Winneba records 323 Motor accidents in 9 months
District assemblies urged to adhere to guidelines
Delegation back home local authorities confab
Mass wedding at Madina Catholic Church
President of Methodist conference urges more income-generating ventures
Winneba records 323 Motor accidents in 9 months
Winneba (Central Region), 11th October 99
The Winneba District Office of the Vehicle Examination and Licensing Division (VELD) of the Ministry of Roads and Transport recorded 323 motor accidents in six districts between January and September, this year.
More than 20 of these were fatal and involved taxi cabs, mini buses, heavy trucks and motor cycles.
Mr. W.D.C. Amedekanya, Officer in charge of the zone, who disclosed this over the weekend could not however tell offhand the number of casualties recorded in the accidents.
The Winneba office of VELD caters for Mfantseman, Ajumako-Anyan-Essiam, Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, Agona, Awutu-Effutu-Senya, and the Gomoa administrative areas.
Mr. Amedekanya identified Mankessim commercial drivers as the worst offenders, followed by private car owners who ply the Accra-Cape Coast highway during weekends and warned them to ensure strict observance of traffic laws and regulations to reduce accidents on the highway.
Vehicle owners who get drunk at funerals at weekends and do not have full concentration should engage the services of qualified drivers to avoid any mishap.
Mr. Amedekanya urged the leadership of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union to institute tougher measures to check commercial drivers who flout traffic laws with impunity.
The Union must also set up special monitoring teams in all 110 districts of the 10 regions to deal with such recalcitrant drivers
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District assemblies urged to adhere to guidelines
Bolgatanga (Upper East), 11th October 99
The Upper East Regional Co-ordinating Director, Mr. David Yaro, has urged district assemblies to adhere strictly to guidelines approved by parliament for the disbursement of the district assemblies' common fund.
The effective application of the fund will help transform rural communities and have a positive impact on the socio-economic lives of the people.
Mr. Yaro was opening a three-day workshop organised by his office for District Budget, Planning and Finance Officers in the region at Bolgatanga.
It is under the theme "the role of the district assemblies' common fund and the implementing bodies towards effective rural development in the next millennium".
The participants will be taken through modalities for the preparation of supplementary budgets to ensure strict compliance with guidelines governing the use of the common fund.
These clearly spell out the type of projects the fund should be used for so that people at the grassroots will appreciate efforts the government is making to improve their lot.
Mr. Yaro charged the participants to ensure that supplementary budgets prepared for their assemblies are in line with local government directives on the five-year development plan.
He warned district assemblies in the region against using supplementary budgets for recurrent expenditure, adding that on no account should monies meant for the implementation of projects already approved be used for those that have not been budgeted for.
This, he noted, is to ensure that there is no excess expenditure over the approved ones.
Mr. Yaro said the inability of some District Budget, Planning and Finance Officers to adhere to this directives had led many district assemblies into serious financial problems.
In some instances, the inefficiency of officers has led to the removal of some district chief executives from office for financial mismanagement.
Mr. Yaro charged the participants to ensure that monies deducted from the bulk of their share of the district assemblies' common fund were used for the intended projects.
Such monies include the MPs' share of the common fund, allocations for poverty alleviation, community-initiated projects, rural housing scheme and the Youth in Agriculture Programme.
Mr. Yaro reminded the officers of the directive that obliges them to submit quarterly reports to the regional administration and asked them to comply with it.
He said it was wrong for MPs to use their share of the common fund to purchase public address systems and wheel chairs, adding that they are expected to utilise the fund to support rural health, education and other projects.
Mr. Yaro hoped the workshop would prepare the officers adequately for the next millennium to enable their district assemblies to face the numerous challenges ahead of them.
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Delegation back home local authorities confab
Accra (Greater Accra), 11th October 99
A seven-member Ghana delegation of Ministers of state, Parliamentarians and local government officials to the 7th regional conference of the African Union of Local Authorities (AULA) in Uganda returned home on Sunday.
Mr. Francis Korbieh, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, led the delegation to the one-week conference on "Community Participation in Local Governance into the Next Millennium".
Speaking to the GNA on arrival in Accra, Mr. Korbieh, also the MP for Jirapa, said the conference, which was a great success was attended by about 1,000 delegates.
He said Ghana, Senegal, Togo, Cameroun and the Gambia represented West Africa.
Ghana, Mr. Korbieh added, delivered a paper on "Decentralisation and Democracy" in which she called on local government associations to promote democracy and join hands with governments to foster the transparent and judicious use of resources for national development.
Mr. Akwasi Oppong Fosu, District Chief Executive of the Ahafo Ano North District, was elected AULA's president for the next two years.
Mr. Korbieh said the DCE's election was in recognition of Ghana's leading role in decentralisation and her commitment to AULA affairs.
The deputy Minister said the delegation met with the Ghanaian community in Kampala and had useful discussions with them.
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Mass wedding at Madina Catholic Church
Madina (Greater Accra), 11th October 99
Twenty-six couples on Saturday exchanged vows in turns to solemnise their marriages at the Queen of Peace Catholic Church at Madina, near Accra.
The Vicar General Very Reverend Stephen Adu Kwanin of the Accra Archdiocese, who was the main celebrant, asked the newly wedded couples to solidify their marriages through trust, gentleness, open-communication and love.
Reverend Father Matthew Abucole, acting parish priest, said the mass wedding was organised by the Saint Francis Akan Society of the Madina Catholic Church in commemoration of its 25th anniversary this year.
He explained that such mass weddings enabled both the rich and poor to avoid expensive weddings, which dissipate their financial resources.
Mr. James F. Amuakwa, chairman of the Society, regretted that sometimes debts incurred after elaborate wedding celebrations resulted in the dissolution of marriages.
He said that the first mass wedding, which took place in 1994, involved 10 couples, while the second in 1996 involved eight couples.
The wedding rings were ordered by the parish priest, Reverend Father Koos Yamson from Netherlands and sold to the couples at a moderate price.
The marriage expenses were borne by the Society. The 26 wedded couples have been married for between eight and 38 years while their ages ranged from 34 to 67 years.
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President of Methodist conference urges more income-generating ventures
Akim Oda (Eastern Region), 11th October 99
The Most Reverend Dr. Samuel Asante-Antwi, Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Conference, has called on churches to intervene in the unemployment situation in the country by embarking on income-generating ventures.
He partly attributed the upsurge in crime wave in the country to the high level of unemployment and tasked churches to channel part of their resources to ventures which can help the people, especially the youth, to be able to earn genuine livelihood.
Rev. Asante-Antwi said this when he opened and dedicated a 400 million cedi manse of the Akim Oda Saint Luke Methodist Church.
He commended the Right Reverend Benjamin K. Asare, Bishop of the Akim Oda diocese of the church for his hard work, which had made it possible for the project to be completed well ahead on schedule.
Rev. Asante-Antwi said the church plans to establish a teachers training college in the area soon and called for the concerted effort of all circuits within the church towards the successful take-off of the project.
In a report, Rev. Asare said, the St. Luke's Society was able to secure a two Million-cedi loan from the poverty alleviation fund to assist a youth and women's group in the church that is engaged in poultry and soap making respectively.
On education, he said the Society has opened a vocational school at Akim Oda with 20 junior secondary school graduates.
Rev. Asare said plans are far advanced for the establishment of a senior secondary school that would run business and vocational courses for girls at Akim Oda next year.
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