Seth J. Bokpe's Ghana Newsreel

Two thousand five hundred unsafe abortions were recorded at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital last year.  Out of the number, 875 involved people who used Cytotec, a drug used for the prevention of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID)-induced gastric ulcers. Cytotec, generally known as Misoprostol, is a medication registered for use to prevent gastric ulcers but it can also be used to induce childbirth. The Reproductive Health Centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has, therefore, warned that the abuse of the drug without prescription can cause infertility and even death. A source at the centre who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic said although the drug could be used to terminate pregnancy, it could lead to dire consequences for the user if the right dosage was not used. “If that right dosage is not used, it leads to bleeding, and if the user doe...

For fear of further reprisal attacks, about 923 residents of the Zongo community in Hohoe in the Volta Region have fled to Jasikan, about 40 kilometers away to seek refuge. More continues to flee in neighbouring towns and villages in view of the insecurity in the Hohoe area. According to the police, the displaced people had been registered at Jasikan, where the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) had provided them with relief items. In spite of the heavy police and military presence in the Hohoe municipality, the houses at the outskirts of the Zongo community were torched at dawn on Wednesday during curfew hours. The houses, said to belong to members of the Zongo community whose owners had fled, were ransacked before being set ablaze. The police are not ruling out the possibility of thieves taking advantage of the situation, even though there is a curfew in the municipality. “KEEP OFF” was boldly written on the wall of one of the houses which was reduc...

It was a scramble as passers-by and second hand phone dealers struggled for access to large sums of money that had dropped from a Totyota bullion van which had been involved in an accident at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra Friday. The speeding bullion van with registration number GW 1847 S ans travelling from Accra New Town towards the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, collided with a VIP bus at an intersection near the Vodafone Head Office. With the occupants of the vehicl trapped inside, the army of second hand phone dealers and passers-by who rushed to the accident scene took to looting the wads of cash that spilled from the vehicle. According to an eye-witness, two boxes containing GH50, GH20 and GH10 notes dropped from the van and many people rushed to the scene to take their share of the 'booty'. "I saw one guy who picked about four bundles of GH50 notes, tied it in his shirt and ran in the direction of the Odo Rice Restaurant," he said. When graphic...

Accommodation challenges facing the Mangoase Senior High School (MASS) have compelled the headmaster of the school to cede part of his two-bedroom bungalow to female students of the school. Close to 50 students are occupying the headmaster’s kitchen and sitting room, with some sleeping on the about 20 beds available, while others sleep on mattresses on the floor. To enter his room, the Headmaster, Mr Albert K. Wofa, passes through the garage, while cooking is done in the open. There is a blockade that prevents the students from interfering with the headmaster’s space and privacy, and vice versa. The school has a boarding population of 420, with 270 being girls and 150 being boys. On a hot day, life becomes very uncomfortable. Ceiling fans spin furiously in vain to blow away the steamy hot air flooding in from the compound. One student sums up the problem: “The room feels like an oven. Sleeping here with our bags as pillows is very difficult.” The only bath house for the 2...

Angry aviation security personnel at the Kotoka International Airport yesterday brought operations at the Domestic Flight Terminal of the airport to a temporary halt when they locked up the entrance of the terminal from the tarmac. The action was in solidarity with the Commander of Aviation Security, Ben Henaku, who is in the grip of the National Security for allegedly breaching security procedure during the arrival of President Mills on Tuesday. To protest the alleged violence visited on their boss, the security personnel locked up part of the domestic terminal. Subsequently, passengers of a Starbow flight who had arrived from Sunyani were forced to confront the security personnel to get the gates open. An eyewitness told the Daily Graphic that in the ensuing melee, a glass door was shattered by the stranded passengers. The source said the situation calmed down when some senior officials of the Ghana Airport Company Limited went to talk to the workers. The source, who spoke ...

Ghana’s Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) has, in two years, frozen $9 million believed to be proceeds from crime, the acting Chief Executive Officer of the centre, Mr Samuel T. Essel, has said. Out of the amount, $2 million has been confiscated to the state. The remaining $7 million is still under investigation. The action followed the centre’s investigation of 248 suspicious transaction reports it received over the two-year period. Additionally, the centre disseminated 107 of the reported cases to the appropriate authorities as intelligence, while investigations continue into the remaining cases. Launching the anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) guideline in Accra yesterday, Mr Essel said, “Money laundering/terrorism financing threats confronting the country are real. We, therefore, need to demonstrate our commitment to ensure that the country succeeds in the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.” Money laundering is a proces...

The Greater Accra Regional Police Command Tuesday impounded a Nigeria-bound truck loaded with a cache of arms and several boxes of ammunition. A MAN Diesel truck with the Nigerian licence plate number XA 761-YAB and branded in Coca-Cola colours, was impounded at Achimota in Accra, together with five suspects, including two Nigerians. The vehicle, together with the five suspects — Kofi Aboagye, 52; Sunday Eze, 38, a Nigerian from the Anambra State; Kwesi Asamoah, 29; Kojo Boafo, 38, the owner of the arms, and Samuel Amosu Taiwo, another Nigerian from the Ogun State — was arrested and sent to the Accra Central Police Station. When the Daily Graphic got to the Accra Regional Police Headquarters, police officers were offloading the arms from the truck. The truck had what looked like a compartment, with sheets of metal plate covering the ammunition. A crowd had gathered at the entrance of the Accra Regional Police Headquarters to catch a glimpse of the suspects and the ammunition...

Some private schools in the country are charging above the approved registration fee for this year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). Even though the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) have approved GH¢8.55 as registration fee, some of the schools are charging as much as GH¢107. The phenomenon is particularly widespread among private schools in Accra which hide behind cost incurred during the registration process to add a string of charges to the approved fee. While some public schools charge between GH¢12 and GH¢15, some private schools collect between GH¢30 and GH¢110. For example, at the Holy Family Roman Catholic School at Mataheko, BECE candidates are paying GH¢107; Queen’s Model School at Kotobabi, GH¢60; EP Church School, Mamprobi, GH¢30; Green Pasture Preparatory School at Awoshie, GH¢50; King Edward School at Gbawe, GH¢50; Emmanuel Methodist Preparatory School at Anyah, GH¢40, Holy Cross School at Tetegu n...

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) says the blackout which hit parts of seven regions of the country on Friday was due to an explosion which occurred during the installation of a new circuit breaker at its Volta Substation in Tema. While almost the whole of Accra and Tema were enveloped in total darkness, parts of the Ashanti, Western, Volta, Central, Eastern and Brong Ahafo regions were affected by the power outage which struck around 6.40 p.m. on Friday. According to officials of GRIDCo, what caused the explosion was not immediately known but they suspected it could have been due to a manufacturer’s defect. They, however, gave an assurance that the situation was under control and that everything possible would be done to ensure that electricity was made available to the public. Explaining events leading to the blackout to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, Mr Eric Asare, the Director of System Operations, said GRIDCo had embarked on a project to replace some of its obsolete ...

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) has indicated that the focus of the commission now is on the biometric registration process and not verification. The verification process, he said, was yet to receive a concrete decision from the EC and explained that even though the two — the registration and the verification — complemented each other, the EC would go ahead with the registration, with the hope of receiving more funds to do the verification. “If done well, biometric voter registration can ensure a verifiable voters register, in the sense that a person’s name can occur only once in the register and at a specific polling station, thereby ensuring that that person can vote only once under his or her name,” Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan said. The EC Chairman was speaking at a forum organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Accra yesterday to solicit the views of key stakeholders, so that some of the concerns raised on the adoption of the biometric voter registratio...

Chaotic scenes manifested at the palace of the Paramount Chief of the Manya Krobo Traditional Area on Monday when a group of about 40 armed policemen attempted to arrest Nene Tetteh Zogli, a divisional chief of the area who was alleged to have stabbed one of his sub-chiefs at a durbar to climax the annual Ngmayem Festival at Odumase Krobo last Friday. Angry youth responded to the beating of war drums at about 7:30 p.m. to protect the palace when the policemen stormed the place to arrest Nene Zogli, who was alleged to have taken refuge there. Armed mainly with clubs, some of the youth pitched camp at the entrance of the palace drumming and singing war songs while others blocked the roads leading to the palace and burnt lorry tyres. Cautious of the possible repercussions of a clash, the policemen withdrew from the palace around 8:30 p.m. but more people kept pouring in solidarity with the occupants of the palace. However, at the time of filing the report on Tuesday, calm had ret...

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Gertrude Aikins, has indicated that persons caught engaging in homosexual activities could be liable for prosecution. Responding to calls for the country to enact laws to ban homosexuality, she stated that Section 104 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code made the act a criminal offence. Section 104 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code states, 'Whoever has an unnatural carnal knowledge of any person of sixteen years or over with his consent is guilty of a misdemeanour,' while (1) (a) of the same code, which makes reference to sodomy, states, “Whoever has unnatural carnal knowledge of any person of the age sixteen or over without his consent shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years and not more than twenty-five years.' The law is, however, silent on any form of punishment for lesbianism, that is, sexual relationship between two females. Ms Aikins said persons engaged in such activities fell foul of t...

The Accra Circuit Court has issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the Managing Director of Ghana Post Company Limited, Mr Abdul Rafiu Abdulai, and two other officials of the company for defaulting in the payment of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions for the employees of the company. The total indebtedness of Ghana Post Company Limited to SSNIT amounts to GH¢1,100,427.81. By defaulting in the payment of SSNIT contributions, the company is said to have contravened the National Pension Act of 2008, Act 766, which empowers SSNIT to institute criminal charges against it. Unhappy about the refusal of Mr Abdulai, Mr Winfred B.K. Safo, the Deputy Managing Director, and Mr Ruben Gabianu, the company's Head of Finance, to either appear before it in person or be represented by others, the court, presided over by Ms Georgina Mensah-Datsa, issued the warrant for their arrest. The facts of the case as presented by the prosecutor, Mr Joseph ...

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, has given the assurance that prisoners will be allowed to vote in the 2012 general election. DR Afari-Gyan told the Daily Graphic that the prisoners would be registered just like any other Ghanaian during the biometric registration process next year. The EC Chairman’s assurance is a U-turn from the previous stand that the Commission could not guarantee the inmates the right to vote because there were more technical issues that needed to be addressed. The comment comes on the heels of the call by President J.E.A Mills to Electoral Commission to take the necessary steps to comply with the Supreme Court ruling which gave prisoners the right to vote. President Mills on Tuesday said the government would resource the EC to ensure that prisoners voted in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling in May, 2010, declared null and void section 7(5) of the PNDC Law 285,...

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has described the 2012 Budget as a development-oriented budget that will help address the country’s infrastructural deficit if implemented to the letter. “The theme for the budget is appropriate. We all know that Ghana suffers a large infrastructural deficit; talk about roads, railways, water and energy supply systems, health, education and agricultural facilities. Therefore, if the budget focuses on infrastructure, it is in the right direction,” it said. A Senior Economist at the IEA, Dr John Kwabena Kwakye, made the observation at a budget review organised by the institute to state its views on the budget and also make its recommendations towards its implementation. The 2012 Budget is designed to address infrastructural deficit in order to sustain growth, create more employment opportunities and improve incomes and the standard of living of the populace and thereby reduce poverty. The IEA, however, cautioned the government against exce...

The life expectancy of Ghanaians, an indicator of how long a person can expect to live on the average, given the prevailing mortality rate, has appreciated by 11 years from 53.1 years in 1980 to 64.2 years in 2011. According to the latest United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report (Human Development Index (HDI) launched in Accra, the country has also made giant strides in education, increasing its mean years of schooling, the average number of years people spend in school, from 3.4 years in 1980 to 7.1 years in 2011. According to the UNDP, Ghana was chosen to host the formal launch of the report on behalf of Anglophone Africa because of its achievements and commitment to sustainable development. The document ranked Ghana 135 out of 187 countries assessed globally in a report which is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development — long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent sta...

The  Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has criticised some journalists for the manner they have used the WeakiLeaks reports to attack and vilify perceived political opponents. He said the recent WikiLeaks cables had accentuated the media warfare and put the discussion of pressing national issues to the background, saying that, “nothing in this country matters anymore”. Mr Ransford Tetteh, the GJA President (second left) leading the Vice President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama (1st right) and the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast who was the chairperson for the occasion to the high table.  “Reprinting the judicious gossips from the US Embassy cables provides the media that is already polarised on partisan lines with enough ammunition and fire power to pound one’s opponent for the rest of the year,” he said. Mr Mahama was speaking at the 16th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Awards held at the Banquet Hall of the State House in ...

The activities of some men of God have come under scrutiny in recent times following reported cases of scandals that have rocked the clergy. While some of them are in jail for these activities, others are battling their cases in court or are being investigated by the law enforcement agencies on suspicion of various crimes. Although the leadership of the church in Ghana condemns the activities of these so-called men of God, they are unable to prescribe any common antidote for resolving the crisis. The Chairman of the Christian Council, Most Rev Professor Emmanuel Asante, has called for legislation to compel churches to be affiliated to the different Christian groups without infringing on their rights. However, the Ghana Pentecostal Council and the National Christian Charismatic Churches think that there is no need for a legislation but that Christian leadership should promote the concept of affiliation to ensure checks and balances. The behaviour of people describe...

The decision of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital authorities to fake the death of one of its patients proved to be the bait that drew her family to the hospital, months after she had been abandoned there. Soon after they were informed of the death of Augustina Mensah, 25, the family responded swiftly by dispatching family members armed with a coffin to convey the supposed corpse of their kinswoman home for a befitting funeral. The family was said to have arrived at the DOVVSU head office in Accra to finish the paperwork authorising them to go for the supposed dead Augustina but it was not to be. After hours of waiting and sensing that they could be in trouble with the law, some of the family members were said to have disappeared with the coffin while two others were led to the hospital. Augustina was said to have been taken to the hospital by officials of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) and the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) when she was ...