Confusion in AMA…Big row over demolition
Trouble hangs over Akim Oda a three vie for Kotoku Stool
"Kufuor snubs Adu Boahen…Over demand for Election 2000 master-plan
Ban on drumming is an infringement on our human rights – churches
Korle-Bu loses a second chance…For a second mammogram
Confusion in AMA…Big row over demolition
The Weekend Statesman says there was confusion at a meeting of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), on Thursday April 29, over the ejection of an estimated 30,000 residents and squatters at Agbogbloshie in Accra in an operation that is expected to cost millions of cedis.
The exercise is to enable the Assembly to implement the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project from June 1, this year.
The Assembly, the paper says had at the meeting voted massively for the project to take off as scheduled but the Presiding Member, in a surprise move last Wednesday, opened the meeting by informing members of the intention of an Assembly member to move a motion for the issue to be sent back to the Executive Committee for reconsideration in view of the enormous financial outlay for the exercise.
The Weekend Statesman says Mr Eric Bortey, the Assemblyman who moved the motion explained that his action to have the April 29 decision taken by the Assembly reversed was politically motivated.
He is said to have told the Assembly that at the time an Ad-Hoc Committee was working on the project, the settlements at the Agbogbloshie area popularly known as "Sodom and Gomorrah", did not exist.
According to the paper, this brought several Assembly Members to the microphone and blamed the AMA for creating those settlements.
The Assembly Members are reported as saying that the AMA in a bid to beautify the Accra metropolis for the Non-Aligned Movement Conference in 1993, rounded up squatters in the metropolis and sent them to the area while those displaced by the Makola Market project, were also relocated there.
According to the Weekend Statesman, the number of residents has swelled by refugees from the Northern Ghana ethic conflict. The paper says the confusion was not helped by an earlier statement by the Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Samuel Addokwei-Addo, who contradicted the Presiding Member by maintaining that the motive for the reversal of the decision was social.
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Free Press
Trouble hangs over Akim Oda a three vie for Kotoku Stool
The Free Press reports that less than a week after the burial of the late Okofrobuor Agyeman Attafuah IV, Omanhene of Akim Kotoku traditional Area in the Eastern Region, royal sources have revealed that three strong royals have already expressed their desire to succeed the late Omanhene, who ruled for 23 years.
The paper names the three contestants as: Dr. Yaw Amparbeng Jnr., 46, a United States-based business consultant, Dr. Joseph Kyei Minta, 42, a Medical Doctor also based in the United States and Mr John Danquah Asiedu, 44, a London-based Nursing lecturer.
According to the Free Press, the interesting aspect of the race is that Dr. Amparbeng is the uncle of Dr. Minta, both from the Frempong Manso royal line while Mr Asiedu is from the Attafuah royal family. The paper says some members of the royal family have demonstrated against the queenmother for her preference for Mr Asiedu as the successor to the late Omanhene.
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The Palaver
"Kufuor snubs Adu Boahen…Over demand for Election 2000 master-plan
The Palaver in its lead story says the NPP flagbearer, Mr J.A. Kufuor, is reported to have muddied the already murky NPP waters when he snubbed Prof. Albert Adu Boahen and other members of the "G-15" for daring to demand his master-plan for the year 2000 elections. According to the paper, Prof. Adu Boahen
wrote a letter on behalf of the G-15 bearing the signatures of Prof. F.T. Sai, Mr J.H. Mensah, Nana Akufo Addo and Dr. Donkor Fordwour, to the national chairman of the party, Mr S.A. Odoi Sykes and copied to the Council of Elders, calling on Mr Odoi-Sykes to convene an emergency meeting for Mr Kufuor to brief them and submit his master-plan to the national executive council.
The Palaver quotes the letter in part, as saying that it is exactly six months after Mr Kufuor’s re-election as the Presidential candidate and according to the party’s constitution, the flagbearer has to submit his plan within that period for consideration by the executive council.
The Palaver says with tension already at explosive point, the "hostile and anti-Kufuor" clique is also asking the executive council of the NPP to screen and approve the national campaign team before Mr Kufuor parades himself and his cronies before the party’s sympathisers in the regions.
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Daily Graphic
Ban on drumming is an infringement on our human rights – churches
The Graphic in a main front page story reports that the Christian Council, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ghana and the Ghana Pentecostals’ Council, have described the ban imposed on drumming and noise-making by the Ga Traditional Council, as "an infringement on the human and constitutional rights" of members of churches which make up the group.
The paper says in a joint statement in Accra yesterday, the three Christian groups said by the imposition of the ban, they are being asked to involve themselves in traditional religious practices, which they do not believe in.
It names the signatories of the statement as: the Rt.-Rev. J.O. Akrofi, Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana, Most Rev. K.A. Turkson, President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Rev. (Dr.) Simon Asore, President of the Ghana Pentecostals’ Council, Rev. Monsignor Jonathan Ankrah, General Secretary of the National Catholic Secretariat and Rev. Robert Aboagye-Mensah, General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana.
The ban announced by the Ga Traditional Council came into effect in the Accra metropolis from midnight of May 3, this year.
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Ghanaian Times
Korle-Bu loses a second chance…For a second mammogram
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, has lost a second gift of a mammogram (breast screening machine) worth 150 million cedis from the National Health Trust of Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom.
According to the paper, the loss of the machine follows the delays by the hospital’s management and the Ministry of Health in clearing the first machine which arrived in Ghana on December 7, last year but was cleared from the Tema Harbour only two weeks ago.
The Times quotes Mr George Selormey, chairman of Association of Ghanaians in Milton Keynes, who disclosed this in Accra, said the second mammogram had been re-located to another institution "which perhaps has immediate use for it".
According to Mr Selormey, he learned of the re-location last week Tuesday, when he contacted "Just X-ray" the UK company to which the Trust entrusted the machine for safekeeping.
The Times recalls that the first 160 million mammogram was donated through the Association by the National Trust of Milton Keynes on November 4, 1998 to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and it was received by Mr J.E.K. Aggrey-Orleans, Ghana’s High Commissioner in London and shipped to Ghana and remained idle at the Tema Harbour until it was cleared only a fortnight ago.
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