Guideline on Parliamentary coverage is unconstitutional – Journalists
No new districts now - Baah-Wiredu
EPA responds to cyanide spillage at Satellite Goldfields
Wa (Upper West) 31 October 2001 - On the first day of the two-week nation wide exercise to register unemployed and under employed citizens, about two thousand people converged at the Wa District Labour Office registration centre in response to the exercise.
The Ghana News Agency said when it visited the centre this morning there were very long queues of men, women and teenagers under the blazing sun waiting for their turn.
However, the exercise was so slow that most of them left to come another day within the two-week period. As at 10:00 hours the two registration assistants detailed at the centre had registered 20 people.
Mr Rexford Gyabaah, Wa District Labour Officer, said they never expected such a large turnout and needed more assistants to quicken the pace of the exercise.
He complained of inadequate forms saying only 500 forms were available at the Wa centre but was optimistic that more forms would be made available as the exercise progressed.
Those who have so far registered fall within the 18-52 years age category. A number of people interviewed said the exercise should be decentralised to the polling station level to make it succeed.
They also complained that publicity for the programme was not adequate and this has put many affected citizens in the dark.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - The Electoral Commission (EC) on Wednesday said it has completed the first phase of a programme to sensitise Ghanaians on constitutional provisions governing the demarcation of new electoral areas.
Mr Kwame Damoah-Agyeman, Chief Director of Elections at the EC, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the nation-wide tour created awareness about the process of drawing new electoral boundaries. The public was also educated on where to direct petitions from the public on demarcation of new electoral areas.
He said people had erroneously held the notion that the creation of new districts or constituencies would accelerate the development of the area without due consideration to constitutional procedures.
The sensitisation programme started in Accra on October 16. The regional programme started from Bolgatanga and Sekondi, October 18, and continued at Tamale and Cape Coast, October 19, Kumasi, October 22, Koforidua and Wa, October 24, Ho, October 25 and Sunyani, October 26.
Mr Damoah-Agyeman said an assessment of requests for the creation of new constituencies, districts or electoral areas would be based on constitutional provisions.
He said most of the petitions and memoranda relating to the creation of new electoral areas received have not been properly packaged and expressed the hope that after the sensitisation programme the communities would conform to the formalities involved.
"Politicians, chiefs and the media need to understand rules relating to the creation of new electoral areas." The constitutional provision mandating the Commission to create electoral boundaries for both national and local government elections states: "The number of inhabitants of the constituency should be nearly equal to the population quota."
The population quota should also be considered with "communication, geographical features, population density, area and boundaries".
Mr Damoah-Agyeman said the Constitution mandates the EC to review existing demarcation at intervals of not less than seven years or within 12 months after having a national population census. He said any review of the electoral boundaries should come into effect upon the next dissolution of Parliament.
The commission would also consider the economic viability of the area, national resources, the sitting capacity of Parliament, number of committee rooms in the House and its general effect on the national economy.
The criteria for demarcating electoral boundaries for both national and local government elections are as follows: "Demarcation of local government administrative areas is guided by the need to decentralise to bring administration closer to the people."
Other criteria for consideration for demarcating local government administrative areas are that the population of the districts must be large enough to include an appreciable number of economically active groups that could be relied upon for the initial capitalisation of the administration through taxation.
The rest include economic viability, availability of trained personnel and an administrative centre. The chosen centre should also have basic infrastructure that support schools, daily markets, health facilities and other government agencies.
Mr Damoah-Agyeman explained that request for the creation of districts and the substructures should be presented to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development while the commission handles that for the creation of constituencies and electoral areas.
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Bolgatanga (Upper East) 31 October 2001 - Female genital mutilation (FGM) cannot be justified in any way and the state has a responsibility to ensure that women were treated with dignity and empowered sufficiently, the Upper East Regional Minister, Mahami Salifu said on Tuesday.
Mr Salifu, who was speaking at a two-day workshop on FGM in Bolgatanga, said the government would do all it could to enforce the existing laws on FGM and support proposals for its amendment.
The Regional Minister called for the formation of women's clubs in the urban and rural areas to create awareness about the dangers of FGM.
Mr Salifu urged women to come out in their numbers to participate in politics and other functions that would make their voices to be heard.
Giving an overview of GAWW's activities, the president of the association, Mrs Florence Ali, said cultural practices that were harmful to women and children were the main concern of GAWW.
Mrs Ali said GAWW was one of 26 national committees of the inter-African committee on harmful traditional practices and that its objective was to identify traditional practices in Ghana that affect the health of women and children.
The workshop, which aims at putting up proposals for the amendment of the law on FGM, was organised by the Ghana Association of Women's Welfare (GAWW) and attended by over 50 participants from the Northern regions.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - The management of the Ghana Broadcasting
Corporation (GBC) said on Wednesday that it does not discriminate in carrying out its role of "informing and uniting the nation".
It would, therefore, not encourage its operations "to be unfortunately dragged into any unproductive sectionalism." It was reacting to a statement by Dr Nii Josiah Aryeh, a lawyer, that his "personal views" on Obonu FM, which is managed by GBC, had been rejected.
A statement issued in Accra said the management of Obonu FM was surprised at the statement attributed to Dr Aryeh and said he had been appearing on various GBC programmes.
Dr Aryeh last week led a group of Ga Traditional Priests to petition the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) about a letter the National Media Commission sent to GBC complaining about certain programmes on Obonu FM.
The statement said some of the people who followed Dr Aryeh to lodge the protest had also participated in various programmes on GBC and Obonu FM. GBC said the NMC letter was part of its normal monitoring process and was not peculiar to Obonu FM.
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Kumasi (Ashanti Region) 31 October 2001 - The Ashanti Regional Women's Wing of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to stop what it described as "the ugly noises" and offer objective, quality and constructive criticisms to enrich the country's democracy.
"It is important for the minority NDC to recognise that pettiness and diversionary tactics are both unacceptable and unhelpful to the promotion of sound democratic culture."
The NPP women expressed these sentiments at a meeting held in Kumasi to discuss the out-dooring of the newly formed 'Patriotic Women's Movement', an affiliate of the party in the region.
The Movement to be officially inaugurated by the Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama on November 11, seeks among other things to organise the unemployed youth on the streets to go into productive ventures and act as impetus to the party's grassroots organisation.
Miss Georgina Osei-Tutu, Ashanti Regional Women's Organiser of NPP, asked for support and understanding of the people as the government, "settles down to rebuild the economy left in ruins by the 20 years of the NDC mismanagement".
She stated that the prudent fiscal management policies introduced by President ufuor's administration have already started showing positive signs, saying, "all the economic indicators show the economy is recovering".
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - Peter Kwasi Wiafe Pepera, former Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry in the NDC’s government has quit active politics.
He said on Wednesday in a letter to the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress that he was leaving to concentrate on his work in the private sector. "In particular, it is my intention to work with private sector organisations to help achieve the President's stated objective of 'Golden Age of Business' for Ghana," he said in the letter.
Mr Pepera said: "Being an active member of leading opposition party would clearly be at variance with my declared objectives in this regard." He sad he wished the party well in its endeavours.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - Convention Peoples' Party (CPP), National Reform Party (NRP) and People's National Convention (PNC) on Wednesday affirmed their commitment to talks aimed at uniting the three parties.
A statement they signed said parties of the Nkrumaist tradition needed to form a common platform to defeat inequality and injustice that deny productive Ghanaians fair rewards for their labour.
Dr Abubakr Alhassan, Chairman of CPP, Peter Kpordugbe Chairman of NRP and Dr Edward Mahama Leader of PNC signed for their parties.
The statement said mass activism was not meant to create violence in the system but to give everyone the opportunity to participate in the democratic process of the nation.
"Our duty as progressive politicians is to involve the masses actively in every aspect of social policy formation using tools such as debate, mass meeting, petitions and strikes", it said.
"We seek to join workers, small holder peasants, nationalist entrepreneurs, progressive intelligentsia, professionals and democrats in the daily fight for small but concrete democratic changes in our communities."
It said Ghanaians voted to reject narrow structural adjustment but the present administration has accepted the harsher conditionalities of Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative of the World Bank and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Also, "fast tracking" privatisation of water, electricity, state owned banks and the withdrawal of financial support for tertiary institutions and health care is fast eroding the goodwill President Kufuor enjoys and his administration is heading towards confrontation with the mass movement.
"Our duty is to assist ordinary Ghanaians to use the democratic space available to work out new alternatives to these policies that meet popular expectation", it said.
The statement said providing food, water, functional shelter, health care, education and transport are vital for national development. However, "a critical factor in this will be a national industrialisation policy involving mobilisation of indigenous technology for the local manufacture of consumer and capital goods within the context of a vigorous self-reliance programme.
The parties called on the government to intervene to make welfare available to all Ghanaians especially, the disadvantaged. It called for a reduction of taxation of the poor and take steps to stop the increasing rate of "casualisation" of workers at factories. The parties called for more spending on schools and teachers rather than presidential jet and luxury cars.
It also called on the government to join worldwide progressive movements to change the policies of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that negatively affect developing countries like Ghana.
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Aburi (Eastern Region) 31 October 2001 - Two top journalists at the week-end said any attempt to introduce ethics and guidelines for the media on the coverage of Parliament would be clipping the wings of journalists and this would contravene the Constitution.
Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, Executive Secretary of National Media Commission and Ms Audrey Gadzekpo, Lecturer, School of Communications Studies, Legon said the constitution sets out how the press should operate.
They were speaking at a two-day workshop held for the Parliamentary Press Corps and sponsored by Freidrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) at Aburi on the theme: "Promoting Ghana's Democracy Through Efficient Parliamentary Coverage".
The Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey when opening the workshop had said Parliament would introduce ethics and guidelines on media coverage of Parliament.
Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh speaking on the: "The Role of Parliamentary Press Corps on Ghana's Democracy", said, "the media are seen as part of the institutional arrangement for the triumph and growth of democracy.
"Any discussion on the role of the media in democracy must begin from provisions of the 1992 Constitution which give us clear indications as to what we aspire for our people.
"Parliament, on the other hand, is vested with legislative power of the country, but which is to be exercised in accordance with the Constitution, which enjoins the media to hold the government accountable to the people of this country".
Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh said the guaranteeing of fundamental human rights including freedom of speech meant that the people should be allowed to exercise their freedoms.
He said parliamentary reporting was an essential part of informing the people under a pluralistic democracy that "requires objectivity and a demonstration of a distaste for any form of partisan bias".
The Constitution, he said, sets out parameters and centres of power that the parliamentary reporter should be conversant with. The reporter must know how the House operates in line with its standing orders, terminologies and the work of the various committees.
Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh said Parliament has its own procedures and conventions, privileges and immunities and that a reporter should be careful about these so that he/she does not infringe the rules to attract penalty.
Ms Gadzekpo, speaking on: "Ethical Challenges of Parliamentary Reporters", said ethics was not law and that ethical principles developed with practice in a cultural set up."
It was laudable that the media were responsive to public dissatisfaction about some of their operations and were taking steps to redress the issues. "Without ethics, that moral imperative from which journalists operate will be missing and the profession will lose respect and support from the public.
"The pubic votes on the media each time they make a decision to buy a particular newspaper or listen to a particular radio station or view a particular television show."
Mr Edward Ameyibor, Supervising Chief Editor of Ghana News Agency, speaking on "Challenges of the Parliamentary Correspondent'' advised journalists to be careful "never to undermine or be seen to be undermining the authority of Parliament".
Mr Ameyibor cited several cases in which journalists fell foul of the law and were punished. He told a story of how Sam Okudzeto, a former Member of Parliament for North Tongu in the Second Republic, who felt he was "deliberately misreported to serve a certain political agenda," was able to move Parliament to jail one Mr Kesse Adu, then the Dean of Parliamentary Press Corps, for contempt.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - The Government would not be in a position to create new districts in the immediate future, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development said at the weekend.
Speaking at a fund-raising harvest of Obo citizens resident in the Accra-Tema Metropolis, Baah-Wiredu said the creation of new districts was very expensive, adding that it would cost the government not less than 10 billion cedis to create one.
He said, however, that some additional districts would be created whenever the need arose and funds were available. Mr Baah-Wiredu said everything possible would be done to ensure equitable disbursement of the District Assemblies' Common Fund so that districts with more constituencies would be fairly treated.
The Minister gave the assurance that the government would not shirk its responsibility of providing rural communities with basic infrastructure to help raise their standard of living.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Tuesday that it has responded to the cyanide spillage at the Satellite Goldfields, near Akyempim in the Mpohor Wassa East District in the Western Region, which affected a marshy area near Kubekro.
A statement issued in Accra by the Public Affairs Department of the EPA said the relevant emergency response procedures like detoxification of the cyanide are being implemented.
It said the inhabitants have been cautioned to stay away from the area while the EPA Officer at Tarkwa has been dispatched to the scene to monitor the situation and liaise with the Head Office.
Mr Richard Graeme, Managing Director of GoldFields Ghana Limited, on Monday reiterated that the cyanide spill that occurred on October 16 did not in anyway affect human health or safety.
He said the company responded quickly when the fault was detected. "We responded as promptly as any one would have responded to an outbreak of fire in his premises," he told the GNA.
Press reports had said the spillage was the worst environmental disaster that killed plant life, birds as well as fish and crabs in the Asuman River.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - The Electoral Commission (EC) on Tuesday said by-elections will be conducted on December 11 in 191 electoral areas in 94 districts.
The Ashanti Region has the highest number of 33 electoral areas in 16 districts while Upper West has the lowest of eight electoral areas in four districts.
Mr Kwamena Akarfi, Director of Research and Monitoring at the EC told the Ghana News Agency in Accra that the regional distributions are: Western Region, 16 in nine districts; Central, 27 in nine districts; Greater Accra, eight in seven districts; Volta, 21 in 10 districts; Eastern, 30 in 13 districts; Brong Ahafo, 21 in 10 districts; Northern, 15 in 11 districts and Upper East, 12 in five districts.
The by-elections are to fill vacancies at the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies created as a result of deaths, vacation of post or elevation to higher positions of former assembly members.
Mr Akarfi said explained that some of the assembly members have been elected as Members of Parliament, while others have been appointed as ministers of state and district chief executives. The writ of elections has been issued to Returning Officers in areas where vacancies have been created.
He said nomination of candidates would take place at the offices of the Returning Officers in the districts concerned on Thursday, November 8 and Friday November 9.
Each candidate should be nominated on a separate form, proposed and seconded respectively by a registered voter and supported by 18 others from the electoral area.
He asked interested candidates to contact the district electoral officers or the returning officers for the nomination forms.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - A 14-day nationwide registration of the unemployed and underemployed begins on Wednesday.
The exercise, under the auspices of an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Action for Employment Generation, will also provide data and profiles of the jobless youth with a view to giving them relevant training skills.
The committee comprises the Ministries of Youth and Sports, Local Government and Rural Development, Food and Agriculture, Roads and Highways, Interior, Women Affairs, Works and Housing, Environment and Science and Employment and Manpower Development.
It is tasked to formulate, implement and monitor ministerial projects for creating jobs and projects for expanding skills development nationwide.
Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister of Employment and Manpower Development, told a press conference on Tuesday that the comprehensive data generated from the exercise would enable her ministry and other policy makers to map out strategies to deal with unemployment problems.
The registration would be carried out in 360 centres, comprising 66 public employment centres of the Labour Department and other convenient centres that District Chief Executives would identify.
Mrs Bannerman said the registration assistants, mostly from the Labour Department, Ghana Statistical Service and the Development Planning Units of the various district assemblies have been trained and posted to the centres.
The processing of the data would take about a month after which the various government interventions would begin.
Deputy Government Spokesman, Kwabena Agyepong, said the exercise was not to give people ready jobs but rather to encourage them to use their skills to start their own businesses.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - Peter Harrold, World Bank Country Director in Ghana, said on Tuesday that Ghanaians would start enjoying the benefit of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative by next year.
The HIPC relief would enable the government to increase spending in key areas such as education, health, agriculture, rural roads and water supply, he said at the re-launching of the Business and Financial Times, an Accra weekly business newspaper.
Mr Harrold said the decision by the Kufuor Administration to seek HIPC relief and restructure domestic debts, among other things, is expected to pay off much more next year.
He said the macroeconomic position is turning around sharply from where it was at the beginning of the year. "This is not to suggest that it is all over, but what it now requires is consistency in efforts to keep up this good work and momentum."
Mr Harrold added that any macroeconomic programme such as the one Ghana had now has a cost. The cost for Ghana this year has been the very low level of activity in the economy, he said.
"But if the macroeconomic situation really is turning around the way it appears to be and if we can credibly expect the efforts to continue, we need to think about what has to be done to stimulate activity."
Mr Harrold said the September 11 terrorist attack on America has led to the decline in the price of Ghana's cash earners and put pressure on the World Bank's aid budgets.
"As the world economy slows down and the world trade grows by at best two per cent, this could mean troubling times for Africa as a whole.
"But Africa's exports are a mere one per cent of the world's exports. Out of this, Ghana accounts for about five per cent of Africa's trade. Thus Ghana's export is about 0.05 per cent of world exports, which means while prospects for the continent as a whole may not be good, the fate of any one country remains within its own hands."
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - Dr Machievenyika Tobias Mapuranga, High
Commissioner of Zimbabwe, on Tuesday called on Alhaji Malik Yakubu Alhassan, Minister of the Interior.
The call was to announce his assumption of office in Ghana as the first Zimbabwean High Commissioner as well as the opening of a permanent Zimbabwean Diplomatic Mission in Ghana.
Dr Mapuranga told the minister that there is the need for Ghana and Zimbabwe to explore areas of cooperation between the two countries for their mutual gain.
Zimbabwe sends cadets for training in the Ghana Armed Forces, he noted and called for expansion of such exchanges for progress.
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Bolgatanga (Upper East) 31 October 2001- Members of the Judicial Service Association of Ghana (JUSAG) at Bolgatanga on Tuesday called off a sit-down strike they began last Wednesday in protest against alleged insulting behaviour of Ms Francisca Issaka, a social worker, towards a Circuit Court Judge, Mr S.A. Kuoro.
The association told the media that the action was also to register members' disgust at the Police's failure to take action when Ms Issaka's conduct was reported to them.
The Bolgatanga District Chief Executive, Rockson Bukari, Upper East Regional Co-ordinating Director, Mr George Anaba, Senior Staff of the Judicial Service and the President of the Regional branch of the Ghana Bar Association, Ambrose Derry, met members of JUSAG on Monday to discuss the issue as a result of which they agreed to resume work.
Mr Bukari appealed to the judge to accept the apology of Ms Issaka and assured him and the workers of adequate security in the performance of their duties.
Mr Derry told the workers to respect the rule of law, by allowing the due process of law to prevail rather than embarking on a strike action.
The Regional Chairman of JUSAG, Adia Abdul Latif, said although the members had agreed to resume work, their quest for justice on the matter was non-negotiable.
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Accra (Greater Accra) 31 October 2001 - Jeffrey Kofi Appiah, a 38-year-old Ghanaian based in the UK, was on Tuesday arrested by the Airport Police for using fake credit cards to defraud a hotel in Accra on two different occasions.
Appiah was preparing to leave the country when he was apprehended. Police sources at the Airport Police Station told the GNA that in July last year Appiah arrived in the country and lodged at the hotel where he settled his bill with an American Express credit card, which was detected as fake after he had left.
Appiah arrived in Ghana this month and lodged at the same hotel. After his stay he again produced another fake American Express credit card with the name J. Appiah substituted as the owner.
However, this time, the police were alerted and he was arrested when he was about to leave for the airport. Appiah claimed he got the cards from a Nigerian friend who is also based in the UK.
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