SSNIT: Workers demand probe - TUC meets this week
Ed Annan, K. Addo share SSNIT houses
Top NDC officials put us in a mess - SSNIT
What if Mills loses?
The Daily Graphic / The Ghanaian Times
238 flown back home / 239 evacuated from Libya
NDC launches election 2000 campaign at Wa
Why Owuraku Amofa left!
SSNIT: Workers demand probe - TUC meets this week
The Public Agenda in a front-page capture, says media allegations about massive corruption and mismanagement at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has provoked considerable anger among workers, the main contributors to the state run pension fund.
A cross-section of workers that the paper interviewed confirmed their worst fears about the Trust and underlined the need for a probe into its affairs including investments.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has also expressed concern about the allegations of massive corruption at SSNIT.
Secretary General, Kwesi Adu Amankwah, told the paper that the labour movement is worried about the allegations, which confirm workers' concern about the need for more control and transparency in the Trust's operations.
He said the TUC leadership would meet this week to decide on the media and workers' submissions.
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Ed Annan, K. Addo share SSNIT houses
The Ghanaian Chronicle reports the development of a residential site in Accra that has been grabbed by top SSNIT officials or people close to it.
A corrupting stench of the deal reportedly wafts through the Trust whether one looks at the facility's development as an investment or open market transaction.
No public announcement was made about the release of the properties, however, Mr. Kwame Addo, Managing Director of Game Marketing Ltd. and SSNIT Board member for nearly eight years, by his insider knowledge grabbed three properties even before the construction reached window level, adding a fourth recently.
The past Director General, Mr. Henry Dei, was also handed an older property for 29 million cedis as a retirement handshake while another man, Mr. Edward Annan, Managing Director of Masai, a computer company is said to have grabbed four of the properties in a row.
Even though the transactions run bang against everything that the Trust represents, they had happened under the watchful eyes and oversight of Dei, the past chairman, and his Investment advisers, Messrs Kofi Ahlijah and Arthur with none of the Board members also raising a finger of protest.
Chronicle says it is verifying reports of a specific agenda from the 31 December Women's Movement to expose the 'deals'.
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Top NDC officials put us in a mess - SSNIT
The Dispatch says a member of the Board of Directors, and a senior management member of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) confessed in exclusive interviews that some unwise investments that the Trust made resulted from intense pressure on the Board by some top officials of the ruling NDC.
They have, therefore, urged President Jerry Rawlings to appoint a high-powered Committee to conduct public hearings since some of the officials allegedly traced their directives to the Presidency.
The undisclosed members cited three instances in which workers contribution totalling 76 billion cedis went with the wind, the first, involving a 34-billion-cedi injection into the Ambassador Hotel, which is said to have 'gone down the drain for good'.
SSNIT had also invested 12 billion cedis each in Wahome steel, an investment that is described as "increasingly becoming like fetching water with a basket", and the Accra Abattoirs whose other shareholders are Mr. Eddie Annan's MASAI and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly.
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What if Mills loses?
The Accra Mail says the question posed by a journalist at the launch of the Homecoming Summit at the Golden Tulip Hotel on what happens to the initiative to harness the resources of Ghanaians abroad should Prof. Atta Mills fail to win the elections, was interesting just as its reply,
Mr. Kwesi Ahwoi, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) had said in his reply that "Good programmes like this one are about Ghana and so whoever comes to power will definitely go on with it."
He'd added that, "If an idea is good it does not matter who initiated it. This is how I would look at it if I were a presidential aspirant."
The Homecoming exercise, a brainchild of Prof. Mills, for tapping the human and material resources of Ghanaians abroad for the development of the country, uniquely hope to draw them together in a summit and workshop fashion to tap their inputs.
The GIPC is organising the event slated for July 2-4, 2001 under the tag 'Harnessing the Global Resource Potential for Accelerated National Development', and with the accompanying slogan, 'Motherland call: Together we create the Nation's wealth'.
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The Daily Graphic / The Ghanaian Times
238 flown back home / 239 evacuated from Libya
The banner stories of the Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times report on the evacuation exercise involving some displaced Ghanaians in the Libyan capital of Tripoli by the government over the weekend.
The victims had been caught up in a riot in which a number of black Africans had been attacked by Libyans.
President Rawlings led the evacuation exercise, which saw 238 out of 5,000 persons being airlifted, however, Times puts the figure at 239.
The anxious Ghanaians were elated and relieved to see President Rawlings lead the team that had members from the medical section of the Ghana Armed Forces, officials of the National Disaster Management Organisation, the Police Striking Force and the Military Police, among others.
The Ghanaian Times on its part reports that long before the evacuees returned home, NADMO, led by its director, Mr. Kofi Portuphy, with the assistance of a number of organisations mounted a reception centre at one of the hangers at the airport where they were screened and registered.
It describes as pathetic, the scene on arrival at 1.40 am on Sunday when the plane touched down and the returnees, some of whom had been in Libya for over five years, disembarked looking dejected and traumatised.
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NDC launches election 2000 campaign at Wa
The Graphic reports in another front-page capture that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday launched its 2000 election campaign with a mammoth rally at the grounds opposite the Ghana Commercial Bank at the Upper West regional capital, Wa.
The town is said to have been thrown into a state of ecstasy with people pouring from all directions to catch a glimpse of President Rawlings, when the chopper carrying him and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings landed.
Speaking at the rally, President Rawlings urged supporters of the NDC to turn out in their numbers to return the party to power to enable it to continue with its development agenda.
Vice President and flagbearer for the December elections, Prof. John Atta Mills asked party supporters to be wary of politicians who promise them free education and health since it is not possible.
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The Ghanaian Times again reports on its front-page that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has constituted a high-powered investigative team to probe allegations of massive fraud at the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) in the handling of workers' contributions.
The investigation is against the background of accusations and allegations in a radio programme on a private station in Accra against the SSNIT that its operations were not transparent.
Mr. Komla Dumor, host of Joy FM's 'Morning Show' programme has been contacted by SFO officials to help in the investigations by furnishing the office with the information in his possession.
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Why Owuraku Amofa left!
The Ghanaian Voice reports that while the disappearance from the country of Hon. Owuraku Amofa, the Deputy Minister of Communications has been variously described, what makes the situation most cynical is that he cleared up his family home and left with all of them to the United States of America.
Amofa according to the story was a practising immigration Lawyer in the overseas country before coming down to pick the Abuakwa seat in a one-sided election in 1992.
Although his party, the Egle and the Progressive Alliance to which his party belongs, are tight-lipped over his exit, Voice says its investigations revealed that he left out of disgraced emanating from the choice of Mr. Martin Amidu, the Deputy Attorney General as the Vice to Professor J.E. Atta Mills.
Owuraku Amofa is alleged to have described Mr. Amidu's selection as a deviation from the consensus building that has been the hallmark of the NDC, adding that Egle supporters had openly canvassed for Dr Obed Asamoah to be Vice to Prof. Mills at its congress attended by Prof. Mills.
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