant for visitors, however, because most houses did not have toilets the situation put pressure on the use of the public toilets.
He said most of the district assemblies did not have cesspit-emptier to dislodge sludge from the toilet facilities they had provided for the various communities and called on the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to assist them to acquire the vehicles.
Dr Mustapha Ahmed, NDC-Ayawaso East said the issue of environmental pollution in the use of public toilets not only led to the spread of diseases but also led to the loss of man hours.
He said the problem of indiscriminate defecation could be solved if part of the Poverty Alleviation Fund were used to support landlords to put up toilet facilities in their houses.
Dr Ahmed called for the strengthening of the powers of the sanitary inspectors to play their expected role of not only educating the public but enforcing the necessary by-laws on sanitation.
Mr Joseph Darko-Mensah, NPP-Okaikoi North, expressed regret that landlords had turned toilet facilities in houses into living rooms without considering the needs of the tenants.
Alhaji Amadu Seidu, NDC-Yapei/Kusawgu, said it was only Tema, Akosombo and some parts of Accra that had central sewerage disposal systems.
He said the Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation concentrated on only the supply of water and neglected the sewerage component thus worsening the sanitation of various communities.
Alhaji Seidu called on the Ministry of Works and Housing to form a state institution to take control of the sewerage situation of the country since the disposal of waste posed the main danger to water bodies.
Mr Stephen Balado Manu, NPP-Ahafo Ano South, said the issue of public toilets was even worse for the youth since most schools did not have toilet facilities and the children were forced to go "free-ranging".
Mr John Kwekucher Ackah, NDC-Aowin-Suaman, said the tradition of cleaning ones' surroundings daily had been ignored thus compounding the problem of environmental pollution.
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