Leave J.J. Rawlings alone
Double your efforts for victory in 2004
election
Policemen threaten “aluta!”
Sherry Ayittey causes stir
Ghana scores zero over zero
Chief Justice probe into Judicial Service
Bomb alert! -Armed forces warns residents
Omnibus Service in ¢679m fuel debt
Leave J.J. Rawlings alone
Mr Doe Adjaho, the Minority Chief Whip and MP
for Avenor has urged people who are calling on ex-President Rawlings to stay
out of partisan politics to stop dragging him into it in the first instance.
The Evening News reports him as saying in an interview
against the background of calls by people like Mr Vincent Assiseh, former
National Democratic Congress press secretary and also opponents of the former
President, asking him to assume a status of "a statesman" and avoid making
public divisive political statements.
“If people want the ex-President to be what
they consider to be a statesman, they should not drag him into partisan
politics and expect him to be quiet," Mr Adjaho is quoted as saying.
He said whether ex-President Rawlings should
talk or not, would depend on how his opponents tread on him, complaining that
"if the over 20 years of the former President's rule is criminalized, how
do you expect him to feel?"
He said "obviously President Rawlings is
being put in a position where he must defend his period of rule since he is the
only person who could defend his time in office as the head.
Mr Adjaho said the NPP has a historic
opportunity to manage the current transition so well for Ghanaians to witness
how governments hand over to each other but expressed regret that the
government seems to be repeating some mistakes of the past.
He said the NPP is for instance revisiting the
period after the 1996 coup when the politicians who came to power, virtually
criminalised the period of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President.
More…/
Double your efforts for victory in 2004
election
The Jomoro Constituency Chairman of the NDC,
Nana Alex Asamoah, at the weekend urged supporters and members of the party in
the country to double their efforts at reorganising the party for the 2004
elections, reports the Evening News.
No member
or supporter should be down hearted because 'we lost the 2000 elections", Nana
Asamoah told a meeting of the Sekondi constituency of the party on the need for
members to stay together, and pointed out that the party was even stronger and
determined now than before.
"All that the NPP is doing points to the
fact that they want to destroy the party," he said, adding that the
setting up of the Fast Track Courts to try some of the leading members of the
NDC is an attestation to their ploy.
It was the same strategy that the then PP
government used to destroy the CPP when the PP made it impossible for
marketable CPP members to stand for the 1969 election that brought PP into
power, he said.
He indicated that, "the NDC is still a
force to reckon with" and asked members not to worry about the
machinations of the other parties especially the NPP.
GRi…/
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Policemen threaten “aluta!”
The Free Press reports of mounting anger and
resentment among the rank and file of the Ghana Police Service over an alleged
decision by the Police administration under the newly installed Inspector
General of Police, Mr Ernest Owusu Poku to reintroduce the payment of utility
fees in the service.
The payment of bills like electricity and water
were cancelled by a circular in 1998 under the former IGP, Mr Peter Nanfuri,
who is believed to have championed the drive to relieve police officers off the
burden due to such payments, as is the practice in the Ghana Armed Forces.
Recent intimations that the bills might be
reintroduced have, according to the paper, sparked widespread anger within the
service. An officer choosing to remain anonymous said on Monday, “If they bring
this thing we’re going to demonstrate”, adding that, “This month the pay slips
are late in coming. If it is because of the deductions, we’ll demonstrate”.
Members of the service that the paper spoke to
said if the payment of utility bills were introduced, it would be a hard
addition to a tall list of hardship facing police officers.
GRi../
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The
Management of the New Times Corporation, publishers of Ghanaian Times, is
investigating allegations of blackmail levelled against one of its reporters in
connection with its front-page story of Wednesday, August 29, according to the
paper.
The
story accused an Indian director of Blowplast Industries Limited of brutalizing
one of his workers, Mr John Antwi, in a racist rage. But the Indian director told
an Accra radio station that the reporter filed the story because he had refused
to give in to his blackmail. He said the reporter had asked for five million
cedis bribe to kill the story.
A
statement issued on Tuesday by the Management said that "even though there
is enough evidence to indicate that the story as carried by our newspaper is
true, should it come out conclusively that our reporter tried to solicit money
from the alleged offender, Mr Jakdish Lakhiani, in an attempt to drop the
story, management will take a very serious view of the matter and apply very
severe sanctions.
"We
wish to assure the reading public that should the allegation prove to be true,
Management will act swiftly and decisively to set an example to others who get
credible reports but drop them in exchange for financial gains."
GRi…/
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Sherry Ayittey causes stir
The Daily Guide reports that Ms Sherry Ayittey,
former Managing Director of GIHOC Distilleries and Treasurer of the 31st
December Women’s Movement (DWM) caused quite a stir at an Accra Circuit
Tribunal trying her on Tuesday.
According to the paper, Ms Ayittey, looking
lively and in high spirits, literally danced off the charges that she had
allegedly taken $820,000 dollars to influence the divestiture of the Ghana
Rubber Estates Limited (GREL).
Ms Ashitey made her entry into the court
presided over by Mr Imoro Zibrim, looking very confident, to answer charges of fraudulently
receiving bribe to influence the divestiture of GREL.
“After the court hearing, Ms Ayittey gave the
swarming media personnel, more than a dose of what they had been waiting for,”
says the Guide.
In a vivid capture of events, the paper writes,
“She willingly posed for them saying, ‘here I am, take me, take me’, directing
the words at the large number of photographers who were busily chasing after
her for her photograph.
The paparazzi then went busy clicking their
cameras and giving her a number of snapshots as if Ms Ayittey was at a fashion
show like Naomi Campbell. Ms Ayittey, noted for her ‘Pony’ style hair-do and
slim figure, was clad in an all-white attire. Her dress was not only immaculate
for her slim, slender and sexy figure, but it was garnished with a flowing
kente stole to match.
Looking radiant, Ms Ayittey posed for the
cameras after she had pleaded not guilty to the charges leveled against her”.
The DWM director of finance and projects has,
according to the paper, been provisionally charged with collecting a whopping
¢5,929,000,000 as bribe to influence the divesture of GREL in favour of a
French company, Societe Industrielle Plantation Hevea (SIPH) which was then
bidding to manage and own the company.
GRi…/
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Ghana scores zero over zero
The Accra mail carries that information
released by the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management
(WAIFEM) at the just ended regional workshop of Financial and Economic
Journalism in Lagos sums up the misery of Ghana in terms of the fiscal and
monetary mismanagement that straddled the 20 years of PNDC/NDC rule.
“To put it bluntly, Ghana lags behind all West
African countries in terms of fiscal and monetary discipline,” says the Mail.
The ECOWAS Monetary Group (MCP), established in
1987 had set targets that require that under it, the exchange rate variability
should be less than 10 per cent, budget deficit to GDP ratio of less than five
per cent, inflation volatility less than 10 per cent and central bank financing
of deficit less than 10 per cent.
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea
Bissau, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal have all met three out of three criteria,
which is low inflation, fiscal discipline and stable exchange regime. They
therefore, qualify to join the single currency.
Mr Foon Momodou, of the Macroeconomics
Department of WAIFEM disclosed that at the end of 2000, Ghana scored zero out
of three in all the three criteria and therefore failed the test of eligibility
miserably.
Ghana is struggling to bring down inflation
from 45 per cent to around 34.2 per cent and unless the government gets the
basics right, might not be able to put her economy in order to qualify for the
single currency by 2003.
The paper however, says the encouraging signals
are that Minister of Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, has dispelled fears that
Ghana would not be able to meet the criteria to join the single currency in
2003, saying the NPP government is working all out to achieve the targets.
GRi…/
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Chief Justice probe into Judicial Service
Extracts from a 24-page report of the Public
Accounts Committee on the Auditor-General’s Report on the Judicial Service,
which The Dispatch carries says the service has “no tender Board,” and contracts
were awarded to friends and favourites of almost all senior management,
including the Chief Justice.
As a result of the Report, which was for the period
ending December 31, 1997, the acting Chief Justice, Justice E.K. Wiredu, has set
up a three-member committee chaired by Justice G.K. Acquah to investigate the
serious irregularities raised by the Report in the service’s dealings with an
Accra based company, Integrated Services Ltd. (IES).
The Report also noted several irregularities in
the purchase of a generator set and computers from IES, with the advice of a
Mechanisation and Computerisation Committee established in 1997.
GRi…/
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Metropolitan
Entertainment Television Limited, (Metro TV), now has a live and direct
transmission from Accra to Kumasi and its surrounding towns and villages.
The
direct transmission started on Monday, September 3, according to The Daily
Graphic. This is to enable the numerous Metro TV viewers to call in and
participate in the various interesting programmes of the station as and when
they wish.
The
station, in a release issued on Tuesday said, to further satisfy viewers in
Kumasi and its environs, Metro TV would be trebling its transmission power so
as to cover a wider area of the Ashanti Region by the close of the month.
It
is also anticipated that Metro TV by October 2, will be transmitting in the
Western Region, starting from Sekondi-Takoradi metropolitan area.
The
updating of Metro TV signals and broadcast forms part of Phase I of Metro TV's
expansion plans, to cover the southern sector of Ghana by early 2002, the
release added.
The
station was originally viewed in the Accra Metropolis only.
More…/
Floods
cause havoc at Bolga
A
Four-hour downpour at Bolgatanga last Monday caused considerable damage to the
property of some residents. So serious were the floods that some people in the
worst affected areas had to climb to rooftops to save their lives.
A
month-old baby, whose parents took refuge at a rooftop with it, in one of the
worst hit area, was later rushed to the hospital for observation, owing to the
cold weather. Some vehicles and houses in the area were submerged.
The
Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mahami Salifu and the Bolgatanga District
Chief Executive, Mr Rockson Bukari, town planning officials and representatives
of the security agencies, have since visited the hardest hit areas, to assess
the damage caused and the plight of the residents.
It
came to light during the inspection that poor drainage system and the
construction of buildings in waterways are the main causes of the floods.
The
regional minister, therefore, charged all stakeholders to review the overall
planning and outlay of the Bolgatanga township.
GRi…/
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Bomb alert! -Armed forces warns residents
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has sounded a bomb
alert and warned residents of Sakumono, near Tema, and its environs that
explosives might have been buried in the area because it was once used as an
ammunition dump and a military training zone, reports The Ghanaian Chronicle.
The revelation is contained in report after
in-depth investigations conducted by the GAF following a recent bomb explosion
at Tema Community 5.
At a press conference in Burma Camp on Tuesday,
the Director of the Ordinance Services, Col. Samuel Ampey, advised residents in
the area to be on the look out for and desist from handling suspicious and
strange objects.
According to Col. Ampey, it is believed that
the general area, stretching from Tema Harbour through Communities 2, 3, and 5,
and Sakumono, was also used as ammunition dump during the Second World War.
He wondered why those areas are allocated to
people without consultations with the Town and Country Planning Department.
He added that the 100mm HE Shell, which
exploded at Community 5, could also be part of the ammunitions used during the
war.
“It is likely the general area of Sakumono,
Communities 3 and 5, have some unexploded ammunitions buried underground.”
The Armed Forces urged residents not to panic
because the situation is not alarming but, however, warned them not to handle
any strange and suspicious objects found around the areas mentioned.
More…/
Omnibus Service in ¢679m fuel debt
The Chronicle says its ongoing investigations
into the operations of the Omnibus Services Authority (OSA) Transport Limited,
the nation’s oldest existing transportation service providers, has uncovered a
lot of disturbing news, which indicates that the company is trying to keep its
head above water.
The transport company is finding the going very
tough to the extent that the company cannot even pay for the fuel consumption
of its operational vehicles and is currently indebted to several fuel companies
to the tune of 679.7 million cedis as at the end of April, this year.
Due to this indebtedness, OSA finds it
difficult to obtain fuel for its operations and at certain stages management
have to move from one office to another begging managers for fuel supply since
none of the oil companies are prepared to do business with the company.
OSA is indebted to as many as five oil
companies namely, Unipetrol, Goil, Total, Shell and Mobil.
GRi…/
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