GRi Press Review Ghana 01 - 10 - 2001

Most Ghanaians (66 percent) die before the age of 50 and of the few that cross the line, fewer still live longer enough to reach the retiring age of 60.

The revelation was made by Professor Agyemang Badu Akosa, Ghana’s Chief Pathologist and President of the Ghana Medical Association, according to the paper, lamenting that, “the health status of this country is bad. It is very bad”.

He said about 60 – 70 per cent of the country’s health problems relate to communicable and preventable diseases including epidemics, according to ‘Country assistance Strategy for Ghana’, 2000 – 2003, a Government of Ghana and the World Bank Group literature.

Prof. Akosa was worried that nothing has changed since he first brought up the subject of the bad state of the nation’s health at his inaugural lecture at the University of Ghana in June of last year adding that, “if there has been any change it has been a change for the worse”, Prof. Akosa said.

According to the Chief Pathologist, statistics generated from autopsy data collected between 1990 and 1999 of a sample of 25,000 deaths indicate that about two out of three Ghanaians (66 per cent) do not reach 50 years; 79 per cent (four out of five) do not make it to the retiring age of 60 and 84 per cent die before 65 years which is a far cry from the UK’s figure of 19% dying before age 65.

The statistics further indicate that most of these deaths are caused by infections and preventable diseases and causes. Of the deaths 25 per cent are from infections, 10 per cent from hypertension, 6.8 per cent from cancers and 6.5 per cent from Tuberculosis (TB). Road traffic accidents account for 8.3% of the deaths.

TB cases, according to the GMA boss, are on the increase due to the spread of HIV/AIDS. He explained that comparative research done in 1988/89 and 1998/99 showed an increase in ‘disseminated Tuberculosis’, which is closely associated with HIV/AIDS. The research also showed an increase in the number of female TB patients and that cannot be removed from the country’s HIV/AIDS profile, which indicates that more females are infected with HIV than males.

Cancers, especially liver cancer, is also taking its toll on the population, a situation that the pathologist described as preventable. Equally troublesome is the situation of malaria and other fevers. “We create five-star breeding grounds for mosquitoes. That is why malaria is still a common problem in the country”, the GMA boss pointed out.

Prof. Akosa said that most of these deaths are caused by the fact that people do not seek medical help when they have health problems “or they report late to the hospital or cannot afford the cost of medical bills”. He gave the example of some hypertensive patients who due to poverty fail to follow through with full treatment as prescribed by doctors.

He also identified the equality of drugs and medical services offered to patients as some of the causes of the high death rate in the country. According to him, the Ghanaian drug market is over liberalized thus any drug finds it way into the country and wondered why local companies cannot be supported to produce antibiotics, and other drugs for the cure and management of diseases like TB, malaria, hypertension and diabetics. If 80 per cent of these drugs are manufactured locally, he said, medical help will be affordable to a lot of people. He also advocated that the Noguchi Memorial Institute be supported to manufacture vaccines for immunization against liver cancer.

The Chief Pathologist was certain that a good social housing policy, proper environmental management as well as the adoption of healthy lifestyles by Ghanaians would turn the situation round dramatically.

GRi…/

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The Accra Mail

Kofi Wayo conderms Social Security body’s action

Mr Kofi Wayo, has condemned the manner the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) stormed Vibe FM last week, describing it as savage.

The Trust he said should have come to a compromise with the radio station.

Kofi Wayo was reacting to the development during a press conference organized by the management of Vibe FM on the SNNIT action. “Many foreign companies, owe them billions of cedis yet no such action has been taken against them”, he alleged.

The station is indebted to the Trust to the tune of ¢500 million. The initial rent owed was ¢200 million, but a court ruling resulted in an addition of ¢300 million interest. The court also ruled that, SSNIT has the right to seize the equipment of the station and eject them pending the settlement of the outstanding amount.

Mr Mike Cooke, Chief Executive Officer of Vibe FM, said on Thursday morning, the station had started business, when some people who claimed to be bailiffs rushed in and took over the station.

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Daily Graphic

“We won’t deviate from due process”

The Volta Regional Minister, Mr Kwasi Owusu-Yeboah, has stated that the government will not deviate from the due process of the law to establish the culpability or otherwise of former public officials in alleged financial malpractices, reports the Daily Graphic.

He, therefore, called on Ghanaians not to misconstrue efforts by the government to retrieve stolen state money and assets from public servants and politicians through the due process as witch-hunting of political opponents.

Mr Owusu-Yeboah was delivering the keynote address on behalf of the President, Mr J.A. Kufuor, at the third annual “Akwantutenten” festival of the chiefs and people of Worawora in the Jasikan District of the Volta Region on Saturday.

The festival, which is celebrated to mark the historical migration of the people from Kuntanase in Ashanti in 1774, was under the distinguished patronage of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

Mr Owusu-Yeboah said probes or investigations are painstaking exercises to fight any form of malfeasance against the state, in accordance with the principles of probity, integrity and accountability.

He stressed the need for chiefs to work towards the preservation of peace, order and security in their areas, since peace is the greatest recipe for orderly development.

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Call on Police Service to double intake

The Commissioner of Police in charge of Welfare, Mrs Janet Donkor, has stressed the need for the Ghana Police Service to double its staff strength if the country expects to attain the accepted minimum policing standards recommended by the United Nations.

She said whiles the minimum United Nations ratio for effective policing in a state is one policeman to 500 people, the ratio for this country is about one to 1,100.

Mrs Donkor made the call at a passing out parade for recruits at the Police Training School, Winneba in the Central Region at the weekend, where 75 recruits passed out.

Mrs Donkor said owing to the limited number of police personnel, coupled with the other problems in the service, it has been difficult for proper and efficient policing to be realized in the country.

She cautioned the recruits to bring to bear on their duties, every bit of knowledge they have acquired from the training.

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Motorbikes for Ghana’s cities

The current problem of transportation in Accra and other cities of the country has become a source of worry for the city authorities and planners.

The long traffic jam that greet Accra each morning and evening during rush hours have implications not only in terms of man-hour loss to the economy but also the amount of fuel burnt by motorists.

The country’s oil bill also, constituting a significant percentage of national expenditure, is a worrying phenomenon.

And although experts have advocated the reintroduction of mass transportation as one of the means to reduce the huge traffic jams and the fuel usage, a company recently registered in Accra, Asahi Nippon company (Ghana) Ltd intending to encourage the use of motorbikes in the capital and other parts of Ghana.

It hopes to introduce a wide range of motorbike brands at low cost and terms that would make people interested in the usage of motorbikes.

According to Mr Michael Ampadu Jnr, Assistant Sales Manager of the company, Asahi Nippon is currently exploring diverse business opportunities between the company a number of organizations in the city and elsewhere in the country so as to offer terms that would enable as many people as possible to owe motorbikes.

The use of bicycles and motorbikes has over the years been utilized in most Francophone West African cities, which has eased their vehicular problems.

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Selasi wins Miss Ghana crown

Selasi Kwawu, a student of the Takoradi Polytechnic was on Saturday crowned Miss Ghana 2001 at the grand finale of this year’s Club Pleasure Miss Ghana Beauty Pagent heat at Accra.

The new beauty queen whose coronation did not raise any eyebrows, unlike previous competitions, is pursuing Fashion Designing and Modeling at the Higher National Diploma (HND) level.

This year’s event attracted 19 instead of the usual 20, contestants and, according to sources close to the organizers, Media Whizz Kids Limited, the two original representatives from the Northern Region failed to make it to the ultimate fiesta because one had travel abroad for further studies, while the other was later withdrawn due to her questionable citizenship.

The second runner-up at the Northern Regional event, Benedicta Otu was therefore invited to represent the region.

For her prize, Selasi drove home a brand new Volkswagen Polo Classic saloon car, a ticket to the Miss World Pagent, ¢3 million, and a monthly allowance lasting one year.

Twenty-year-old student, Ama Solomon, a representative of the Central Region emerged the first runner-up and took home a double-door refrigerator, a set of furniture, ¢2 million for career enhancement, and a desktop computer.

Stephanie Abla Walkins-Fia, 21, a Travel and Tourism student, was the second runner-up and she received a 20-inch television set, a set of furniture, ¢2 million for career enhancement, and a desktop computer as her prize.

GRi…/

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The Ghanaian Voice

We did not say we won’t go to probes – Bagbin

The minority NDC has said that at no point in their press conference of Tuesday September 25 did they say that the will not appear before any probe or committees of enquiry.

According to Hon Alban Bagbin, the leader of the Minority in Parliament who is also MP for Nadowli North, what their spokesman Alhaji Iddrisu Mahama said was that officials and functionaries of the party will never ever go before an illegally constituted body like Special Investigative Task Force (SITF).

“Clearly the SITF which many of our people have been appearing before is not backed by any constitutional provision or fiat. This body, SITF, which has been inviting our people has tried illegally to extract information from them and use the same information to put them before court”.

Hon Bagbin was speaking to a group of journalists at his office in Parliament House last Friday September 27, 2001.

He said the methods used at the SITF are unconstitutional and that when people appear before that body and cooperated with it their Lawyer may not, at a latter date have the chance to defend some of the things that happened before the SITF.

Hon Bagbin said he felt sad that some people have quoted, misinformed and twisted the NDC press conference out of context.

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The Daily Guide

Cutlass wielding chief chases Assemblyman

The Chief of Sreso Timpon in the Ashanti Region, who recently chased an assemblyman around on a farm with a sharp cutlass, is in police grips according to The Daily Guide..

This follows a wireless message dispatched by the Kumasi Central Police for the chief, Nana Frimpong Manso III, to report himself personally to assist the police in their investigations, or face arrest.

Subsequently, the Chief handed himself over to the police and was immediately arrested at Sreso Timpon on Thursday, September 13, 2001.

Nana Frimpong is alleged to have chased Mr Joseph Boakye-Ansah, the Assemblyman for Sreso Timpon with a sharp cutlass around the Timpon Forest.

Acting as a vigilante group the assemblyman is said to have reported the chief to the Sreso police for allegedly cutting timber from a timber concession belonging to K.K. Timbers, a Kumasi-based timber firm.

While Boakye-Ansah and his group were on their guard duty in July this year, they allegedly spotted Nana Frimpong Manso and three others felling trees from the K.K. Timbers concession.

The vigilante group therefore rushed to the Sreso police to report the matter.

The police ordered that the felled beams be brought to the Antwina Forest Department, but Nana Frimpong Manso had a hint of the order and immediately conveyed the beams to an unknown destination.

According to the source, when the Assemblyman attempted to obstruct the Chief's order, Nana Frimpong Manso allegedly pulled a cutlass and chased the Assemblyman through the forest.

But for the timely intervention of some good-spirited people who went to his rescue, the Assemblyman would have been butchered to death.

Nana Frimpong Manso has meanwhile been granted police enquiry bail to present himself on October 2, 2001 in addition with witnesses to give their statements.

The Assemblyman had on his part produced two of his witnesses to the police.

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Tension at Mfanstiman School

Tension is reported to be mounting at the Mfantsiman Secondary School at Saltpond in the Central Region, following an unwarranted transfer order served on six teachers of the school by the headmistress, Mrs. Elizabeth Croffie.

The teachers who teach some key subjects such as English Language, Agricultural Science and French, were served with the letters on August 22, 2001, and are expected to vacate their positions in the school by the end of September 2001.

Despite the transfers, which the headmistress said were done to decongest the school's staff which she claimed were more than necessary, she is alleged to have recruited more teachers to take the place of those she had transferred.

A new French teacher was, for instance cited on campus on Tuesday, September 25, and the following day, September 26, another teacher arrived to join the English Language Department contrary Mrs Croffie claim of overstaffing. The paper says its investigations further revealed that two weeks ago a new Agricultural Science teacher also reported to replace the former head of Agricultural Science Department now on transfer.

The headmistress’ action is said to be without the knowledge of the supervising authority, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and is in contravention of the GES conditions of service and the code of professional conduct for teachers section 5(4) on Release of Employees.

The behaviour of the headmistress, the Guide says, has raised suspicions leading to tension between her and the affected teachers who have challenged her and consequently asked her to reverse her decision.

Recently three students died in the school following what some concerned parents call, insanitary conditions at the school due to overcrowding conditions in the school's dormitories and which had received substantial media attention.

Mrs Croffie is said to have openly blamed some of the teachers for being behind media publications about the school's current state of affairs.

The Guide says its efforts to speak to Mrs Croffie hit a blanc.

GRi…/

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Independent

Ghanair 'hijacked' over $2000

The Independent carries that national airline, the Ghana Airways, is in dire straits for money that for the magnanimity of a passenger on board, its D.C. 9 flight to Dakar last Wednesday would have cut short its journey at the Houphet Boigny Airport in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.

“That kind gesture might have ended a five-hour ordeal of passengers and crewmen on board, yet that divine intervention would not calm the nerves of a section of the passengers who thought the unexplained delay was due to hijacking”, says Independent.

It said later events however proved that, the hijacking was not the suspected Osama-bin Laden inspired type but one induced by the hard economic situation that Ghanair finds itself in today.

An Aviation fuel supply company in that country had refused to credit Ghanair fuel because the company had in the past reneged on its undertaking to pay for credit supplies, according to the paper.

According to our source in Abidjan, the fuel company did not heed to persistent pleas by the pilot and his crew on the D.C.9 flight to offer Ghanair the fuel on credit.

"The Ivorians would not even blink an eye at the Ghanaians, let alone to think of bailing them out of the problem", a passenger on board disclosed to The Independent on phone from Dakar.

In that state of embarrassment, Ghanair officials had to convince passengers to take some comfort at the lounge where they were served with snacks.

As the situation raged on a passenger who was initially rebuffed offered to settle the paltry $2,000 dollar fuel bill.

Apparently, the Good Samaritan was a worker at ECOBANK Ghana, which the Independent later discovered, are bankers of Ghana Airways.

The passenger then joined the crew to find out from Accra how the situation arose, but no tangible reason was offered from Accra on the embarrassing development.

Officials who are connected to the fuel situation in Ghana Airways all tried to pass the buck, when further investigations were made.

“The flight, which was scheduled to take off from Abidjan 12 noon, according to our source in Abidjan finally took off at 5 p.m. local time in Abidjan. However, an official of the airline played down the situation saying it was an "ordinary administrative hitch", the paper said.

GRi…/

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Free Press

Edumadze again

The Central Regional Minister and Members of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam, Mr Isaac Edumadze has the distinction of being the most controversial minister in the Kufuor administration says the Free Press, reporting that this time around however, his trouble is with his own constituency and the NPP executives there.

Mr Edumadze, according to the paper, had launched a clandestine campaign to remove the executives of the NPP in his constituency and plant his own favourites in their place.

The issue came to light during Free Press investigations at Ajumako into allegations of harassment by Hon. Edumadze of some constituency executives.

The spokesman for t he executives Mr Appiah Mensah who is the district chairman of the party stated that immediately after the 2000 elections, Mr Edumadze set in motion a machinery to unseat the present executives whose term of office ends in October 2002 and hand picked his favourites to replace them.

He said this was evident in the fact that when in June this year he was invited to a meeting by the executives to discuss issues affecting the administration of the constituency, he refused to attend and rather sent to hand pick party members and held a secret meeting with them at his resident in Cape Coast.

After the meeting he sent those members he met to incite the rest of the constituency members to revolt against the executives and remove them from office by force before their term elapsed.

Mr Edumadze allegedly also sidelined the executives and hand picked his favourites to attend the recent national delegates congress at Legon.

When they complained in a memo dated June 8, 2001 about the manner that the presiding member of the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam district assembly and the DCE acted unilaterally by selecting people to serve on the various sub-committees and appointments made by the two officers without consulting the party hierarchy, Mr. Edumadze rather reacted instead of the presiding member and the DCE.

His reaction in a hand written letter addressed individual members of the executives without the chairman instead of dealing with them collectively.

Mr Mensah said he considered the letter not only as a divide and rule tactics but also an intimidation just to put fears into the individual members of the executives to enable him infiltrate and disintegrate them.

They stated categorically that so far as they remained the lawful constituency executives of the NPP they would not budge from any intimidation from any quarters, not when they felt slighted.

All attempts to get Mr Edumadze's side of the story proved futile as he was not available says Free Press.

GRi…/

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The Ghanaian Democrat

Major Sulemana operates from Castle annex as Gen Hamidu’s deputy

It has now emerge that Alhaji Malik Yakubu Alhassan did not tell the truth Ghanaians when asked on Accra FM Station whether Major (rtd) Abubakari Sulemana was working for the NPP government as the nation's deputy security capo writes The Ghanaian Democrat.

The Interior Minister stated that Major Sulemana is not working for government.

However, according to the paper, it can reveal without any contradictions that the retired army major is indeed operating from the Castle annex, otherwise known as the 'Blue Gate'.

The former officer commanding the Recce Regiment, on his return from self-imposed exile without any hesitation secretly pitched camp at the nation's security headquarters as the second in command.

The paper says it has it on record that a high-powered government delegation led by Mr. Jake Obetsebi Lamptey was present at the installation of Major Sulemana as the Regent of Tolon in the Northern Region.

“Major Sulemana is physically seen operating from the 'Blue Gate”, writes the paper.

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The Ghanaian Chronicle

Eleven new Pajeros missing

Eleven state-owned Mitsubishi Pajero cross-country vehicles bought in 1996 at an estimated value of over ¢2 billion for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development under the previous Rawlings regime cannot be traced says The Ghanaian Chronicle.

The cars cannot be traced among the pool of vehicles at the ministry; neither can they be traced at agencies where they were sent to.

Both the ministry and the Auditor-General’s Department, which has been conducting a special audit investigation into the location of the cars, cannot trace them. All the vehicles were bought brand-new.

The missing vehicles were part of 124 vehicles purchased by the Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in 1996 for distribution to government agencies.

The vehicles include pickups and other brands of cars-56 Nissans, 28 Toyota pickups and 28 Mitsubishi. Twelve other Mitsubishi Pajeros were later added to the fleet.

Credible reports, which the Chronicle says it has received indicate that some of the other brands of vehicles are also missing.

In a letter to the Chief Director of the Ministry of Local Government dated June 27, Mr. R.K. Agyeman of the Auditor-General's Department stated that, “in spite of our numerous visit to the Ministry, no one is able to indicate the location of the above mentioned vehicles”.

The paper says it can reveal that the search for the vehicles may be a wild goose chase as the cars are believed to have been re-registered with fake documents. Sources at the Driver and vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), in Accra, say the registration documents of many of the missing cars would be extremely difficult to trace without registration numbers.

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Ghana Biscuits Co. Managing Director discharged

A packed Accra Circuit tribunal was stunned when the prosecution pleaded with presiding judge to discharge Mohammed Wooley, a half-cast Managing Director of Ghana Biscuit Company (GHABICO) who was accused on four counts of fraud and forgery in Accra Wednesday last week.

Mohammed had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which had been running at both civil and criminal courts for five years.

The presiding judge, Mrs. Elizabeth Anderson Yebuah, had no option but to rule that the accused be discharged for lack of prosecution.

There was uproar at the courtroom after the verdict.

The complainant, Mr. Boniface Amandi, Managing Director of Aluminium Enterprises Limited, had claimed that Mohammed Wooley, then a director of the same company, underpaid for a machinery ordered from the United Kingdom and dishonestly appropriated 38,9000 pounds being part of the actual cost of 194,000 pounds meant for the suppliers.

The court was also told that Wooley fraudulently forged a land title deed of 4.2 acres on which to site the GHABICO at the Tema Motorway Industrial area, which was meant to make both the complainant and the accused joint owners 50 per cent shareholder basis.

Wooley was alleged to have inserted extra figures to raise the cost and obtaining the land deed of his own aside the original one.

Meanwhile counsel of Amandi served notice of appeal.

GRi…/

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The Ghanaian Times

Sixteen Upper East Junior Secondary Schools score zero

A total of sixteen schools in the Upper West Region scored zero percent in this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) according to results released by the West African Examination Council, (WAEC), states The Ghanaian Times.

Seven of such schools are in the Wa District, six in Jirapa-Lambussie and three in the Nadowli District.

The Regional Director of Education, Mr Chikpa Demuyakor, revealed these when he briefed District Chief Executives (DCEs) at their monthly meeting at Tumu in the Sissala District of the Upper West Region.

He explained that the zero per cent score came from rural schools that had low enrolment of between three to 13 pupils, with only one teacher manning a school and handling all subjects.

The Regional Director said that except the Lawra District where figures were still being compiled, the general performance left much to be desired.

Mr Demuyakor said that henceforth, teachers would be required to sign performance agreements and promotions would be based on performance, stating that the era where promotions were made merely because teachers were due for it was over.

He appealed to district chief executives, as chairmen of District Education Oversight Committees, to ensure that supervision of schools was strengthened to ensure effective and efficient teaching and learning, especially at the rural community level.

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AGC’s Ayanfuri mines collapses

The Ayanfuri Mines, a subsidiary of the Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC), has collapsed after the company exhausted its ore reserves and can therefore not operate again. The mines’ 244 workers are, as a result, being laid off.

The first batch of workers is expected to receive their termination letters on 1^st October 2001. The Human Resource Manager of the company, Mr Marterson Armah, disclosed this in an interview at Ayanfuri.

He said that the management of the company would however, look at the possibility of deploying some of workers to other branches of the AGC.

Mr Armah said that the workers would be paid their entitlements and October salaries, “hopefully by the end of the year”.

Both parties are said to have reached an agreement on issues relating to gratuities, entitlements and salaries, among others.

For his part, Mr Gyarko Mensah, chairman of the Workers Union said that all issues relating to their collective agreement had been solved, thus there was no cause for alarm.

He said that the company did not have any more ore reserves to mine.

The Ayanfuri Mines, in the Dunkwa-on-Offin District, was started by the CLUFF Resources but was taken over in 1994 by Ashanti Goldfields and used for heap leach mining.

GRi…/

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Africa Sports

'We shall use every legitimate means to regain our points’ – Herbert Mensah

The board chairman of Kumasi Asante Kotoko, Mr Herbert Mensah, has assured the playing body of the club and the teaming fans to remain calm in the face of the provocation from the Disciplinary Committee, reports the Africa Sports.

Mr Mensah gave the assurance that everything possible will be done to reclaim the points since the evidence produced before the hearing did not justify the deduction of points.

"The Disciplinary Committee has only been consistent with their prejudicial posturing against Kotoko. But I assured the fans the injustice will not be allowed to stand. We shall do all in our power to expose them", Herbert stated.

The GFA Disciplinary Committee last week ruled Kotoko losers in their 18^th week encounter against Bofoakwa Tano.

In the course of the game an irate fan, alleged to be a Kotoko supporter, had walked onto the pitch to hit Referee Joseph Ghartey, in helm of affairs with the studs of a football boot that eventually resulted in the abandoning of the game.

GRi…/

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